The ocean carbon sink – impacts, vulnerabilities and challenges

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is, next to water vapour, considered to be the most important natural greenhouse gas on Earth. Rapidly rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations caused by human actions such as fossil fuel burning, land-use change or cement production over the past 250 years have given cause for concern that changes in Earth’s climate system may progress at a much faster pace and larger extent than during the past 20 000 years. Investigating global carbon cycle pathways and finding suitable adaptation and mitigation strategies has, therefore, become of major concern in many research fields. The oceans have a key role in regulating atmospheric CO2 concentrations and currently take up about 25% of annual anthropogenic carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Questions that yet need to be answered are what the carbon uptake kinetics of the oceans will be in the future and how the increase in oceanic carbon inventory will affect its ecosystems and their services. This requires comprehensive investigations, including high-quality ocean carbon measurements on different spatial and temporal scales, the management of data in sophisticated databases, the application of Earth system models to provide future projections for given emission scenarios as well as a global synthesis and outreach to policy makers. In this paper, the current understanding of the ocean as an important carbon sink is reviewed with respect to these topics. Emphasis is placed on the complex interplay of different physical, chemical and biological processes that yield both positive and negative air–sea flux values for natural and anthropogenic CO2 as well as on increased CO2 (uptake) as the regulating force of the radiative warming of the atmosphere and the gradual acidification of the oceans. Major future ocean carbon challenges in the fields of ocean observations, modelling and process research as well as the relevance of other biogeochemical cycles and greenhouse gases are discussed

A Child-Centered Response to the Elkins Family Law Task Force

In Elkins v. Superior Court, 163 P.3d 160 (Cal. 2007), California’s Supreme Court asked the Judicial Council to form a task force to make recommendations to increase “access to justice” in family court, because it was concerned about rules, policies, and procedures that put self-represented litigants at an unfair disadvantage in parentageand dissolution cases. Neither the task force’s report in 2010 nor the legislation that the report inspired the same year addresses children’s due process rights, even though children ordinarily have no access to justice. This Article shows that due process sometimes requires the trial court to appoint counsel for children to obtain the information the court needs to address children’s interests. This Article also explains why trial courts should not construe the new Elkins laws to impose new and unique restrictions on children’s lawyers, and proposes new legislation and court rules to clarify children’s due process rights and minors’ counsel’s ethical duties when custody is at issue in family court

A Child-Centered Response to the Elkins Family Law Task Force

In Elkins v. Superior Court, 163 P.3d 160 (Cal. 2007), California’s Supreme Court asked the Judicial Council to form a task force to make recommendations to increase “access to justice” in family court, because it was concerned about rules, policies, and procedures that put self-represented litigants at an unfair disadvantage in parentageand dissolution cases. Neither the task force’s report in 2010 nor the legislation that the report inspired the same year addresses children’s due process rights, even though children ordinarily have no access to justice. This Article shows that due process sometimes requires the trial court to appoint counsel for children to obtain the information the court needs to address children’s interests. This Article also explains why trial courts should not construe the new Elkins laws to impose new and unique restrictions on children’s lawyers, and proposes new legislation and court rules to clarify children’s due process rights and minors’ counsel’s ethical duties when custody is at issue in family court

Width of Radio-Loud and Radio-Quiet CMEs

In the present paper we report on the difference in angular sizes between radio-loud and radio-quiet CMEs. For this purpose we compiled these two samples of events using Wind/WAVES and SOHO/LASCO observations obtained during 1996-2005. It is shown that the radio-loud CMEs are almost two times wider than the radio-quiet CMEs (considering expanding parts of CMEs). Furthermore we show that the radio-quiet CMEs have a narrow expanding bright part with a large extended diffusive structure. These results were obtained by measuring the CME widths in three different ways.Comment: Solar Physic, in pres

Social science sequestered

Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) raises many cultural, ethical, legal, social, and political issues, yet in the growing area of GGR research, humanities and social sciences (HASS) research is often marginalized, constrained and depoliticised. This global dynamic is illustrated by an analysis of the UK GGR research programme. This dynamic matters for the knowledge produced and for its users. Without HASS contributions, too narrow a range of perspectives, futures and issues will be considered, undermining or overpromising the prospects for the responsible development of GGR (and threatening worse side-effects), and limiting our understanding of why and how policy demands GGR solutions in the first place. In response, we present policy principles for bringing HASS fully into GGR research, organized around three themes: (1) HASS-led GGR research, (2) Opening up GGR futures, and (3) The politics of GGR futures.We acknowledge funding from the UK GGR programme, under several specific grants: NE/P019838/1, NE/P019900/1, NE/P019951/1, NE/P019668/1, and NE/P01982X/1

Deviations from Matthiessen's Rule for SrRuO3{\rm SrRuO_3} and CaRuO3{\rm CaRuO_3}

We have measured the change in the resistivity of thin films of ${\rm SrRuO_3}$ and ${\rm CaRuO_3}$ upon introducing point defects by electron irradiation at low temperatures, and we find significant deviations from Matthiessen's rule. For a fixed irradiation dose, the induced change in resistivity {\it decreases} with increasing temperature. Moreover, for a fixed temperature, the increase in resistivity with irradiation is found to be {\it sublinear}. We suggest that the observed behavior is due to the marked anisotropic scattering of the electrons together with their relatively short mean free path (both characteristic of many metallic oxides including cuprates) which amplify effects related to the Pippard ineffectiveness condition