bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Commedia dell’Arte
Authors: Pietropaolo Domenico
Published: March 2022

What were the origins of commedia dell’arte and how did it evolve as a dramatic form over time and as it spread from Italy? How did its relationship to the ruling ideology of the day change during the Enlightenment? What is its legacy today?

These are just some of the questions addressed in this authoritative overview of the dramatic, ideological and aesthetic form of commedia dell’arte. The book’s 3 sections examine the changing role of performers and playwrights, improvisatory scenarios and scripted performance, and its function as a vehicle for social criticism, to offer readers a clear understanding of commedia dell’arte’s evolution in Renaissance Italy and beyond. This study throws new light on the role of women performers; on the changing ideological discourse of commedia dell’arte, which included social reform and, later, conservatism as well as the alienation of ethnic minorities in complicity with its audience; and on its later adaptation into hybrid forms including grotesque dance and the giullarata typified by the work of Dario Fo.
Visceral Prostheses
Authors: Shildrick Margrit
Published: March 2022

In the postmodern era, when the interface of bodies, biologies and technologies increasingly challenges the very notion of what counts as human, Margrit Shildrick proposes new understandings of the limits and possible extensions of posthuman embodiment.

Focusing on prostheses, Shildrick broadens our understanding of both what prostheses are and what they might mean for human embodiment. As well as rehabilitation devices used by disabled people to replace or augment impaired parts of the body, Shildrick introduces visceral organic prostheses, which involve any cellular material that cannot be identified with the self, from organ transplantation to the physiological processes of microchimerism and the microbiome. Beyond origin narratives that concentrate on ‘host’ and ‘guest’ and ‘self’ and ‘other’, she examines the transformative possibilities that prostheses offer as they extend the nature of the embodied self beyond genetic singularity.

Building on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in critical disability studies, transplantation studies, and bioscience, Visceral Prostheses argues that bodies with prostheses in whatever form should no longer be understood as irregular forms of normative embodiment, but as limit cases of a common experience. In doing so, it challenges the western understanding of the singular self and welcomes a new understanding of the human.
Postfeminism and Contemporary Vampire Romance
Authors: Gerhards Lea
Published: March 2022

In this book, Lea Gerhards traces connections between three recent vampire romance series; the Twilight film series (2008-2012), The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017) and True Blood (2008-2014), exploring their tremendous discursive and ideological power in order to understand the cultural politics of these extremely popular texts.

She uses contemporary vampire romance to examine postfeminist ideologies and discuss gender, sexuality, subjectivity, agency and the body. Discussing a range of conflicting meanings contained in the narratives, Gerhards critically looks genre’s engagement with everyday sexism and violence against women, power relations in heterosexual relationships, sexual autonomy and pleasure, (self-) empowerment, and (self-) surveillance. She asks: Why are these genre texts so popular right now, what specific desires, issues and fears are addressed and negotiated by them, and what kinds of pleasures do they offer?
‘Economy’ in European History
Authors: Alonzi Luigi
Published: March 2022

Prompted by the ‘linguistic turn’ of the late 20th century, intellectual and conceptual historians continue to devote a great deal of attention to the study of concepts in history. This innovative and interdisciplinary volume builds on such scholarship by providing a new history of the term ‘economy’.

Starting from the Greek idea of the law of the household, Luigi Alonzi traces the different meanings assumed by the word ‘economy’ during the middle ages and early modern era, highlighting the semantic richness of the word and its uses in various political and cultural contexts. Notably, there is a particular focus on the so-called Oeconomica literature, tracking the reception of works by Plato, Aristotle, the ‘pseudo’ Aristotle and Xenophon in the Italian and France Renaissance. This tradition was incredibly influential in civic humanism and in texts devoted to power and command and thus affected later debates on Natural Law and the development of new scientific disciplines in the 17th and 18th centuries. In exploring this, the analysis of the function of translations in the transmission and transformation of meanings becomes central.

‘Economy’ in European History shines much-needed light on an important challenge that many historians repeatedly face: the fact that words can, and do, change over time. It will thus be a vital resource for all scholars of early modern and European economic history.
Recipe
Authors: Bloom Lynn Z.
Published: March 2022

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Recipe reveals the surprising lessons that recipes teach, in addition to the obvious instructions on how to prepare a dish or perform a process. These include lessons in hospitality, friendship, community, family and ethnic heritage, tradition, nutrition, precision and order, invention and improvisation, feasting and famine, survival and seduction and love. A recipe is a signature, as individual as the cook’s fingerprint; a passport to travel the world without leaving the kitchen; a lifeline for people in hunger and in want; and always a means to expand one’s worldview, if not waistline.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
100 Bible Films
Authors: Page Matthew
Published: March 2022

From The Passion of the Christ to Life of Brian, and from The Ten Commandments to Last Temptation of Christ, filmmakers have been adapting the stories of the Bible for over 120 years, from the first time the Höritz Passion Play was filmed in the Czech Republic back in 1897. Ever since, these stories have inspired musicals, comedies, sci-fi, surrealist visions and the avant-garde not to mention spawning their own genre, the biblical epic. Filmmakers across six continents and from all kinds of religious perspectives (or none at all), have adapted the greatest stories ever told, delighting some and infuriating others.

