bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effects of common inter-row management practices on vineyard soils in four European vineyard regions
Authors: Strauss Peter , Strohmeier Stefan , Toth Marton , Liebhard Gunther Carl
Published: March 2024

Vineyards are often located in areas with poor soil quality and hilly terrain. Conservation agricultural management with the inclusion of cover crops helps to maintain or increase the existing soil fertility in these areas that are difficult to cultivate. However, there are also several reasons in favour of keeping vineyard inter-rows bare, including competition for water and nutrients, restrictions in pest control, and additional costs. As a result, a variety of site-adapted inter-row management systems have been developed in the different wine-growing regions. We investigated the effects of common management practices on soil organic carbon and soil physical parameters in topsoils of Austrian, French, Romanian, and Spanish wine-growing regions. In each region, we analysed management systems with and without cover crops. The comparison between the vineyard regions shows the variety of management intensities across the vineyard regions and their effects on soil quality parameters. Due to the differences in climate, soil, and management systems and, in particular, the mechanical soil disturbance intensity, bare soil, and cover crop management led to a broad range of soil organic carbon stocks, soil structure parameters, and soil hydraulic properties. While cover crop management caused an increase in carbon stocks in most vineyards compared to bare soil management, cover crop management in Spain was not effective in increasing soil organic carbon accumulation. In line with the increase in organic carbon also the measured soil structure parameters improved, yet the extent depended on the type and intensity of soil disturbance. The least clear effects of inter-row management systems were found for soil hydraulic parameters. As the local management strategies are a combination of adaptations to local conditions, farmers' experiences, and historical developments, the findings from the comparison of the systems can be used to rethink local strategies and improve the individual systems. This primarily concerns the type and intensity of cover crop management.
Transforming Coal Pits into Renewable Energy Sources: The Potential of Pumped Hydro Energy Storage in the Bełchatów Lignite Mine
Authors: Ostraszewski Mikołaj , Jurasz Jakub , Kaźmierczak Bartosz
Published: March 2024

The energy transition faces key challenges, including enhancing energy storage potential due to renewable energy sources' intermittency and repurposing abandoned coal mines. An approach that addresses both of these problems comprehensively is the concept of using mine pits and mine spoil heaps as sites for the location of Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES). Poland, as one of European Union's member states and one of the most coal-dependent countries in Europe, is also obliged to fulfil postulates related to the transformation of electricity system. This work focuses on use of the Bełchatów Lignite Mine (KWB-B) for construction of PHES plant. It was assumed that the pits would take over a role of lower reservoir, while heaps could be used as upper reservoirs. This should be accomplished through appropriate earthworks, construction and prior analysis in terms of soil bearing capacity. In our work GIS tools have been used to determine key parameters of the PHES system, which are reservoir volumes, usable head and land slopes. The energy losses associated with required length of a penstock have been determined for each alternative. The Colebrook-White formula has been used to calculate a pressure height losses in the pipelines. In next step, another factor affecting reduction in energy efficiency has been determined, which is a loss of water from the upper reservoir through evaporation. The evaporation model has been created based on Penman-Monteith equation, which combines water evaporation related to aerodynamics and solar radiation. Finally, process of filling the reservoirs has been analysed, which under spontaneous groundwater filling conditions is estimated to take up to 60 years. For this reason, the concept presented in this study assumes additional reservoir recharge from the Warta River, around 29 kilometres away.  According to the results of the analysis done, in the most realistic scenarios, an energy storage potential is between 16.4 and 36.2 GWh per cycle, operating at around 75% efficiency, producing between 9.7 and 13.7 TWh of electricity per year, which is around 45% of the energy produced annually by the nearby Bełchatów lignite-fired power plant. The proposed concept enables 2,5-5,5-fold increase of the closed loop PHES storage capacity in Poland. With plans to phase out this lignite-fired power plant by 2036, development of a hybrid renewable energy source is a promising alternative that could be implemented in this area, especially if the filling of reservoirs would be accelerated through additional supply from nearby rivers.
The Structure and Evolution of Titan’s Daytime Planetary Boundary Layer
Authors: Rafkin Scot , Chin Canche Guillermo , Soto Alejandro
Published: March 2024

