The economics of boldness: equity,action, and hope     

José Alberto Garibaldi 《Climate Policy》2014,14(1):82-101

Equity is usually interpreted in terms of the concept of justice, such that an equitable share of the atmospheric space is understood in terms of past emissions. This emphasizes the collective nature of sharing the burden of mitigation and the duty to act for those who have emitted the most. An alternative is considered: the aggregate costs and benefits to all Parties that could result from both increasing the level of collective ambition and implementing a climate regime that supports bold actions across all Parties. The regional impacts and carbon flow costs across differentiated scenarios are assessed and it is argued that the majority of developing-country Parties would be better off if a high ambition outcome to which all contributed, but some more than others. Moreover, those with middle or low emissions would have proportionally more to gain (or lose) relative to the level of ambition compared to those that have had higher emissions. The climate regime should be built on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities (CBDR&RC), in which all act early even if some do much more; one that accounts for justice but does not forget hope.

Policy relevance

Differing interpretations of equity and the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are discussed, with a focus on how these can enhance or hinder collective action. Whilst the climate change negotiations are usually taken as games in which one party gains and another loses, and interactions are dogged by continuous conflict, it is explored instead how negotiation responses can be framed in terms of cooperation. This would emphasize the gains that could be achieved by common but differentiated collective action, which could result in a collective avoidance of impacts. The possibilities that this shift of perspective could bring are explored by comparing costs under global cooperation (or lack of it). It is found that cooperation reduces the total costs for these regions. Thus, thinking in terms of cooperation focuses the options for negotiation on the means and interpretations of the UNFCCC principles that spur action and avoid climate impacts through collective action.  相似文献   

Effects of substratum type on fish assemblages in shallow areas of a tropical estuary     

José Amorim Reis‐Filho  Alexandre Clistenes de Alcântara Santos 《Marine Ecology》2014,35(4):456-470

While there is already a comprehensive understanding of the effects of environmental variables, such as dissolved oxygen, temperature and salinity, on the structure, biomass and metabolism of aquatic biota in estuarine habitats, the effect of sedimentation, a harmful underlying factor, remains unclear. The aim of this study was to assess the differences in fish assemblages along the freshwater to salt water gradient of a large tropical estuary, and to evaluate the effects on them of habitat disturbance associated with shallow water sedimentation in the intertidal areas. Fish and environmental variables were recorded in the upper, middle and lower salinity zones of the estuary at ebb tide in both the dry and wet seasons. Sediment samples associated with different levels of habitat disturbance were analysed using granulometry, and their organic content and dissolved oxygen levels were quantified. Water temperature, salinity, pH and dissolved oxygen levels were also measured. Habitat disturbance was found to be correlated with the density, biomass and richness of fish assemblages. A total of 77 species were recorded, forming two distinct fish assemblages, with the Eleotridae family dominating in the upper zone, and Gerreidae, Gobiidae and Tetraodontidae the most common in the middle and lower estuary. Changes in the structure of fish assemblages, including reductions in density, biomass and richness, were associated with disturbance to natural features, where muddy sediment was replaced by sandy sediment and the quantity of organic matter fell. Atherinella brasiliensis was the species which showed a preference for the disturbed areas in the middle and lower zones, while Dormitator maculatus showed a preference for them in the upper estuary. They may be taken as indicators of habitat disturbance due to shallow sedimentation.  相似文献   

Climatological study of ionospheric irregularities over the European mid-latitude sector with GPS     

Gilles Wautelet  René Warnant 《Journal of Geodesy》2014,88(3):223-240

High-frequency variability of the ionosphere, or irregularities, constitutes the main threat for real-time precise positioning techniques based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) measurements. Indeed, during periods of enhanced ionospheric variability, GNSS users in the field—who cannot verify the integrity of their measurements—will experience positioning errors that can reach several decimeters, while the nominal accuracy of the technique is cm-level. In the frame of this paper, a climatological analysis of irregularities over the European mid-latitude region is presented. Based on a 10 years GPS dataset over Belgium, the work analyzes the occurrence rate (as a function of the solar cycle, season and local time) as well as the amplitude of ionospheric irregularities observed at a single GPS station. The study covers irregularities either due to space weather events (solar origin) or of terrestrial origin. If space weather irregularities are responsible for the largest effects in terms of ionospheric error, their occurrence rate highly depends on solar activity. Indeed, the occurrence rate of ionospheric irregularities is about 9 % during solar maximum, whereas it drops to about 0 % during medium or low solar activity periods. Medium-scale ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) occurring during daytime in autumn/winter are the most recurrent pattern of the time series, with yearly proportions slightly varying with the solar cycle and an amplitude of about 10 % of the TEC background. Another recurrent irregularity type, though less frequent than MSTIDs, is the noise-like variability in TEC observed during summer nighttime, under quiet geomagnetic conditions. These summer nighttime irregularities exhibit amplitudes ranging between 8 and 15 % of the TEC background.  相似文献   

