948 research outputs found
Large lianas as hyperdynamic elements of the tropical forest canopy
Lianas (woody vines) are an important component of lowland tropical forests.
We report large liana and tree inventory and dynamics data from Amazonia over periods
of up to 24 years, making this the longest geographically extensive study of liana ecology
to date. We use these results to address basic questions about the ecology of large lianas
in mature forests and their interactions with trees. In one intensively studied site we find
that large lianas (â„10 cm diameter) represent ,5% of liana stems, but 80% of biomass of
well-lit upper canopy lianas. Across sites, large lianas and large trees are both most successful
in terms of structural importance in richer soil forests, but large liana success may
be controlled more by the availability of large tree supports rather than directly by soil
conditions. Long-term annual turnover rates of large lianas are 5â8%, three times those of
trees. Lianas are implicated in large tree mortality: liana-infested large trees are three times
more likely to die than liana-free large trees, and large lianas are involved in the death of
at least 30% of tree basal area. Thus large lianas are a much more dynamic component of
Amazon forests than are canopy trees, and they play a much more significant functional
role than their structural contribution suggests
Striking divergences in Earth Observation products may limit their use for REDD+
Countries are required to generate baselines of carbon emissions, or Forest Reference Emission Levels, for implementing REDD+ under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and to access results-based payments. Developing these baselines requires accurate maps of carbon stocks and historical deforestation. Global remote sensing products provide low-cost solutions for this information, but there has been little validation of these products at national scales. This study compares the ability of currently available products obtained from remote sensing data to deliver estimates of deforestation and associated carbon emissions in Guinea-Bissau, a West African country encompassing the climate and vegetation gradients that are typical of sub-Saharan Africa. We show that disagreements in estimates of deforestation are striking, and this variation leads to high uncertainty in derived emissions. For Guinea-Bissau, we suggest that higher temporal resolution of remote sensing products is required to reduce this uncertainty by overcoming current limitations in differentiating deforestation from seasonality. In contrast, existing datasets of carbon stocks show better agreement, and contribute much less to the variation in estimated emissions. We conclude that using global datasets based on Earth Observation data is a cost-effective solution to make REDD+ operational, but deforestation maps in particular should be derived carefully and their uncertainty assessed
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A one-shot deviation principle for stability in matching problems
This paper considers marriage problems, roommate problems with nonempty core, and college admissions problems with responsive preferences. All stochastically stable matchings are shown to be contained in the set of matchings which are most robust to one-shot deviation
The Hamiltonian limit of (3+1)D SU(3) lattice gauge theory on anisotropic lattices
The extreme anisotropic limit of Euclidean SU(3) lattice gauge theory is
examined to extract the Hamiltonian limit, using standard path integral Monte
Carlo (PIMC) methods. We examine the mean plaquette and string tension and
compare them to results obtained within the Hamiltonian framework of Kogut and
Susskind. The results are a significant improvement upon previous Hamiltonian
estimates, despite the extrapolation procedure necessary to extract
observables. We conclude that the PIMC method is a reliable method of obtaining
results for the Hamiltonian version of the theory. Our results also clearly
demonstrate the universality between the Hamiltonian and Euclidean formulations
of lattice gauge theory. It is particularly important to take into account the
renormalization of both the anisotropy, and the Euclidean coupling ,
in obtaining these results.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure
Prospects for asteroseismology
The observational basis for asteroseismology is being dramatically
strengthened, through more than two years of data from the CoRoT satellite, the
flood of data coming from the Kepler mission and, in the slightly longer term,
from dedicated ground-based facilities. Our ability to utilize these data
depends on further development of techniques for basic data analysis, as well
as on an improved understanding of the relation between the observed
frequencies and the underlying properties of the stars. Also, stellar modelling
must be further developed, to match the increasing diagnostic potential of the
data. Here we discuss some aspects of data interpretation and modelling,
focussing on the important case of stars with solar-like oscillations.Comment: Proc. HELAS Workshop on 'Synergies between solar and stellar
modelling', eds M. Marconi, D. Cardini & M. P. Di Mauro, Astrophys. Space
Sci., in the press Revision: correcting abscissa labels on Figs 1 and
Hadron Structure on the Lattice
A few chosen nucleon properties are described from a lattice QCD perspective:
the nucleon sigma term and the scalar strangeness in the nucleon; the vector
form factors in the nucleon, including the vector strangeness contribution, as
well as parity breaking effects like the anapole and electric dipole moment;
and finally the axial and tensor charges of the nucleon. The status of the
lattice calculations is presented and their potential impact on phenomenology
is discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures; proceedings of the Conclusive Symposium of the
Collaborative Research Center 443 "Many-body structure of strongly
interacting systems", Mainz, February 23-25, 201
Anthropogenic Space Weather
Anthropogenic effects on the space environment started in the late 19th
century and reached their peak in the 1960s when high-altitude nuclear
explosions were carried out by the USA and the Soviet Union. These explosions
