Carbon dioxide emissions of Antarctic tourism

The increase of tourism to the Antarctic continent may entail not only local but also global environmental impacts. These latter impacts, which are mainly caused by transport, have been generally ignored. As a result, there is a lack of data on the global impacts of Antarctic tourism in terms of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. This paper presents and applies a methodology for quantifying CO2 emissions, both for the Antarctic vessel fleet as a whole and per passenger (both per trip and per day). The results indicate that the average tourist trip to Antarctica results in 5.44 t of CO2 emissions per passenger, or 0.49 t per passenger and day. Approximately 70% of these emissions are attributable to cruising and 30% to flying, which highlights the global environmental relevance of local transport for this type of touris

Kinetics of amino sugar formation from organic residues of different quality

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Potential future climatic conditions on tourists : a case study focusing on Malta and Venice

The main purpose of this study is to quantify important climatic shifts that took place over Malta and Venice that could be considered as a determining factor on their choice as two prime tourist destinations. Rather than making use of traditional tourist climate indices, this study identifi es long-term trends in weather variables and their derived bioclimatic indices. These climate derivatives are based on a set of high temporal observations (some of which are collected every 30 minutes) and are thus able to capture valuable information that traditional monthly distribution cannot provide. The derivatives obtained from the elementary meteorological observations showed that the level of comfort experienced by visiting tourists over the long term is deteriorating due to increased heat stress. Nonetheless, the increased occurrence of optimal wind speed conditions, as well as a reduced occurrence of gale storms and wind chill events is making these destinations more attractive. A careful study of the output of IPCC climate model projections sheds light on a critical future bioclimate condition during current peak visiting months (July and August) at both destinations. This may imply a required shift, as a form of adaptation, of the visiting periods at these two destinations. This study should allow tourist planners to determine which weather element is a likely future obstacle to the overall bioclimatic suitability of outdoor tourism activities.peer-reviewe

High quality InSAR data linked to seasonal change in hydraulic head for an agricultural area in the San Luis Valley, Colorado

In the San Luis Valley (SLV), Colorado legislation passed in 2004 requires that hydraulic head levels in the confined aquifer system stay within the range experienced in the years 1978–2000. While some measurements of hydraulic head exist, greater spatial and temporal sampling would be very valuable in understanding the behavior of the system. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data provide fine spatial resolution measurements of Earth surface deformation, which can be related to hydraulic head change in the confined aquifer system. However, change in cm-scale crop structure with time leads to signal decorrelation, resulting in low quality data. Here we apply small baseline subset (SBAS) analysis to InSAR data collected from 1992 to 2001. We are able to show high levels of correlation, denoting high quality data, in areas between the center pivot irrigation circles, where the lack of water results in little surface vegetation. At three well locations we see a seasonal variation in the InSAR data that mimics the hydraulic head data. We use measured values of the elastic skeletal storage coefficient to estimate hydraulic head from the InSAR data. In general the magnitude of estimated and measured head agree to within the calculated error. However, the errors are unacceptably large due to both errors in the InSAR data and uncertainty in the measured value of the elastic skeletal storage coefficient. We conclude that InSAR is capturing the seasonal head variation, but that further research is required to obtain accurate hydraulic head estimates from the InSAR deformation measurements

AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING TROPICAL AND SUBTROPICAL DEFORESTATION

In most developing countries deforestation has reached alarming rates. In view of their relevance for the local economy (e.g., as a source of foreign exchange earnings and supply of fuelwood), an adequate management of forest resources should be pursued. In these economies forest exploitation and land conversion have often been seen as a temporary solution to structural problems. In this way, however, the same problems are even aggravated in the long run. The study first reviews recent explanations of tropical deforestation: a distinction is drawn between areas of substantial agreement on the one hand, and discordant results and interpretations on the other. In the main part of the analysis, based on cross-country data for the 1980s, regression models incorporating different sets of determinants of deforestation are applied. Compared to previous studies, the analysis tries to better account for the sequential timing of some of these determinants. Different patterns are identified among country groups, according to specific features of economic activities, macroeconomic and political environments, and climatic conditions.Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Explaining regionalization of trade in Asia Pacific: A transaction cost approach

Recent investigations on the regional distribution of trade flows in the Asia Pacific area suggest that some countries have developed strong bilateral trade links, while others obviously tend to be more closely linked towards trading partners outside the Asia Pacific area (Amelung (1990)). Moreover, empirical findings indicate that there are groups (clusters) of countries in the Asia Pacific area which - in relative terms - trade more intensively with the members of their group than with other countries of this area or the world. For instance, in the eighties there was a clear separation between a South East Asian group of trading partners comprising Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and a group of North East Asian countries encompassing Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, Hong Kong and the USA as a non-Asian nation. However, the cluster analysis does not explain why this pattern of regionalization emerges. In economic theory the regionalization of trade flows has been attributed to the. discrimination of countries through legal (El-Agraa (1988), Nienhaus (1987), p. 84) and natural trade barriers (Langhammer (1983), Deardorff (1987)). Following Viner's custom unions theory (Viner (1950)) a group of countries can negotiate preferential ?tariff treatment for their members, thus discriminating against non-member countries. Given such an institutional arrangement regional trade is expected to rise as a consequence of trade creation and trade diversion. Moreover, regionalization of trade flows can be enhanced by differences in transport costs resulting from the spatial remoteness of trading partners. As Deardorff shows, these differentials may affect both the direction and the composition of trade, since they constitute natural trade barriers.

Status of Measurements and Interpretation of Total Real and Virtual Photon-Proton Cross Sections

The status of measurements and interpretation of the proton structure function F2 is summarized. The measurements are subjected to DGLAP fits, from which the gluon density is extracted and a comparison to measurements of F2c is performed. The longitudinal structure function, FL, is extracted via an extrapolation of F2. At low Q2, the transition from virtual to real photon exchange is studied.Comment: Contributed to the proceedings of the EDS99 Conference, Protvino, Russia, June 28-July 2, 1999. 10 pages including 8 figure