ALBERT

Description / Table of Contents: A New Outlook and New Resources / pp. 1-7 --- Ocean Water and Its Wonderful Potential / pp. 9-30 --- OTEC Is Not a Dream / pp. 31-44 --- Sea-Water Rears Fish / pp. 45-81 --- Learning from the Past / pp. 83-90 --- Earth-Friendly Technology / pp. 91-94

Description / Table of Contents: This volume of IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science presents a selection of papers that were given at the WMO/GEO Expert Meeting on an International Sand and Dust Storm Warning System hosted by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación in Barcelona (Spain) on 7-9 November 2007 (http://www.bsc.es/wmo). A sand and dust storm (SDS) is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions and arises when a gust front passes or when the wind force exceeds the threshold value where loose sand and dust are removed from the dry surface. After aeolian uptake, SDS reduce visibility to a few meters in and near source regions, and dust plumes are transported over distances as long as thousands of kilometres. Aeolian dust is unique among aerosol phenomena: (1) with the possible exception of sea-salt aerosol, it is globally the most abundant of all aerosol species, (2) it appears as the dominating component of atmospheric aerosol over large areas of the Earth, (3) it represents a serious hazard for life, health, property, environment and economy (occasionally reaching the grade of disaster or catastrophic event) and (4) its influence, impacts, complex interactions and feedbacks within the Earth System span a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. From a political and societal point of view, the concern for SDS and the need for international cooperation were reflected after a survey conducted in 2005 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in which more than forty WMO Member countries expressed their interest for creating or improving capacities for SDS warning advisory and assessment. In this context, recent major advances in research – including, for example, the development and implementation of advanced observing systems, the theoretical understanding of the mechanisms responsible for sand and dust storm generation and the development of global and regional dust models – represent the basis for developing applications focusing on societal benefit and risk reduction. However, at present there are interdisciplinary research challenges to overwhelm current uncertainties in order to reach full potential. Furthermore, the community of practice for SDS observations, forecasts and analyses is mainly scientifically based and rather disconnected from potential users. This requires the development of interfaces with operational communities at international and national levels, strongly focusing on the needs of people and factors at risk ... The general objective of the WMO/GEO Expert Meeting on an International Sand and Dust Storm Warning System was to discuss and recommend actions needed to develop a global routine SDS-WAS based on integrating numerical SDS prediction and observing systems, and on establishing effective cooperation between data producers and user communities in order to provide SDS-WAS products capable of contributing to the reduction of risks from SDS. The specific objectives were: to identify, present and suggest future real-time observations for forecast verification and dust surveillance: satellite, ground-based remote sensing (passive and active) and in-situ monitoring; to present ongoing forecasting activities; to discuss and identify user needs: health, air quality, air transport operations, ocean, and others; to identify and discuss dust research issues relevant for operational forecast applications; to present the concept of SDS-WAS and Regional Centers...

Description / Table of Contents: Caldera-formation is one of the most awe-inspiring and powerful displays of nature's force. Resultant deposits may cover vast areas and significantly alter the immediate topography. Post-collapse activity may include resurgence, unrest, intra-caldera volcanism and potentially the start of a new magmatic cycle, perhaps eventually leading to renewed collapse. Since volcanoes and their eruptions are the surface manifestation of magmatic processes, calderas provide key insights into the generation and evolution of large-volume silicic magma bodies in the Earth's crust. Despite their potentially ferocious nature, calderas play a crucial role in modern society's life. Collapse calderas host essential economic deposits and supply power for many via the exploitation of geothermal reservoirs, and thus receive considerable scientific, economic and industrial attention. Calderas also attract millions of visitors world-wide with their spectacular scenic displays. To build on the outcomes of the 2005 calderas workshop in Tenerife (Spain) and to assess the most recent advances on caldera research, a follow-up meeting was proposed to be held in Mexico in 2008. This abstract volume presents contributions to the 2nd Calderas Workshop held at Hotel Misión La Muralla, Querétaro, Mexico, 19–25 October 2008. The title of the workshop `Reconstructing the evolution of collapse calderas: Magma storage, mobilisation and eruption' set the theme for five days of presentations and discussions, both at the venue as well as during visits to the surrounding calderas of Amealco, Amazcala and Huichapan. The multi-disciplinary workshop was attended by more than 40 scientist from North, Central and South America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Contributions covered five thematic topics: geology, geochemistry/petrology, structural analysis/modelling, geophysics, and hazards...