The structure and evolution of Titan’s daytime planetary boundary layer (PBL) are investigated through large eddy simulation (LES) modeling.  The PBL is the interface between the surface and the free atmosphere through which energy, mass, and momentum are exchanged via turbulent eddies.  The sounding from the Huygens probe provided the only direct, vertically resolved measurement of the structure of the PBL at a single moment in time. How the observed structures develop and evolve remain uncertain, and the turbulent exchange processes are challenging to constrain from the single profile. LES techniques provide a mechanism for understanding the observed structure and dynamics of the PBL, better constraining turbulent atmosphere-surface exchange, and improving the parameterization of the PBL in larger-scale models.  Results from LES studies forced by diurnally-varying radiation are presented for Titan.  The development of three distinct PBL layers are noted: 1) a near-surface layer dominated by frictional dissipation; 2) a mixed-layer of near neutral stability; and 3) a relatively deep entrainment layer capping the top of the PBL.  The three layers are similar in character to what is often observed in the Earth’s convective PBL. The interpretation of the modeled structures and PBL evolution in the current LES study differs significantly from previous mechanisms inferred from GCM studies and shows important differences from prior work that lacked diurnally-varying radiative forcing.
An efficient hybrid method of uncertainty estimation on defective pipe diagnosis in urban drainage system
Authors: Zhou Chutian , Liu Pan , Luo Xinran , Liu Yang , Xu Huan , Liu Weibo
Published: March 2024

Urban drainage system (UDS) plays an import role in city urbanization. Defective pipes in UDS can lead to unanticipated damages such as blockage or seepage. Previous studies have identified the locations of defects in UDS using inverse optimization models. However, these studies overlook the uncertainty introduced by errors in monitoring and simulation. In addition, the multi-point defect problem is computationally slow for Markov chain Monte Carlo methods due to high dimensional parameters space. To address these issues, the paper employs a hybrid approach on USEPA Stormwater Management Model, leveraging the efficiency of a genetic algorithm (GA) to identify an optimal solution space and the precision of an adaptive Metropolis (AM) algorithm to yield a dependable estimation of the posterior probability distribution (PPD). Firstly, a modified multi-population GA is applied to maximize the exploration of the model space, generating an initial PPD. Then, AM algorithm is used to explore the final PPD of each pipe health status variable.Two UDS cases are used to validate the method. The first case generates 400 sets of randomized multi-point seepage scenarios with monitoring flow sequences. The metrics accuracy and Matthews correlation coefficient are used to evaluate the binary diagnosis performance. The statistical results of metrics suggest that the method is effective in diagnosing the location and seepage extent of defective pipes, including in complex scenarios of multi-point seepage. The effects of seepage location, monitoring error, and data richness on the results are also analysed. In addition, comparison reveals that appropriate GA can maximize the exploration of the model space and attenuate the “genetic drift” effect. The second case considers a UDS with multi-point blockage. The application results suggest that the proposed method offers a comprehensive representation of the PPD on each pipe blockage status. The proposed method is easy to implement and can present uncertainty in the form of probability, which will help to narrow down the scope of defect monitoring and reduce the cost of detection.
Statistics of pan-oceanic extreme near-surface winds
Authors: Stanković Aleksa , Caballero Rodrigo
Published: March 2024

We investigate statistics of extreme 10 m winds over the midlatitude Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Ocean basins, regions associated with the extratropical storm tracks. We compute  statistics of 10 m wind speed using  reanalysis (ERA5) and satellite scatterometer datasets (NOAA NCEI Blended Seawinds), as well as the outputs from CMIP6 climate models. To select the regions with climatologically strong winds, we study the 10 m wind speeds over the oceans only in the regions where the local 98th percentiles exceed 20 ms -1. Annually, the median of 10 m wind speed distribution is the highest in the Southern Ocean, while the extreme winds (starting from 90th percentile) are higher over the oceans in the Northern Hemisphere. The hemispheric differences in the extreme winds are greater and more evident during the respective winter seasons, potentially indicating  differences in the dynamics of extreme winter storms. These findings are consistent over all data products analyzed. Additionally, tails of distributions of winds at 850 hPa in the basins during the winter calculated from reanalysis and observations mirror the patterns observed in 10 m wind distributions, pointing to the influence of large-scale processes in creating stronger extreme winds over the Northern Hemisphere.
Spatio-temporal dimensions of organic carbon-mineral interactions in a source-to-sink system
Authors: Gallarotti Nora , Peucker-Ehrenbrink Bernhard , Johannessen Sophia , Bröder Lisa , Wijker Reto , Voss Britta , Haghipour Negar , Eglinton Timothy
Published: March 2024

