Local Sensitivity Analysis of Kinetic Models for Cellulose Pyrolysis

Abstract: The first and nth order kinetic models are usually used to describe cellulose pyrolysis. In this work, the local sensitivities of the conversion and derivative conversion with respect to the frequency factor, the logarithm of the frequency factor, the activation energy and the reaction order for the first and nth order kinetic models are calculated by using the finite difference method. The results show that the sensitivities of the first and nth order kinetic models with respect to the activation energy and the logarithm of the frequency factor are significant, while the frequency factor and the reaction order affect the nth order kinetic model slightly. Compared with the frequency factor, the natural logarithm of the frequency factor is a better choice in the parameter estimation of the first and nth order kinetic models. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences The International Soil Moisture Network: a data hosting facility for global in situ soil moisture measurements

Abstract. In situ measurements of soil moisture are invaluable for calibrating and validating land surface models and satellite-based soil moisture retrievals. In addition, longterm time series of in situ soil moisture measurements themselves can reveal trends in the water cycle related to climate or land cover change. Nevertheless, on a worldwide basis the number of meteorological networks and stations measuring soil moisture, in particular on a continuous basis, is still limited and the data they provide lack standardization of technique and protocol

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Ground, Proximal, and Satellite Remote Sensing of Soil Moisture

Soil moisture (SM) is a key hydrologic state variable that is of significant importance for numerous Earth and environmental science applications that directly impact the global environment and human society. Potential applications include, but are not limited to, forecasting of weather and climate variability; prediction and monitoring of drought conditions; management and allocation of water resources; agricultural plant production and alleviation of famine; prevention of natural disasters such as wild fires, landslides, floods, and dust storms; or monitoring of ecosystem response to climate change. Because of the importance and wide‐ranging applicability of highly variable spatial and temporal SM information that links the water, energy, and carbon cycles, significant efforts and resources have been devoted in recent years to advance SM measurement and monitoring capabilities from the point to the global scales. This review encompasses recent advances and the state‐of‐the‐art of ground, proximal, and novel SM remote sensing techniques at various spatial and temporal scales and identifies critical future research needs and directions to further advance and optimize technology, analysis and retrieval methods, and the application of SM information to improve the understanding of critical zone moisture dynamics. Despite the impressive progress over the last decade, there are still many opportunities and needs to, for example, improve SM retrieval from remotely sensed optical, thermal, and microwave data and opportunities for novel applications of SM information for water resources management, sustainable environmental development, and food security

