Biogenic silica in intertidal marsh plants and associated sediments of the Yangtze Estuary

Biogenic silica （BSi） contents in the marsh plants （Phragmites australis, Scirpus mariqueter and Spartina alterniflora） and associated sediments in Chongming Island eastern intertidal flat of the Yangtze Estuary were determined. The BSi contents in P. australis, S. mariqueter and S. alterniflora varied from 25.78–42.74 mg/g, 5.71–19.53 mg/g and 6.71–8.92 mg/g, respectively. Over the entire growth season, P. australis and S. mariqueter were characterized by linear accumulation patterns of BSi. The aboveground biomass （leaves and culms） of the marsh plants generally contained more BSi than underground biomass （roots）. BSi contents were relatively higher in dead plant tissues than in live tissues which was probably due to the decomposition and the leaching of labile components of plant tissues such as organic carbon and nitrogen. Comparing with the habitats of S. mariqueter and S. alterniflora, the highest BSi content was recorded in sediments inhabited by P. australis, with an annual average of 15.69 mg/g. Overall, the intertidal marshes in the Yangtze Estuary may act as a net sink of BSi via plant uptake and sedimentary burial.

Distribution and accumulation of biogenic silica in the intertidal sediments of the Yangtze Estuary

Sedimentary biogenic silica is known to be an important parameter to understand biogeochemical processes and paleoenviromental records in estuarine and coastal ecosystems. Consequently, it is of great significance to investigate accumulation and distribution of biogenic silica in sediments. The two-step mild acid-mild alkaline extraction procedure was used to leach biogenic silica and its early diagenetic products in intertidal sediments of the Yangtze Estuary. The results showed that total biogenic silica （t-BSi） in the intertidal sediments varied from 237.7-419.4 μmol Si/g, while the mild acid leachable silica （Si-HCl） and the mild alkaline leachable silica （Si- Alk） were in the range of 25.1-72.9 μmol Si/g and 208.1-350.4 μmol Si/g, respectively. Significant correlations were observed for the grain size distributions of sediments and different biogenic silica pools in intertidal sediments. This confirms that grain size distribution can significantly affect biogenic silica contents in sediments. Close relationships of biogenic silica with organic carbon and nitrogen were also found, reflecting that there is a strong coupling between biogenic silica and organic matter biogeochemical cycles in the intertidal system of the Yangtze Estuary. Additionally, the early diagenetic changes of biogenic silica in sediments are discussed in the present study.

IMPACT OF URBANIZATION ON STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF RIVER SYSTEM—Case Study of Shanghai,China

Urbanization can affect the physical process of river growth, modify stream structure and further influence the functions of river system. Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world, which is located in Changjiang (Yangtze) River Delta in China. Since the 1970s, the whole river system in Shanghai has been planned and managed by the Shanghai Water Authority. The primary management objectives in the last 30 years have been to enhance irrigation and flood-control. By using Horton-Strahler classification and Horton laws as a reference, a novel method of stream classification, in conjunction with the traditional and specially designed indicators, was applied to understanding the structure and functions of the river system in Shanghai. Correlation analysis was used to identify the interrelations among indicators. It was found that the impact of urbanization on the river system was significant although natural laws and physical characteristics marked a super-developed river system. There was an obvious correlation between the degree of urbanization and the abnormal values of some indicators. Urbanization impacts on river system such as branches engineered out, riverbank concreting and low diversity of river style were widely observed. Each indicator had distinct sensibility to urbanization so they could be used to describe different characteristics of urban river system. The function indicators were significantly related to structure indicators. Stream structure, described by fractal dimension and complexity of river system, was as important as water area ratio for maintaining river’s multi-function.

Shear-Flow Induced Secondary Circulation in Parallel Underwater Topographic Corrugation and Its Application to Satellite Image Interpretation

This study aims to figure out satellite imaging mechanisms for submerged sand ridges in the shallow water region in the case of the flow parallel to the topography corrugation.Solving the disturbance governing equations of the shear-flow yields the analytical solutions of the secondary circulation.The solutions indicate that a flow with a parabolic horizontal velocity shear and a sinusoidal vertical velocity shear will induce a pair of vortexes with opposite signs distributed symmetrically on the two sides of central line of a rectangular canal.In the case of the presence of surface Ekman layer with the direction of Ekman current opposite to(coincident with) the mean flow,the two vortexes converge(diverge) at the central line of canal in the upper layer and form a surface current convergent(divergent) zone along the central line of the canal.In the case of the absence of surface Ekman layer,there is no convergent(divergent) zone formed over the sea surface.The theoretical results are applied to interpretations of three convergent cases,one divergent case and statistics of 27 cases of satellite observations in the submerged sand ridge region of the Liaodong Shoal in the Bohai Sea.We found that the long,finger-like,bright patterns on SAR images are corresponding to the locations of the canals(or tidal channels) formed by two adjacent sand ridges rather than the sand ridges themselves.

