Seasonality of meteorological drought parameters in Germany and their trends due to climate change

Climate change as a global problem affects the world on different scales, but its impact differs strongly between regions. Beside temperature, precipitation is another key element of the climatic system with at least the same importance. Regarding the precipitation regime, not only changes in the mean values have been detected, but also in the occurrence of extreme events and shifts in the seasonal distribution of precipitation throughout the year. With this background, our study investigates trends of meteorological drought in Germany as an example of what happens in a temperate climate zone. As indicators of dry spells we used the highest annual number of consecutive dry days, and the lowest precipitation within 40 days during one year as a new index. In addition, we analysed the annual and monthly total number of precipitation-free days as well as the total precipitation and its daily average on a monthly basis as further meteorological parameters. The results show an overall increase of the annual precipitation along with a decrease of the number of dry days per year. The highest annual number of consecutive dry days has also been decreasing, which means that dry spells are interrupted more often by significant precipitation and therefore are shorter. In accordance with the annual precipitation, the lowest precipitation during 40 consecutive days has also increased. As expected, the calculated linear trends of the parameters vary within the country and show a seasonal shift with stronger changes in certain month regarding the monthly precipitation, with a clear increase during the winter months. The results obtained using only precipitation-based meteorological parameters and our new index are in accordance with other results from the literature

The Web will kill them all: new media, digital utopia, and political struggle in the Italian 5-Star Movement

This article examines the role of discourses about new media technology and the Web in the rise of the 5-Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, or M5S) in Italy. Founded by comedian and activist Beppe Grillo and Web entrepreneur Gianrobe rto Casaleggio in 2009, this movement succeeded in becoming the second largest party at t he 2013 national elections in Italy. This article aims to discuss how elements of digital uto pia and Web-centric discourses have been inserted into the movement’s political message, and how the construction of the Web as a myth has shaped the movement’s discourse and political p ractice. The 5-Star Movement is compared and contrasted with other social and political move ments in Western countries which have displayed a similar emphasis on new media, such as the Occupy movement, the Indignados movement, and the Pirate Parties in Sweden and Germ any. By adopting and mutating cyber- utopian discourses from the so-called Californian i deology, the movement symbolically identifies itself with the Web. The traditional political esta blishment is associated with “old” media (television, radio, and the printed press), and rep resented as a “walking dead,” doomed to be superseded and buried by a Web-based direct democra cy

Simulating future salinity dynamics in a coastal marshland under different climate scenarios

Salinization is a well‐known problem in agricultural areas worldwide. In the last 20–30 yr, rising salinity in the upper, unconfined aquifer has been observed in the Freepsumer Meer, a grassland near the German North Sea coast. For investigating long‐term development of salinity and water balance during 1961–2099, the one‐dimensional Soil–Water–Atmosphere–Plant (SWAP) model was set up and calibrated for a soil column in the area. The model setup involves a deep aquifer as the source of salt through upward seepage. In the vertical salt transport equation, dispersion and advection are included. Six different regional outputs of statistical downscaling methods were used as climate scenarios. These comprise different rates of increasing surface temperature and different trends in seasonal rainfall. The simulation results exhibit opposing salinity trends for topsoil and deeper layers. Although projections of some scenarios entail decreasing salinities near the surface, most of them project a rise in subsoil salinity, with the strongest trends of up to +0.9 mg cm−3 100 yr−1 at −65 cm. The results suggest that topsoil salinity trends in the study area are affected by the magnitude of winter rainfall trends, whereas high subsoil salinities correspond to low winter rainfall and high summer temperature. How these projected trends affect the vegetation and thereby future land use will depend on the future management of groundwater levels in the area

Awareness and use of intertrochanteric osteotomies in current clinical practice. An international survey

Current literature shows that intertrochanteric osteotomies can produce excellent results in selected hip disorders in specific groups of patients. However, it appears that this surgical option is considered an historical one that has no role to play in modern practice. In order to examine current awareness of and views on intertrochanteric osteotomies among international hip surgeons, an online survey was carried out. The survey consisted of a set of questions regarding current clinical practice and awareness of osteotomies. The second part of the survey consisted of five clinical cases and sought to elicit views on preoperative radiological investigations and preferred (surgical) treatments. The results of our survey showed that most of these experts believe that intertrochanteric osteotomies should still be performed in selected cases. Only 56% perform intertrochanteric osteotomies themselves and of those, only 11% perform more than five per year. The responses to the cases show that about 30–40% recommend intertrochanteric osteotomies in young symptomatic patients. This survey shows that the role of intertrochanteric osteotomies is declining in clinical practice

"Die westliche Ordnung ist unter Beschuss": Interview

Drei Profi-Weltbeobachter über den Aufstieg des Populismus und die Krise der Demokratie, über die Schwächen des Euro und eine markthörige Politik

Rechnergestuetzte Bilanzierung und Kontrolle des sickerwassergebundenen Stoffaustrages aus Trinkwassereinzugsgebieten mit dem Programm EHP

Available from TIB Hannover: FR 5287+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman