Search results for "Global changes"
showing 10 items of 533 documents
Influence of the Madden-Julian Oscillation on Southern African summer rainfall
2007
Rain-causing mechanisms over Southern Africa (south of 15˚S) involve both tropical and temperate dynamics. Most studies focused on the synoptical timescale, while the intraseasonal (20-120 days) variability has more been neglected to date. This study aims at determining whether the dominant mode of intraseasonal variability in the Tropics, namely the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), has a significant impact on Southern African rainfall and associated atmospheric dynamics. The examination of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) over Southern Africa shows indeed significant intraseasonal fluctuations at the 30-60 day timescale, i.e. in the pe- riods that are typically reminiscent of the MJO. In ord…
Climate change impact on SWAT simulated streamflow in western Kenya
2009
12 pages (3/4 p.); International audience; Weather and climate extremes such as droughts and floods have far reaching impacts in Kenya. They have had implications in a variety of sectors including agriculture, water resources, health, energy, and disaster management among others. Lake Victoria and its catchment support millions of people and any impact on its ability to support the livelihoods of the communities in this region is of major concern. Thus, the main objective of this study was to assess the potential future climatic changes on the Nzoia catchment in the Lake Victoria basin, and how they might affect streamflow. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to investigate the impa…
West African Monsoon water cycle: 1. A hybrid water budget data set
2010
International audience; This study investigates the West African Monsoon water cycle with the help of a new hybrid water budget data set developed within the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses. Surface water and energy fluxes are estimated from an ensemble of land surface model simulations forced with elaborate precipitation and radiation products derived from satellite observations, while precipitable water tendencies are estimated from numerical weather prediction analyses. Vertically integrated atmospheric moisture flux convergence is estimated as a residual. This approach provides an advanced, comprehensive atmospheric water budget, including evapotranspiration,…
A European multicentre evaluation of detection and typing methods for human enteroviruses and parechoviruses using RNA transcripts
2020
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection has become the gold standard for diagnosis and typing of enterovirus (EV) and human parechovirus (HPeV) infections. Its effectiveness depends critically on using the appropriate sample types and high assay sensitivity as viral loads in cerebrospinal fluid samples from meningitis and sepsis clinical presentation can be extremely low. This study evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of currently used commercial and in‐house diagnostic and typing assays. Accurately quantified RNA transcript controls were distributed to 27 diagnostic and 12 reference laboratories in 17 European countries for blinded testing. Transcripts represented the four human EV…
Impact of historical mining assessed in soils by kinetic extraction and lead isotopic ratios.
2014
12 pages; International audience; The aim of this study is to estimate the long-term behaviour of trace metals, in two soils differently impacted by past mining. Topsoils from two 1 km(2) zones in the forested Morvan massif (France) were sampled to assess the spatial distribution of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn. The first zone had been contaminated by historical mining. As expected, it exhibits higher trace-metal levels and greater spatial heterogeneity than the second non-contaminated zone, supposed to represent the local background. One soil profile from each zone was investigated in detail to estimate metal behaviour, and hence, bioavailability. Kinetic extractions were performed using EDTA on thre…
A laboratory study of the mineralization and binding of 14C-labeled herbicide rimsulfuron in a rendzina soil
1999
Abstract The fate of pyrimidine-2- 14 C-rimsulfuron in a rendzina soil was investigated using a laboratory microcosm approach. Measurement of CO 2 evolution suggested that rimsulfuron applied at 5 times the recommended dose did not affect soil respiration. Under abiotic conditions, no mineralization of 14 C-rimsulfuron into 14 C-CO 2 occured and under biotic ones it was very low reaching 0.75 % of the applied 14 C-rimsulfuron after 246 days of incubation. The analysis of data showed that a three-half order model provided the best fit for the mineralization curve. Extractable 14 C-residues decreased over time to 70 – 80% of the applied 14 C-rimsulfuron at the end of the incubation. After 246…
Characterization of an isoproturon mineralizing bacterial culture enriched from a French agricultural soil.
2009
The phenylurea herbicide isoproturon, 3-(4-isopropylphenyl)-1,1-dimethylurea (IPU), was found to be rapidly mineralized by a bacterial culture isolated from an agricultural soil regularly exposed to IPU. Molecular analysis of the bacterial culture by DNA fingerprinting, cloning and sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes revealed that it consisted of six different members among whom the dominant was related to Sphingomonas sp. Six bacterial strains belonging to genera Ancylobacter, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas, Methylobacterium, Variovorax and Agrobacterium were isolated from the IPU-degrading culture. None of these were able to degrade IPU in pure culture and only the intact culture sustained th…
Phytoremediation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, anilines and phenols
2002
International audience; Phytoremediation technologies based on the combined action of plants and the microbial communities that they support within the rhizosphere hold promise in the remediation of land and waterways contaminated with hydrocarbons but they have not yet been adopted in large-scale remediation strategies. In this review plant and microbial degradative capacities, viewed as a continuum, have been dissected in order to identify where bottle-necks and limitations exist. Phenols, anilines and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were selected as the target classes of molecule for consideration, in part because of their common patterns of distribution, but also because of the urgent …
Durée et fréquence des vagues de chaleur en Afrique tropicale septentrionale selon 5 indices de chaleur.
2019
Thermal extremes generate health risks that are increasingly taken into account, including in tropical Africa. This work compares the duration and the frequency of spring heat waves (HWs) in West Africa according to 5 indices: Warm Spell (WS), Heat Index (HI) with and without the relative humidity, Apparent Temperature (AT), and Excess Heat Factor (EHF). The daily relative humidity and temperature data (minimum, maximum, dew point are provided by the GSOD database for the period 1973-2014 and cover 145 stations spread over a large African area (3-24°N; 24°W-36°E). The results show that the duration of the HWs is short on the coast (3 days) and they last longer inland the continent and in th…
Durée et fréquence des vagues de chaleur en Afrique tropicale septentrionale selon 5 indices de chaleur
2019
Thermal extremes generate health risks that are increasingly taken into account, including in tropical Africa. This work compares the duration and the frequency of spring heat waves (HWs) in West Africa according to 5 indices: Warm Spell (WS), Heat Index (HI) with and without the relative humidity, Apparent Temperature (AT), and Excess Heat Factor (EHF). The daily relative humidity and temperature data (minimum, maximum, dew point are provided by the GSOD database for the period 1973-2014 and cover 145 stations spread over a large African area (3-24°N; 24°W-36°E). The results show that the duration of the HWs is short on the coast (3 days) and they last longer inland the continent and in th…