100 Bible Films is the indispensable guide to this wide and varied output, providing an authoritative but accessible history of biblical adaptations through one hundred of the most interesting and significant biblical films. Richly illustrated with film stills, this book depicts how such films have undertaken a complex negotiation between art, commerce, entertainment and religion.

Matthew Page traces the screen history of the biblical stories from the very earliest silent passion plays, via the golden ages of the biblical epic, through to more innovative and controversial later films as well as covering significant TV adaptations. He discusses films made not only by some of our greatest filmmakers, artists such as Martin Scorsese, Jean Luc Godard, Alice Guy, Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lotte Reiniger, Carl Dreyer and Luis Buñuel, but also those looking to explore their faith or share it with lovers of cinema the world over.
DAG-WGAN: Causal Structure Learning with Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks
Authors: Petkov Hristo , Hanley Colin , Dong Feng
Published: March 2022

The combinatorial search space presents a significant challenge to learning causality from data. Recently, the problem has been formulated into a continuous optimization framework with an acyclicity constraint, allowing for the exploration of deep generative models to better capture data sample distributions and support the discovery of Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) that faithfully represent the underlying data distribution. However, so far no study has investigated the use of Wasserstein distance for causal structure learning via generative models. This paper proposes a new model named DAG-WGAN, which combines the Wasserstein-based adversarial loss, an auto-encoder architecture together with an acyclicity constraint. DAGWGAN simultaneously learns causal structures and improves its data generation capability by leveraging the strength from the Wasserstein distance metric. Compared with other models, it scales well and handles both continuous and discrete data. Our experiments have evaluated DAG-WGAN against the state-of-the-art and demonstrated its good performance.
Revitalisasi Kesejahteraan Sosial Bertetangga Perspektif KH. Muhammad Romzi Al-Amiri Mannan
Authors: Kholilah Kholilah
Published: March 2022

Today social problems come back in the main spotlight in this country, especially during the pandemic hasn’t a meeting point. Since pandemic Covid-19, it has officially entered the motherland. Social problems are increasing, especially in economic problems. This leads to reduced welfare of people's lives and creates social inequalities, especially in smaller domains such as resilience. The results of this study revealed that there are three points conceptualized by Ajengan Romzi in fulfilling neighborly matters. First, there are consequences that are obtained when treating neighbors badly. Second, treating neighbors well will also reduce social problems among neighbors and can also eliminate gaps that occur. Third, a good form of interaction with neighbors, as well as how to deal with neighbors who treat us badly, should not only be applied not only with neighbors who are fellow Muslims but also neighbors who are non-Muslims.
Frequency of Hepatitis C Viral Infection in Maintenance Hemodialysis patients
Authors: Mushtaq Awais , Waqar Ali  , Shakir Abdul Shakoor , Khan Aleena , Husnain Shamim Ul , Safdar Mamoona , Urooj Bushra
Published: March 2022

Background: Blood and blood products mainly transmit HCV. In developing countries Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the leading pathogen that cause serious morbidity and mortality in hemodialysis patients. Transfusion of blood and duration of hemodialysis are the most important factors in transmission of HCV. We aimed to evaluate the frequency of hepatitis C infection in maintenance hemodialysis patients

Material and method: It was a cross sectional study conducted at Mayo hospital, Lahore. Patients who met inclusion/exclusion criteria were electively admitted from emergency department. Informed consent from patients about their inclusion in the study and approval from the ethical committee of the hospital was taken. Relevant history  and clinical examination was done of patients on maintenance hemodialysis . Venous samples for anti HCV antibodies by ELISA were taken. All samples sent to a ‘Central Laboratory of Mayo Hospital, Lahore’. All the relevant information including anti HCV antibodies by ELIZA and confounding variable like age, gender were noted on a Performa.

Results

Our study showed that frequency of HCV infection in CKD (chronic kidney disease) patients on maintenance hemodialysis was 25.7 percent.

 

Conclusion:

                    Our study concluded that there is a greater risk of acquiring hepatitis C infection in patients on maintenance hemodialysis. The control of contagion, decrease frequency of blood transfusions and cross-infections are the key factors to reduce occurrence of HCV in patients with hemodialysis.
Retraction Notice
Authors: Editor PPMJ
Published: March 2022

Retraction Notice

The manuscript "A comparative analysis of per and post-operative complications in patients undergoing early and delayed interval tonsillectomies" published in Pak Postgrad Med J 2020;31(4): 190-194 has been retracted because the manuscript was found to contain plagiarized results from a previously published article "Interval tonsillectomies; comparison of per and post operative complications in patients undergoing early and delayed after peritonsillar abscess." Professional Med J 2014;21(5):1043-1047.

