西南地区近14a植被覆盖变化及其与气候因子的关系

基于1999~2012年NDVI数据,结合气温和降水资料,运用GIS和RS技术,分析了西南地区近14a植被覆盖的时空变化特征及与气温、降水的关系。结果表明:(1)该区植被生长良好,各植被类型NDVI均呈显著增加趋势。空间整体表现为改善状态,改善面积远大于退化面积,严重退化区仅占1.18%。退化区分布于横断山地北部、四川盆地东部以及云贵高原中部。(2)植被覆盖变化将以良性发展为主,但强持续性的退化区和弱持续性的改善区应值得关注;强持续性的退化区主要分布在横断山地中北部、云贵高原中西部、若尔盖高原中部、四川盆地与若尔盖高原相交区域;草原强持续性的退化面积最大,针阔混交林强持续性的改善面积最大。(3)NDVI与温度存在明显的正相关关系,而与降水及干旱指数变化的关系不太明显,温度是影响该区植被变化的主要自然因素。     

基于变更平衡表的土地利用演化信息提取与预测方法研究——以苏州市为例

变更平衡表为国土资源管理部门历年实地调查、汇总所得,精度高,目前的研究中对其深入的应用较少,基于变更平衡表的应用方法研究可为区域土地利用演变信息提取与预测提供帮助。推导了由连续年份的年度变更平衡表求多年周期的平衡表的方法,提出了基于土地利用综合动态度分析土地利用有序程度的思路,探讨了利用连续年份的变更平衡表预测任意年份土地利用结构的方法,并基于传统方法进行了改进,提出了利用矩阵开方法求预测概率矩阵。应用苏州市一定时期的连续年份的年度变更平衡表对上述方法进行了验证,结果表明:提出的信息提取方法有效,预测结果可信;在分析期内(1998~2008年),苏州市耕地大量减少的去向是各类建设用地增加的来源,区域土地利用有序程度较高;预测显示至2020年土地利用结构变化仍将维持农用地、耕地不断减少和建设用地总量不断增加的趋势,但转化的速率将有所放缓;对变更平衡表的深入应用有一定的借鉴意义。     

安徽省土地利用变化下的生态敏感性时空规律

土地利用变化过程中生态敏感性的研究有利于土地利用的科学管理和健康长效的城市化发展。选择安徽省为研究区域,通过分析土地利用变化对生态系统的敏感性的影响机制,构建出基于弹性概念的生态敏感性指数模型,并利用2002~2011年安徽省的土地利用变更数据,对其10年的生态敏感性的时空变化规律进行研究。结果表明:(1)2002~2011年,安徽省土地利用综合强度由2.26增加到2.49,生态服务价值由2.84×10¹²元减少到2.75×10¹²元,两者呈现出很强的负相关,且安徽省17个地级市的土地利用综合强度与生态服务价值也均呈现负相关关系;(2)安徽省土地利用变化下的生态敏感性指数由2003年的2.26上升到2011年的2.49,在研究期内均属于低敏感性,表明安徽省整个生态系统受其土地利用变化的影响程度不是很强烈,能够适应目前城市化发展的速度和强度;(3)安徽省由2003年的16个生态系统低敏感或不敏感市(占全省总面积的92.97%)减少到2011年的12个低敏感市(占全省总面积的67.06%),表明人类活动对生态系统已经造成了一定的影响。     

卫星遥感洞庭湖主汛期水体时空变化特征及影响因子分析

基于1989~2011年的长时间序列卫星遥感数据,利用综合水体信息提取方法提取了洞庭湖区6~9月主汛期的水体信息,通过较高分辨率卫星遥感数据验证,水体面积提取精度达到90%以上。洞庭湖年平均径流入湖量、NCEP再分析资料计算的湖体上空和流域累计月平均降水量分别与水体面积变化的关系进行分析,结果表明: 1989~2011年间洞庭湖水体面积最大值主要分布在7和8月,这两个月也是洞庭湖区域发生洪涝灾情的高风险期;洞庭湖水体面积与年平均径流入湖水量的相关系数为0.67(置信度为95%);2003年以前,洞庭湖主汛期间水体面积波动比较大,2003年三峡水库运行后,洞庭湖的面积波动有所减少;洞庭湖上空累计月平均降水量对于水体面积存在正相关性,相关系数为0.68(置信度为99%);2003年以前,洞庭湖流域累计月平均降水量和水体面积相关系数为0.50(置信度为90%),2003年三峡水库运行后,两者相关性有所减弱。     

An in-depth view of climate change:addressing climate change while making a transition on the development mode

While fossil fuels greatly contribute to human society,they pose great challenges to natural resources,the environment,and climate change.Developed countries,like the United States,formulated strategic measures to ensure their sustainable development and leading positions in the world.These measures include new green policies,development of shale gas,revitalization of nuclear power,energy independence,reindustrialization,and new low-carbon development based on a combination of Internet technology and renewable energy.Developing countries are also trying to introduce balanced strategies of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.Globally,industrial civilization is being transformed to ecological civilization and green,low-carbon development is a global trend.Addressing climate change provides new strategic factors to further this development.China should take substantial actions to realize sustainable development in a new road:China is in the critical stage of changing its development mode,so it is vital to choose an appropriate development path.This extensive development comes at the high price of consuming too much resources and scarring the environment.Mitigation and adaptation strategies for addressing climate change can help the transition of development.Based on the analysis of the development data of developed countries,the author introduces the concept of"two-type developed countries"with an understanding that not all developed countries must take the same development mode.He also holds the view that China should achieve modernization in a more energy-saving and more carbon-efficient manner compared with that of two-type developed countries.An analysis of"two competitions"that China is facing shows that changing the developing mode is urgent and China should grasp this opportunity in the next five to ten years,which is a key period for this transition.This paper discusses the low-carbon development goals and the three-step process.Low-carbon development does not necessarily restrict economic development.It,however,can expedite the transition of the development mode and this is a low-carbon and green development path.Transition of the development mode includes implementation of China’s green and low-carbon energy strategies,low-carbon society construction,development of agriculture and forestry,garbage sorting and utilization,innovation of urbanization,etc.Improvement of national infrastructure construction includes water safety,environment and climate monitoring system,intelligent energy web,basic database,etc.Addressing climate change can significantly improve the nation’s basic research level.In summary,it mitigates backward production capability,extensive development,and environmental damage while promoting technological advancement,scientific development,and ecological civilization.     

