ALBERT

Beschreibung: Eddy covariance measurements of the turbulent sensible heat, latent heat and carbon dioxide fluxes for 12 months (2011–2012) are reported for the first time for a suburban area in the UK. The results from Swindon are comparable to suburban studies of similar surface cover elsewhere but reveal large seasonal variability. Energy partitioning favours turbulent sensible heat during summer (midday Bowen ratio 1.4–1.6) and latent heat in winter (0.05–0.7). A significant proportion of energy is stored (and released) by the urban fabric and the estimated anthropogenic heat flux is small but non-negligible (0.5–0.9 MJ m−2 day−1). The sensible heat flux is negative at night and for much of winter daytimes, reflecting the suburban nature of the site (44% vegetation) and relatively low built fraction (16%). Latent heat fluxes appear to be water limited during a dry spring in both 2011 and 2012, when the response of the surface to moisture availability can be seen on a daily timescale. Energy and other factors are more relevant controls at other times; at night the wind speed is important. On average, surface conductance follows a smooth, asymmetrical diurnal course peaking at around 6–9 mm s−1, but values are larger and highly variable in wet conditions. The combination of natural (vegetative) and anthropogenic (emission) processes is most evident in the temporal variation of the carbon flux: significant photosynthetic uptake is seen during summer, whilst traffic and building emissions explain peak release in winter (9.5 g C m−2 day−1). The area is a net source of CO2 annually. Analysis by wind direction highlights the role of urban vegetation in promoting evapotranspiration and offsetting CO2 emissions, especially when contrasted against peak traffic emissions from sectors with more roads. Given the extent of suburban land use, these results have important implications for understanding urban energy, water and carbon dynamics.

Beschreibung: A scientific borehole, CO2W55, was drilled into an onshore anticline, near the town of Green River, Utah for the purposes of studying a series of natural CO2 reservoirs. The objective of this research project is to recover core and fluids from natural CO2 accumulations in order to study and understand the long-term consequences of exposure of supercritical CO2, CO2-gas and CO2-charged fluids on geological materials. This will improve our ability to predict the security of future geological CO2 storage sites and the behaviour of CO2 during migration through the overburden. The Green River anticline is thought to contain supercritical reservoirs of CO2 in Permian sandstone and Mississippian-Pennsylvanian carbonate and evaporite formations at depths 〉 800 m. Migration of CO2 and CO2-charged brine from these deep formations, through the damage zone of two major normal faults in the overburden, feeds a stacked series of shallow reservoirs in Jurassic sandstones from 500 m depth to near surface. The drill-hole was spudded into the footwall of the Little Grand Wash normal fault at the apex of the Green River anticline, near the site of Crystal Geyser, a CO2-driven cold water geyser. The hole was drilled using a CS4002 Truck Mounted Core Drill to a total depth of 322 m and DOSECC’s hybrid coring system was used to continuously recover core. CO2-charged fluids were first encountered at ~ 35 m depth, in the basal sandstones of the Entrada Sandstone, which is open to surface, the fluids being effectively sealed by thin siltstone layers within the sandstone unit. The well penetrated a ~ 17 m thick fault zone within the Carmel Formation, the footwall damage zone of which hosted CO2-charged fluids in open fractures. CO2-rich fluids were encountered throughout the thickness of the Navajo Sandstone. The originally red sandstone and siltstone units, where they are in contact with the CO2-charged fluids, have been bleached by dissolution of hematite grain coatings. Fluid samples were collected from the Navajo Sandstone at formation pressures using a positive displacement wireline sampler, and fluid CO2 content and pH were measured at surface using high pressure apparatus. The results from the fluid sampling show that the Navajo Sandstone is being fed by active inflow of CO2-saturated brines through the fault damage zone; that these brines mix with meteoric fluid flowing laterally into the fault zone; and that the downhole fluid sampling whilst drilling successfully captures this dynamic process.

Beschreibung: HOTSPOT is an international collaborative effort to understand the volcanic history of the Snake River Plain (SRP). The SRP overlies a thermal anomaly, the Yellowstone-Snake River hotspot, that is thought to represent a deep-seated mantle plume under North America. The primary goal of this project is to document the volcanic and stratigraphic history of the SRP, which represents the surface expression of this hotspot, and to understand how it affected the evolution of continental crust and mantle. An additional goal is to evaluate the geothermal potential of southern Idaho. Project HOTSPOT has completed three drill holes. (1) The Kimama site is located along the central volcanic axis of the SRP; our goal here was to sample a long-term record of basaltic volcanism in the wake of the SRP hotspot. (2) The Kimberly site is located near the margin of the plain; our goal here was to sample a record of high-temperature rhyolite volcanism associated with the underlying plume. This site was chosen to form a nominally continuous record of volcanism when paired with the Kimama site. (3) The Mountain Home site is located in the western plain; our goal here was to sample the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition in lake sediments at this site and to sample older basalts that underlie the sediments. We report here on our initial results for each site, and on some of the geophysical logging studies carried out as part of this project. doi:10.2204/iodp.sd.15.06.2013