We take plagiarism very seriously, and the authors, unfortunately, did not respond properly to our requests for clarification.
Technical-semantic interoperability reference
Authors: Zaborowski Piotr , Atkinson Rob , Hempelmann Nils , Voidrot Marie-Francoise
Published: March 2022

The FAIR data principles form the core OGC mission that renders in the open geospatial standards and the open-data initiatives that use them. Although OGC is best known for the technical interoperability, the domain modelling and semantic level play an inevitable role in the standards definition and the exploitation. On the one hand, we have a growing number of specialised profiles and implementations that selectively use the OGC modular specification model components. On the other hand, various domain ontologies exist already, enabling a better understanding of the data. As there could be multiple semantic representations, common data models support cross ontology traverses. Defining the service in the technical-semantic space requires fixing some flexibility points, including optional and mandatory elements, additional constraints and rules, and content including normalised vocabularies to be used.

The proposed solution of the OGC Definition Server is a multi-purpose application built around the triple store database engine integrated with the ingestion, validation, and entailment tools and exposing customized end-points. The models are available in the human-readable format and machine-2-machine aimed encodings. For manual processes, it enables understanding the technical and semantic definitions/relationships between entities. Programmatic solutions benefit from a precise referential system, validations, and entailment.

Currently, OGC Definition Server is hosting several types of definitions covering:

Register of OGC bodies, assets, and its modules

Ontological common semantic models (e.g., for Agriculture)

Dictionaries of subject domains (e.g., PipelineML Codelists)

In practice, that is a step forward in defining the bridge between conceptual and logical models. The concepts can be expressed as instances of various ontological classes and interpreted within multiple contexts, with the definition translated into entities, relationships, and properties. In the future, it is linking the data to the reference model and external ontologies that may be even more significant. Doing so can greatly improve the quality of the knowledge produced based on the collected data. Ability to verify the research outcomes and explainable AI are just two examples where a precise log of inferences and unambiguous semantic compatibility of the data will play a key role.
Seismic velocity variations generated by controlled hydrological changes : field and laboratory studies based on seismic noise crosscorrelation
Authors: Gaubert-Bastide Thomas , Garambois Stéphane , Bordes Clarisse , Voisin Christophe , Brito Daniel , Roux Philippe , Oxarango Laurent
Published: March 2022

Continuous seismic noise recordings has demonstrated a remarkable ablitiy to monitor changes of the investigated media at various scales. In this study, we focused on the link between seismic velocity variations (dv/v) derived from seismic noise cross-correlations between pairs of stations and hydrological variations observed both at the field and lab scales. The field-scale experiment was performed at the water supply pumping site of Crépieux-Charmy (Lyon, France). 99 3-C velocimeters were deployed during 20 days around an infiltration basin operated for managed aquifer recharge and designed to generate an hydraulic barrier to prevent a potential contamination from the nearby river. This dense seismic network set-up allowed to dynamically image the seismic velocity variations during two filling/drainage cycles of the basin. Punctual values extracted from computed high resolution tomographies of the velocity variations were compared to local measurements of the water table level using piezometers. A remarkable agreement was found between the 2 observables in particular during the establishment of a 3D dome in the water table. During drainage phases, systematic response delays were observed which are most probably due to variations of water content in the unsaturated zone between the basin and the water table.
To better understand these effects occurring in the critical zone, we tried to reproduce a similar monitoring experiment at the laboratory scale. A tank filled with sand was designed in order to characterize controled hydrological variations (water table depth, water saturation). We used continuous seismic sources deployed on the edges of the tank. The seismic noise was recorded using 10 3-C accelerometers . The combination of these two approaches at different scales provides a better understanding of the links between seismic velocity and hydrological (water table level and water content in the vadose zone) variations.
Quantifying the effective seismic anisotropy produced by a ridge-transform model 
Authors: Bodin Thomas , Janin Alexandre , Marjanovic Milena , Prigent Cecile , Capdeville Yann , Chevrot Sebastien , Durand Stephanie
Published: March 2022