Structure and Content of the Discourse on Climate Change in the Blogosphere: The Big Picture

Based on the texts of 1.3 million blog posts and the structure of the links between the blogs in which these posts appeared, this study presents an analysis of the discourse on climate change in the English-language blogosphere. Our approach combines community detection with probabilistic topic modeling to show how topics related to climate change are discussed across various parts of the blogosphere. We find that there is one community of predominantly climate skeptical blogs but several accepter communities. The topic analysis reveals a series of issues that are characteristic of the climate change discourse in the blogosphere. Two topics, one related to climate change science and one related to climate change politics, are particularly important for characterizing the discourse. We also find that the distribution of topics over the communities cuts across the divide between skeptics and non-skeptics (accepters) and that there are differences in the patterns of interactions between the skeptics and different groups of accepters.     

SMART-SREC: A stochastic model of the New Jersey solar renewable energy certificate market

Markets for solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) are gaining in prominence in many states, stimulating growth of the US solar industry. However, SREC market prices have been extremely volatile, causing high risk to participants and potentially less investment in solar power generation. Such concerns necessitate the development of realistic, flexible and tractable models of SREC prices that capture the behavior of participants given the rules that govern the market. We propose an original stochastic model called SMART-SREC to fill this role, building on established ideas from the carbon pricing literature, and including a feedback mechanism for generation response to prices. We calibrate the model to the New Jersey market and backtest it, analyzing parameter sensitivity and demonstrating its ability to reproduce historical dynamics. Finally, we run simulations to investigate the role and impact of regulatory parameters, thus providing insight into the crucial role played by market design.     

Models-as-usual for unusual risks? On the value of catastrophic climate change

We study the role of intertemporal preference representations in a model of economic growth, stock pollutant and endogenous risk of catastrophic collapse. We contrast two polar instances of risk-sensitive preferences: the traditional “discounted utility” model, which imposes a positive rate of pure time preference and risk neutrality with respect to intertemporal utility, and multiplicatively separable preferences, which display risk aversion in that dimension but no pure time preferences. We show that both representations of preferences can rationalize the same economy when there is no collapse risk associated with pollution. Once we introduce a collapse risk whose hazard rate depends on the pollution stock, multiplicatively separable preferences are associated with a much higher value of catastrophic risk reduction, and a more stringent policy response. A relatively high discount rate may thus be compatible with large emissions abatement in the face of a low probability large impact event, reflecting preferences for catastrophic risk reduction.     

Strength and tightness evaluation method for pipe flange connections considering thermal effects

The pipe flange connection is widely applied in chemical, power plants, petrochemical, offshore oil and gas industries, and its strength and tightness are significant for the safe operation. However, there are still no practical and applicable strength and tightness evaluation methods for pipe flange connections working in dramatically varying temperatures. This paper proposed an approach to evaluate the pipeline's strength and sealing performance considering thermal effects in actual operating conditions by combining the experimental measurement and thermostructural analysis. The critical thermodynamic parameters are identified through measured temperature data in operating conditions, and then these parameters are used in the thermostructural analysis to obtain the actual temperature and stress fields. Then, the strength and tightness in complex temperature cases can be evaluated accurately. The pipe flange connection of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueling station is analyzed to verify the presented method's effectiveness. This method applies to evaluating the pipeline's strength and tightness and can predict the pipeline's performances under extreme temperatures using the tested data within the measurement range and the corresponding thermostructural analysis. Furthermore, the work in this paper also provides a reference for the design and analysis of pipe flange connections working in complex temperature conditions.     

Influence of sewage culvert cover plate thickness on dynamic response and damage of the cover plate under gas explosion

In order to address the risk of combustible gas explosions in sewage culverts, a numerical model was established using ANSYS/LS-DYNA software. The model consisted of a culvert and a cover plate, and was used to study the effect of cover plate thickness (ranging from 0.08 m to 0.12 m) on the dynamic response and damage of the structure under explosive loads. The results indicated that, during the loading negative pressure stage, the equivalent stress peak value of the central monitoring unit of the cover plate first increased and then decreased with increasing cover plate thickness. Additionally, the maximum principal stress peak value first decreased and then increased, while the maximum shear stress peak value first increased and then decreased. During the loading positive pressure stage, the maximum principal strain peak value of the monitoring unit decreased overall with increasing cover plate thickness. However, the equivalent plastic strain peak value initially increased and then decreased gradually. The equivalent strain indicated that plastic damage occurred in the cover plate. Beyond a thickness of 0.11 m, increasing the cover thickness did not appear to enhance its resistance to plastic damage. The damage analysis revealed that as cover plate thickness increased, the peak displacement and velocity of the monitoring unit continued to decrease, while the overall stability and explosive resistance of the cover plate increased. Additionally, the number of damaged fragments decreased. However, once the cover plate thickness reached 0.11 m, the bonding performance of the reinforced concrete structure had been fully developed, increasing the thickness of the cover plate no longer had a significant impact on the explosive resistance of the cover plate.