When do Indians feel hot? Internet searches indicate seasonality suppresses adaptation to heat

In a warming world an increasing number of people are being exposed to heat, making a comfortable thermal environment an important need. This study explores the potential of using Regional Internet Search Frequencies (RISF) for air conditioning devices as an indicator for thermal discomfort (i.e. dissatisfaction with the thermal environment) with the aim to quantify the adaptation potential of individuals living across different climate zones and at the high end of the temperature range, in India, where access to health data is limited. We related RISF for the years 2011–2015 to daily daytime outdoor temperature in 17 states and determined at which temperature RISF for air conditioning starts to peak, i.e. crosses a 'heat threshold', in each state. Using the spatial variation in heat thresholds, we explored whether people continuously exposed to higher temperatures show a lower response to heat extremes through adaptation (e.g. physiological, behavioural or psychological). State-level heat thresholds ranged from 25.9 °C in Madhya Pradesh to 31.0 °C in Orissa. Local adaptation was found to occur at state level: the higher the average temperature in a state, the higher the heat threshold; and the higher the intra-annual temperature range (warmest minus coldest month) the lower the heat threshold. These results indicate there is potential within India to adapt to warmer temperatures, but that a large intra-annual temperature variability attenuates this potential to adapt to extreme heat. This winter 'reset' mechanism should be taken into account when assessing the impact of global warming, with changes in minimum temperatures being an important factor in addition to the change in maximum temperatures itself. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of local heat thresholds and people's adaptive capacity, which can support the design of local thermal comfort standards and early heat warning systems

Дух міста в добу глобалізації

У статті пропонується авторський варіант осмислення проблем формування та структурування міст з позиції філософської антропології. Зроблено спробу експлікації проблемного поля сучасного міста в контексті дослідження релігійної складової.The article is offered the author version of understanding the problems of forming and structuring town from the position of philosophical anthropology. The attempt of explication of problem field of contemporary town in the context of the religious component of research is done

Using legacy data to reconstruct the past? Rescue, rigour and reuse in peatland geochronology

There is a growing interest in the rescue and reuse of data from past studies (so-called legacy data). Data loss is alarming, especially where natural archives are under threat, such as peat deposits. Here we develop a workflow for reuse of legacy radiocarbon dates in peatland studies, including a rigorous quality assessment that can be tailored to specific research questions and study regions. A penalty is assigned to each date based on criteria that consider taphonomic quality (i.e., sample provenance) and dating quality (i.e., sample material and method used). The weights of quality criteria may be adjusted based on the research focus, and resulting confidence levels may be used in further analyses to ensure robustness of conclusions. We apply the proposed approach to a case study of a (former) peat landscape in the Netherlands, aiming to reconstruct the timing of peat initiation spatially. Our search yielded 313 radiocarbon dates from the 1950s to 2019. Based on the quality assessment, the dates—of highly diverse quality—were assigned to four confidence levels. Results indicate that peat initiation for the study area first peaked in the Late Glacial (~14,000 cal years BP), dropped during the Boreal (~9,500 cal years BP) and showed a second peak in the Subboreal (~4,500 cal years BP). We tentatively conclude that the earliest peak was mostly driven by climate (Bølling–Allerød interstadial), whereas the second was probably the result of Holocene sea level rise and related groundwater level rise in combination with climatic conditions (hypsithermal). Our study highlights the potential of legacy data for palaeogeographic reconstructions, as it is cost-efficient and provides access to information no longer available in the field. However, data retrieval may be challenging, and reuse of data requires that basic information on location, elevation, stratigraphy, sample and laboratory analysis are documented irrespective of the original research aims

Data underlying the publication Emerging forest-peatland bi-stability and resilience of European peatland carbon stores

Peatlands are sensitive ecosystems that store carbon and water and support biodiversity. Currently European peatlands are threatened by climate change and exploitation. With this model, we show that many landscape settings may support both wetland ecosystems on thick peat soils and forest ecosystems on thin organic soils. Both ecosystems have distinctly different water-carbon dynamics that create internal positive feedbacks allowing both ecosystems to co-exist (bistability), but also to shift when critical limits are exceeded. Model scripts in R and input files to run the model for entire Europe. This requires almost 1,000,000 model runs of 1000Y each(5650 locations, 166 runs per location, estimated 1-5 minutes per model run, total output of around 85 Gig., not presented here