Modelling of Ocean Shallow Convection under Fast Ice in the Arctic     

André April 《大气与海洋》2014,52(5):384-397

Ocean convection in the Antarctic has been studied many times and has been revealed to be responsible for ice-cover reduction. In the Arctic, proof of that phenomenon has not been documented. It is believed that this phenomenon happens on a smaller scale in the Arctic when local circulation of deep warmer water melts and slows ice production. An example of this is the North Water (NOW) polynya in northern Baffin Bay. A polynya is an area of open water in an otherwise ice-covered area. As ice forms under the fast ice near the boundary of the polynya, ocean salts (brine) are ejected from the newly formed ice. This water, which has an increased concentration of salt, sinks and is replaced by warmer water from below, and this slows ice formation. In our study a coupled one-dimensional thermodynamic snow–fast ice model incorporating ocean heat flux input via a shallow convection model was used. Ice thickness was calculated using a thermodynamic model that included a current-induced entrainment model and a convection model to account for brine rejection during ice growth. Atmospheric observations from Grise Fiord and Thule and ocean profiles around the NOW polynya near these sites were used as input to the model. This purely thermodynamic study enables us to obtain ice thickness values that can be compared with qualitative observations. This modelling study compares two sites related to the NOW polynya. The results indicate that the shallow convection model simulates the reduction of fast ice near Thule but not near Grise Fiord.  相似文献   

Impacts of Indian Ocean SST biases on the Indian Monsoon: as simulated in a global coupled model     

Chloé Prodhomme  Pascal Terray  Sébastien Masson  Takeshi Izumo  Tomoki Tozuka  Toshio Yamagata 《Climate Dynamics》2014,42(1-2):271-290

In this study, the impact of the ocean–atmosphere coupling on the atmospheric mean state over the Indian Ocean and the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) is examined in the framework of the SINTEX-F2 coupled model through forced and coupled control simulations and several sensitivity coupled experiments. During boreal winter and spring, most of the Indian Ocean biases are common in forced and coupled simulations, suggesting that the errors originate from the atmospheric model, especially a dry islands bias in the Maritime Continent. During boreal summer, the air-sea coupling decreases the ISM rainfall over South India and the monsoon strength to realistic amplitude, but at the expense of important degradations of the rainfall and Sea Surface Temperature (SST) mean states in the Indian Ocean. Strong SST biases of opposite sign are observed over the western (WIO) and eastern (EIO) tropical Indian Ocean. Rainfall amounts over the ocean (land) are systematically higher (lower) in the northern hemisphere and the south equatorial Indian Ocean rainfall band is missing in the control coupled simulation. During boreal fall, positive dipole-like errors emerge in the mean state of the coupled model, with warm and wet (cold and dry) biases in the WIO (EIO), suggesting again a significant impact of the SST errors. The exact contributions and the distinct roles of these SST errors in the seasonal mean atmospheric state of the coupled model have been further assessed with two sensitivity coupled experiments, in which the SST biases are replaced by observed climatology either in the WIO (warm bias) or EIO (cold bias). The correction of the WIO warm bias leads to a global decrease of rainfall in the monsoon region, which confirms that the WIO is an important source of moisture for the ISM. On the other hand, the correction of the EIO cold bias leads to a global improvement of precipitation and circulation mean state during summer and fall. Nevertheless, all these improvements due to SST corrections seem drastically limited by the atmosphere intrinsic biases, including prominently the unimodal oceanic position of the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) during summer and the enhanced westward wind stress along the equator during fall.  相似文献   

A copula-based multivariate analysis of Canadian RCM projected changes to flood characteristics for northeastern Canada   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Dae Il Jeong  Laxmi Sushama  M. Naveed Khaliq  René Roy 《Climate Dynamics》2014,42(7-8):2045-2066

In the present work, climate change impacts on three spring (March–June) flood characteristics, i.e. peak, volume and duration, for 21 northeast Canadian basins are evaluated, based on Canadian regional climate model (CRCM) simulations. Conventional univariate frequency analysis for each flood characteristic and copula based bivariate frequency analysis for mutually correlated pairs of flood characteristics (i.e. peak–volume, peak–duration and volume–duration) are carried out. While univariate analysis is focused on return levels of selected return periods (5-, 20- and 50-year), the bivariate analysis is focused on the joint occurrence probabilities P1 and P2 of the three pairs of flood characteristics, where P1 is the probability of any one characteristic in a pair exceeding its threshold and P2 is the probability of both characteristics in a pair exceeding their respective thresholds at the same time. The performance of CRCM is assessed by comparing ERA40 (the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 40-year reanalysis) driven CRCM simulated flood statistics and univariate and bivariate frequency analysis results for the current 1970–1999 period with those observed at selected 16 gauging stations for the same time period. The Generalized Extreme Value distribution is selected as the marginal distribution for flood characteristics and the Clayton copula for developing bivariate distribution functions. The CRCM performs well in simulating mean, standard deviation, and 5-, 20- and 50-year return levels of flood characteristics. The joint occurrence probabilities are also simulated well by the CRCM. A five-member ensemble of the CRCM simulated streamflow for the current (1970–1999) and future (2041–2070) periods, driven by five different members of a Canadian Global Climate Model ensemble, are used in the assessment of projected changes, where future simulations correspond to A2 scenario. The results of projected changes, in general, indicate increases in the marginal values, i.e. return levels of flood characteristics, and the joint occurrence probabilities P1 and P2. It is found that the future marginal values of flood characteristics and P1 and P2 values corresponding to longer return periods will be affected more by anthropogenic climate change than those corresponding to shorter return periods but the former ones are subjected to higher uncertainties.  相似文献   