Global tomographic models depict long-wavelength azimuthal anisotropy in the oceanic upper mantle, with a fast axis direction orthogonal to divergent plate boundaries. This anisotropy is usually attributed to the Lattice Preferred Orientation (LPO) of olivine due to asthenospheric mantle flow away from the ridge axis. In this work, we want to test an alternative hypothesis, whether this observed anisotropic signal could be partially explained by the presence of transform faults and associated fracture zones in the lithosphere. The transform plate boundaries represent sharp structures perpendicular to the ridge-axis with the wavelength (˜10 km), which is much smaller than the wavelength of seismic surface waves used to image the mantle (˜100 km). Therefore, transform faults could potentially result in an effective anisotropy in tomographic images through their Shape Preferred Orientation (SPO). We base our calculations on several thermo-chemical models that follow the observed ridge-transform geometry at different spreading rates. To produce the effective medium as seen by long-period waves, we use a non-periodic homogenization algorithm. The resulting seismic velocity field can be interpreted as the tomographic image that would be obtained after inverting long-period seismic data; it is smooth, fully anisotropic, and comparable to actual tomographic models.
Physics based simulations of multiple hazards for risk sensitive land use planning
Authors: Jenkins Luke , Creed Maggie , Tarbali Karim , Muthusamy Manoranjan , Trogrlic Robert  Sakic , Phillips Jeremy , Sinclair Hugh , Galasso Carmine , McCloskey John
Published: March 2022

Rapid urban expansion in many parts of the world is increasing exposure to natural hazards, which are often exacerbated by climate change. We present the results of physics-based simulations for various flooding, earthquake, and debris-flow scenarios located in a region considered for future urban expansion. The effect of climate change, in terms of increasing rainfall intensity, is incorporated into some of the hazard scenarios. We show that a future urban area can be affected by: (1) multiple hazards at different locations; (2) multiple hazards at a particular location. We demonstrate that this information can be used to shape decision making around future social and built environment developments towards risk-informed future urban planning. In summary, this research demonstrates the importance of considering multiple hazards when designing disaster-resilient urban landscapes of tomorrow. 
Higher state of the North Atlantic Oscillation during the Last Interglacial (130-115 ka BP): evidence from temperature and hydrology in the Dead Sea 
Authors: Guillerm Emmanuel , Gardien Véronique , Brall Niels , Ariztegui Daniel , Schwab Markus , Neugebauer Ina , Waldmann Nicolas , Lach Adeline , Caupin Frédéric
Published: March 2022

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is currently the main mode of winter atmospheric variability in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. It represents the fluctuation of the meridional sea-level pressure gradient in the North Atlantic, with high and low phases defined by high and low pressure gradients, respectively. High (or low) NAO phases are associated with wet and warm (or dry and cold) weather conditions in Northern Europe. In mid latitude regions such as the Mediterranean, this relationship is inverse, producing dry and cold (or wet and warm) conditions. Whether or not the average state of the NAO may have shifted in the past is much debated, with major implications for the understanding of past regional climate. Using a climate model, Felis et al. (2004) showed that the average state of the NAO during the Last Interglacial (130-115 ka BP) was significantly higher than during the pre-industrial period, with a high plateau from ~126 to 118 ka BP. However, proxy-based reconstructions of temperature and rainfall are needed to support this. Here, we use a new method, Brillouin spectroscopy on halite fluid inclusions, to reconstruct the evolution of temperature and hydrology in the Dead Sea, southern Levant, throughout the Last Interglacial. We find lower than modern Dead Sea temperatures and a lowering freshwater influx throughout the last interglacial. Using climate data from the recent decades, we demonstrate that the temperature of the Dead Sea hypolimnion mainly depends on winter air temperature, which is itself anti-correlated with the NAO. We also demonstrate that, during years of very high NAO, rainfall is drastically reduced in the lake catchment. In light of our analysis of modern climate data, the reconstructed cold and dry conditions in the Dead Sea area is consistent with the modelled higher NAO conditions.
Year-round high-resolution geoelectrical monitoring to improve the understanding of deglaciated soil evolution in the High Arctic 
Authors: Cimpoiasu Mihai O. , Harrison Harry , Meldrum Philip , Wilkinson Paul , Chambers Jonathan , Bradley James , Sommers Pacifica , Schmidt Steven K. , Irons Trevor , Liljestrand Dane , Oroza Carlos , Kuras Oliver
Published: March 2022

High Arctic regions are experiencing an accelerated rise in temperatures, about three times more than the global average. As a result, the glacier coverage over these landscapes is reducing, uncovering soils which start their development by sustaining emergent microbial communities. These new systems will have a significant impact on the global carbon budget, thus monitoring and understanding their evolution becomes a necessity.

Geoelectrical methods have emerged as a fast, cost-effective and minimally invasive way of imaging soil moisture dynamics in the shallow subsurface. BGS PRIME technology is designed to facilitate low-power remote geoelectrical tomography by using an array of sensor electrodes. We are using such technology to monitor the year-round variability of soil electrical resistivity in 4D on a glacier forefield in the vicinity of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard. Until now, such assessment of soil properties was confined to the summer period due to harsh Arctic winter conditions making site access very difficult.

Two PRIME systems were deployed during the summer of 2021 on Midtre Lovénbreen glacier forefield, which exhibits a soil chronosequence extending from the youngest soils near the glacier snout up to soils of approximately 120 years old. The two geophysical systems are monitoring electrical resistivity within the top 2m of soil of approximately 5 and 60 years of age respectively, recording soil moisture and freeze-thaw dynamics within the active layer above the permafrost.