Temporal variability in groundwater and surface water quality in humid agricultural catchments; Driving processes and consequences for regional water quality monitoring

Considering the large temporal variability in surface water quality is essential for adequate water quality policy and management. Neglecting these dynamics may easily lead to decreased effectiveness of measures to improve water quality and to inefficient water quality monitoring. The objective of this paper is to summarise our understanding of temporal variability in surface water and upper groundwater quality and to discuss the consequences and opportunities for regional water quality monitoring. In regional monitoring networks, measurement frequencies are typically too low to capture the short-term temporal variations in solute concentrations. This causes large uncertainty in the assessment of (trends in) average concentrations and contaminant loads. The most important driver for short-term variations in water quality in most catchments is the variability in meteorological conditions, which induces changes in the relative discharge contributions of water from different flow routes and different chemical compositions. Various options exist for dealing with the transient behavior of water quality in regional water quality monitoring. Estimates of average concentrations and loads from low-frequency concentration data can be improved by using the explanatory strength of commonly available measurements of quantitative hydrological data like precipitation, discharge, and groundwater levels. This paper provides examples of the relationship between water quality and explanatory variables in conceptual, statistical, or process-based models. Another strategy for dealing with short-term variability in water quality monitoring is to measure long-term average solute concentrations using passive samplers. Similarly, on-site auto analyzers and ion specific electrodes provide opportunities for continuous water quality measurements

The Importance of Spatial Resolution in the Modeling of Methane Emissions from Natural Wetlands

An important uncertainty in the modeling of methane (CH4) emissions from natural wetlands is the wetland area. It is difficult to model wetlands’ CH4 emissions because of several factors, including its spatial heterogeneity on a large range of scales. In this study, we investigate the impact of model resolution on the simulated wetland methane emission for the Fennoscandinavian Peninsula. This is carried out using a high-resolution wetland map (100 × 100 m2) and soil carbon map (250 × 250 m2) in combination with a highly simplified CH4 emission model that is coarsened in five steps from 0.005° to 1°. We find a strong relation between wetland emissions and resolution, which is sensitive, however, to the sub-grid treatment of the wetland fraction. In our setup, soil carbon and soil moisture are positively correlated at a high resolution, with the wetland location leading to increasing CH4 emissions with increasing resolution. Keeping track of the wetland fraction reduces the impact of resolution. However, uncertainties in CH4 emissions remain high because of the large uncertainty in the representation of wetland the area, as demonstrated using the output of the WetChimp intercomparison over our study domain. Because of wetland mapping uncertainties, existing models are unlikely to realistically represent the correlation between soil moisture and soil carbon availability. The correlation is positive in our simplified model but may be different in more complex models depending on their method of representing substrate availability. Therefore, depending on the correlation, CH4 emissions may be over- or underestimated. As increasing the model resolution is an effective approach to mitigate the problem of accounting for the correlation between soil moisture and soil carbon and to improve the accuracy of models, the main message of this study is that increasing the resolution of global wetland models, and especially the input datasets that are used, should receive high priority

Iron oxidation kinetics and phosphorus immobilization at the groundwater-surface water interface

