Severe weather affecting European transport systems: the identification,classification and frequencies of events

Severe weather can have serious repercussions in the transport sector as a whole by increasing the number of accidents, injuries and other damage, as well as leading to highly increased travel times. This study, a component of the EU FP7 Project EWENT, delineates a Europe-wide climatology of adverse and extreme weather events that can be expected to affect the transport network. We first define and classify the relevant severe weather events by investigating the effects of hazardous conditions on different transportation modes and the infrastructure. Consideration is given to individual phenomena such as snowfall, heavy precipitation, heat waves, cold spells, wind gusts; a combined phenomenon, the blizzard, is also considered. The frequency of severe weather events, together with the changes in their spatial extension and intensity, is analyzed based on the E-OBS dataset (1971–2000) and the ERA-Interim reanalysis dataset (1989–2010). Northern Europe and the Alpine region are the areas most impacted by winter extremes, such as snowfall, cold spells and winter storms, the frequency of heavy snowfall. The frequency of hot days is highest in Southern Europe. Severe winds and blizzards are the most common over the Atlantic and along its shores. Although heavy rainfall may affect the whole continent on an annual basis, extreme precipitation events are relative sparse, affecting particularly the Alps and the Atlantic coastline. A European regionalization covering similar impacts on the transport network is performed.     

Conflating Privilege and Vulnerability: A Reflexive Analysis of Emotions and Positionality in Postgraduate Fieldwork

Grounded in a self-reflexive, intersectional analysis of positionality, we examine emotions in fieldwork through the autobiographical accounts that we gathered during our postgraduate ethnographic research in the Global South. We show how we, two female early-career geographers, emotionally coped with instances that put us in a vulnerable position due to loneliness, commitment to the field, insistent questioning, violence, and violent threats. We argue that a culture of silence surrounding fieldwork difficulties and their emotional consequences tend to permeate our discipline. We contend that geography departments ought to provide mentorship that takes into account doctoral candidates' different positionalities, conflated vulnerability and privilege, and embodied intersectional axes. This renewed awareness will help not only to reveal possible risks and challenges connected with fieldwork but also ultimately to enrich the overall academic discussions within our discipline.     

A conceptual approach for assessing the impact of climate change on groundwater and related surface waters in cold regions (Finland)

A literature review of the impacts of anticipated climate change on unconfined aquifers is presented, along with a conceptual framework for evaluating the complex responses of surface and subsurface hydrology to climate variables in cold regions. The framework offers a way to conceptualize how changes in one component of the system may impact another by delineating the relationships among climate drivers, hydrological responses, and groundwater responses in a straight-forward manner. The model is elaborated in the context of shallow unconfined aquifers in the boreal environment of Finland. In cold conditions, climate change is expected to reduce snow cover and soil frost and increase winter floods. The annual surface water level maximum will occur earlier in spring, and water levels will decrease in summer due to higher evapotranspiration rates. The maximum recharge and groundwater level are expected to occur earlier in the year. Lower groundwater levels are expected in summer due to higher evapotranspiration rates. The flow regimes between shallow unconfined aquifers and surface water may change, affecting water quantity and quality in the surface and groundwater systems.     

Integer ambiguity validation in high accuracy GNSS positioning

GPS Solutions - Carrier phase observations are required for high-accuracy positioning with Global Navigation Satellite Systems. This requires that the correct number of whole carrier cycles in each...     

Integrity monitoring of fixed ambiguity Precise Point Positioning (PPP) solutions

Traditional positioning methods, such as conventional Real Time Kinematic (cRTK) rely upon local reference networks to enable users to achieve high-accuracy positioning. The need for such relatively dense networks has significant cost implications. Precise Point Positioning (PPP) on the other hand is a positioning method capable of centimeter-level positioning without the need for such local networks, hence providing significant cost benefits especially in remote areas. This paper presents the state-of-the-art PPP method using both GPS and GLONASS measurements to estimate the float position solution before attempting to resolve GPS integer ambiguities. Integrity monitoring is carried out using the Imperial College Carrier-phase Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring method. A new method to detect and exclude GPS base-satellite failures is developed. A base-satellite is a satellite whose measurements are differenced from other satellite’s measurements when using between-satellite-differenced measurements to estimate position. The failure detection and exclusion methods are tested using static GNSS data recorded by International GNSS Service stations both in static and dynamic processing modes. The results show that failure detection can be achieved in all cases tested and failure exclusion can be achieved for static cases. In the kinematic processing cases, failure exclusion is more difficult because the higher noise in the measurement residuals increases the difficulty to distinguish between failures associated with the base-satellite and other satellites.     

Temperature and Pressure Dependencies of Thermal Transport Properties of Rocks: Implications for Uncertainties in Thermal Lithosphere Models and new Laboratory Measurements of High-Grade Rocks in the Central Fennoscandian Shield

Measurements on thermal conductivity and diffusivity as functions of temperature (up to 1150 K) and pressure (up to 1000 MPa) are presented for Archaean and Proterozoic mafic high-grade rocks metamorphosed in middle and lower crustal pressures, and situated in eastern Finland, central Fennoscandian Shield. Decrease of 12–20% in conductivity and 40–55% in diffusivity was recorded between room temperature and 1150 K, which can be considered as typical of phonon conductivity. Radiative heat transfer effects were not detected in these samples. Pressure dependencies of the samples are weak if compared to crystalline rocks in general, but relatively typical for mafic rocks.The temperature and pressure dependencies of thermal transport properties (data from literature and the present study) were applied in an uncertainty analysis of lithospheric conductive thermal modellings with random (Monte Carlo) simulations using a 4-layer model representative of shield lithosphere. Model parameters were varied according to predetermined probability functions and standard deviations were calculated for lithospheric temperature and heat flow density after 1500 independent simulations. The results suggest that the variations (uncertainties) in calculated temperature and heat flow density values due to variations in the temperature and pressure dependencies of conductivity are minor in comparison to the effects produced by typical variations in the room temperature value of conductivity, heat production rate or lower boundary condition values.     

Continental impact on marine boundary layer coarse particles over the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and Antarctica

Aerosol samples were collected in the Atlantic marine boundary layer between the English Channel and Antarctica during November–December 1999. The composition of coarse (aerodynamic diameter 1–3 μm) individual aerosol particles was studied using the SEM/EDX method. The major particle types observed were fresh sea salt, sea-salt particles reacted partly or totally with sulphuric acid or nitric acid, Mg-sulphate, Ca-sulphate, mixed aluminosilicates and sea salt, aluminosilicates, Ca-rich particles and Fe-rich particles. The relative fractions of sea-salt particles with moderate or strong Cl depletion were high near the coasts of Europe (65–74%) and Northern Africa (44–87%), low far from the coast of Western Africa (10–20%) and very low in remote sea areas between Africa and Antarctica (1%). The Cl depletion was strongest when air masses arrived from the direction of anthropogenic pollution sources. The fractions of Mg-sulphate particles were high (18–25%) in 2 samples near Europe. The Mg-sulphate particles were probably formed as a result of fractional recrystallization of sea-salt particles in which Cl was substituted by sulphate. It remained unclear whether these particles were formed in the atmosphere or during and after sampling. The relative fractions of particles from continental sources were quite low (10–15%) near Europe, very high (25–78%) near the coast of Northwestern Africa and very low in the remote sea areas (0–2%). Most of the continental particles were aluminosilicates and some of them were internally mixed with sea salt. Near the coast of Northwestern Africa, the main source of aluminosilicates was Saharan dust, and near the Gulf of Guinea, emissions from biomass burning were also mixed with aluminosilicates and sea salt.