An overview of toxicant identification in sediments and dredged materials   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Ho KT  Burgess RM  Pelletier MC  Serbst JR  Ryba SA  Cantwell MG  Kuhn A  Raczelowski P 《Marine pollution bulletin》2002,44(4):286-293

The identification of toxicants affecting aquatic benthic systems is critical to sound assessment and management of our nation's waterways. Identification of toxicants can be useful in designing effective sediment remediation plans and reasonable options for sediment disposal. Knowledge of which contaminants affect benthic systems allows managers to link pollution to specific dischargers and prevent further release of toxicant(s). In addition, identification of major causes of toxicity in sediments may guide programs such as those developing environmental sediment guidelines and registering pesticides, while knowledge of the causes of toxicity which drive ecological changes such as shifts in benthic community structure would be useful in performing ecological risk assessments. To this end, the US Environmental Protection Agency has developed tools (toxicity identification and evaluation (TIE) methods) that allow investigators to characterize and identify chemicals causing acute toxicity in sediments and dredged materials. To date, most sediment TIEs have been performed on interstitial waters. Preliminary evidence from the use of interstitial water TIEs reveals certain patterns in causes of sediment toxicity. First, among all sediments tested, there is no one predominant cause of toxicity; metals, organics, and ammonia play approximately equal roles in causing toxicity. Second, within a single sediment there are multiple causes of toxicity detected; not just one chemical class is active. Third, the role of ammonia is very prominent in these interstitial waters. Finally, if sediments are divided into marine or freshwater, TIEs perforMed on interstitial waters from freshwater sediments indicate a variety of toxicants in fairly equal proportions, while TIEs performed on interstitial waters from marine sediments have identified only ammonia and organics as toxicants, with metals playing a minor role. Preliminary evidence from whole sediment TIEs indicates that organic compounds play a major role in the toxicity of marine sediments, with almost no evidence for either metal or ammonia toxicity. However, interpretation of these results may be skewed because only a small number of interstitial water (n = 13) and whole sediment (n = 5) TIEs have been completed. These trends may change as more data are collected.  相似文献   

Thinking About Global Warming     

Jonathan Baron 《Climatic change》2006,77(1-2):137-150

Attitudes toward global warming are influenced by various heuristics, which may distort policy away from what is optimal for the well-being of people. These possible distortions, or biases, include: a focus on harms that we cause, as opposed to those that we can remedy more easily; a feeling that those who cause a problem should fix it; a desire to undo a problem rather than compensate for its presence; parochial concern with one’s own group (nation); and neglect of risks that are not available. Although most of these biases tend to make us attend relatively too much to global warming, other biases, such as wishful thinking, cause us to attend too little. I discuss these possible effects and illustrate some of them with an experiment conducted on the World Wide Web.  相似文献   

Prolonged Dry Episodes over North America: New Tendencies Emerging During the Last 40 Years     

Pavel Ya. Groisman Richard W. Knight 《地球科学进展》2007,22(11):1191-1207

A disproportionate increase in precipitation coming from intense rain events, in the situation of general warming (thus, an extension of the vegetation period with intensive transpiration) and an insignificant change in total precipitation could lead to an increase in the frequency of potentially serious type of extreme events: prolonged periods without precipitation (even when the mean seasonal rainfall totals increase). This paper investigates whether this development is already occurring during the past several decades over North America south of 55°N, for the same period when changes in frequency of intense precipitation events are being observed. Lengthy strings of “dry” days without sizeable (>1.0 mm) precipitation were assessed only during the warm season (defined as a period when mean daily temperature is above the 5℃ threshold) when water is intensively used for transpiration and prolonged periods without sizable rainfall represent a hazard for terrestrial ecosystem's health and agriculture. During the past four decades, the mean duration of prolonged dry episodes (20 days or longer in southeastern Canada, 1 month or longer in the Eastern United States and along the Gulf Coast of Mexico and 2 months or longer in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico) has significantly increased. As a consequence, the return period of 1 month long dry episodes over the Eastern U.S. has been reduced more than twofold from 15 to 6~7 years. The longer average duration of dry episodes has occurred during a relatively wet period around most of the continent south of 55°N but is not observed over the Northwestern U.S. and adjacent regions of Southern Canada.   相似文献   

2006年国家自然科学基金批准项目一览表(地球科学部分)     

Pavel Ya. Groisman  Richard W. Knight 《地球科学进展》2007,22(1):82-110

~~2006年国家自然科学基金批准项目一览表(地球科学部分)~~  相似文献   

The influence of human activity in the Arctic on climate and climate impacts   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Henry P. Huntington  Michelle Boyle  Gwenn E. Flowers  John W. Weatherly  Lawrence C. Hamilton  Larry Hinzman  Craig Gerlach  Rommel Zulueta  Craig Nicolson  Jonathan Overpeck 《Climatic change》2007,82(1-2):77-92

