Rivers, chemical weathering and Earth's climate

We detail the results of recent studies describing and quantifying the large-scale chemical weathering of the main types of continental silicate rocks: granites and basalts. These studies aim at establishing chemical weathering laws for these two lithologies, describing the dependence of chemical weathering on environmental parameters, such as climate and mechanical erosion. As shown within this contribution, such mathematical laws are of primary importance for numerical models calculating the evolution of the partial pressure of atmospheric CO₂ and the Earth climate at geological timescales. The major results can be summarized as follow: (1) weathering of continental basaltic lithologies accounts for about 30% of the total consumption of atmospheric CO₂ through weathering of continental silicate rocks. This is related to their high weatherability (about eight times greater than the granite weatherability); (2) a simple weathering law has been established for basaltic lithologies, giving the consumption of atmospheric CO₂ as a function of regional continental runoff, and mean annual regional temperature; (3) no such simple weathering law can be proposed for granitic lithologies, since the effect of temperature can only be identified for regions displaying high continental runoff; (4) a general law relating mechanical erosion and chemical weathering has been validated on small and large catchments. The consequences of these major advances on the climatic evolution of the Earth are discussed. Particularly, the impacts of the onset of the Deccan trapps and the Himalayan orogeny on the global carbon cycle are reinvestigated. To cite this article: B. Dupré et al., C. R. Geoscience 335 (2003).     

A high order Godunov scheme with constrained transport and adaptive mesh refinement for astrophysical and geophysical MHD

We propose to extend the well-known MUSCL-Hancock scheme for Euler equations to the induction equation modeling the magnetic field evolution in kinematic dynamo problems. The scheme is based on an integral form of the underlying conservation law which, in our formulation, results in a “finite-surface” scheme for the induction equation. This naturally leads to the well-known “constrained transport” method, with additional continuity requirement on the magnetic field representation. The second ingredient in the MUSCL scheme is the predictor step that ensures second order accuracy both in space and time. We explore specific constraints that the mathematical properties of the induction equations place on this predictor step, showing that three possible variants can be considered. We show that the most aggressive formulations reach the same level of accuracy than the other ones, at a lower computational cost. More interestingly, these schemes are compatible with the Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) framework. It has been implemented in the AMR code RAMSES. It offers a novel and efficient implementation of a second order scheme for the induction equation. The scheme is then adaptated to solve for the full MHD equations using the same methodology. Through a series of test problems, we illustrate the performances of this new code using two different MHD Riemann solvers (Lax–Friedrich and Roe) and the need of the Adaptive Mesh Refinement capabilities in some cases. Finally, we show its versatility by applying it to the ABC dynamo problem and to the collapse of a magnetized cloud core.     

Large-scale galactic turbulence: can self-gravity drive the observed H i velocity dispersions?

Observations of turbulent velocity dispersions in the H  i component of galactic discs show a characteristic floor in galaxies with low star formation rates and within individual galaxies the dispersion profiles decline with radius. We carry out several high-resolution adaptive mesh simulations of gaseous discs embedded within dark matter haloes to explore the roles of cooling, star formation, feedback, shearing motions and baryon fraction in driving turbulent motions. In all simulations the disc slowly cools until gravitational and thermal instabilities give rise to a multiphase medium in which a large population of dense self-gravitating cold clouds are embedded within a warm gaseous phase that forms through shock heating. The diffuse gas is highly turbulent and is an outcome of large-scale driving of global non-axisymmetric modes as well as cloud–cloud tidal interactions and merging. At low star formation rates these processes alone can explain the observed H  i velocity dispersion profiles and the characteristic value of  ∼10 km s⁻¹  observed within a wide range of disc galaxies. Supernovae feedback creates a significant hot gaseous phase and is an important driver of turbulence in galaxies with a star formation rate per unit area  ≳10⁻³ M_⊙ yr⁻¹ kpc⁻²  .     

Transient sediment supply in a high‐altitude Alpine environment evidenced through a 10Be budget of the Etages catchment (French Western Alps)

