A robust approach for iterative contaminant source location and release history recovery

Contamination source identification is a crucial step in environmental remediation. The exact contaminant source locations and release histories are often unknown due to lack of records and therefore must be identified through inversion. Coupled source location and release history identification is a complex nonlinear optimization problem. Existing strategies for contaminant source identification have important practical limitations. In many studies, analytical solutions for point sources are used; the problem is often formulated and solved via nonlinear optimization; and model uncertainty is seldom considered. In practice, model uncertainty can be significant because of the uncertainty in model structure and parameters, and the error in numerical solutions. An inaccurate model can lead to erroneous inversion of contaminant sources. In this work, a constrained robust least squares (CRLS) estimator is combined with a branch-and-bound global optimization solver for iteratively identifying source release histories and source locations. CRLS is used for source release history recovery and the global optimization solver is used for location search. CRLS is a robust estimator that was developed to incorporate directly a modeler's prior knowledge of model uncertainty and measurement error. The robustness of CRLS is essential for systems that are ill-conditioned. Because of this decoupling, the total solution time can be reduced significantly. Our numerical experiments show that the combination of CRLS with the global optimization solver achieved better performance than the combination of a non-robust estimator, i.e., the nonnegative least squares (NNLS) method, with the same solver.     

稻田不同种类有机肥施用对后季麦田N2O排放的影响

以稻麦轮作系统为对象,研究水稻生长季基肥施用不同有机物料对后季麦田N₂O排放及年轮作系统CH₄和N₂O综合温室效应的影响.结果表明:与施用化肥(化肥处理)相比,施用菜饼加化肥(菜饼处理)对后季麦田N₂O排放量无影响;施用小麦秸秆加化肥(小麦秸秆处理)导致后季麦田的N₂O排放量减少15%;施用牛厩肥加化肥(牛厩肥处理)和猪厩肥加化肥(猪厩肥处理)分别增加29%和16%.就稻麦年轮作生长季总体而言,菜饼、牛厩肥和猪厩肥处理稻麦生长季N₂O排放总量较化肥处理分别增加6%、17%和7%,然而,小麦秸秆处理N₂O排放总量减少16%.20a或500a时间尺度上各处理稻田CH₄排放和该轮作周期水稻和小麦生长季N₂O排放的总GWP值由大到小的顺序分别为:菜饼处理>小麦秸秆处理>牛厩肥处理>猪厩肥处理>化肥处理或菜饼处理>牛厩肥处理>猪厩肥处理>小麦秸秆处理>化肥处理.单位产量的GWP以作物残体处理最高,农家肥其次,化肥处理最低.因此,稻田基施不同种类有机物料都相应地增加稻麦轮作系统CH₄和N₂O排放的综合温室效应.     

热污染及其防治

对热污染状况进行了介绍.概括了热污染的危害,包括危害人体健康、影响全球气候变化、污染大气、污染水体、加快水分蒸发、增加能量消耗等.分析了热污染的原因,自然气候的异常变化和人为因素是热污染产生的两大原因.最后提出了几点防治热污染的措施.     

Cumulative carbon emissions and economic policy: In search of general principles

We exploit recent advances in climate science to develop a physically consistent, yet surprisingly simple, model of climate policy. It seems that key economic models have greatly overestimated the delay between carbon emissions and warming, and ignored the saturation of carbon sinks that takes place when the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rises. This has important implications for climate policy. If carbon emissions are abated, damages are avoided almost immediately. Therefore it is optimal to reduce emissions significantly in the near term and bring about a slow transition to optimal peak warming, even if optimal steady-state/peak warming is high. The optimal carbon price should start relatively high and grow relatively fast.     