Rivers play a key role in the global carbon cycle by transferring organic carbon (OC) from the terrestrial biosphere to marine sediments, which act as an important long-term carbon sink. Associations between biospheric OC and mineral phases can alter OC stability and hydrodynamic properties, thereby influencing its transport and storage patterns within a river basin and dictating the fate of terrestrial biospheric OC discharged to the ocean. While research has mainly investigated the formation of these associations within soils, open questions remain on how these interactions evolve over space and time.The Fraser River Basin in British Columbia, Canada drains regions with distinctive lithological and climatic gradients allowing the simultaneous study of leaf-wax-specific isotopic compositions (δ2H, δ13C) and inorganic geochemical signatures (εNd) of sediments as tracers of the provenance of biospheric OC and detrital mineral phases, respectively. In addition, bulk radiocarbon (D14C) serves as a tool to constrain biospheric OC residence times. Here, to investigate seasonal variations in the geochemical signatures of OC and its mineral host in sediments exported by the Fraser River to the Strait of Georgia using samples from a time-series sediment trap deployed cover the course of a year adjacent to the river mouth.Both εNd and D14C follow a seasonal pattern by which aged OC (-176 to -140‰) is mostly transported during high discharge events such as the freshet in June and heavy rainstorms occurring in the upper basin in fall. During the former event, the geochemical signature (εNd: -9.2 to -7.2) points towards the Coastal Range affecting the detrital mineral composition more strongly, which shifts towards a greater proportion of Rocky Mountains-sourced sediment (εNd: -11.7 to -9.1) during the second high discharge event. Biomarker specific δ2H will further elucidate the extent to which the provenance of biospheric OC coincides with the mineral detrital load. Further, comparison with geochemical signatures of fluvial sediments within the Fraser basin, together with corresponding signatures in river-proximal sediments deposited in the Strait of Georgia allow for OC-mineral interactions to be assessed from a source-to-sink perspective.This coupled investigation of organic and inorganic tracers provides new insights into terrestrial organic carbon export and the role of organo-mineral interactions on riverine organic carbon dynamics. These findings also have important ramifications for the interpretation of sedimentary archives.
Improving the Interpretation of Sun-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence under Stress: Insights from Leaf- and Canopy-Scale Measurements
Authors: Wieneke Sebastian , Pacheco-Labrador Javier , Mahecha Miguel D. , Poblador Sílvia , Vicca Sara , Janssens Ivan A.
Published: March 2024

Sun-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) stands out as a promising remote sensing signal for monitoring photosynthesis over time and space. However, its interpretation becomes intricate under stress conditions due to factors such as light absorption and plant adaptations. To derive the quantum yield of fluorescence (ΦF) at the photosystem from canopy measurements, the escape probability (fesc) must be considered.This study compares ΦF measured at leaf- and canopy-scale to assess the impact of stress responses, using a potato mesocosm heat-drought experiment as a basis. Initially, we evaluated the performance of reflectance-based approaches for estimating red and far-red fesc through simulations with the radiative transfer model SCOPE. Findings revealed that existing fesc models inadequately predicted the correct value range for red fesc especially at canopy level. In this presentation, we will discuss modifications to address this limitation.Subsequently, modified models for red fesc and an existing model for far-red fesc were employed to analyze the dynamics of leaf and canopy red and far-red fluorescence under increasing drought and heat stress. Incorporating fesc led to a closer agreement between simultaneously measured leaf and canopy SIF signals, with improved r2 values for red fesc (0.3 to 0.49) and far-red fesc (0.36 to 0.52). Comparing the quantum yield dynamics of red and far-red fluorescence (ΦF,687 and ΦF,760) under increasing stress revealed a significant decrease in both leaf and canopy ΦF,687, as well as leaf ΦF,760, as drought and heat intensified. Contrarily, Canopy ΦF,760 did not exhibit the same trend, displaying wider spread and lower median under low stress conditions. We performed a sensitivity analysis of ΦF,687 and ΦF,760 to changing leaf-to-sun angle by comparing measurements with and without mesocosm rotation. It revealed a notable increase in the coefficient of variation of ΦF,760, especially under unstressed conditions. Our findings underscore the necessity for further research to unravel the causes of discrepancies in leaf and canopy-scale ΦF,760. Conversely, the underutilized ΦF,687 demonstrates significant potential for evaluating plant responses to drought and heat stress.
Circular economy in extractive industry: challenge and chance to recover fine particles produced in marble quarries exploitation
Authors: Tazzini Antonio , Gambino Francesca , Casale Marco , Dino Giovanna Antonella
Published: March 2024