We present early results, a timeseries of 3D soil electrical resistivity models, that captured several precipitation events during the summer and the progression of the freezing front when soil temperatures dropped below 0 °C in October 2021. These results reveal differences in the hydrodynamic activity between the 5- and 60-year-old sites determined by soil properties and their location on the glacier forefield. In addition, soil cores were sampled from the vicinity of the PRIME systems. These were subsequently subjected to laboratory tests to describe the changes in electrical resistivity as a function of moisture content and during successive freeze-thaw cycles. Furthermore, we are working towards an integrated analysis and a more comprehensive model of soil evolution at our sites by combining geoelectrical measurements with point measurements of environmental parameters and microbiological activity.
Utilizing hyperspectral imagery for burnt area mapping in a Greek setting
Authors: Lekka Christina , Detsikas Spyridon E. , Petropoulos George P. , Katsafados Petros , Triantakonstantis Dimitris , Srivastava Prashant K.
Published: March 2022

Earth observation (EO) - particularly so from hyperspectral imagers - gains increasing interest in wildfire mapping as it offers a prompt with high accuracy and low-cost delineation of a burnt area.  A key hyperspectral orbital sensor with over 20 years of operational life is Compact High-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS), onboard ESA’s PROBA platform. This mission sensor collects spectral data in the VNIR range (400 - 1050 nm) simultaneously at 5 viewing angles and at different spatial resolutions of 17 m and 34 m which contains 19 and 63 spectral bands respectively. The present study focuses on exploring the use of CHRIS PROBA legacy data combined with machine learning (ML) algorithms in obtaining a burnt area cartography. In this context, a further objective of the study has been to examine the contribution of the multi-angle sensor capabilities to enhance the burn scar detection. As a case study was selected a wildfire occurred during the summer of 2007 in the island of Evvoia, in central Greece for which imagery from the CHRIS PROBA archive shortly after the fire outbreak was available. For the accuracy assessment of the derived burnt area estimate the error matrix statistics were calculated in ENVI. Burnt area estimates from were also further validated against the operational product developed in the framework of ESA’s Global Monitoring for Environmental Security/Service Element. This study’s results evidenced the added value of satellite hyperspectral imagery combined with ML classifiers as a cost-effective and robust approach to evaluate a burnt area extent, particularly so of the multi-angle capability in this case. All in all, the study findings can also provide important insights towards the exploitation of hyperspectral imagery acquired from current missions (e.g. HySIS, PRISMA, CHRIS, DESIS) as well as upcoming ones (e.g. EnMAP, Shalom, HySpiri and Chime).

KEYWORDS: CHRIS-PROBA, hyperspectral, machine learning, burnt area mapping
Post Wildfire Forest Management: Can We Reduce the Impact of Salvage Logging on Erosion and Stream Sedimentation?
Authors: Robichaud Peter
Published: March 2022

Wildfires around the world continue to increase in size, severity, and cost. Major concerns after wildfires include the increased runoff and erosion due to loss of the protective forest floor layer, loss of water storage, and creation of water repellent soil conditions. Salvage logging is often a post-fire forest management action to recoup the economic loss of the burned timber, yet concerns arise due to the impacts of this activity on erosion and downstream sedimentation. A decade of research dedicated to impacts of post wildfire salvage logging throughout the Western US has been conducted using rill experiments, paired swales, and remote sensing imagery. Using 2-m resolution WorldView imagery, we are now able to map logging equipment tracks spatially and ground-truth the imagery with field measurements. The Normal Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the 2-m resolution WorldView imagery has allowed us to detect disturbed bare soil from the logging equipment tracks and can differentiate when wood slash was added to the track. Adding wood slash increased ground cover significantly which resulted in an order of magnitude decrease in hillslope erosion with the rill experiment and was confirmed with hillslope plots under natural rainfall as well. Riparian buffers are often managed for timber harvest disturbances to decrease the risk of hillslope erosion entering stream channels during runoff events. However, after wildfires, burned riparian buffers may become less efficient at infiltrating runoff and trapping and reducing soil loss. We investigated the efficiency of burnt over riparian buffers with a sediment-laden runoff experiment to determine how much infiltration occurs and how much sediment is removed by the buffer. Rill travel length significantly decreased through the buffer as vegetation regrowth provided increasing ground cover. In the high burn severity areas, sediment concentrations were 19 g/L immediately after the wildfire and reduced to 7–14 g/L after 10 months due to abundant vegetation recovery. The amount of sediment dropping out of the flow consistently increased over the study period and varied by burn severity. The sediment removal rate in the low burn severity area of 1.2 g/L/m approached the removal rate in the unburned buffer of 1.3 g/L/m after 2 years post-fire. Forest managers may need to increase the widths of burned stream buffers 2x to 8x during post-wildfire salvage logging operations to minimize sediment delivery to streams. Integrating erosion mitigation strategies into salvage logging operations should be commonplace when hillslope erosion and downstream sedimentation is a concern.
Analysis of macro plastic transport processes in large rivers using GPS tracking and numerical simulations
Authors: Liedermann Marcel , Pessenlehner Sebastian , Gmeiner Philipp , Tritthart Michael , Habersack Helmut
Published: March 2022