Quantifying progress toward a conservation assessment for all plants

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) set an ambitious target to achieve a conservation assessment for all known plant species by 2020. We consolidated digitally available plant conservation assessments and reconciled their scientific names and assessment status to predefined standards to provide a quantitative measure of progress toward this target. The 241,919 plant conservation assessments generated represent 111,824 accepted land plant species (vascular plants and bryophytes, not algae). At least 73,081 and up to 90,321 species have been assessed at the global scale, representing 21–26% of known plant species. Of these plant species, at least 27,148 and up to 32,542 are threatened. Eighty plant families, including some of the largest, such as Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, and Rubiaceae, are underassessed and should be the focus of assessment effort if the GSPC target is to be met by 2020. Our data set is accessible online (ThreatSearch) and is a baseline that can be used to directly support other GSPC targets and plant conservation action. Although around one‐quarter of a million plant assessments have been compiled, the majority of plants are still unassessed. The challenge now is to build on this progress and redouble efforts to document conservation status of unassessed plants to better inform conservation decisions and conserve the most threatened species.     

Use of Airborne Thermal Imagery to Detect and Monitor Inshore Oil Spill Residues During Darkness Hours

/ Trials were conducted using an airborne video system operating in the visible, near-infrared, and thermal wavelengths to detect two known oil spill releases during darkness at a distance of 10 nautical miles from the shore in St. Vincent's Gulf, South Australia. The oil spills consisted of two 20-liter samples released at 2-h intervals, one sample consisted of paraffinic neutral material and the other of automotive diesel oil. A tracking buoy was sent overboard in conjunction with the release of sample 1, and its movement monitored by satellite relay. Both oil residues were overflown by a light aircraft equipped with thermal, visible, and infrared imagers at a period of approximately 1 h after the release of the second oil residue. Trajectories of the oil residue releases were also modeled and the results compared to those obtained by the airborne video and the tracking buoy. Airborne imagery in the thermal wavelengths successfully located and mapped both oil residue samples during nighttime conditions. Results from the trial suggest that the most advantageous technique would be the combined use of the tracking beacon to obtain an approximate location of the oil spill and the airborne imagery to ascertain its extent and characteristics.KEY WORDS: Airborne video; Thermal imagery; Global positioning; Oil-spill monitoring; Tracking beacon     

全球变化对跨境淡水资源利用和管理的影响

跨境淡水资源的合理利用和协调管理,已成为当今国际区域经济发展、跨境资源和市场共享、世界生态维护的合作主题,成为下世纪制约区域可持续发展和避免地区冲突的一个关键因素,受到国际社会广泛关注。从边界变化、国际区域合作和经济一体化、气候变化、人口增长、可持续发展等全球趋势对此主题的影响进行了探讨。     

Accounting for time in Mitigating Global Warming through land-use change and forestry

Many proposed activities formitigating global warming in the land-use change and forestry(LUCF) sector differ from measures to avoid fossilfuel emissions because carbon (C) may be held out ofthe atmosphere only temporarily. In addition, thetiming of the effects is usually different. Many LUCFactivities alter C fluxes to and from the atmosphereseveral decades into the future, whereas fossil fuelemissions avoidance has immediate effects. Non-CO₂ greenhouse gases (GHGs), which are animportant part of emissions from deforestation inlow-latitude regions, also pose complications forcomparisons between fossil fuel and LUCF, since themechanism generally used to compare these gases(global warming potentials) assumes simultaneousemissions. A common numeraire is needed to expressglobal warming mitigation benefits of different kindsof projects, such as fossil fuel emissions reduction,C sequestration in forest plantations, avoideddeforestation by creating protected areas and throughpolicy changes to slow rates of land-use changes suchas clearing. Megagram (Mg)-year (also known as`ton-year') accounting provides a mechanism forexpressing the benefits of activities such as these ona consistent basis. One can calculate the atmosphericload of each GHG that will be present in each year,expressed as C in the form of CO₂ and itsinstantaneous impact equivalent contributed by othergases. The atmospheric load of CO₂-equivalent Cpresent over a time horizon is a possible indicator ofthe climatic impact of the emission that placed thisload in the atmosphere. Conversely, this index alsoprovides a measure of the benefit of notproducing the emission. One accounting methodcompares sequestered CO₂ in trees with theCO₂ that would be in the atmosphere had thesequestration project not been undertaken, whileanother method (used in this paper) compares theatmospheric load of C (or equivalent in non-CO₂GHGs) in both project and no-project scenarios.Time preference, expressed by means of a discount rateon C, can be applied to Mg-year equivalencecalculations to allow societal decisions regarding thevalue of time to be integrated into the system forcalculating global warming impacts and benefits. Giving a high value to time, either by raising thediscount rate or by shortening the time horizon,increases the value attributed to temporarysequestration (such as many forest plantationprojects). A high value for time also favorsmitigation measures that have rapid effects (such asslowing deforestation rates) as compared to measuresthat only affect emissions years in the future (suchas creating protected areas in countries with largeareas of remaining forest). Decisions on temporalissues will guide mitigation efforts towards optionsthat may or may not be desirable on the basis ofsocial and environmental effects in spheres other thanglobal warming. How sustainable development criteriaare incorporated into the approval and creditingsystems for activities under the Kyoto Protocol willdetermine the overall environmental and social impactsof pending decisions on temporal issues.     