Stone industry plays a significant role in the global economy. The 2015 production was placed in the order of 82.6 million tons with a percentage of the waste extraction and processing amount to over 70% of the gross quantity. Carbonate stones (such as marble, limestone and travertine) account for 58 % of the whole production of dimension stone, serving as primary materials for construction and ornamental uses since ancient times. Approximately 50% of waste is generated during mining operation and around 15% during processing. The disposal of marble powder, a very fine material produced by the marble industry, is one of today's global environmental problems affecting stone industry. Even if the ultra-fine calcareous particles contained in marble sludge have applications in most major industries, thanks to their chemical and physical characteristics, in most cases these materials are landfilled because of the difficulties in recovering, mainly related to local legislation and lack of appropriate protocols. The need to reduce the use of non-renewable natural resources and, at the same time, to minimize the negative impacts on the environment, has led to an increasing interest in recovery and recycling, in line with the expressed EU policy in the Europe 2020 strategy to reduce Europe's efficiency and in the EU strategy for sustainable development. The Carrara marble basin is one of the most emblematic cases in the Italian stone industry, and it includes about one hundred quarries of colored and white marble, exploited from Roman times. Even if the new technologies have improved efficiency in quarrying and reduced the production of waste, around 50% of the extracted marbles in the Carrara basin still result in waste. Modern cutting technologies generate greater amount of finer materials and sawing residue, varying in size from sand to silt. Due to this very fine particle, it’s easy to see how this characteristic can cause problems with the stability of landfills, with consequent difficulties for their management. The aim of this research is to provide a comparison between different characteristics of marble fine waste in Carrara, both sludges deriving from quarry-cutting and stone processing, to demonstrate the feasibility of their recovery and utilization in different industrial application (i.e., mineral fillers, high value-CaCO3 products, building sector). The results obtained from analysis are promising and could lead to a possible reuse of the materials, in line with the circular economy approach. The reuse of marble waste can bring the double benefit of giving a new value to this by-product and, at the same time, partially eliminate the environmental problem caused by it. The combination of all these insights could lead to sustainable mining of the ornamental stones industry.
Connecting geothermal energy research and policy – an example from Ireland
Authors: Braiden Aoife K. , Blake Sarah , Verbruggen Koen
Published: March 2024

In recent years there is a growing focus, at both national and international levels, on increasing the impact of research and evidence for policy. For example, Ireland’s Civil Service Renewal 2030 Strategy includes 'Evidence-Informed Policy and Services' as one of three strategic themes. However, connecting researchers, research outputs and policy makers is not trivial. The lack of shared languages, timelines and priorities can result in missed opportunities, or worse, poorly informed policy.There have been efforts by research funding agencies to focus research programmes on policy related topics or specify required outputs in funding call terms and conditions. However, this often yields impractical project outputs for policy makers, or results that are not effectively communicated to the relevant users. It can also deter researchers from some funding calls. Since 2015 Geological Survey Ireland has been developing and implementing a geothermal research programme to support the transition to renewable energy.  This has included shaping and funding research projects through national schemes and international co-funding programmes. Importantly, the outputs of these research projects have been used by Geological Survey Ireland to directly support the development of a new national geothermal energy framework, including government policy, developed by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. Ireland’s policy statement for geothermal energy development was published by the Irish Government in July 2023.  This aims to promote the sustainable development of Ireland's geothermal resources in support of Ireland's climate action commitments by setting out;the preferred approach to regulation, and
the scope of a strategy to promote the sustainable development of Ireland's geothermal resources to decarbonise the heating and cooling of buildings and for industrial uses and power generation.
The ongoing development of the regulations, further policy and the wider geothermal energy sector will require continued, bespoke research outputs and collaboration between academia, policy makers and expert national organisations and agencies.  This presentation will provide a case study for the type of collaborative work required to effecively integrate research into national policy. 
Stochastic Simulation of Mass-Conserving Subglacial Topography with Monte Carlo Markov Chain
Authors: Shao Niya , Field Michael , MacKie Emma , McCormack Felicity
Published: March 2024

While subglacial topography serves a crucial role in ice sheet models, it remains generally sparsely sampled across Antarctica. Subglacial topography is primarily measured by airborne ice-penetrating radar with data gaps exceeding 100s of kilometers. Traditional kriging methods used to interpolate the sparse radar data cause spurious effects on ice flow divergence. Numerically solving for mass conservation equations addresses this issue but may smooth out the roughness of topography observed in the covariance structure of radar data. In this study, we propose a novel approach to generate an ensemble of realistically rough and mass-conserving subglacial topography. We utilize the Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm, where in each iteration of the Markov Chain, the topography is perturbed by Sequential Gaussian Simulation to reproduce the covariance structure in the radar data. The perturbed topography is then accepted with a probability constrained by both prior probability based on the radar measurement uncertainty and likelihood indicated by the topography’s deviation from mass conservation law. After the Markov Chain converges to a stable state, an ensemble of topography is sampled from the chain. We tested the method on Denman Glacier and produced posterior distribution of topography constrained by radar measurements and mass conservation. Moreover, the covariance structure of radar data is preserved in every generated topography realization. The method we developed provides a possibility to incorporate realistically rough topography into ice sheet models while avoiding artifacts caused by the violation of mass conservation. Furthermore, multiple subglacial topography realizations allow the propagation of inherent uncertainties in the sparsity of radar measurement to the result of downstream models.
Triangle zones as mechanical gages - results from numerical models and the Alpine Carpathian Belt
Authors: von Hagke Christoph , Bauville Arthur , Chudalla Nils , Brisson Sofia , Wellmann Florian , Tamas Dan , Tamas Alexandra , Krzywiec Piotr , Malz Alexander
Published: March 2024