State of the climate in 2013

In 2013, the vast majority of the monitored climate variables reported here maintained trends established in recent decades. ENSO was in a neutral state during the entire year, remaining mostly on the cool side of neutral with modest impacts on regional weather patterns around the world. This follows several years dominated by the effects of either La Niña or El Niño events. According to several independent analyses, 2013 was again among the 10 warmest years on record at the global scale, both at the Earths surface and through the troposphere. Some regions in the Southern Hemisphere had record or near-record high temperatures for the year. Australia observed its hottest year on record, while Argentina and New Zealand reported their second and third hottest years, respectively. In Antarctica, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station reported its highest annual temperature since records began in 1957. At the opposite pole, the Arctic observed its seventh warmest year since records began in the early 20th century. At 20-m depth, record high temperatures were measured at some permafrost stations on the North Slope of Alaska and in the Brooks Range. In the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, anomalous meridional atmospheric circulation occurred throughout much of the year, leading to marked regional extremes of both temperature and precipitation. Cold temperature anomalies during winter across Eurasia were followed by warm spring temperature anomalies, which were linked to a new record low Eurasian snow cover extent in May. Minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic was the sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. Including 2013, all seven lowest extents on record have occurred in the past seven years. Antarctica, on the other hand, had above-average sea ice extent throughout 2013, with 116 days of new daily high extent records, including a new daily maximum sea ice area of 19.57 million km2 reached on 1 October. ENSO-neutral conditions in the eastern central Pacific Ocean and a negative Pacific decadal oscillation pattern in the North Pacific had the largest impacts on the global sea surface temperature in 2013. The North Pacific reached a historic high temperature in 2013 and on balance the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was among the 10 highest on record. Overall, the salt content in nearsurface ocean waters increased while in intermediate waters it decreased. Global mean sea level continued to rise during 2013, on pace with a trend of 3.2 mm yr-1 over the past two decades. A portion of this trend (0.5 mm yr-1) has been attributed to natural variability associated with the Pacific decadal oscillation as well as to ongoing contributions from the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and ocean warming. Global tropical cyclone frequency during 2013 was slightly above average with a total of 94 storms, although the North Atlantic Basin had its quietest hurricane season since 1994. In the Western North Pacific Basin, Super Typhoon Haiyan, the deadliest tropical cyclone of 2013, had 1-minute sustained winds estimated to be 170 kt (87.5 m s-1) on 7 November, the highest wind speed ever assigned to a tropical cyclone. High storm surge was also associated with Haiyan as it made landfall over the central Philippines, an area where sea level is currently at historic highs, increasing by 200 mm since 1970. In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide all continued to increase in 2013. As in previous years, each of these major greenhouse gases once again reached historic high concentrations. In the Arctic, carbon dioxide and methane increased at the same rate as the global increase. These increases are likely due to export from lower latitudes rather than a consequence of increases in Arctic sources, such as thawing permafrost. At Mauna Loa, Hawaii, for the first time since measurements began in 1958, the daily average mixing ratio of carbon dioxide exceeded 400 ppm on 9 May. The state of these variables, along with dozens of others, and the 2013 climate conditions of regions around the world are discussed in further detail in this 24th edition of the State of the Climate series. © 2014, American Meteorological Society. All rights reserved

Population Genetic Analysis of the Uncoupling Proteins Supports a Role for UCP3 in Human Cold Resistance

Production of heat via nonshivering thermogenesis (NST) is critical for temperature homeostasis in mammals. Uncoupling protein UCP1 plays a central role in NST by uncoupling the proton gradients produced in the inner membranes of mitochondria to produce heat; however, the extent to which UCP1 homologues, UCP2 and UCP3, are involved in NST is the subject of an ongoing debate. We used an evolutionary approach to test the hypotheses that variants that are associated with increased expression of these genes (UCP1 −3826A, UCP2 −866A, and UCP3 −55T) show evidence of adaptation with winter climate. To that end, we calculated correlations between allele frequencies and winter climate variables for these single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which we genotyped in a panel of 52 worldwide populations. We found significant correlations with winter climate for UCP1 −3826G/A and UCP3 −55C/T. Further, by analyzing previously published genotype data for these SNPs, we found that the peak of the correlation for the UCP1 region occurred at the disease-associated −3826A/G variant and that the UCP3 region has a striking signal overall, with several individual SNPs showing interesting patterns, including the −55C/T variant. Resequencing of the regions in a set of three diverse population samples helped to clarify the signals that we found with the genotype data. At UCP1, the resequencing data revealed modest evidence that the haplotype carrying the −3826A variant was driven to high frequency by selection. In the UCP3 region, combining results from the climate analysis and resequencing survey suggest a more complex model in which variants on multiple haplotypes may independently be correlated with temperature. This is further supported by an excess of intermediate frequency variants in the UCP3 region in the Han Chinese population. Taken together, our results suggest that adaptation to climate influenced the global distribution of allele frequencies in UCP1 and UCP3 and provide an independent source of evidence for a role in cold resistance for UCP3

From fuzzy to annotated semantic web languages

The aim of this chapter is to present a detailed, selfcontained and comprehensive account of the state of the art in representing and reasoning with fuzzy knowledge in Semantic Web Languages such as triple languages RDF/RDFS, conceptual languages of the OWL 2 family and rule languages. We further show how one may generalise them to so-called annotation domains, that cover also e.g. temporal and provenance extensions