CIECIA:A new climate change integrated assessment model and its assessments of global carbon abatement schemes

From the perspective of global economic general equilibrium, this study developed a new climate change IAM named CIECIA. The economic core of this IAM is a multi-country-sector general equilibrium model. The endogenous technology progress mode is introduced into CIECIA. Based on this model, three assessment principles of the global cooperating abatement scheme are proposed, including effectiveness, feasibility, and fairness. This study simulated and analyzed six types of primary global cooperating abatement schemes. The simulated results indicate that all of the selected schemes can satisfy the climate mitigation targets by 2100. Thus, they are all effective schemes. However, the schemes have quite different feasibilities and fairness. The Stern Scheme benefits the developed countries, but is unfair to the developing countries. The Nordhaus Scheme promotes the developments of the developing countries. However, it leads to negative impacts on the interests of the developed countries. The principle of convergence on accumulated carbon emissions per capita and the principle of convergence on carbon emissions per capita benefit the economic developments of the middle and low developing countries most. However, these two types of schemes cause tremendous losses to the main economic entities in the world including China. The Pareto Improvement Scheme, which was developed from the Global Economic Growth Scheme, balances the fairness and feasibility in the carbon abatement process and realizes the Pareto improvement of accumulated utilities in all the participating countries. Thus, the Pareto Improvement Scheme is the most reasonable global cooperating carbon abatement scheme.

Carbon emissions trends with optimal balanced economic growth of China and the USA and some abatement options for China

It is believed that the global CO2 emissions have to begin dropping in the near fu- ture to limit the temperature increase within 2 degrees by 2100. So it is of great concern to environmentalists and national decision-makers to know how the global or national CO2 emissions would trend. This paper presented an approach to project the future CO2 emissions from the perspective of optimal economic growth, and applied this model to the cases of China and the United States, whose CO2 emissions together contributed to more than 40% of the global emissions. The projection results under the balanced and optimal economic growth path reveal that the CO2 emissions will peak in 2029 for China and 2024 for the USA owing to their empirically implied pace of energy efficiency improvement. Moreover, some abatement options are analyzed for China, which indicate that 1） putting up the energy price will de- crease the emissions at a high cost; 2） enhancing the decline rate of energy intensity can significantly mitigate the emissions with a modest cost; and 3） the energy substitution policy of replacing carbon intensive energies with clean ones has considerable potential to alleviate emissions without compromising the economic development.

The improvement of cross-calibration of IIM data and band selection for FeO inversion

Chang’E-1(CE-1)Interference Imaging Spectrometer(IIM)dataset suffers from the weak response in the near infrared(NIR)bands,which are the important wavelength for retrieving the minerals and elements of the Moon.In this paper,the cross-calibration was implemented to the IIM hyperspectral data for improving the weak response in NIR bands.The results show that the cross-calibrated IIM spectra were consistent to the Earth-based telescopic spectra,which suggests that the cross-calibration yields acceptable results.For further validating the influence of the cross-calibration on the FeO inversion and searching the optimal bands to retrieve lunar FeO contents,four band selection schemes were designed to retrieve FeO using the original and cross-calibrated IIM spectra.By comparing the distribution patterns and histograms of the IIM derived FeO contents with the Clementine derived FeO,the IIM 891 nm band after cross-calibration showed a higher accuracy in the FeO inversion,hence most useful for lunar FeO inversion.

Simulation of Effects of Grassland Degradation on Regional Climate over Sanjiangyuan Region in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Regional climate model （RegCM3） was applied to explore the possible effects of land use changes （e.g., grassland degradation in this study） on local and regional climate over the Sanjiangyuan region in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Two multiyear （1991-1999） numerical simulation experiments were conducted： one was a control experiment with current land use and the other was a desertification experiment with potential grassland degradation. Preliminary analysis indicated that RegCM3 is appropriate for simulating land- climate interactions, as the patterns of the simulated surface air temperature, the summer precipitation, and the geopotential height fields are consistent with the observed values. The desertification over the Sanjiangyuan region will cause different climate effects in different regions depending on the surrounding environment and climate characteristics. The area with obvious change in surface air temperature inducing by grassland degradation over the Sanjiangyuan region is located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A winter surface air temperature drop and the other seasons＇ surface air temperature increase will be observed over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau based on two numerical simulation experiments. Surface air temperature changes in spring are the largest （0.46℃）, and in winter are the smallest （smaller than 0.03℃）, indicating an increasing mean annual surface air temperature over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Surface air temperature changes will be smaller and more complex over the surrounding region, with minor winter changes for the regions just outside the plateau and notable summer changes over the north of the Yangtze River. The reinforced summer heat source in the plateau will lead to an intensification of heat low, causing the West Pacific subtropical high to retreat eastward. This will be followed by a decrease of precipitation in summer. The plateau＇s climate tends to become warm and dry due to the grassland degradation over the Sanjiangyuan region.

