172 research outputs found
Coordinated and Integrated Geomorphologic Analysis of Mass Transfers in Cold Climate Environments – The SEDIBUD (Sediment Budgets in Cold Environments) Programme
Developing frameworks for studies on sedimentary fluxes and budgets in changing cold environments
Geomorphic processes that are responsible for the transfer of sediments and landform change are highly dependent on climate and vegetation cover. It is anticipated that climate change will have a major impact on the behaviour of Earth surface systems and that the most profound changes will occur in high-latitude and high-altitude cold environments. Collection, comparison and evaluation of data from a range of different high-latitude and high-altitude cold environments are required to permit greater understanding of sedimentary fluxes in cold environments. The focus of the I.A.G./A.I.G. SEDIBUD (Sediment Budgets in Cold Environments) Programme is the analysis of source-to-sink fluxes and sediment budgets in changing cold environments. Establishing contemporary sediment fluxes in a diversity of cold environments will form a baseline for modelling. At a minimum, baseline information from defined SEDIBUD test sites must consist of measures of mean annual precipitation, stream discharge, suspended load, conductivity/TDS and dominant catchment processes. Reports from ongoing studies on sedimentary fluxes and budgets in three selected study sites in Arctic Canada, sub-Arctic Iceland and sub-Arctic Norway are presented and discussed in the context of effects of climate change on process rates and sediment budgets in sensitive cold environments. Comparable datasets and coordinated data collection and data exchange will be of use for the individual studies at the different study sites. In addition, comparable data sets and data exchange will help to improve our understanding of existing relationships between contemporary climate and sedimentary fluxes and will enable larger-scale integrated investigations on effects of climate change in changing cold environments
Petroleum oil and mercury pollution from shipwrecks in Norwegian coastal waters
Embargo until 28 March 2019Worldwide there are tens of thousands of sunken shipwrecks lying on the coastal seabed. These potentially polluting wrecks (PPW) are estimated to hold 3–25 million t of oil. Other hazardous cargo in PPW includes ordnance, chemicals and radioactive waste. Here, we present and discuss studies on mercury (Hg) and oil pollution in coastal marine sediment caused by two of the > 2100 documented PPW in Norwegian marine waters. The German World War II (WWII) submarine (U-864) lies at about 150 m below the sea surface, near the Norwegian North Sea island of Fedje. The submarine is estimated to have been carrying 67 t of elemental Hg, some of which has leaked on to surrounding sediment. The total Hg concentration in bottom surface sediment within a 200 m radius of the wreckage decreases from 100 g/kg d.w. at the wreckage hotspot to about 1 mg/kg d.w. at 100 m from the hotspot. The second wreck is a German WWII cargo ship (Nordvard), that lies at a depth of ca. 30 m near the Norwegian harbor of Moss. Oil leakage from Nordvard has contaminated the bottom coastal sediment with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). The findings from this study provide useful insight to coastal administration authorities involved in assessing and remediating wreck-borne pollution from any of the tens of thousands of sunken shipwrecks.acceptedVersio
Warming-driven erosion and sediment transport in cold regions
We synthesized a global inventory of cryosphere degradation-driven increases in erosion and sediment yield, e.g., suspended load, bedload, particulate organic carbon, and riverbank/slope erosion. This inventory includes 76 locations from the high Arctic, European mountains, High Mountain Asia and Andes, and 18 Arctic permafrost-coastal sites, and they were collected from ~80 studies
More Benefits of Semileptonic Rare B Decays at Low Recoil: CP Violation
We present a systematic analysis of the angular distribution of Bbar ->
Kbar^\ast (-> Kbar pi) l^+ l^- decays with l = e, mu in the low recoil region
(i.e. at high dilepton invariant masses of the order of the mass of the
b-quark) to account model-independently for CP violation beyond the Standard
Model, working to next-to-leading order QCD. From the employed heavy quark
effective theory framework we identify the key CP observables with reduced
hadronic uncertainties. Since some of the CP asymmetries are CP-odd they can be
measured without B-flavour tagging. This is particularly beneficial for
Bbar_s,B_s -> phi(-> K^+ K^-) l^+ l^- decays, which are not self-tagging, and
we work out the corresponding time-integrated CP asymmetries. Presently
available experimental constraints allow the proposed CP asymmetries to be
sizeable, up to values of the order ~ 0.2, while the corresponding Standard
Model values receive a strong parametric suppression at the level of O(10^-4).
Furthermore, we work out the allowed ranges of the short-distance (Wilson)
coefficients C_9,C_10 in the presence of CP violation beyond the Standard Model
but no further Dirac structures. We find the Bbar_s -> mu^+ mu^- branching
ratio to be below 9*10^-9 (at 95% CL). Possibilities to check the performance
of the theoretical low recoil framework are pointed out.Comment: 18 pages, 3 fig.; 1 reference and comment on higher order effects
added; EOS link fixed. Minor adjustments to Eqs 4.1-4.3 to match the (lower)
q^2-cut as given in paper. Main results and conclusions unchanged; v3+v4:
treatment of exp. uncert. in likelihood-function in EOS fixed and constraints
from scan on C9,C10 updated (Fig 2,3 and Eqs 3.2,3.3). Main results and
conclusions absolutely unchange
What two models may teach us about duality violations in QCD
Though the operator product expansion is applicable in the calculation of
current correlation functions in the Euclidean region, when approaching the
Minkowskian domain, violations of quark-hadron duality are expected to occur,
due to the presence of bound-state or resonance poles. In QCD finite-energy sum
rules, contour integrals in the complex energy plane down to the Minkowskian
axis have to be performed, and thus the question arises what the impact of
duality violations may be. The structure and possible relevance of duality
violations is investigated on the basis of two models: the Coulomb system and a
model for light-quark correlators which has already been studied previously. As
might yet be naively expected, duality violations are in some sense "maximal"
for zero-width bound states and they become weaker for broader resonances whose
poles lie further away from the physical axis. Furthermore, to a certain
extent, they can be suppressed by choosing appropriate weight functions in the
finite-energy sum rules. A simplified Ansatz for including effects of duality
violations in phenomenological QCD sum rule analyses is discussed as well.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; version to appear in JHE
Cornering New Physics in b --> s Transitions
We derive constraints on Wilson coefficients of dimension-six effective
operators probing the b --> s transition, using recent improved measurements of
the rare decays Bs --> mu+mu-, B --> K mu+mu- and B --> K* mu+mu- and including
all relevant observables in inclusive and exclusive decays. We consider
operators present in the SM as well as their chirality-flipped counterparts and
scalar operators. We find good agreement with the SM expectations. Compared to
the situation before winter 2012, we find significantly more stringent
constraints on the chirality-flipped coefficients due to complementary
constraints from B --> K mu+mu- and B --> K* mu+mu- and due to the LHCb
measurement of the angular observable S_3 in the latter decay. We also list the
full set of observables sensitive to new physics in the low recoil region of B
--> K* mu+mu-.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. v3: typos correcte
Denudation and geomorphic change in the Anthropocene; a global overview
The effects of human activity on geomorphic processes, particularly those related to denudation/sedimentation, are investigated by reviewing case studies and global assessments covering the past few centuries. Evidence we have assembled from different parts of the world, as well as from the literature, show that certain geomorphic processes are experiencing an acceleration, especially since the mid-twentieth century. This suggests that a global geomorphic change is taking place, largely caused by anthropogenic landscape changes
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