1951~2014年中国北方地区气温突变与变暖停滞的时空变异性

基于1951~2014年中国北方及周边地区357个气象站点平均最低气温、平均气温和平均最高气温年（月）数据,采用M~K检验等方法,分析了中国北方地区3类气温突变和变暖停滞特征的时空变异性.结果表明：研究区3类气温整体突变年（1978~1999年、1981~2002年、1981~2005年）、分布广泛的普遍突变年（1988年、1989年、1997年）及范围（3a）均依次变晚.整体上,突变年随纬度降低变晚,东北突变早于西北和华北地区.变暖停滞集中于1998和2007年及其前后,3类气温亦依次变晚（1994~2007年、1995~2009年、1998~2010年）,由黄河流域中段向其他方向越来越晚.突变至变暖停滞周期整体随纬度降低缩短（3~30a）,突变越早周期越长.西北地区突变与变暖停滞前后各时段均值温差最大（2.4℃）,温差在1℃左右站点分布最广泛.各时段升（降）温速率整体依次在0.01℃/10a、0.05℃/10a、-0.03℃/10a左右站点分布最广泛,突变后升温最快（0.02~0.16℃/10a）,且西北地区对升温贡献最大,变暖停滞后东北地区对降温贡献最大,2时段按平均最低气温、平均最高气温、平均气温顺序升（降）温速率递减.3类气温波动程度减弱,整体随纬度降低.高纬度、高海拔和山地地区突变和变暖停滞较周边地区偏早或偏晚,特征值较大.整个北方地区3类气温突变、变暖停滞、突变与变暖停滞时间及各时段特征值各自具有自身一致性的普遍规律.     

模拟升温对冰川前缘地微生物种群的影响

由于全球变暖影响,冰川处于不断退缩状态.本研究以天山乌鲁木齐河源1号冰川前缘地3个不同退缩年代的土样为研究对象,设置2个温度处理,分别为5℃与15℃,通过150d室内培养实验,探讨升温对冰川前缘地微生物种群的影响.结果表明,在原始样品中,随土壤样品退缩年代的增加,土壤总碳氮含量增加,微生物的数量及α多样性增加. 150d培养实验结果表明:细菌、古菌拷贝数随升温发生变化,但改变未达显著水平.此外,升温改变微生物群落结构,且对不同样点微生物群落结构影响不同.通过对升温后变化显著的优势OTUs进行分析,退缩年代较短的样点对升温响应更为明显,主要表现为Thiobacillus属相对丰度的升高.结果表明,冰川前缘地微生物对变暖响应的土壤异质性,其结果可为高山冰川地区升温下微生物的特征变化提供参考信息.