Fault vergence in fold-and-thrust belts and accretionary prisms is characterized by mainly forward verging thrusts and pop-up structures, and only few examples exist where backthrusting dominates. However, backthrusting and triangle zones are known from most if not all fold-thrust belts in the world. The circumstances under which backthrusts instead of forethrusts form are still incompletely understood. Previous studies suggest that the strength and dip of the basal décollement of Coulomb wedges plays a key role. However, a systematic study of these parameters is still missing. We present numerical models of brittle-ductile wedges, varying dip and strength of the basal décollement systematically. We show that a new parameter, cumulative vorticity, is well-suited to characterize wedges based on dominant fault vergence. We find that backthrust-dominated wedges form in setups of very low basal dip (≤ 0.5°) and a weak décollement. Increasing décollement strength or basal dip results in the formation of pop-up-dominated wedges, before forethrust dominated wedges form. While our models corroborate the idea that décollement strength and basal dip may control thrust vergence, comparison with natural examples indicates this cannot be the only explanation for the formation of backthrusts. We probe into this using a compilation of structures along strike the fold-thrust belt of the entire Alpine-Carpathian Belt. Our results show that indeed triangle zones are associated with weak décollements, while additionally syn-tectonic sedimentation, rheological changes across strike, or structural inheritance may play a role. In some cases, interpretations of backthrusts at depth is challenging due to geometric uncertainty. We show uncertainty modeling of triangle zones using a well-known example from the boundary between Eastern and Central Alps. These uncertainty estimates may be combined with thermochronological data with the goal to distinguish the presence or absence of triangle zones from exhumation estimates. When present, triangle zones and backthrusts may serve as mechanical gages, providing tight constraints on fold-thrust belt mechanics.
Unfolding the Manifold Flavours of Causality
Authors: Perdigão Rui A. P.
Published: March 2024

The present communication provides a contribution to an overarching cross-methodological causality investigation, encompassing a methodological synergy among physical, analytical, information-theoretic and systems intelligence approaches to causal discovery and quantification in complex system dynamics. These efforts methodologically lead to the emergence of a broader causal framework, valid not only in classical recurrence-based dynamical systems, but also on the generalized information physics of non-ergodic coevolutionary spatiotemporal complexity.This study begins with a comprehensive cross-examination of causality metrics derived from these diverse domains, by synthesizing causality insights from information theory, which enables the quantification of information flow among variables; differential geometry, which captures the curvature and structure of causal relationships; dynamical systems, which analyze the temporal evolution of systems and associated kinematic geometric properties; and fundamental physical metrics, which elucidate causal connections in the physical world from fundamental thermodynamic principles. Through this analysis, we aim to deepen our understanding of causality in complex systems, with physical process understanding and geophysical applications in mind.Having laid out some of the key methodological flavours of causality, the present communication introduces new metrics further contributing to a broader non-Shannonian information theoretic causality pool of methods, along with additional advances on quantum thermodymamical, nonlinear statistical mechanical, differential geometric and topologic approaches on causality. Positioning ourselves in a broader nonlinear non-Gaussian non-ergodic setting to tackle far-from-equilibrium structural-functional coevolution and synergistic emergence in complex system dynamics, our derivations further contribute to a new generation of information theoretic, dynamical systems and non-equilibrium thermodynamic causality approaches, along with their synergistic articulation towards a unified framework. This brings out further cross-methodological comparability, portability and complementary insights on dealing with the intricate causality of complex multiscale far-from-equilibrium Earth system dynamic phenomena.By unveiling manifold flavours of causality and their interconnections, this study brings out their commonalities, synergies, and further potential synergistic applications across disciplines. This interdisciplinary approach not only enhances our theoretical understanding of causality but also provides practical implications for applications in fields such as data science, network theory, and complex systems analysis, with direct relevance across the Earth system sciences and beyond.
Eddy-resolving CFD modelling of a river flow at a full-scale, multi-pier bridge over naturally-deformed bathymetry
Authors: Lazzarin Tommaso , Constantinescu George , Viero Daniele
Published: March 2024

