Returning forests analyzed with the forest identity

Amid widespread reports of deforestation, some nations have nevertheless experienced transitions from deforestation to reforestation. In a causal relationship, the Forest Identity relates the carbon sequestered in forests to the changing variables of national or regional forest area, growing stock density per area, biomass per growing stock volume, and carbon concentration in the biomass. It quantifies the sources of change of a nation's forests. The Identity also logically relates the quantitative impact on forest expanse of shifting timber harvest to regions and plantations where density grows faster. Among 50 nations with extensive forests reported in the Food and Agriculture Organization's comprehensive Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005, no nation where annual per capita gross domestic product exceeded $4,600 had a negative rate of growing stock change. Using the Forest Identity and national data from the Assessment report, a single synoptic chart arrays the 50 nations with coordinates of the rates of change of basic variables, reveals both clusters of nations and outliers, and suggests trends in returning forests and their attributes. The Forest Identity also could serve as a tool for setting forest goals and illuminating how national policies accelerate or retard the forest transitions that are diffusing among nations

Azimuthal anisotropy at RHIC: the first and fourth harmonics

We report the first observations of the first harmonic (directed flow, v_1), and the fourth harmonic (v_4), in the azimuthal distribution of particles with respect to the reaction plane in Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Both measurements were done taking advantage of the large elliptic flow (v_2) generated at RHIC. From the correlation of v_2 with v_1 it is determined that v_2 is positive, or {\it in-plane}. The integrated v_4 is about a factor of 10 smaller than v_2. For the sixth (v_6) and eighth (v_8) harmonics upper limits on the magnitudes are reported.Comment: 6 pages with 3 figures, as accepted for Phys. Rev. Letters The data tables are at http://www.star.bnl.gov/central/publications/pubDetail.php?id=3

Scale issues in soil moisture modelling: problems and prospects

Soil moisture storage is an important component of the hydrological cycle and plays a key role in land-surface-atmosphere interaction. The soil-moisture storage equation in this study considers precipitation as an input and soil moisture as a residual term for runoff and evapotranspiration. A number of models have been developed to estimate soil moisture storage and the components of the soil-moisture storage equation. A detailed discussion of the impli cation of the scale of application of these models reports that it is not possible to extrapolate processes and their estimates from the small to the large scale. It is also noted that physically based models for small-scale applications are sufficiently detailed to reproduce land-surface- atmosphere interactions. On the other hand, models for large-scale applications oversimplify the processes. Recently developed physically based models for large-scale applications can only be applied to limited uses because of data restrictions and the problems associated with land surface characterization. It is reported that remote sensing can play an important role in over coming the problems related to the unavailability of data and the land surface characterization of large-scale applications of these physically based models when estimating soil moisture storage.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Event-wise ⟨p\u3csub\u3et\u3c/sub\u3e⟩ fluctuations in Au-Au collisions at √s\u3csub\u3eNN\u3c/sub\u3e = 130 GeV

We present the first large-acceptance measurement of event-wise mean transverse momentum ⟨pt⟩ fluctuations for Au-Au collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-momentum collision energy √sNN = 130 GeV. The observed nonstatistical ⟨pt⟩ fluctuations substantially exceed in magnitude fluctuations expected from the finite number of particles produced in a typical collision. The r.m.s. fractional width excess of the event-wise ⟨pt⟩ distribution is 13.7±0.1(stat) ±1.3(syst)% relative to a statistical reference, for the 15% most-central collisions and for charged hadrons within pseudorapidity range |η|c. The width excess varies smoothly but nonmonotonically with collision centrality and does not display rapid changes with centrality which might indicate the presence of critical fluctuations. The reported ⟨pt⟩ fluctuation excess is qualitatively larger than those observed at lower energies and differs markedly from theoretical expectations. Contributions to ⟨pt⟩ fluctuations from semihard parton scattering in the initial state and dissipation in the bulk colored medium are discussed

Event-wise ⟨p\u3csub\u3et\u3c/sub\u3e⟩ fluctuations in Au-Au collisions at √s\u3csub\u3eNN\u3c/sub\u3e = 130 GeV

We present the first large-acceptance measurement of event-wise mean transverse momentum ⟨pt⟩ fluctuations for Au-Au collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-momentum collision energy √sNN = 130 GeV. The observed nonstatistical ⟨pt⟩ fluctuations substantially exceed in magnitude fluctuations expected from the finite number of particles produced in a typical collision. The r.m.s. fractional width excess of the event-wise ⟨pt⟩ distribution is 13.7±0.1(stat) ±1.3(syst)% relative to a statistical reference, for the 15% most-central collisions and for charged hadrons within pseudorapidity range |η|c. The width excess varies smoothly but nonmonotonically with collision centrality and does not display rapid changes with centrality which might indicate the presence of critical fluctuations. The reported ⟨pt⟩ fluctuation excess is qualitatively larger than those observed at lower energies and differs markedly from theoretical expectations. Contributions to ⟨pt⟩ fluctuations from semihard parton scattering in the initial state and dissipation in the bulk colored medium are discussed