Search results for "CLIMATE"

Evidence of organic contamination in urban soils of Cotonou town (Benin).

2012

14 pages; International audience; In Cotonou (Benin), growth of the population leads to an excessive use of natural resources, inducing organic contaminations. Surface soils collected in the town, were extracted and fractionated by liquid chromatography in three families: aliphatic, aromatic hydrocarbons and polar fractions. Each fraction was characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. All the results show that an anthropogenic input exists (waste oils). Indeed, aliphatic hydrocarbons have specific markers emphasizing the presence of petrogenic products: UCM (unresolved complex mixture), specific distribution of pentacyclic triterpane. However, specific molecular biomarkers revea…

Simulating future trends in hydrological regime of a large Sudano-Sahelian catchment under climate change

2012

Summary This paper assesses the future variability of water resources in the short, medium and long terms over a large Sudano-Sahelian catchment in West Africa. Flow simulations were performed with a daily conceptual model. A period of nearly 50 years (1952–2000) was chosen to capture long-term hydro-climatic variability. Calibration and validation were performed on the basis of a multi-objective function that aggregates a variety of goodness-of-fit indices. The climate models HadCM3 and MPI-M under SRES-A2 were used to provide future climate scenarios over the catchment. Outputs from these models were used to generate daily rainfall and temperature series for the 21st century according to:…

Soil moisture modelling of a SMOS pixel: interest of using the PERSIANN database over the Valencia Anchor Station

2010

In the framework of Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Calibration/Validation (Cal/Val) activities, this study addresses the use of the PERSIANN-CCS<sup>1</sup>database in hydrological applications to accurately simulate a whole SMOS pixel by representing the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the soil moisture fields over a wide area (50×50 km<sup>2</sup>). The study focuses on the Valencia Anchor Station (VAS) experimental site, in Spain, which is one of the main SMOS Cal/Val sites in Europe. <br><br> A faithful representation of the soil moisture distribution at SMOS pixel scale (50×50 km<sup>2</sup>) requires an accurate estimation…

The influence of rock heterogeneity on the scaling properties of simulated and natural stylolites

2009

International audience; Stylolites are among the most prominent deformation patterns in sedimentary rocks that document localized pressure solution. Recent studies revealed that stylolite roughness is characterized by two distinct scaling regimes. The main goal of the present study is to decipher whether this complex scaling behavior of stylolites is caused by the composition of the host-rock, i.e. heterogeneities in the material, or is governed by inherent processes on respective scales, namely the transition from a surface energy to an elastic energy dominated regime, as theoretically predicted. For this purpose we have developed a discrete numerical technique, based on a lattice spring m…

Trace element behaviour in seawater during Etna's pyroclastic activity in 2001: Concurrent effects of nutrients and formation of alteration minerals

2010

volcanic ash ; trace element leaching ; kinetic experiments ; chlorophyll-alpha; International audience; The eruption of Etna in Sicily on 13 July 2001 marked the most intense activity of the volcano in the last 300 years. The eruption occurred while the oceanographic cruise ANSIC 01 was being conducted to the east of Sicily, presenting a unique opportunity for the investigation of the chemical effects on the marine system during a period of significant (similar to 1 g m(-2)) ash deposition. Comparison of trace element data with measured concentrations from the oceanographic cruise JUVENILE 99, carried out two years before, indicates large enrichments of V. Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Cu and Pb. We att…

Monitoring elevation variations in leaf phenology of deciduous broadleaf forests from SPOT/VEGETATION time-series

2011

International audience; In mountain forest ecosystems where elevation gradients are prominent, temperature gradient-based phonological variability can be high. However, there are few studies that assess the capability of remote sensing observations to monitor ecosystem phenology along elevation gradients, despite their relevance under climate change. We investigated the potential of medium resolution remotely sensed data to monitor the elevation variations in the seasonal dynamics of a temperate deciduous broadleaf forested ecosystem. Further, we explored the impact of elevation on the onset of spring leafing. This study was based on the analysis of multi-annual time-series of VEGETATION da…

Simulation of nitrous oxide emissions from wheat-cropped soils using CERES

2005

Estimation of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from arable soils, in relation to crop fertilization, is essential to devise strategies to mitigate the impact of agriculture on global warming. This paper presents the development and test of a N2O model resulting from the linkage of a dynamic soil-crop simulation model (CERES) with two sub-models of N2O production and reduction in soils. These sub-models (NOE and NGAS) account for both the nitrification and denitrification pathways. The resulting models (CERES–NOE and CERES–NGAS) were tested against experimental data collected on three contrasting wheat-cropped soils representative of the Beauce agricultural region in France. Although the input …

Interpolation par régressions locales : application aux précipitations en France

2009

Interpolation by local regressions applied to precipitation in France. Two interpolation methods are presented. The global one operates by means of a regression processing applied on the complete data set and the local one consists in a regression processing applied individually to many local sets made of recording stations each. The procedure is applied to the amount of precipitation in France. The local interpolation provides better results than the global one. The contradictory effects between crest lines and plains close below which are drier are well shown by the local model. This one allows other indicators from the regressions which interpretation provides keys for understanding how …

An improved understanding of the Alaska Coastal Current: the application of a bivalve growth-temperature model to reconstruct freshwater-influenced p…

2011

Shells of intertidal bivalve mollusks contain sub-seasonally to interannually resolved records of temperature and salinity variations in coastal settings. Such data are essential to understand changing land-sea interactions through time, specifically atmospheric (precipitation rate, glacial meltwater, river discharge) and oceanographic circulation patterns; however, independent temperature and salinity proxies are currently not available. We established a model for reconstructing daily water temperatures with an average standard error of ∼1.3 °C based on variations in the width of lunar daily growth increments of Saxidomus gigantea from southwestern Alaska, United States. Temperature explai…

2017

Abstract. Mollusks record valuable information in their hard parts that reflect ambient environmental conditions. For this reason, shells can serve as excellent archives to reconstruct past climate and environmental variability. However, animal physiology and biomineralization, which are often poorly understood, can make the decoding of environmental signals a challenging task. Many of the routinely used shell-based proxies are sensitive to multiple different environmental and physiological variables. Therefore, the identification and interpretation of individual environmental signals (e.g., water temperature) often is particularly difficult. Additional proxies not influenced by multiple en…