Numerical simulations are conducted to evaluate the three-dimensional flow field and the bed shear stress in the vicinity of a multiple-pier bridge located in the Po river (Italy), considering the naturally-deformed bathymetry. The use of Detached Eddy Simulations (DES) allows to explicitly resolve the unsteady motion of the energetically important turbulent eddies, and the Volume of Fluid (VoF) method is used to consider the deformations of the free-surface. Simulations are conducted in different hydrodynamic regimes, including free-surface flow and pressure flow that generates in case of deck overtopping. The objective is to investigate the applicability of the DES approach and the VoF technique for simulating the flow dynamics in a full-scale river reach with irregular geometry and a man-made structure on the riverbed. The complex interplays among the river flow, the deformed bathymetry, and the bridge structure are explicitly accounted for, with a precision that far exceeds the typical level of detail achieved through standard methods used for the simulation of river flows (e.g., two-dimensional depth averaged models).In the case of free-surface flow, the deformed bathymetry, typical of natural rivers, as well as the non-zero angle of attack and the complex shape of the bridge piers, influence the flow field at the bridge site and the distributions of bed shear stresses. This aspect highlights some limitations that arise when canonical cases (i.e., piers of regular shape and angle of attack of 0° over a flat bed) are considered in place of real complex geometries. The impact of the lateral flow contraction on the flow fields and on the potential of sediment erosion is limited in the present case due to the reduced width of the piers and the large distance between them, resulting in a low blocking ratio.Transitioning to the pressure-flow regime increases the free surface elevation upstream of the bridge and induces the formation of a high-velocity orifice flow beneath the deck, with regions of high velocity extending far downstream. Recirculation regions are observed below and downstream of the deck. Compared to an equivalent free-surface case with the same discharge and stage, pressure-flow induces much higher bed shear stresses at the bridge site, entailing an increased erosion potential. In these conditions, the flow acceleration around the piers and the lateral flow contraction have a lower impact on the erosive capacity, as confirmed by a pressure-flow simulation conducted by removing the piers.
Geoelectrical and electromagnetic imaging methods applied to groundwater systems: recent advances and future potentials
Authors: Rulff Paula , Castillo-Reyes Octavio , Koyan Philipp , Martin Tina , Deleersnyder Wouter , Carrizo Mascarell Maria
Published: March 2024

The impacts of climate change, combined with population growth, necessitate practical and effective solutions for locating groundwater resources and ensuring drinking water quality. Our contribution explores recent advances in geoelectrical and electromagnetic imaging methods applied to investigate groundwater systems. Geoelectrical and electromagnetic imaging techniques are popular methods for characterising subsurface properties, such as electrical resistivity or dielectric permittivity. These electrical properties are strongly related to the hydrogeological characteristics of the subsurface. Therefore, geoelectrical and electromagnetic investigations can provide valuable insights into finding groundwater resources, assessing the water quality in terms of contaminations and conducting effective groundwater management.Our study examines state-of-the-art approaches in modelling and instrumentation of induced polarisation and electrical resistivity tomography, as well as time- and frequency-domain electromagnetics and ground-penetrating radar methods. We review recent impactful and innovative groundwater case studies where the above-mentioned methods were applied and further developed. Emphasising the combination of geoelectrical and electromagnetic methods, the studies provide insights into the variation of electrical subsurface properties at different scales, contributing to an improved understanding of the hydrological dynamics in the studied areas. Furthermore, we provide an outlook on the potential for applying geoelectrical and electromagnetic imaging techniques for large-scale groundwater investigations in the exascale computing area.
The large-scale landscapes in SW Scandinavia and in SW India are the result of two episodes of Neogene uplift
Authors: Japsen Peter , Green Paul F. , Bonow Johan M. , Chalmers James A.
Published: March 2024

Peninsula India and Scandinavia are elevated passive continental margins (EPCMs) characterized by asymmetric relief with high mountains in the west and a gentle slope towards lowlands in the east.New AFTA data from southern India reveal major Phanerozoic episodes of cooling, reflecting exhumation. Here we focus on the early Miocene episode possibly related to the hard India-Asia collision (van Hinsbergen et al. 2012). The Miocene exhumation resulted in a low-relief landscape; e.g. the Karnataka and Mysore plateaus (Gunnel and Fleitout, 1998) with residual regions of higher ground (e.g. Palani Hills). Today, these plateaus reach an elevation of 1 km along the coast of SW India, sloping towards the east. The Miocene peneplains were graded towards the base level of the adjacent ocean (Green et al. 2013), and therefore reached their present elevation after their formation. Thick piles of Pliocene sediments off SW India (Campanile et al. 2008) suggests that this happened during the Pliocene.Richards et al. (2016) studied river profiles in Peninsula India and concluded that the regional tilt grew since 25 Ma, maintained by sub-lithospheric processes. However, we find that the relief is the result of two episodes: 1) Miocene peneplanation related to far-field stress. 2) Late Neogene, asymmetric uplift driven by sub-lithospheric processes.We identified a similar development in SW Scandinavia, where two Neogene episodes of uplift and erosion define main features of the relief (Japsen et al. 2018): 1) Early Miocene uplift leading to formation of the Hardangervidda peneplain (possibly related to the hard India-Asia collision). 2) Uplift beginning in the Pliocene, raising Hardangervidda to its present elevation at 1.2 km. Pliocene uplift raised margins around the NE Atlantic with maximum elevations reached close to Iceland. This suggests support from the Iceland Plume due to outward-flowing asthenosphere extending beneath the conjugate margins (Rickers et al. 2013; Japsen et al. 2024). Lithospheric as well as sub-lithospheric processes appear to shape main features of EPCMs.Campanile et al. 2008. Basin Research. Green et al. 2013. GEUS Bull. Gunnell, Fleitout 1998. ESPL. Japsen et al. 2018. JGSL. Japsen et al. 2024. ESR. Richards et al. 2016. G cubed. Rickers et al. 2013. EPSL.
Adapting coastal airports to climate change challenges
Authors: Voskaki Asimina , Budd Thomas , Mason Keith
Published: March 2024