Given the longevity of plastics and the yet incalculable effects on the biota in our environment, addressing plastic transport processes in fluvial systems is of emerging importance. Rivers are considered the main entry pathways for plastic into the world's oceans, yet there is still very little research in this area in particular. In Austria, the PlasticFreeDanube project focused on the problem of macroplastics in the Danube. Although Austria has very good waste management, a large amount of plastic still ends up in the national park downstream of Vienna. One of the most important questions in the project was therefore where the plastic comes from, how it is transported in the river and where it is deposited.

 

To improve the process understanding, numerical simulations were carried out on different scales. A particle tracking tool was implemented and adapted to the buoyancy of macroplastic items. The results of the numerical model were then blended with field data to quantify plastic deposition along the shoreline and in the floodplain. Furthermore, field data from GPS tagged plastic items were used for validation of numerical model results and to increase understanding of transport pathways within the system.

 

The modelling results clearly show that floating macroplastic particles interact with hydraulic structures, where the highest accumulation potential was observed in the middle groyne field within row of groynes. The comparison of macroplastic concentrations based on modelling and sampling results shows that floodplains act as filters during flood events. All the macroplastics that were tracked in the field experiment remained on the river’s side on which they were released, indicating that the main input appears to be on the right-hand side. The items mostly stranded on riprap of the bank protection and groyne fields, and the average distance to stranding was found to be 10.4 km. It was also shown that although the Freudenau hydropower plant can retain some of the plastic, a certain amount also passes downstream. The outcomes of this study may lead to a reduction of future collection efforts for macro plastics in riverine environments. The findings can also help to adapt hydraulic engineering structures in a way that facilitates removing more plastic from rivers.
Mesoscale dynamics protect trade-cumulus clouds from mixing-induced desiccation
Authors: Vogel Raphaela , Albright Anna Lea , Vial Jessica , George Geet , Stevens Bjorn , Bony Sandrine
Published: March 2022

Shallow trade cumulus clouds cool the planet and fuel the large-scale circulation. Their unknown response to climate change is a major source of uncertainty in climate projections. Differing changes in cloudiness near the base of the cumulus layer with warming control the spread in simulated trade cumulus cloud feedbacks in models, with high climate sensitivity models showing a strong negative coupling between lower-tropospheric mixing and cloudiness. However, such a mixing-desiccation mechanism has never been tested with observations. Here we present novel measurements of the convective mass flux, cloud fraction and relative humidity at cloud base from the recent EUREC4A field campaign and find the dynamical control of cloudiness through the mass flux to overwhelm the thermodynamic response to humidity. Because the mesoscale vertical velocity controls the mass flux as much as entrainment does, the mass flux ends up being uncorrelated to relative humidity, which opposes the mixing-desiccation hypothesis. The magnitude, variability, and coupling of mass flux and cloudiness differs drastically between climate models and the EUREC4A observations. Models that have particularly strong trade cumulus feedbacks tend to exaggerate the dependence of cloudiness on humidity rather than the mass flux, and also exaggerate variability in cloudiness. The process-based constraints presented here render those strongly positive trade cumulus feedbacks unrealistic, for the first time supporting and explaining a weak trade cumulus feedback at the relevant process scale.

 
Twenty-first century projections of ice-shelf melt in the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica
Authors: Jourdain Nicolas , Mathiot Pierre , Caillet Justine , Burgard Clara
Published: March 2022

Approximately 10% of the global mean sea level rise over 2005–2010 was attributed to the glaciers flowing into the Amundsen Sea. This was mostly driven by changes in intrusions of Circumpolar Deep Water and subsequent ice shelf melt. Yet, projecting future ice shelf melt remains challenging because of large biases of CMIP models near Antarctica and because resolving the ocean circulation below the relatively small ice shelves in this sector requires a relatively high model resolution. Previously, we built atmospheric projections of the Amundsen sector at 10km resolution constrained by the rcp85 CMIP5 multi-model mean (Donat-Magnin et al. 2021). Here we use this atmospheric forcing to drive an ensemble of three 1/12° NEMO projections of the Amundsen Sea circulation and ice shelf melting. We find that melt rates are typically increased by 50% to 100% at the end of the 21st century compared to present day. Approximately half of this increase is explained by remote ocean changes transmitted through the model boundaries, while increased iceberg discharge does not have a significant effect. We describe the mechanisms at play through the terms of the ocean heat budget equations. We then use these projections to re-discuss some of the ISMIP6 projections (Seroussi et al. 2020, Edwards et al. 2021).
Altitude distribution of large and small-scale equatorial ionospheric irregularities sampled by the Swarm Echo satellite
Authors: Mohandesi Ali , Knudsen David J. , Skone Susan , Langley Richard B. , Yau Andrew W.
Published: March 2022

