ALBERT

Description: The Campbell–Stokes sunshine recorder (CSSR) has been one of the most commonly used instruments for measuring sunshine duration (SD) through the burn length of a given CSSR card. Many authors have used SD to obtain information about cloudiness and solar radiation (by using Ångström–Prescott type formulas). Contrarily, the burn width has not been used systematically. In principle, the burn width increases for increasing direct beam irradiance. The aim of this research is to show the relationship between burn width and direct solar irradiance (DSI), and to prove whether this relationship depends on the type of CSSR and burning card. A semi-automatic method based on image processing of digital scanned images of burnt cards is presented. With this method, the temporal evolution of the burn width with 1 min resolution can be obtained. From this, SD is easily calculated and compared with the traditional (i.e. visual) determination. The method tends to slightly overestimate SD but the thresholds that are used in the image processing could be adjusted to obtain an unbiased estimation. Regarding the burn width, results show that there is a high correlation between two different models of CSSRs, as well as a strong relationship between burn widths and DSI at a high-temporal resolution. Thus, for example, hourly DSI may be estimated from the burn width with higher accuracy than based on burn length (for one of the CSSR, relative root mean squared error 24 and 30% respectively; mean bias error −0.6 and −30.0 W m−2 respectively). The method offers a practical way to exploit long-term sets of CSSR cards to create long time series of DSI. Since DSI is affected by atmospheric aerosol content, CSSR records may also become a proxy measurement for turbidity and atmospheric aerosol loading.

Description: The long-term monitoring of basic hydrological parameters (temperature and salinity), collected as time series with adequate temporal resolution (i.e. with a sampling interval allowing the resolution of all important timescales) in key places of the Mediterranean Sea (straits and channels, zones of dense water formation, deep parts of the basins), constitute a priority in the context of global changes. This led CIESM (The Mediterranean Science Commission) to support, since 2002, the HYDROCHANGES programme (http//www.ciesm.org/marine/programs/hydrochanges.htm), a network of autonomous conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) sensors, deployed on mainly short and easily manageable subsurface moorings, within the core of a certain water mass. The HYDROCHANGES strategy is twofold and develops on different scales. To get information about long-term changes of hydrological characteristics, long time series are needed. But before these series are long enough they allow the detection of links between them at shorter timescales that may provide extremely valuable information about the functioning of the Mediterranean Sea. The aim of this paper is to present the history of the programme and the current set-up of the network (monitored sites, involved groups) as well as to provide for the first time an overview of all the time series collected under the HYDROCHANGES umbrella, discussing the results obtained thanks to the programme.

Description: The long-term monitoring of basic hydrological parameters (temperature and salinity), collected as time series with adequate temporal resolution (i.e. with a sampling interval allowing the resolution of all important time scales) in key-places of the Mediterranean Sea (straits and channels, zones of dense water formation, deep parts of the basins), constitute a priority in the context of global changes. This led CIESM (The Mediterranean Science Commission) to support, since 2002, the HYDROCHANGES programme (http://www.ciesm.org/marine/programs/hydrochanges.htm), a network of autonomous conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors, deployed on mainly short and easily manageable sub-surface moorings. The HYDROCHANGES strategy is twofold and develops on different scales. To get information about long-term changes of hydrological characteristics, long time series are needed. But before these series are long enough they allow detecting links between them at shorter time scales that may provide extremely valuable information about the functioning of the Mediterranean Sea. Here we present the history of the programme and the current setup of the network (monitored sites, involved groups) and provide an overview of all the available time series, discussing some of the results obtained thanks to the programme.

Description: CO2 exchange between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere is key to understanding the feedbacks between climate change and the land surface. In regions with carbonaceous parent material, CO2 exchange patterns occur that cannot be explained by biological processes, such as disproportionate outgassing during daytime or nighttime CO2 uptake during periods when all vegetation is senescent. Neither of these phenomena can be attributed to carbonate weathering reactions, since their CO2 exchange rates are too small. Soil ventilation induced by high atmospheric turbulence is found to explain atypical CO2 exchange between carbonaceous systems and the atmosphere. However, by strongly altering subsurface CO2 concentrations, ventilation can be expected to influence carbonate weathering rates. By imposing ventilation-driven CO2 outgassing in a carbonate weathering model, we show here that carbonate geochemistry is accelerated and does play a surprisingly large role in the observed CO2 exchange patterns. We found that by rapidly depleting soil CO2 during daytime, ventilation disturbs soil carbonate equilibria and therefore strongly magnifies daytime carbonate precipitation and associated CO2 production. At night, ventilation ceases and the depleted CO2 concentrations increase steadily. Dissolution of carbonate is now enhanced, which consumes CO2 and largely compensates for the enhanced daytime carbonate precipitation. This is why only a relatively small effect on global carbonate weathering rates is to be expected. On the short term, however, ventilation has a drastic effect on synoptic carbonate weathering rates, resulting in a pronounced diel pattern that exacerbates the non-biological behavior of soil-atmosphere CO2 exchanges in dry regions with carbonate soils.