Rising sea levels and changes in the frequency and intensity of storms can have physical, operational and business implications for coastal airports worldwide. Employing appropriate risk reduction measures is essential, and airports demonstrating higher adaptive capacity are generally expected to be better equipped to respond and recover quickly after a disruptive event. While a growing body of research investigates the impact of rising sea levels on coastal infrastructure systems, limited studies discuss how coastal airports can measure their adaptive performance considering the main climate extremes occurring in the coastal zone. This study presents an approach to measure coastal airports' adaptability to hazards such as rising sea levels, extreme precipitation, and storminess. The developed framework uses indicators identified in adaptation and risk assessment literature to reflect prevention, response and institutional actions to reduce climate risk. By examining the key challenges coastal airports face and best-applied practices to respond, this contribution provides insights into the drivers for action, the efficiency of existing practices to address climate challenges and qualities that coastal airports need to demonstrate to strengthen their capacity and shift towards a more informed risk management culture. 
Analysis of extreme high-resolution precipitation based on gauge-corrected satellite observations in mountainous Southern California
Authors: De Biasio Erica , Georgakakos Konstantine
Published: March 2024

Mountainous Southern California experiences both wet and dry extremes in precipitation. During the wet extremes, shallow landslides and flash flooding are common consequences. These hazardous land surface impacts are typically triggered by short periods of extreme and local precipitation, oftentimes embedded within a larger storm. To characterize the hydrometeorological conditions that result in these impactful events, high-resolution precipitation information is required. In the topographically complex areas of Southern California, existing radars have insufficient coverage due to beam blockage and other issues, while sparse sub-daily rain gauge networks are not able to represent the high spatiotemporal precipitation variability. Coincidentally, this variability is often important in determining the locations where shallow landslides or flash floods are triggered. To this end, this work has developed a set of high-resolution quantitative precipitation estimates (QPEs) by blending information from rain gauges and bias corrected satellite precipitation estimates from U.S. operational precipitation products. The final product is a decadal (2014-2023) record of QPEs with high spatial (4km) and temporal (6-hourly) resolution, calibrated for the region and suitable for use in analyses of mountainous extreme precipitation events and associated hydrologic impacts. Validation of this final dataset is presented, including cross-validation to verify the bias correction efficacy. The final dataset is then used to examine the orographic precipitation variability and extremes. Both the climatological and event-scale orographic variability are examined for the Southern California mountainous regions. At the event-scale, emphasis is placed on understanding the variability for the most extreme precipitation events, which have the highest likelihood of resultant land surface impacts. A rigorous statistical analysis of the precipitation extremes is also presented, including an examination of the dominant patterns of extreme precipitation and several indices to characterize the nature of these extremes. Lastly, the influence of upstream atmospheric precursor conditions (namely, atmospheric instability and boundary layer moisture flux) on the distribution of the most significant extreme precipitation events is explored. As the spatial distribution of extreme precipitation events can impact the locations likely to experience hazardous land surface conditions during a particular storm, this has the potential to provide additional information for enhancement of predictability of these impactful events.
Early Paleogene Climate: A Glimpse of Extreme Warming
Authors: Slawson Jacob , Plink-Bjorklund Piret
Published: March 2024

As the world warms, the Earth system moves towards a climate state without societal precedent. This challenges predictions of the future, as climate models need to be tested and calibrated with real-world data from high carbon dioxide climates. Despite the many advances in climate modeling, predictions of precipitation have particularly high uncertainties. Earth history provides an opportunity to observe how the Earth system responded to high greenhouse gas emissions, enabling us to better predict how it may do so in the future. Here, we compile global terrestrial proxy data from the Early Paleogene (66-49 Ma), a period with a warm climate overprinted by multiple rapid global warming events and suggested as a possible analogue for future worst-case scenarios. We show surprising results in the timing and duration of dramatic shifts in the hydrologic cycle occurring well prior to maximum temperatures and persisting well beyond. We provide a glimpse of an extremely warm Earth with ever-wet or monsoonal conditions in the northern and southern polar regions, and sustained aridity interrupted by extreme rainfall events at mid-latitudes. Our results indicate inconsistencies between proxy data and state-of-the-art paleoclimate models that are commonly used to predict and understand future climate change. Our focus on precipitation intermittency and intensity provides new data on long-term precipitation trends in high greenhouse gas climates to help address large uncertainties in future precipitation trends. A high-resolution focus on mid-latitude proxy data produces trends where some locations become drier during the PETM, while others become wetter, indicating dynamically-driven changes that differ from the “wet-gets-wetter, dry-gets-dryer" thermodynamic response on a regional scale.  
Improved northern hemispheric atmospheric blocking properties in two storm-resolving climate models
Authors: Dolores Tesillos Edgar , Martius Olivia
Published: March 2024