Eutrophication of freshwater environments following diffuse nutrient loads is a widely recognized water quality problem in catchments. Fluxes of non-point P sources to surface waters originate from surface runoff and flow from soil water and groundwater into surface water. The availability of P in surface waters is controlled strongly by biogeochemical nutrient cycling processes at the soil-water interface. The mechanisms and rates of the iron oxidation process with associated binding of phosphate during exfiltration of anaerobic Fe(II) bearing groundwater are among the key unknowns in P retention processes in surface waters in delta areas where the shallow groundwater is typically pH-neutral to slightly acid, anoxic, iron-rich. We developed an experimental field set-up to study the dynamics in Fe(II) oxidation and mechanisms of P immobilization at the groundwater-surface water interface in an agricultural experimental catchment of a small lowland river. We physically separated tube drain effluent from groundwater discharge before it entered a ditch in an agricultural field. The exfiltrating groundwater was captured in in-stream reservoirs constructed in the ditch. Through continuous discharge measurements and weekly water quality sampling of groundwater, tube drain water, exfiltrated groundwater, and ditch water, we quantified Fe(II) oxidation kinetics and P immobilization processes across the seasons. This study showed that seasonal changes in climatic conditions affect the Fe(II) oxidation process. In winter time the dissolved iron concentrations in the in-stream reservoirs reached the levels of the anaerobic groundwater. In summer time, the dissolved iron concentrations of the water in the reservoirs are low, indicating that dissolved Fe(II) is completely oxidized prior to inflow into the reservoirs. Higher discharges, lower temperatures and lower pH of the exfiltrated groundwater in winter compared to summer shifts the location of the redox transition zone, with Fe(II) oxidation taking place in the soil surrounding the ditch during summer and in the surface water during winter. The dynamics in Fe(II) oxidation did not affect the dissolved P concentrations. The dissolved P concentrations of the in-stream reservoirs water were an order of magnitude lower than observed in the groundwater and have no seasonal trend. Our data showed preferential binding of P during initial stage of the Fe(II) oxidation process, indicating the formation of Fe(III)-phosphate precipitates. The formation of Fe(III)-phosphates at the groundwater-surface water interface is an important geochemical mechanism in the transformation of dissolved phosphate to particulate phosphate and therefore a major control on the P retention in natural waters that drain anaerobic aquifers

Data-driven regionalization of river discharges and emergent land cover-evapotranspiration relationships across Sweden

[1] Changes in river discharge and river water quality, due to climate change and other drivers such as land cover change, pose both societal and ecosystem threats. Analyses of measured terrestrial river fluxes are key for identifying the drivers and quantifying the magnitudes of such riverine changes. In this paper, we develop and apply a data-driven regionalization approach using the dense network of discharge measurements in Sweden. The developed regionalization approach facilitates detailed mapping of discharges (Q) and change trends in Q across Sweden. Combining these with estimates of precipitation (P) and change trends in P, we estimated actual evapotranspiration (AET) and change trends in AET via catchment-scale water balance constraints. We identified characteristic land cover-evapotranspiration relationships by plotting water use efficiency (AET/P) against energy use efficiency (AET/potential ET) for areas with unique land cover across Sweden. Our results show that wetlands have clearly lower water and energy use efficiencies compared to open waters, forests, and agriculture, and that agriculture has water and energy use efficiencies closest to those of open waters. We further compared the data-driven regionalization estimates of different water balance components with estimates of regional climate models (RCMs). The RCMs do not describe well the observed change trends in Sweden. In particular, for evapotranspiration, the observed change trends are not reproduced by any of the investigated 24 RCMs

D1.3 Initial data resources map

<p>This deliverable aims to provide FAIR cataloguing tools to map existing resources metadata for discovery (building on experience and standardised templates developed in previous projects, such as BBMRI-ERIC), request and as reference during research, and to support the process of data harmonisation and versioning of the variable mappings in EOSC4Cancer towards joint data analysis and study across study comparisons (i.e. promoting the FAIR principles).</p&gt

Constraining water age dynamics in a south-eastern Australian catchment using an age-ranked storage and stable isotope approach

Improving our knowledge of the travel times of water through catchments is critical for the management and protection of water resources and to improve our understanding of fundamental catchment behaviour. In this study we use the age-ranked storage framework StorAge Selection (SAS) to investigate travel times in the Corin catchment, a headwater catchment in the south-east of Australia covered by native Eucalyptus species. Few studies have applied the SAS framework globally and in energy-intensive areas where catchment losses are heavily in favour of evapotranspiration relative to streamflow. A combination of observed and modelled values of oxygen-18 (δ18O), the stable isotope in water, are used to constrain storage selection preferences of streamflow and evapotranspiration and the size of the catchment active storage. The highest performing parameter combinations that could reproduce δ18O in streamflow were dependent on a strong preference for young water in evapotranspiration, and a mixture of weak young and old water preference in streamflow. The mean travel time of streamflow over the study period 2007–2019, weighted by the flow rate, is limited to within a probable range of 2.81–9.77 years. The size of the active storage, a key parameter in the SAS framework, was poorly identified, and in combination with the isotopic inputs into the model, contributed to the uncertainty of the results. We discuss the implications of the results with respect to the study area, as well as within the context of SAS research globally and identify ways to improve the modelling process