Description: CO2 exchange between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere is key to understanding the feedbacks between climate change and the land surface. In regions with carbonaceous parent material, CO2 exchange patterns occur that cannot be explained by biological processes, such as disproportionate outgassing during the daytime or nighttime CO2 uptake during periods when all vegetation is senescent. Neither of these phenomena can be attributed to carbonate weathering reactions, since their CO2 exchange rates are too small. Soil ventilation induced by high atmospheric turbulence is found to explain atypical CO2 exchange between carbonaceous systems and the atmosphere. However, by strongly altering subsurface CO2 concentrations, ventilation can be expected to influence carbonate weathering rates. By imposing ventilation-driven CO2 outgassing in a carbonate weathering model, we show here that carbonate geochemistry is accelerated and does play a surprisingly large role in the observed CO2 exchange pattern of a semi-arid ecosystem. We found that by rapidly depleting soil CO2 during the daytime, ventilation disturbs soil carbonate equilibria and therefore strongly magnifies daytime carbonate precipitation and associated CO2 production. At night, ventilation ceases and the depleted CO2 concentrations increase steadily. Dissolution of carbonate is now enhanced, which consumes CO2 and largely compensates for the enhanced daytime carbonate precipitation. This is why only a relatively small effect on global carbonate weathering rates is to be expected. On the short term, however, ventilation has a drastic effect on synoptic carbonate weathering rates, resulting in a pronounced diel pattern that exacerbates the non-biological behavior of soil–atmosphere CO2 exchanges in dry regions mbox{with carbonate soils}.

Description: The Campbell–Stokes sunshine recorder (CSSR) has been one of the most commonly used instruments for measuring sunshine duration (SD) through the burn length of a given CSSR card. Many authors have used SD to obtain information about cloudiness and solar radiation (by using Ångström–Prescott type formulas), but the burn width has not been used systematically. In principle, the burn width increases for increasing direct beam irradiance. The aim of this research is to show the relationship between burn width and direct solar irradiance (DSI) and to prove whether this relationship depends on the type of CSSR and burning card. A method of analysis based on image processing of digital scanned images of burned cards is used. With this method, the temporal evolution of the burn width with 1 min resolution can be obtained. From this, SD is easily calculated and compared with the traditional (i.e., visual) determination. The method tends to slightly overestimate SD, but the thresholds that are used in the image processing could be adjusted to obtain an improved estimation. Regarding the burn width, experimental results show that there is a high correlation between two different models of CSSRs, as well as a strong relationship between burn widths and DSI at a high-temporal resolution. Thus, for example, hourly DSI may be estimated from the burn width with higher accuracy than based on burn length (for one of the CSSR, relative root mean squared error is 24 and 30%, respectively; mean bias error is −0.6 and −30.0 W m−2, respectively). The method offers a practical way to exploit long-term sets of CSSR cards to create long time series of DSI. Since DSI is affected by atmospheric aerosol content, CSSR records may also become a proxy measurement for turbidity and atmospheric aerosol loading.

Description: Today there is continuous development of wearable devices in various fields such as sportswear, orthotics and personal gadgets, among others. The design of these devices involves the human body as a support environment. Based on this premise, the development of wearable devices requires an improved understanding of the skin strain field of the body segment during human motion. This paper presents a methodology based on a three dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) system to measure the skin strain field and to estimate anatomical lines with minimum deformation as design criteria for the aforementioned wearable devices. The errors of displacement and strain measurement related to 3-D reconstruction and out-of-plane motion are investigated and the results are acceptable in the case of large deformation. This approach can be an effective tool to improve the design of wearable devices in the clinical orthopaedics and ergonomics fields, where comfort plays a key role in supporting the rehabilitation process.