Atmospheric blocking and its associated extreme phenomena, such as hot and cold spells represent a risk to society. Current climate models struggle to simulate the atmospheric blocking properties, making it difficult to understand the underlying physical processes and raising uncertainty about their evolution under warming. Today, several climate models attempt to better resolve small-scale processes and have demonstrated their ability to convincingly simulate them; however, few studies have evaluated the impact of these tunings on large-scale flow.Here, we investigate the representation of Atmospheric blocking characteristics in the two new generations of storm-resolving Earth-system models (nextGEMS), consisting of the Icosahedral Nonhydrostatic Weather and Climate Model (ICON) and the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (hereafter only IFS). These models are run at high horizontal resolution, ICON at 5 km (convective parameterization off) and IFS at 4.4 km and 28 km (convective parameterization on). Both models are fully coupled models with eddy-resolving ocean models. The five years of simulations are compared with the reanalysis ERA5 and one CMIP6 model (MPI-ESM1-2-LR). Atmospheric blockings are identified and tracked using a Lagrangian approach based on the geopotential height anomaly at 500 hPa. Properties such as intensity, size, and zonal speed are evaluated.The nextGEMS showed an increased skill in reproducing atmospheric blocking at the system scale. Firstly, the Atmospheric blocking intensity, spatial extension, and zonal speed are closer to the ERA5 than the CMIP6 model. However, the block intensity and size in the IFS model are simulated better than in the ICON model, and its improvement increases at the finest resolution, 4.4 km. This improvement at higher resolution coincides with more precipitation upstream to the block center than at lower resolution during the onset phase. The latter is consistent with recent studies, indicating that increased moist processes contribute to stronger and bigger blocks. Thus, we provide insights into how the large-scale flow can benefit from the storm-resolving climate models by increasing their skill to simulate atmospheric blocking characteristics and the diabatic processes at higher resolution in a fully coupled system. A more comprehensive evaluation of the large-scale flow in the nextGEMS models will be performed with longer runs.
Early Detection of Reinforcement Corrosion in Concrete Structures: A Preliminary Investigation Using Non-Destructive Testing Techniques
Authors: Keihani Reza , Tosti Fabio
Published: March 2024

The deterioration of civil infrastructures such as bridges, roads, and buildings poses substantial economic and safety threats. The timely identification and remediation of defects in concrete structures can mitigate costlier future repairs and prevent catastrophic failures [1], [2].While reinforced concrete is favoured for its strength and affordability, the embedded steel is vulnerable to corrosion induced by environmental exposure and ageing. Current evaluation methods only detect severe corrosion levels, providing insufficient warning for preventative action [3].Within this context, this research focuses on developing non-destructive testing techniques for the early detection of steel reinforcement corrosion. This project investigates the application of emerging technologies - ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and photogrammetry - to enable earlier corrosion identification in concrete specimens.The initial phase of the proposed research was dedicated to establishing testing capabilities and workflows to continuously monitor corrosion progression. Concrete samples with rebar were then subjected to accelerated corrosion in a controlled lab environment. Subsequently, GPR was employed to capture subsurface information related to rebar deterioration, while photogrammetry quantified 3D surface cracks and damage. The investigation data will have the potential to characterise corrosion severity versus concrete and rebar conditions to formulate new corrosion rating guidelines in the future.The outcomes of this preliminary research have the potential to facilitate shifting infrastructure maintenance from reactive to proactive strategies, potentially reducing repair costs and promoting resilience.Keywords: Concrete; Corrosion Detection; Photogrammetry; Ground Penetrating Radar; Infrastructure Maintenance References[1]     S. Ahmad, “Reinforcement corrosion in concrete structures, its monitoring and service life prediction––a review,” Cement and Concrete Composites, vol. 25, no. 4-5, pp. 459-471, 2003. [2]     T. Bachiri, A. Khamlichi and M. Bezzazi, “Detection of rebar corrosion in bridge deck by using GPR,” International Conference on Non-Destructive Evaluation of Composite Structures (NDECS 2017), vol. 191, 2018. [3]     J. E. Ramón-Zamora, J. R. Lliso-Ferrando, A. Martínez-Ibernón and J. M. Gandía-Romero, “Corrosion Assessment in Reinforced Concrete Structures by Means of Embedded Sensors and Multivariate Analysis—Part 1: Laboratory Validation,” Sensors, vol. 23, no. 21, 2023. 