Variations in ionospheric electron density, so-called irregularities, produce rapid fluctuations on propagating communication and navigation signals, which can be severe near the magnetic equator and in the polar regions. This may result in positioning error. Due to sparse sampling, our knowledge of the vertical distribution of small-scale irregularities is limited. In this study, we examine the vertical distribution of multi-scale scintillation-inducing irregularities in the low-latitude ionosphere. In four sets of novel experiments, we sampled altitudes from 330-1280 km in the 18-24 MLT sector using the Swarm Echo GAP-O GPS receiver with its antenna oriented toward zenith. In order to identify multi-scale irregularities both above and at the satellite’s position, we utilize high-sample-rate GAP-O amplitude and phase measurements along with a measurement of net current onto the surface of the IRM sensor on board, which serves as a proxy for density variations. We find that amplitude scintillations on the GPS signal coincide with strong in-situ small-scale density irregularities in 74% of cases, and above 500 km of altitude in all but one instance. In addition, we show that large-scale ionospheric disturbances occur predominantly below 500 km, and down to the 330 km perigee of Swarm Echo in the 18-21 MLT sector. In contrast, small-scale variations on total electron content (TEC) are detected at all MLTs between 18 MLT and magnetic midnight and at all altitudes sampled in this experiment. However, they are more frequent in the 22-24 MLT range.
Climate extremes in Mediterranean metropolitan cities and atmospheric variability
Authors: Polychroni Iliana , Hatzaki Maria , Nastos Panagiotis T. , Kouroutzoglou John , Flocas Helena A.
Published: March 2022

The Mediterranean region is an area of increasing interest due to its unique climate. Nowadays, climate change has already evident consequences, such as the rise of extreme weather events, which significantly affect peoples’ life in the highly populated urban areas of the Mediterranean. Thus, in this study, ten metropolitan cities from the wider Mediterranean region with different climatic characteristics have been selected to study the frequency and the multidecadal trends of extreme events, as well as their possible connection with the large scale and synoptic scale atmospheric variability.

Four combined extreme indices have been evaluated on annual and seasonal basis for the period 1950-2018 using the high-resolution E-OBS gridded daily mean temperature and precipitation datasets (0.1° x 0.1°; v.19e) from the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D, Klein Tank et al. 2002, www.ecad.eu). These combined extreme indices refer to the joint modes of temperature and precipitation extremes, concerning the co-occurrence of Cold/Dry days (CD), Cold/Wet days (CW), Warm/Dry days (WD), Warm/Wet days (WW), which can reflect extreme conditions better than temperature or precipitation statistics considered separately (Beniston, 2009; 2011). The links of the extreme events with the atmospheric variability are investigated based on large-scale teleconnection indices and spatiotemporal distribution of cyclonic activity. Toward this, the comprehensive climatology of Mediterranean cyclones assembled was used by applying a cyclone tracking algorithm (Murray and Simmonds, 1991; Flocas et al., 2011) with respect to the ECMWF ERA5 Interim mean sea level pressure fields since 1950.

The findings of the analysis showed distinct temporal and spatial variations of the combined extremes occurrences in the cities across the Mediterranean, which can be attributed to the effects of its complex topography, as well as to the non-uniform influence of the atmospheric variability. Specifically, the CD and WD indices have higher annual occurrences than the CW and WW, which indicates that the wider Mediterranean region experiences more dry days, either cold or warm, than wet days. The urban areas most affected by cold/dry events are located on the western Africa, while almost all urban areas around the Mediterranean coast are impacted by higher number of warm/dry events, with increasing trends.

References: Beniston M., 2009, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L07707; Beniston M., and Coauthors, 2011, Int. J. Climatol., 31, 1257-1263; Murray and Simmonds, 1991 Aust Met Mag 39 155 166; Flocas et al., 2010, J Climate, 23(19), 5243-5257
Combining commercial microwave link and rain gauge observations to estimate countrywide precipitation: a stochastic reconstruction and pattern analysis approach
Authors: Blettner Nico , Chwala Christian , Haese Barbara , Hörning Sebastian , Kunstmann Harald
Published: March 2022

Precipitation is characterized by large spatial variability. For hydrological applications it is crucial to estimate precipitation such that spatial correlation lengths and precipitation patterns are represented accurately.

We derive countrywide precipitation estimates using approx. 4000 commercial microwave links (CMLs) obtained from Ericsson and approx. 1000 rain gauges operated by the German Weather Service. CML and gauge observations are regarded as non-linear and linear constraints on the spatial estimate, respectively.

