The Spatio-Temporal Distribution of Fog in French Guiana as a Precondition for the Appearance of a new Vegetation Type - the Tropical Lowland Cloud Forest

Tropical cloud forests are characterized by high epiphyte diversity and abundance with a crucial driver for this being the frequent occurrence of fog that constitutes an additional water source for epiphytic vegetation. The ecological value of fog in these ecosystems is widely recognized and although tropical cloud forests in montane regions are known to be biodiverse and abundant in epiphytes, recent work indicates similar levels of both diversity and abundance in tropical lowland systems. An important question is whether fog plays a similar role in lowland systems as it does in montane areas, particularly since the physical mechanisms for fog formation in the tropical lowland are not well understood. The major aim of the present study was to provide an in-depth investigation of the fog phenomenon in French Guiana, including the spatio-temporal fog dynamics, and with this, to enhance the understanding of the impact of fog on epiphytic vegetation in tropical lowland forests. The main hypotheses suggest the frequent occurrence of radiation fog in valley forests throughout French Guiana, supported by nocturnal katabatic flows, and the formation of the epiphyte-rich “tropical lowland cloud forest” (LCF) as a new vegetation unit, which is restricted to areas frequently affected by fog. Testing these hypotheses required a specific experimental setup, an interdisciplinary approach and the development of a novel fog detection scheme. The first hypothesis concerning the frequent spatio-temporal occurrence of valley fog could be verified by the statistical assessments of the meteorological data derived in the field and the results of the satellite-based fog-detection scheme. The identified meteorological processes confirm the hypothesised mechanism of radiation fog formation and demonstrated that katabatic flows play a role. Therefore, nocturnal cold air drainage, typical in complex terrains of the midlatitudes, should also be regarded as a trigger of fog formation in the tropical lowland. The integrative assessment of canopy microclimate and epiphyte parameters verifies the second hypothesis. It was demonstrated that epiphyte diversity, abundance and biomass are significantly higher in valley forest as a consequence of a more favourable canopy microclimate due to frequent fog episodes. These findings provide strong evidence for the existence of the hitherto neglected tropical lowland cloud forest as a novel forest type. Thus, the results indicate that LCF and LRF should no longer be viewed as a single formation. Epiphyte diversity and distribution in LCF and LRF may represent useful characteristics for discriminating these forests. Further, the results indicate that the region of frequent occurrence of radiation fog in French Guiana can be regarded as optimum habitat for tropical lowland cloud forests. Overall, both hypotheses of this study can be confirmed. The investigations of the presented work have shown that fog formation is a regularly occurring phenomenon in space and time in French Guiana with significant impacts for epiphytic vegetation

Satellite-based sunshine duration for Europe

In this study, two different methods were applied to derive daily and monthly sunshine duration based on high-resolution satellite products provided by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring using data from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) SEVIRI (Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager). The satellite products were either hourly cloud type or hourly surface incoming direct radiation. The satellite sunshine duration estimates were not found to be significantly different using the native 15-minute temporal resolution of SEVIRI. The satellite-based sunshine duration products give additional spatial information over the European continent compared with equivalent in situ-based products. An evaluation of the satellite sunshine duration by product intercomparison and against station measurements was carried out to determine their accuracy. The satellite data were found to be within ±1 h/day compared to high-quality Baseline Surface Radiation Network or surface synoptic observations (SYNOP) station measurements. The satellite-based products differ more over the oceans than over land, mainly because of the treatment of fractional clouds in the cloud type-based sunshine duration product. This paper presents the methods used to derive the satellite sunshine duration products and the performance of the different retrievals. The main benefits and disadvantages compared to station-based products are also discussed

Addressing the need for improved land cover map products for policy support

The continued increase of anthropogenic pressure on the Earth’s ecosystems is degrading the natural environment and then decreasing the services it provides to humans. The type, quantity, and quality of many of those services are directly connected to land cover, yet competing demands for land continue to drive rapid land cover change, affecting ecosystem services. Accurate and updated land cover information is thus more important than ever, however, despite its importance, the needs of many users remain only partially attended. A key underlying reason for this is that user needs vary widely, since most current products – and there are many available – are produced for a specific type of end user, for example the climate modelling community. With this in mind we focus on the need for flexible, automated processing approaches that support on-demand, customized land cover products at various scales. Although land cover processing systems are gradually evolving in this direction there is much more to do and several important challenges must be addressed, including high quality reference data for training and validation and even better access to satellite data. Here, we 1) present a generic system architecture that we suggest land cover production systems evolve towards, 2) discuss the challenges involved, and 3) propose a step forward. Flexible systems that can generate on-demand products that match users’ specific needs would fundamentally change the relationship between users and land cover products – requiring more government support to make these systems a reality