A pyramid-based approach to visual exploration of a large volume of vehicle trajectory data

Advances in positioning and wireless commu- nicating technologies make it possible to collect large volumes of trajectory data of moving vehicles in a fast and convenient fashion. These data can be applied to traffic studies. Behind this application, a methodological issue that still requires particular attention is the way these data should be spatially visualized. Trajectory data physically consists of a large number of positioning points. With the dramatic increase of data volume, it becomes a challenge to display and explore these data. Existing commercial software often employs vector-based indexing structures to facilitate the display of a large volume of points, but their performance downgrades quickly when the number of points is very large, for example, tens of millions. In this paper, a pyramid-based approach is proposed. A pyramid method initially is invented to facilitate the display of raster images through the tradeoff between storage space and display time. A pyramid is a set of images at different levels with different resolutions. In this paper, we convert vector-based point data into raster data, and build a grid- based indexing structure in a 2D plane. Then, an image pyramid is built. Moreover, at the same level of a pyramid, image is segmented into mosaics with respect to the requirements of data storage and management. Algorithms or procedures on grid-based indexing structure, image pyramid, image segmentation, and visualization operations are given in this paper. A case study with taxi trajectory data in Shanghai is conducted. Results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the existing commercial software.

A NOVEL METHOD FOR PLANNING A STAGED EVACUATION

This paper presents an innovative method to facilitate making such a plan. Using an algorithm to schedule the starting time of each evacuation group, the method guarantees that the time of completing a large-scale evacuation is very close to its theoretically shortest evacuation time. Meanwhile, unlike a simultaneous evacuation, during a staged evacuation planned with the proposed method, all evacuees can take the shortest path to a safe exit. Once evacuees start off, they will not suffer any traffic congestion. The above advantages of this innovative method are achieved by using an algorithm with three nested loops. Experiments have been conducted, and their results have validated the proposed method.

MRICES: A new model for emission mitigation strategy assessment and its application

Many global emission reduction strategies have been proposed, but few have been assessed quantitatively from the view of equality, efficiency and effectiveness. Integrated assessment models (IAM) is one of the effective ways to make climate policy modeling. So in this paper we developed the MRICES (Multi-regional integrated model of climate and economy with GDP spillovers) model, which is an IAM but extends to include GDP spillover mechanism, to make assessment on several strategies for global emission reduction, including the egalitarianism strategy, the UNDP strategy and the Copenhagen Accord. Using 1990 as a baseline for historical emission levels, the egalitarian strategy argues that developed countries should implement urgent emission reductions, whereas developing countries are allowed relatively higher future emission quotas. The UNDP strategy addresses the issue of substantial changes in global temperature but acknowledges that developing countries are not able to afford more costs for mitigation measures, which is inequitable from the perspective of a country's right to develop. We also simulated the Copenhagen Accord to determine the consequences by the year 2100 if each country continues their current emission mitigation actions, and results indicated that the increase in global temperature will be 2.8 ℃by 2100; consequently, much stronger emission reduction efforts must be implemented after 2020. Based on analysis on mitigation strategies, it is recognized that the common but differentiated responsibility principle must be insisted when making global mitigation strategy. To comply with this principle, the emission reduction baseline of developed and developing countries should be discriminated, so 1990 and 2005 can be taken as the base year for developed and developing countries respectively.

Modeling and assessing international climate financing

Climate financing is a key issue in current negotiations on climate protection. This study establishes a climate financing model based on a mechanism in which donor countries set up funds for climate financing and recipient countries use the funds exclusively for carbon emission reduction. The burden-sharing principles are based on GDP, historical emissions, and consumption- based emissions. Using this model, we develop and analyze a series of scenario simulations, including a financing program negotiated at the Cancun Climate Change Conference （2010） and several subsequent programs. Results show that sustained climate financing can help to combat global climate change. However, the Cancun Agreements are projected to result in a reduction of only 0.0I^C in global warming by 2100 compared to the scenario without climate financing. Longer-term climate financing programs should be established to achieve more significant benefits. Our model and simulations also show that climate financing has economic benefits for develop- ing countries. Developed countries will suffer a slight GDP loss in the early stages of climate financing, but the long- term economic growth and the eventual benefits of climate mitigation will compensate for this slight loss. Different burden-sharing principles have very similar effects on global temperature change and economic growth of recipient countries, but they do result in differences in GDP changes for Japan and the FSU. The GDP-based principle results in a larger share of financial burden for Japan, while the historical emissions-based principle results in a larger share of financial burden for the FSU. A larger burden share leads to a greater GDP loss.