We apply the Random-Mixing-Whittaker-Shannon method in a Python based environment (RMWSPy) to reconstruct ensembles of precipitation fields. With RMWSPy, linear combinations of unconditional random spatial fields are conditioned to the observational data. This involves the exact local representation of rain gauge observations as well as the consideration of the path-averaged precipitation along the CMLs. Additionally, the method ensures that resulting estimates are similar to the data with respect to spatial correlations and marginal distributions. The stochastic process allows for variability at unobserved locations and thereby the calculation of ensembles.

We evaluate the spatial pattern of our results by performance characteristics such as ensemble Structure-, Amplitude-, and Location-error (eSAL). This approach considers precipitation objects as connected areas that exceed a certain precipitation value, and involves the analysis of the objects’ shapes and locations. Thereby, it is possible to quantify aspects of precipitation patterns in a way that is not possible with standard performance metrics which are based on pixel-by-pixel comparisons.

We find that our precipitation estimates are in good agreement with the gauge-adjusted weather radar product RADOLAN-RW of the German Weather Service which we use as a reference. In particular, we see advantages in reproducing the pattern of precipitation objects, in terms of smaller structure- and location-errors, when comparing our ensemble-based Random-Mixing approach to an Ordinary Kriging interpolation.
Detecting hotspots of ecosystem change with remote sensing across the Arctic
Authors: Potter Stefano , Burrell Arden , Butler Kevin , Frye Charlie , Natali Sue , Rogers Brendan , Shestakova Tatiana , Virkkala Anna , Watts Jennier
Published: March 2022

 

The Arctic region is warming faster than elsewhere on Earth, at a rate nearly twice the global average. This warming is expected to negatively impact vegetation, hydrology, terrain thaw, and many other ecosystem properties. Here we identify primary hotspots of landscape changes occurring across the Arctic using multiple observations from reanalysis and satellite remote sensing, spanning visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared (VIS-NIR-TIR) and microwave bands. This suite of VIS-NIR-TIR and microwave-derived products allows for the longer-term monitoring of ecological indicators for climate (e.g., temperature and precipitation), landscape surface frozen status, ecosystem water stress, and vegetation. Specifically, we examined “hotspots” (i.e., Getis-Ord Gi* statistics) and associated rates of change in thermal state, including near-surface air temperature; annual start and length of the surface non-frozen period; soil thaw depth. To identify regional changes in wetness, we examined hotspots of change and trends in precipitation; snow cover; surface water inundation; soil moisture status. For vegetation, we examined VIS-NIR greenness indices; annual start date and length of growing season; history of disturbance (i.e., fires). Lastly, we examined higher (30 m) resolution Landsat and Sentinel 2 imagery and in situ observations to better understand the drivers of change and the potential impacts to local communities and infrastructure. Our hotspot analysis indicated the most severe changes occurring in the Russian Far East, the Northwest Territories of Canada, and portions of Alaska including the North Slope.  Specifically, the Northwest Territories have experienced warming, greening and wetting while the Russian Far East has experienced large temperature increases, an increase in permafrost active layer thickness, and a potential lengthening of the non-frozen season (as indicated by the classification of the ground surface state by microwave remote sensing). The North Slope of Alaska has experienced increasing temperatures, precipitation and a decrease in the number of frozen days per year. Information obtained through this remote sensing analysis, integrated into a geographic information system, can be used to better support decision making for land management and risk assessments across the rapidly warming Arctic-boreal region.

 

 

 

 
Copulas for hydroclimatic analysis: A practice-oriented overview
Authors: Tootoonchi Faranak , Sadegh Mojtaba , Haerter Jan Olaf , Räty Olle , Grabs Thomas , Teutschbein Claudia
Published: March 2022

A warming climate is associated with increasing hydroclimatic extremes, which are often interconnected through complex processes, prompting their concurrence and/or succession, and causing compound extreme events. It is critical to analyze the risks of compound events, given their disproportionately high adverse impacts. To account for the variability in two or more hydroclimatic variables (e.g., temperature and precipitation) and their dependence, a rising number of publications focuses on multivariate analysis, among which the notion of copula-based probability distribution has attracted tremendous interest. Copula is a mathematical function that expresses the joint cumulative probability distribution of multiple variables. Our focus is to re-emphasize the fundamental requirements and limitations of applying copulas. Confusion about these requirements may lead to misconceptions and pitfalls, which can potentially compromise the robustness of risk analyses for environmental processes and natural hazards. We conducted a systematic literature review of copulas, as a prominent tool in the arsenal of multivariate methods used for compound event analysis, and underpinned them with a hydroclimatic case study in Sweden to illustrate a practical approach to copula-based modeling. Here, we (1) provide end-users with a didactic overview of necessary requirements, statistical assumptions and consequential limitations of copulas, (2) synthesize common perceptions and practices, and (3) offer a user-friendly decision support framework to employ copulas, thereby support researchers and practitioners in addressing hydroclimatic hazards, hence demystify what can be an area of confusion. 