Description: In this paper, we quantify the CO2 and N2O emissions from denitrification over the Amazonian wetlands. The study concerns the entire Amazonian wetland ecosystem with a specific focus on three floodplain (FP) locations: the Branco FP, the Madeira FP and the FP alongside the Amazon River. We adapted a simple denitrification model to the case of tropical wetlands and forced it by open water surface extent products from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite. A priori model parameters were provided by in situ observations and gauging stations from the HYBAM Observatory. Our results show that the denitrification and the trace gas emissions present a strong cyclic pattern linked to the inundation processes that can be divided into three distinct phases: activation, stabilization and deactivation. We quantify the average yearly denitrification and associated emissions of CO2 and N2O over the entire watershed at 17.8 kgN ha−1 yr−1, 0.37 gC-CO2 m−2 yr−1 and 0.18 gN-N2O m−2 yr−1 respectively for the period 2011–2015. When compared to local observations, it was found that the CO2 emissions accounted for 0.01 % of the integrated ecosystem, which emphasizes the fact that minor changes to the land cover may induce strong impacts on the Amazonian carbon budget. Our results are consistent with the state of the art of global nitrogen models with a positive bias of 28 %. When compared to other wetlands in different pedoclimatic environments we found that the Amazonian wetlands have similar emissions of N2O with the Congo tropical wetlands and lower emissions than the temperate and tropical anthropogenic wetlands of the Garonne (France), the Rhine (Europe) and south-eastern Asia rice paddies. In summary our paper shows that a data-model-based approach can be successfully applied to quantify N2O and CO2 fluxes associated with denitrification over the Amazon basin. In the future, the use of higher-resolution remote sensing products from sensor fusion or new sensors like the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will permit the transposition of the approach to other large-scale watersheds in tropical environments.

Description: Understanding the behavior of halogens (Cl, Br, and I) in subduction zones is critical to constrain the geochemical cycle of these volatiles and associated trace metals, as well as to quantify the halogen fluxes to the atmosphere via volcanic degassing. Here, the partitioning of bromine between coexisting aqueous fluids and hydrous granitic melts and its speciation in slab-derived fluids have been investigated in situ up to 840 ∘C and 2.2 GPa by synchrotron x-ray fluorescence (SXRF) and x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) in diamond anvil cells. The partition coefficients DBrf/m range from ∼2 to ∼15, with an average value of 6.7±3.6 (1σ) over the whole pressure–temperature (P–T) range, indicating a moderate Br enrichment in aqueous fluids, in agreement with previous work. Extended x-ray-absorption fine-structure (EXAFS) analysis further evidences a gradual evolution of Br speciation from hydrated Br ions [Br(H2O)6]− in slab dehydration fluids to more complex structures involving both Na ions and water molecules, [BrNax(H2O)y], in hydrous silicate melts and supercritical fluids released at greater depth (〉 200 km). In denser fluids (ρ 〉 1.5 g cm−3) containing 60 wt % dissolved alkali–silicates and in hydrous Na2Si2O5 melts (10 wt % H2O), Br is found to be in a “salt-like” structure involving the six nearest Na ions and several next-nearest O neighbors that are either from water molecules and/or the silicate network. Bromine (and likely chlorine and iodine) complexing with alkalis is thus an efficient mechanism for the mobilization and transport of halogens by hydrous silicate melts and silica-rich supercritical fluids. Our results suggest that both shallow dehydration fluids and deeper silicate-bearing fluids efficiently remove halogens from the slab in the sub-arc region, thus favoring an efficient transfer of halogens across subduction zones.

Description: This paper outlines the contributions of social science to the study of interactions between urbanization patterns and processes and the carbon cycle, and identifies gaps in knowledge and priority areas for future social scientific research contributions. While previously studied as a uni-dimensional process, we conceptualize urbanization as a multi-dimensional, social and biophysical process driven by continuous changes across space and time in various sub-systems including biophysical, built environment and socio-institutional (e.g. economic, political, demographic, behavioral and sociological). We review research trends and findings focused on the socio-institutional subsystem of the urbanization process, and particularly the dynamics, relationships and predictions relevant to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Our findings suggest that a multi-dimensional perspective of urbanization facilitates a wider spectrum of research relevant to carbon cycle dynamics, even within the socio-institutional sub-system. However, there is little consensus around the details and mechanisms underlying the relationship between urban socio-institutional subsystems and the carbon cycle. We argue that progress in understanding the relationship between urbanization and the carbon cycle may be achieved if social scientists work collaboratively with each other as well as with scientists from other disciplines. From this review we identify research priorities where collaborative social scientific efforts are necessary in conjunction with other disciplinary approaches to generate a more complete understanding of urbanization as a process and its relationship to the carbon cycle.