Description / Table of Contents: IOP Publishing presents Volume 6 of the open-access IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (EES) as the online abstract book for the IARU International Scientific Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions (10–12 March, Copenhagen, Denmark). This abstracts-only volume of EES is quite different to standard IOP Conference Series proceedings volumes which contain full, peer-reviewed proceedings papers. This unique volume of more than 1400 abstracts, divided into 58 different sessions, contains all the oral and poster presentations from the Congress. In view of the importance of the Climate Change Congress as a scientific basis for the COP15 conference, we are delighted to offer this collection as a permanent record of current research devoted to climate change. We hope this compilation will contribute to future world-wide dialogue on climate change in the ongoing search to address the scientific, political, social and economic challenges ahead.

Description / Table of Contents: Reconstructing past climate and past ocean circulation demands the highest possible precision and accuracy which urges the scientific community to look at different sediment records such as the ones from coastal zones to deep-sea with a more complete set of technical and methodological tools. However, the information given by each tool varies in precision, accuracy and in significance according to their environmental settings. It is therefore essential to compare tools. With that in mind, and as part of the International year of Planet Earth, a workshop entitled `From deep-sea to coastal zones: Methods and Techniques for studying palaeoenvironments' took place in Faro (Portugal), from 25–29 February 2008 in order to: present several methods and techniques that can be used for studying sediments from deep-sea to coastal zones, namely for reconstructing palaeoenvironments in order to document past climatic changes and short to long-term environmental processes; allow cross experience between different fields and specialties, either from deep-sea to coastal zones or from micropaleontology to geochemistry; give the opportunity to students from different universities and countries to attend the workshop; publish a special volume on the presented methods and techniques during the workshop. The workshop was organized in four non-parallel sessions dealing with the use of micropaleontology, isotopes, biogeochemistry and sedimentology, as tools for palaeoenvironmental studies. The present IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science proceedings reflect this organization and papers are published in each theme. The papers are either short reviews or case studies and are highlighted below. The remains of microorganisms found in sediments are the main proxies used in micropaleontological studies. However, the link between fossilized remains and their living origin is not easy to reconstruct only based on the geologic/sedimentary record. Accordingly, Barbosa presents a review of the actual knowledge of living phytoplankton dynamics and the processes, or environmental conditions, which could contribute to the production of fossilized biogenic remains. In the next paper, de Vernal presents a review, based on several case studies, on how palynological fossils observed in sediments are used in tracing biogenic fluxes, characterizing sedimentary environments, or even reconstructing hydrographical conditions and productivity. The two other papers presented in the micropaleontological proxy section are case studies on the use of dinoflagellates (Rochon) and calcareous plankton remains (Guerreiro et al), respectively, to better understand their local or regional environmental living characteristics ant therefore their specific interpretation for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction at a regional scale. Isotopic proxies can be used either as provenance tracers or as chronometers of different processes. Once again, each study can provide a very specific framework of the proxies' use and it is very important to know and evaluate the limits of these tools in each environment and/or type of analyzed material. Accordingly, the two first articles deal with the study of organic carbon either by carbon and oxygen stable isotopes (Hélie) or by radiocarbon (Mollhenhauer and Rethemeyer) analysis. The two other articles in this section deal with the use of radioisotopes. Ghaleb reviews the methods for measuring short-lived radiosisotopes in sediments, giving examples of their use for estimating recent sedimentary accumulation rates; whereas Hillaire-Marcel reviews the potential use of U-series isotopes as radiochronometers in biogenic carbonates. Geochemistry groups more than one field of expertise. However, in the present section, inorganic geochemistry is not treated and both articles present work on a very specific, and at the same time very complex, compound of the organic matter realm: black carbon. As such, Veilleux et al present a density fractionation method for isolating the small quantities of soot-like and graphitic material usually found in natural samples, whereas González-Vila et al. illustrate the potential of the combined use of analytical pyrolysis and solid state 13C NMR to determine the presence of black carbon and to characterize the refractory organic matter in marine sediments from the Gulf of Cadiz (Spain). In the last section, two papers are presented and discuss sedimentological proxies. In their paper, using diffuse spectral reflectance data, Veiga-Pires and Mestre try to determine if `twinned cores' (or paired cores) can be used as duplicate records to increase the volume of sediments collected in the field, whereas Drago et al discuss the use of fish remains in sediments for the reconstruction of paleoproductivity. Each of the above papers benefited from the constructive comments of at least two reviewers and we wish to sincerely thank the reviewers for their timely evaluation. We also thank the participants, volunteers and organizers of the workshop for their implication, making this first workshop on Methods and Techniques for studying palaeoenvironments (METECH) a success. The workshop and this proceeding would not have been possible without the financial and logistical support of GEOTOP, CIMA, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FACC07/1/1315) and IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science...