created artificial radiation belts near Earth that resulted in major damages to
several satellites. Another, unexpected impact of the high-altitude nuclear
tests was the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can have devastating effects
over a large geographic area (as large as the continental United States). Other
anthropogenic impacts on the space environment include chemical release ex-
periments, high-frequency wave heating of the ionosphere and the interaction of
VLF waves with the radiation belts. This paper reviews the fundamental physical
process behind these phenomena and discusses the observations of their impacts.Comment: 71 pages, 35 figure
The carbon balance of South America: A review of the status, decadal trends and main determinants
Copyright © 2012 European Geosciences Union. This is the published version available at http://www.biogeosciences-discuss.net/9/627/2012/bgd-9-627-2012.htmlWe attempt to summarize the carbon budget of South America and relate it to its dominant controls: population and economic growth, changes in land use practices and a changing atmospheric environment and climate. Flux estimation methods which we consider sufficiently reliable are fossil fuel emission inventories, biometric analysis of old-growth rainforests, estimation of carbon release associated with deforestation based on remote sensing and inventories, and finally inventories of agricultural exports. Other routes to estimating land-atmosphere CO2 fluxes include atmospheric transport inverse modelling and vegetation model predictions but are hampered by the data paucity and the need for improved parameterisation. The available data we analyze suggest that South America was a net source to the atmosphere during the 1980s (âŒ0.3â0.4 Pg C yrâ1) and close to neutral (âŒ0.1 Pg C yrâ1) in the 1990s with carbon uptake in old-growth forests nearly compensating carbon losses due to fossil fuel burning and deforestation. Annual mean precipitation over tropical South America measured by Amazon River discharge has a long-term upward trend, although over the last decade, dry seasons have tended to be drier and longer (and thus wet seasons wetter), with the years 2005 and 2010 experiencing strong droughts. It is currently unclear what the effect of these climate changes on the old-growth forest carbon sink will be but first measurements suggest it may be weakened. Based on scaling of forest census data the net carbon balance of South America seems to have been an increased source roughly over the 2005â2010 period (a total of âŒ1 Pg C of dead tree biomass released over several years) due to forest drought response. Finally, economic development of the tropical forest regions of the continent is advancing steadily with exports of agricultural products being an important driver and witnessing a strong upturn over the last decade
Methods to estimate aboveground wood productivity from long-term forest inventory plots
Forest inventory plots are widely used to estimate biomass carbon storage and its change over time. While there has been much debate and exploration of the analytical methods for calculating biomass, the methods used to determine rates of wood production have not been evaluated to the same degree. This affects assessment of ecosystem fluxes and may have wider implications if inventory data are used to parameterise biospheric models, or scaled to large areas in assessments of carbon sequestration. Here we use a dataset of 35 long-term Amazonian forest inventory plots to test different methods of calculating wood production rates. These address potential biases associated with three issues that routinely impact the interpretation of tree measurement data: (1) changes in the point of measurement (POM) of stem diameter as trees grow over time; (2) unequal length of time between censuses; and (3) the treatment of trees that pass the minimum diameter threshold (ârecruitsâ). We derive corrections that control for changing POM height, that account for the unobserved growth of trees that die within census intervals, and that explore different assumptions regarding the growth of recruits during the previous census interval. For our dataset we find that annual aboveground coarse wood production (AGWP; in Mg haâ1 yearâ1 of dry matter) is underestimated on average by 9.2% if corrections are not made to control for changes in POM height. Failure to control for the length of sampling intervals results in a mean underestimation of 2.7% in annual AGWP in our plots for a mean interval length of 3.6 years. Different methods for treating recruits result in mean differences of up to 8.1% in AGWP. In general, the greater the length of time a plot is sampled for and the greater the time elapsed between censuses, the greater the tendency to underestimate wood production. We recommend that POM changes, census interval length, and the contribution of recruits should all be accounted for when estimating productivity rates, and suggest methods for doing this.European UnionUK Natural Environment Research CouncilGordon and Betty Moore FoundationCASE sponsorship from UNEP-WCMCRoyal Society University Research FellowshipERC Advanced Grant âTropical Forests in the Changing Earth SystemâRoyal Society Wolfson Research Merit Awar
4pi Models of CMEs and ICMEs
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which dynamically connect the solar surface to
the far reaches of interplanetary space, represent a major anifestation of
solar activity. They are not only of principal interest but also play a pivotal
role in the context of space weather predictions. The steady improvement of
both numerical methods and computational resources during recent years has
allowed for the creation of increasingly realistic models of interplanetary
CMEs (ICMEs), which can now be compared to high-quality observational data from
various space-bound missions. This review discusses existing models of CMEs,
characterizing them by scientific aim and scope, CME initiation method, and
physical effects included, thereby stressing the importance of fully 3-D
('4pi') spatial coverage.Comment: 14 pages plus references. Comments welcome. Accepted for publication
in Solar Physics (SUN-360 topical issue
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