Search results for " Modeling"
showing 10 items of 2411 documents
Statistical analysis of inter-arrival times of rainfall events for Italian Sub-Alpine and Mediterranean areas
2012
Abstract. In this work a set of time-series of inter-arrival times of rainfall events, at daily scale, was analysed, with the aim to verify the issue of increasing duration of dry periods. The set consists of 12 time-series recorded at rain gauges in 1926–2005, six of them belong to an Italian Sub-Alpine area (Piedmont) and six to a Mediterranean one (Sicily). In order to overcome the problem related to limited sample size for high values of inter-arrival times, the discrete probability polylog-series distribution was used to fit the empirical data from partial (20 yr) time-series. Moreover, a simple qualitative trend analysis was applied to some high quantiles of inter-arrival times as wel…
Climate driven life histories: the case of the Mediterranean Storm petrel
2014
Seabirds are affected by changes in the marine ecosystem. The influence of climatic factors on marine food webs can be reflected in long-term seabird population changes. We modelled the survival and recruitment of the Mediterranean storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus melitensis) using a 21-year mark-recapture dataset involving almost 5000 birds. We demonstrated a strong influence of prebreeding climatic conditions on recruitment age and of rainfall and breeding period conditions on juvenile survival. The results suggest that the juvenile survival rate of the Mediterranean subspecies may not be negatively affected by the predicted features of climate change, i.e., warmer summers and lower rai…
Effects of human disturbance on cave-nesting seabirds: The case of the storm petrel
2015
We tested the effects of human disturbance in two sub-colonies of Mediterranean storm petrel. We conducted three experiments to measure the capacity of the storm petrels to respond to stress. The part of the colony exposed to human disturbance resulted to be habituated and did not show chronic stress related to anthropogenic disturbance.
MARIOLA: a model for calculating the response of mediterranean bush ecosystem to climatic variations
1995
Abstract The paper summarizes the bush ecosystem model developed for assessing the effects of climatic change on the behaviour of mediterranean bushes assuming that temperature, humidity and rain-fall are the basic dimensions of the niche occupied by shrub species. In this context, changes in the monthly weather pattern serve only to outline the growth conditions due to the nonlinearity of response of shrubs to climatic factors. The plant-soil-atmosphere system is described by means of ordinary non-linear differential equations for the state variables: green biomass, woody biomass, the residues of green and woody biomasses, faecal detritus of mammals on the soil, and the total organic matte…
Sensitivity of precipitation forecasts to convective parameterization in the October 2007 Flash Flood in the Valencia Region (Eastern Spain)
2018
Abstract. The Valencia region, on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula, is an area prone to torrential rains, especially the north of Alicante province and the south of Valencia province. In October 2007, a torrential rain event with accumulated rainfall values exceeding 400 mm in less than 24 h affected the aforementioned areas, producing flash floods that caused extensive economic losses and human casualties. Several simulations of this rain event have been performed with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) to test the influence of the different convective parameterization scheme implemented in the model on the precipitation forecast.
The carrying capacity for Mediterranean bivalve suspension feeders: evidence from analysis of food availability and hydrodynamics and their integrati…
2004
Abstract In order to assess the carrying capacity of two Mediterranean areas, the Incze et al. model and its modification were applied. Our measures were carried out in the Gulf of Gaeta (Central MED), where mussels ( Mytilus galloprovincialis ) are intensively cultivated (production of approximately 200 t per year) and the Gulf of Castellammare (Southern MED), where bivalve culture is not widely practised. Velocities of water current and in field filtration rates were measured in each area. Total suspended matter (TSM), suspended chlorophyll-a (CHLa), lipid, protein and carbohydrate concentrations in the particulate were measured seasonally and used as tools to evaluate the trophic status …
Re-evaluation of moisture sources for the August 2002 extreme rainfall episode in central Europe: Evaporation from falling precipitation included in …
2015
Summary Discriminating moisture sources with precision is an important requirement to better understand the processes involved in extreme rainfall episodes. In a previous contribution by Gangoiti et al. (2011b), an innovative technique was presented to assess surface moisture sources contributing to a target precipitation within a Lagrangian framework. The technique was based in transporting parcels of vapor, representing the target precipitation, across a set of nested grids covering a large area at different resolutions. A mesoscale model estimated the meteorological variables to transport and redistribute the vapor back into its original sources, all of them assumed to be at the surface.…
Environmental Metal Pollution Considered as Noise: Effects on the Spatial Distribution of Benthic Foraminifera in two Coastal Marine Areas of Sicily …
2008
We analyze the spatial distributions of two groups of benthic foraminifera (Adelosina spp. + Quinqueloculina spp. and Elphidium spp.), along Sicilian coast, and their correlation with six different heavy metals, responsible for the pollution. Samples were collected inside the Gulf of Palermo, which has a high level of pollution due to heavy metals, and along the coast of Lampedusa island (Sicily Channel, Southern Mediterranean), which is characterized by unpolluted sea waters. Because of the environmental pollution we find: (i) an anticorrelated spatial behaviour between the two groups of benthic foraminifera analyzed; (ii) an anticorrelated (correlated) spatial behaviour between the first …
Impact of Initial Soil Temperature Derived from Remote Sensing and Numerical Weather Prediction Datasets on the Simulation of Extreme Heat Events
2016
Extreme heat weather events have received increasing attention and has become of special importance as they can remarkably affect sectors as diverse as public health, energy consumption, water resources, natural biodiversity and agricultural production. In this regard, summer temperatures have become a parameter of essential interest under a framework of a hypothetical increase in the number of intense-heat conditions. Thus, their forecast is a crucial aspect bearing in mind a mitigation of the effects and impacts that these intense-heat situations could produce. The current work tries to reach a better understanding of these sorts of situations that are really common over the Western Medit…
Impact on the water column biogeochemistry of a Mediterranean mussel and fish farm
2002
We investigated and compared the impact of organic loads due to the biodeposition of mussel and fish farms on the water column of a coastal area of the Tyrrhenian Sea (Western Mediterranean). Physico-chemical data (including oxygen, nutrients, DOC and particulate organic matter), microbial variables (picoplankton and picophytoplankton density and biomass) and phytoplankton biomass (as chlorophyll-a) were determined on a monthly basis from March 1997 to February 1998. The results of this study indicate that both fish farm and mussel culture did not alter significantly dissolved inorganic phosphorus and chlorophyll-a values, while inorganic nitrogen concentrations were higher in mussel farm a…