Beschreibung: Vorticity-driven lateral fire spread (VLS) is a form of dynamic fire behaviour, during which a wildland fire spreads rapidly across a steep leeward slope in a direction approximately transverse to the background winds. VLS is often accompanied by a downwind extension of the active flaming region and intense pyro-convection. In this study, the WRF-Fire (WRF stands for Weather Research and Forecasting) coupled atmosphere–fire model is used to examine the sensitivity of resolving VLS to both the horizontal and vertical grid spacing, and the fire-to-atmosphere coupling from within the model framework. The atmospheric horizontal and vertical grid spacing are varied between 25 and 90 m, and the fire-to-atmosphere coupling is either enabled or disabled. At high spatial resolutions, the inclusion of fire-to-atmosphere coupling increases the upslope and lateral rate of spread by factors of up to 2.7 and 9.5, respectively. This increase in the upslope and lateral rate of spread diminishes at coarser spatial resolutions, and VLS is not modelled for a horizontal and vertical grid spacing of 90 m. The lateral fire spread is driven by fire whirls formed due to an interaction between the background winds and the vertical circulation generated at the flank of the fire front as part of the pyro-convective updraft. The laterally advancing fire fronts become the dominant contributors to the extreme pyro-convection. The results presented in this study demonstrate that both high spatial resolution and two-way atmosphere–fire coupling are required to model VLS with WRF-Fire.

Beschreibung: Fire channelling is a form of dynamic fire behaviour, during which a wildland fire spreads rapidly across a steep lee-facing slope in a direction transverse to the background winds, and is often accompanied by a downwind extension of the active flaming region and extreme pyro-convection. Recent work using the WRF-Fire coupled atmosphere-fire model has demonstrated that fire channelling can be characterised as vorticity-driven lateral fire spread (VDLS). In this study, 16 simulations are conducted using WRF-Fire to examine the sensitivity of resolving VDLS to spatial resolution and atmosphere-fire coupling within the WRF-Fire model framework. The horizontal grid spacing is varied between 25 and 90 m, and the two-way atmosphere-fire coupling is either enabled or disabled. At high spatial resolution, the atmosphere-fire coupling increases the peak uphill and lateral spread rate by a factor of up to 2.7 and 9.5. The enhancement of the uphill and lateral spread rate diminishes at coarser spatial resolution, and VDLS is not modelled for a horizontal grid spacing of 90 m. The laterally spreading fire fronts become the dominant contributors of the extreme pyro-convection. The resolved fire-induced vortices responsible for driving the lateral spread in the coupled simulations have non-zero vorticity along each unit vector direction, and develop due to an interaction between the background winds and vertical return circulations generated at the flank of the fire front as part of the pyro-convective updraft. The results presented in this study demonstrate that both high spatial resolution and two-way atmosphere-fire coupling are required to reproduce VDLS within the current WRF-Fire model framework.

Beschreibung: The accumulation of large boulders related to waves generated either by tsunamis or extreme storm events has been observed in different areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Along the NE and E low-lying rocky coasts of Malta tens of large boulder deposits have been surveyed, measured and mapped. These boulders have been detached and moved from the seafloor and lowest parts of the coast by the action of sea waves. In the Sicily–Malta channel, heavy storms are common and originate from the NE and NW winds. Conversely, few severe earthquakes and tsunamis are recorded in historical documents to have hit the Maltese archipelago, originated by seismicity activity related mainly to the Malta Escarpment, the Sicily Channel Rift Zone and the Hellenic Arc. We present a multi-disciplinary study, which aims to define the characteristics of the boulder accumulations along the eastern coast of Malta, in order to assess the coastal geo-hazard implications triggered by the sheer ability of extreme waves to detach and move large rocky blocks inland. The wave heights required to transport coastal boulders were calculated using various hydrodynamic equations. Particular attention was devoted to the quantification of the input parameters required in the workings of these equations. The axis sizes of blocks were measured with 3-D digital photogrammetric techniques and their densities were obtained throughout the use of a N-type Schmidt Hammer. Moreover, AMS ages were obtained from selected marine organisms encrusted on some of the boulders in various coastal sites. The combination of the results obtained by hydrodynamic equations and the radiocarbon dating suggests that the majority of the boulders has been detached and moved by intense storm waves. Nonetheless, it is possible that some of them may have been transported by tsunami.