Human activities in the Arctic are often mentioned as recipients of climate-change impacts. In this paper we consider the more complicated but more likely possibility that human activities themselves can interact with climate or environmental change in ways that either mitigate or exacerbate the human impacts. Although human activities in the Arctic are generally assumed to be modest, our analysis suggests that those activities may have larger influences on the arctic system than previously thought. Moreover, human influences could increase substantially in the near future. First, we illustrate how past human activities in the Arctic have combined with climatic variations to alter biophysical systems upon which fisheries and livestock depend. Second, we describe how current and future human activities could precipitate or affect the timing of major transitions in the arctic system. Past and future analyses both point to ways in which human activities in the Arctic can substantially influence the trajectory of arctic system change.  相似文献   

Methodological problems of intercultural comparisons of retail environments     

Jonathan Reynolds 《GeoJournal》1998,45(4):245-254

The internationalising activities of retailers have tended to precede the theoretical contributions of academics. This is particularly the case for the cultural context within which retail internationalisation takes place. Following an examination of the growth of international retailing activity, the article reviews generic difficulties in studying inter-cultural differences before considering the specific steps which retail practitioners have taken to understand the comparative characteristics of retail and consumer markets through the growth of geodemographic and lifestyle analysis. Finally, we relate one of the most significant integrative intercultural theoretical instruments to the case of retail internationalisation within Western Europe. We find that significant insights into retailer behaviour and strategy can be gained from an understanding of the culturally-specific characteristics of the activity. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Spatial dimensions of growth     

C. G. Knight Dr. 《GeoJournal》1981,5(3):206-207

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Deep-sea hydrocarbon seep gastropod Bathynerita naticoidea responds to cues from the habitat-providing mussel Bathymodiolus childressi     

Sharmishtha Dattagupta  Jonathan Martin  Shu-min Liao  Robert S. Carney  & Charles R. Fisher 《Marine Ecology》2007,28(1):193-198

Bathynerita naticoidea (Gastropoda: Neritidae) is a numerically dominant heterotrophic gastropod found at hydrocarbon seep sites on the upper Louisiana slope of the Gulf of Mexico. Snails of this species are commonly associated with beds of the methanotrophic mussel Bathymodiolus childressi (Bivalvia: Mytilidae), and their population structure mirrors that of the mussels they are found among. Previous studies have shown that these snails feed on bacteria and decomposing periostracum on the B. childressi shell. We predicted that B. naticoidea might be attracted to cues specific to its preferred habitat, such as dissolved methane, mucus from conspecific snails, or metabolites produced by B. childressi mussels. To examine this, we used a flow‐through Y‐maze system to investigate the behavior of B. naticoidea exposed to these potential cues. We found that the nerite is not attracted to methane, but is strongly attracted to seawater conditioned with B. childressi. The attractant appears to be specific to this type of mussel, and is not a soluble cue produced by conspecific snails.  相似文献   

Volcanic ash clouds affecting Northern Europe: the long view     

Graeme T. Swindles  Ivan P. Savov  Charles B. Connor  Jonathan Carrivick  Elizabeth Watson  Ian T. Lawson 《Geology Today》2013,29(6):214-217

The volcanic ash or ‘tephra’ cloud resulting from the relatively small (volume and VEI) eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 caused major air travel disruption, at substantial global economic cost. On several occasions in the past few centuries, Icelandic eruptions have created ash and/or sulphur dioxide clouds which were detected over Europe (e.g. Hekla in 1947, Askja in 1875, and Laki in 1783). However, these historical observations do not represent a complete record of events serious enough to disrupt aviation in Europe. The only feasible evidence for this is within the geological tephra record. Ash layers are preserved in bogs and lakes where tephra deposited from the atmosphere is incorporated in the peat/mud. In this article we: 1, introduce the analysis of the Northern European sedimentary tephra record; 2, discuss our findings and modelling results; 3, highlight how these were misinterpreted by the popular media; and 4, use this experience to outline several existing problems with current tephra studies and suggest agendas for future research.  相似文献   

Tropical cyclone activity and western North Atlantic stratification over the last millennium: a comparative review with viable connections     

Jonathan D. Woodruff  Ryan L. Sriver  David C. Lund 《第四纪科学杂志》2012,27(4):337-343

Tropical cyclones (TC) are recognized to modify the thermal structure of the upper ocean through the process of vertical mixing. Assessing the role this mixing plays in the overall stratification of the upper ocean is difficult, due to the relatively short and incomplete instrumental record. Proxy records for both TC landfalls and oceanographic stratification are preserved within the geological record and provide insight for how past changes in TC‐induced mixing have potentially affected water column structure prior to the instrumental record. Here we provide the first comparison between previously published paleo‐reconstructions of vertical ocean density and tropical cyclone activity from the western North Atlantic. A prominent lull in TC activity has been observed prior to approximately 1700 CE that extends back several centuries. This interval of low TC activity is shown to be concurrent with the timing of increased ocean stratification near Great Bahama Bank, potentially due in part to reduced TC‐induced mixing. To test whether this relationship is feasible, we present numerical results from a coarse‐resolution ocean general circulation model experiment isolating the effect of TC surface wind forcing on the upper ocean. An anomaly of roughly 0.12 kg m^?3 in vertical stratification occurs above and below the mixed layer for model runs with and without TC mixing. This anomaly is roughly 25% of the entire paleo‐density signal observed just prior to 1700 CE. These results suggest that TC mixing alone cannot completely explain the density anomaly observed prior to 1700 CE, but support TC variability as an important contributor to enhancing oceanic stratification during this interval. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献