Linear system techniques applied to the Fuenmayor Karst Spring, Huesca (Spain)   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

José Antonio Cuchí  David Chinarro  José Luis Villarroel 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2014,71(3):1049-1060

Black box identification techniques are very useful tools to study the relationship between rainfall and the discharge of karst aquifers. Autocorrelation, cross-correlation, cross-spectral, impulse response identification (Wiener–Hopf and error minimization methods) and parametric identification of transfer functions techniques have been used by different authors. A review of these techniques has been realized to assess the possibilities and limitations. The reviewed techniques are applied to a time rainfall–discharge series of Fuenmayor karst spring, (southern central Pyrenees, Spain) to establish the relative quality of the obtained models. The quality is evaluated with the Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient. In addition, effective rainfall has been used to improve the performance of every model. The whitening technique has been used in the cross-correlation technique with good results. The studied spring shows a Fontestorbes type behavior. The linearity of the system has been analyzed by the coherence function. Fuenmayor has an acceptable linear response, except for high frequency events. The parametric identification provides the best efficiency value E = 0.8164 and provides a proper transfer function, with five parameters (one zero, two poles, the gain and the delay). The prediction power of this transfer function is validated with another time series, with an efficiency value of E = 0.7904.  相似文献   

Technical, financial and location criteria for the design of land application system treatment     

Juana María Sanz  Ángel de Miguel  Irene de Bustamante  Alberto de Tomás  José Luis Goy 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2014,71(1):13-21

Conventional water treatments when downsized to cover the demands of small and scattered populations are costly and ineffective. In fact, many small towns cannot afford the high average treatment costs nor provide the skill and complex management requirements. Even when these facilities are available, waste water might not be properly treated. Land application system treatments (LAST) have been shown to be preferable on the basis of their technical effectiveness and financial viability. The recently approved Spanish regulations (RDL 1620/2007, pp 50369–50661) represent an opportunity for the implementation of well-designed LASTs. This paper presents an assessment methodology for the design of LASTs by combining technical, financial and location criteria. The method is applied to the design of LASTs to cover the water disposal demand of twelve municipalities located within the protected natural landscape, and surrounding areas of ‘El Rebollar’, Salamanca, Spain.  相似文献   

Field characterization and data integration to define the hydraulic heterogeneity of a shallow granular aquifer at a sub-watershed scale     

Daniel Paradis  Laurie Tremblay  René Lefebvre  Erwan Gloaguen  Alfonso Rivera  Michel Parent  Jean-Marc Ballard  Yves Michaud  Patrick Brunet 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2014,72(5):1325-1348

Providing a sound basis for aquifer management or remediation requires that hydrogeological investigations carried out to understand groundwater flow and contaminant transport be based on representative data that capture the heterogeneous spatial distribution of aquifer hydraulic properties. This paper describes a general workflow allowing the characterization of the heterogeneity of the hydraulic properties of granular aquifers at an intermediate scale of a few km². The workflow involves characterization and data integration steps that were applied on a 12-km² study area encompassing a decommissioned landfill emitting a leachate plume and its main surface water receptors. The sediments composing the aquifer were deposited in a littoral–sublittoral environment and show evidence of small-scale transitional heterogeneities. Cone penetrometer tests (CPT) combined with soil moisture and electrical resistivity (SMR) measurements were thus used to identify and characterize spatial heterogeneities in hydraulic properties over the study area. Site-specific statistical relationships were needed to infer hydrofacies units and to estimate hydraulic properties from high-resolution CPT/SMR soundings distributed all over the study area. A learning machine approach was used due to the complex statistical relationships between colocated hydraulic and CPT/SMR data covering the full range of aquifer materials. Application of this workflow allowed the identification of hydrofacies units and the estimation of horizontal hydraulic conductivity, vertical hydraulic conductivity and porosity over the study area. The paper describes and discusses data acquisition and integration methodologies that can be adapted to different field situations, while making the aquifer characterization process more time-efficient and less labor-intensive.  相似文献   

Modeling heavy metal concentration distributions in estuarine waters: an application to Suances Estuary (Northern Spain)     

María Luisa Sámano  Andrés García  José Antonio Revilla  César Álvarez 《Environmental Earth Sciences》2014,72(8):2931-2945

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