Beschreibung: Vertisols are clay soils that are common in the monsoonal and dry warm regions of the world. One of the characteristics of these soil types is to form deep cracks during periods of extended dry, resulting in significant variation of the soil and hydrologic properties. Understanding the influence of these varying soil properties on the hydrological behavior of the system is of considerable interest, particularly in the retrieval or simulation of soil moisture. In this study we compare surface soil moisture (θ in m3 m−3) retrievals from AMSR-E using the VUA-NASA (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in collaboration with NASA) algorithm with simulations from the Community Land Model (CLM) over vertisol regions of mainland Australia. For the three-year period examined here (2003–2005), both products display reasonable agreement during wet periods. During dry periods however, AMSR-E retrieved near surface soil moisture falls below values for surrounding non-clay soils, while CLM simulations are higher. CLM θ are also higher than AMSR-E and their difference keeps increasing throughout these dry periods. To identify the possible causes for these discrepancies, the impacts of land use, topography, soil properties and surface temperature used in the AMSR-E algorithm, together with vegetation density and rainfall patterns, were investigated. However these do not explain the observed θ responses. Qualitative analysis of the retrieval model suggests that the most likely reason for the low AMSR-E θ is the increase in soil porosity and surface roughness resulting from cracking of the soil. To quantitatively identify the role of each factor, more in situ measurements of soil properties that can represent different stages of cracking need to be collected. CLM does not simulate the behavior of cracking soils, including the additional loss of moisture from the soil continuum during drying and the infiltration into cracks during rainfall events, which results in overestimated θ when cracks are present. The hydrological influence of soil physical changes are expected to propagate through the modeled system, such that modeled infiltration, evaporation, surface temperature, surface runoff and groundwater recharge should be interpreted with caution over these soil types when cracks might be present. Introducing temporally dynamic roughness and soil porosity into retrieval algorithms and adding a "cracking clay" module into models are expected to improve the representation of vertisol hydrology.

Beschreibung: Regional climate models are prone to biases in precipitation that are problematic for use in impact models such as hydrology models. A large number of methods have already been proposed aimed at correcting various moments of the rainfall distribution. They all require that the model produce the same or a higher number of rain days than the observational data sets, which are usually gridded data sets. Models have traditionally met this condition because their spatial resolution was coarser than the observational grids. But recent climate simulations use higher resolution and the models are likely to systematically produce fewer rain days than the gridded observations. In this study, model outputs from a simulation at 2 km resolution are compared with gridded and in situ observational data sets to determine whether the new scenario calls for revised methodologies. The gridded observations are found to be inadequate to correct the high-resolution model at daily timescales, because they are subjected to too frequent low intensity precipitation due to spatial averaging. A histogram equalisation bias correction method was adapted to the use of station, alleviating the problems associated with relative low-resolution observational grids. The wet-day frequency condition might not be satisfied for extremely dry biases, but the proposed approach substantially increases the applicability of bias correction to high-resolution models. The method is efficient at bias correcting both seasonal and daily characteristic of precipitation, providing more accurate information that is crucial for impact assessment studies.

Beschreibung: Water quality data for the Nant Tanilwyth stream, Plynlimon (an acidic upland stream, the waters of which are of such low ionic strength that measurement is difficult), has been recorded using a new integrated field instrument system. The negligible drift of the pH electrode allows the system to operate for extended periods (months) without re-calibration, whilst maintaining a standard deviation of 0.19 pH units between its readings and laboratory reference measurements. Conductivity measurements, although within the sensor manufacturer's specification, did not provide meaningful readings at conductivities below 50 μS cm-1. Using the pH data as a surrogate tracer, a high temporal resolution estimate of the stream dynamics, in terms of the contributions of groundwater and soil-water is presented; the dependence of these relative proportions on instantaneous flow and antecedent conditions is shown. It is concluded that, whilst improvements in instrumentation have been made, greater accuracy is still desirable for some scientific applications and ways forward are described.

Beschreibung: Capacitance probes are a fast, safe and relatively inexpensive means of measuring the relative permittivity of soils, which can then be used to estimate soil water content. Initial experiments with capacitance probes used empirical calibrations between the frequency response of the instrument and soil water content. This has the disadvantage that the calibrations are instrument-dependent. A twofold calibration strategy is described in this paper; the instrument frequency is turned into relative permittivity (dielectric constant) which can then be calibrated against soil water content. This approach offers the advantages of making the second calibration, from soil permittivity to soil water content. instrument-independent and allows comparison with other dielectric methods, such as time domain reflectometry. A physically based model, used to calibrate capacitance probes in terms of relative permittivity (εr) is presented. The model, which was developed from circuit analysis, predicts, successfully, the frequency response of the instrument in liquids with different relative permittivities, using only measurements in air and water. lt was used successfully to calibrate 10 prototype surface capacitance insertion probes (SCIPS) and a depth capacitance probe. The findings demonstrate that the geometric properties of the instrument electrodes were an important parameter in the model, the value of which could be fixed through measurement. The relationship between apparent soil permittivity and volumetric water content has been the subject of much research in the last 30 years. Two lines of investigation have developed, time domain reflectometry (TDR) and capacitance. Both methods claim to measure relative permittivity and should therefore be comparable. This paper demonstrates that the IH capacitance probe overestimates relative permittivity as the ionic conductivity of the medium increases. Electrically conducting ionic solutions were used to test the magnitude of this effect on the determination of relative permittivity. The response was modelled so that the relative permittivity, independent of ionic conductivity, could be determined in solutions with an electrical conductivity of up to 0.25 S m-1. It was found that a solution EC of less than 0.05 S m-1 had little impact on the permittivity measurement.