Although beryllium‐10 (¹⁰Be) concentrations in stream sediments provide useful synoptic views of catchment‐wide erosion rates, little is known on the relative contributions of different sediment supply mechanisms to the acquisition of their initial signature in the headwaters. Here we address this issue by conducting a ¹⁰Be‐budget of detrital materials that characterize the morphogenetic domains representative of high‐altitude environments of the European Alps. We focus on the Etages catchment, located in the Ecrins‐Pelvoux massif (southeast France), and illustrate how in situ ¹⁰Be concentrations can be used for tracing the origin of the sand fraction from the bedload in the trunk stream. The landscape of the Etages catchment is characterized by a geomorphic transient state, high topographic gradients, and a large variety of modern geomorphic domains ranging from glacial environments to scarcely vegetated alluvial plains. Beryllium‐10 concentrations measured in the Etages catchment vary from ~1 × 10⁴ to 4.5 × 10⁵ atoms per gram quartz, while displaying consistent ¹⁰Be signatures within each representative morphogenetic unit. We show that the basic requirements for inferring catchment‐wide denudation from ¹⁰Be concentration measurements are not satisfied in this small, dynamic catchment. However, the distinct ¹⁰Be signature observed for the geomorphic domains can be used as a tracer. We suggest that a terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) budget approach provides a valuable tool for the tracing of material origin in basins where the ‘let nature do the averaging’ principles may be violated. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A critical zone observatory dedicated to suspended sediment transport: The meso-scale Galabre catchment (southern French Alps)

The 20 km² Galabre catchment belongs to the French network of critical zone observatories (OZCAR; Gaillardet et al., Vadose Zone Journal, 2018, 17(1), 1–24). It is representative of the sedimentary lithology and meteorological forcing found in Mediterranean and mountainous areas. Due to the presence of highly erodible and sloping badlands on various lithologies, the site was instrumented in 2007 to understand the dynamics of suspended sediments (SS) in such areas. Two meteorological stations including measurements of air temperature, wind speed and direction, air moisture, rainfall intensity, raindrop size and velocity distribution were installed both in the upper and lower part of the catchment. At the catchment outlet, a gauging station records the water level, temperature and turbidity (10 min time-step). Stream water samples are collected automatically to estimate SS concentration-turbidity relationships, allowing quantification of SS fluxes with known uncertainty. The sediment samples are further characterized by measuring their particle size distributions and by applying a low-cost sediment fingerprinting approach using spectrocolorimetric tracers. Thus, the contributions of badlands located on different lithologies to total SS flux are quantified at a high temporal resolution, providing the opportunity to better analyse the links between meteorological forcing variability and watershed hydrosedimentary response. The set of measurements was extended to the dissolved phase in 2017. Both stream water electrical conductivity and major ion concentrations are measured each week and every 3 h during storm events. This extension of measurements to the dissolved phase will allow progress in understanding both the origin of the water during the events and the partitioning between particulate and dissolved fluxes of solutes in the critical zone. All data sets are available at https://doi.osug.fr/public/DRAIXBLEONE_GAL/index.html .     

Time–frequency analysis to profile hydrological regimes: application to Haiti

Abstract

Comprehensive characterization of its flow rates is prerequisite to a proper understanding and water management of a given hydrological region. Several studies question the soundness of stationarity in time series and suggest the need for a quantification of the events and non-stationary features in flow rate time series. In this study, we combine statistical and time–frequency (TF) analyses to characterize and classify the flow rates of an understudied region, namely Haiti. Wavelet transforms and cyclostationarity analyses were combined with principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering to identify three groups of hydrological regimes in the country, suggesting similar management: (1) relatively stable flow rates with TF behaviour; (2) periodic and strongly seasonal flow rates; and (3) unstable flow rates. We argue that the TF methodology can yield additional information in regard to flow events and multiscale behaviour, even for short records. Flow rate characterization would benefit from the exhaustive approach described here.

EDITOR Z.W. Kundzewicz ASSOCIATE EDITOR E. Toth     

Efficiency of a two-step upscaling method for permeability evaluation at Darcy and pore scales

This work presents a new subdivision method to upscale absolute permeability fields. This process, called two-step method, consists in (i) solving micro-scale equations on subdomains obtained from the full domain regular decomposition and (ii) solve a second upscaling with Darcy’s law on the permeability fields obtained in the first step. The micro-scale equations used depend on the case studied. The two-step upscaling process is validated on randomly generated Darcy-scale permeability fields by measuring the numerical error induced by upscaling. The method is then applied to real domains obtained from sandstone micro-tomographic images. The method specificities due to pore-space structure are discussed. The main advantage of the two-step upscaling method resides in the drastic reduction of computational costs (CPU time and memory usage) while maintaining a numerical error similar to that of other upscaling procedures. This new upscaling method may improve permeability predictions by the use of finer meshes or larger sample volumes.     

Review: Theory-guided machine learning applied to hydrogeology—state of the art,opportunities and future challenges

Hydrogeology Journal - Thanks to recent technological advances, hydrogeologists now have access to large amounts of data acquired in real time. Processing these data using traditional modelling...