Quality Management Framework for Climate Datasets

Data from a variety of research programmes are increasingly used by policy makers, researchers, and private sectors to make data-driven decisions related to climate change and variability. Climate services are emerging as the link to narrow the gap between climate science and downstream users. The Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) offers an umbrella for the development of climate services and has identified the quality assessment, along with its use in user guidance, as a key aspect of the service provision. This offers an extra stimulus for discussing what type of quality information to focus on and how to present it to downstream users. Quality has become an important keyword for those working on data in both the private and public sectors and significant resources are now devoted to quality management of processes and products. Quality management guarantees reliability and usability of the product served, it is a key element to build trust between consumers and suppliers. Untrustworthy data could lead to a negative economic impact at best and a safety hazard at worst. In a progressive commitment to establish this relation of trust, as well as providing sufficient guidance for users, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has made significant investments in the development of an Evaluation and Quality Control (EQC) function. This function offers a homogeneous user-driven service for the quality of the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). Here we focus on the EQC component targeting the assessment of the CDS datasets, which include satellite and in-situ observations, reanalysis, climate projections, and seasonal forecasts. The EQC function is characterised by a two-tier review system designed to guarantee the quality of the dataset information. While the need of assessing the quality of climate data is well recognised, the methodologies, the metrics, the evaluation framework, and how to present all this information to the users have never been developed before in an operational service, encompassing all the main climate dataset categories. Building the underlying technical solutions poses unprecedented challenges and makes the C3S EQC approach unique. This paper describes the development and the implementation of the operational EQC function providing an overarching quality management service for the whole CDS data.This study is based on work carried out in the C3S_512 contract funded by Copernicus Programme and operated by ECMWF on behalf of the European Commission (Service Contract number: ECMWF/COPERNICUS720187C3S_512_BSC). We would like to acknowledge the work of colleagues from several European institutions, the data providers and C3S, who contributed to the development of the EQC framework as well as to the QAR production. We would also like to acknowledge the focus group users, who took time to review and provide valuable feedback on the QARs, QATs, minimum requirements and the CDS quality assessment tab. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that have helped for the improvement of this paper.Peer Reviewed"Article signat per 23 autors/es: Carlo Lacagnina , Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Gilles Larnicol, Carlo Buontempo, André Obregón, Montserrat Costa-Surós, Daniel San-Martín, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Suraj D. Polade, Vanya Romanova, Davide Putero, Federico Serva, Alba Llabrés-Brustenga, Antonio Pérez, Davide Cavaliere, Olivier Membrive, Christian Steger, Núria Pérez-Zanón, Paolo Cristofanelli, Fabio Madonna, Marco Rosoldi, Aku Riihelä, Markel García Díez"Postprint (published version

O avanço do estado penal no Brasil como herança do neoliberalismo norte americano:: uma análise sob a ótica da criminologia crítica

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo el análisis del avance de la represión penal en Brasil a partir de la importación de políticas penales norteamericanas desarrolladas en un momento de caída del Estado de bienestar social y avance del ideario neoliberal. El trabajo será guiado por la perspectiva de la criminología crítica acerca de la construcción de la figura del ‘crimen del criminal’. De esta forma, el estudio pasará por la idea de criminalización de los individuos y estratos sociales más vulnerables como forma de mantenimiento y reproducción de una nueva fase del sistema capitalista. Autores como Loic Wacquant, Alessandro Baratta y Michel Foucault fueron los principales hitos teóricos del presente estudio

The Spatio-Temporal Distribution of Fog in French Guiana as a Precondition for the Appearance of a new Vegetation Type - the Tropical Lowland Cloud Forest

Tropical cloud forests are characterized by high epiphyte diversity and abundance with a crucial driver for this being the frequent occurrence of fog that constitutes an additional water source for epiphytic vegetation. The ecological value of fog in these ecosystems is widely recognized and although tropical cloud forests in montane regions are known to be biodiverse and abundant in epiphytes, recent work indicates similar levels of both diversity and abundance in tropical lowland systems. An important question is whether fog plays a similar role in lowland systems as it does in montane areas, particularly since the physical mechanisms for fog formation in the tropical lowland are not well understood. The major aim of the present study was to provide an in-depth investigation of the fog phenomenon in French Guiana, including the spatio-temporal fog dynamics, and with this, to enhance the understanding of the impact of fog on epiphytic vegetation in tropical lowland forests. The main hypotheses suggest the frequent occurrence of radiation fog in valley forests throughout French Guiana, supported by nocturnal katabatic flows, and the formation of the epiphyte-rich “tropical lowland cloud forest” (LCF) as a new vegetation unit, which is restricted to areas frequently affected by fog. Testing these hypotheses required a specific experimental setup, an interdisciplinary approach and the development of a novel fog detection scheme. The first hypothesis concerning the frequent spatio-temporal occurrence of valley fog could be verified by the statistical assessments of the meteorological data derived in the field and the results of the satellite-based fog-detection scheme. The identified meteorological processes confirm the hypothesised mechanism of radiation fog formation and demonstrated that katabatic flows play a role. Therefore, nocturnal cold air drainage, typical in complex terrains of the midlatitudes, should also be regarded as a trigger of fog formation in the tropical lowland. The integrative assessment of canopy microclimate and epiphyte parameters verifies the second hypothesis. It was demonstrated that epiphyte diversity, abundance and biomass are significantly higher in valley forest as a consequence of a more favourable canopy microclimate due to frequent fog episodes. These findings provide strong evidence for the existence of the hitherto neglected tropical lowland cloud forest as a novel forest type. Thus, the results indicate that LCF and LRF should no longer be viewed as a single formation. Epiphyte diversity and distribution in LCF and LRF may represent useful characteristics for discriminating these forests. Further, the results indicate that the region of frequent occurrence of radiation fog in French Guiana can be regarded as optimum habitat for tropical lowland cloud forests. Overall, both hypotheses of this study can be confirmed. The investigations of the presented work have shown that fog formation is a regularly occurring phenomenon in space and time in French Guiana with significant impacts for epiphytic vegetation