Torn Between International Cooperation and National Sovereignty: Voter Attitudes in Trade‐off Situations in Switzerland

This research note examines voter preferences in Swiss-EU relations. We identify large shares of cross-pressured voters, i.e., citizens who support the bilateral treaties but wish to either control immigration into Switzerland or oppose a liberalization of social protection measures on the job market. Voters experiencing a trade-off between immigration control and international cooperation are mainly located on the Right. Their share decreased between 2015 and 2019, whereas the share of neutral voters sharply increased. Moreover, negotiations about an Institutional Framework Agreement between Switzerland and the EU have given rise to a new trade-off – namely between social protection and international cooperation – with cross-pressured voters mainly concentrated on the Left. This tension has generated a high share of undecided voters. When pressured to decide on these trade-offs, cross-pressured and neutral voters opt for the bilateral treaties over immigration control, whereas they prefer social protection over the new agreement. Partisanship is a strong predictor of these choices

Wandel der Inlandsadoption in der Schweiz

Mittels Interviews und Archivrecherchen arbeitet ein interdisziplinäres Team der Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften und der PACH die Adoptionsgeschichte der Schweiz auf. Sie präsentieren das Vorgehen in diesem komplexen Projekt

Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Models in the Grey Zone of Turbulence: Adaptations to FLEXPART-COSMO for Simulations at 1 km Grid Resolution.

Lagrangian particle dispersion models (LPDMs) are frequently used for regional-scale inversions of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the turbulence parameterizations used in these models were developed for coarse resolution grids, hence, when moving to the kilometre-scale the validity of these descriptions should be questioned. Here, we analyze the influence of the turbulence parameterization employed in the LPDM FLEXPART-COSMO model. Comparisons of the turbulence kinetic energy between the turbulence schemes of FLEXPART-COSMO and the underlying Eulerian model COSMO suggest that the dispersion in FLEXPART-COSMO suffers from a double-counting of turbulent elements when run at a high resolution of . Such turbulent elements are represented in both COSMO, by the resolved grid-scale winds, and FLEXPART, by its stochastic parameterizations. Therefore, we developed a new parametrization for the variations of the winds and the Lagrangian time scales in FLEXPART in order to harmonize the amount of turbulence present in both models. In a case study for a power plant plume, the new scheme results in improved plume representation when compared with in situ flight observations and with a tracer transported in COSMO. Further in-depth validation of the LPDM against methane observations at a tall tower site in Switzerland shows that the model's ability to predict the observed tracer variability and concentration at different heights above ground is considerably enhanced using the updated turbulence description. The high-resolution simulations result in a more realistic and pronounced diurnal cycle of the tracer concentration peaks and overall improved correlation with observations when compared to previously used coarser resolution simulations (at 7 km 7 km). Our results indicate that the stochastic turbulence schemes of LPDMs, developed in the past for coarse resolution models, should be revisited to include a resolution dependency and resolve only the part of the turbulence spectrum that is a subgrid process at each different mesh size. Although our new scheme is specific to COSMO simulations at resolution, the methodology for deriving the scheme can easily be applied to different resolutions and other regional models. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10546-022-00728-3

Stable Isotope Analysis of Greenhouse Gases Requires Analyte Preconcentration

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is an important trace gas contributing to global warming and depletion of ozone in the stratosphere. Its increasing abundance is caused mainly by anthropogenic sources, such as application of fertilizers in agriculture or emissions from industry. To understand the N2O global budget, its sources and sinks need to be well-described and quantified. In this project, a new method for N2O source appointment was developed that can help with this task. The method is based on analysis of the eight most abundant isotopic molecules of N2O, using quantum cascade laser absorption spectroscopy (QCLAS). The applicability of the method towards the N2O biogeochemical cycle was demonstrated on a prominent N2O source (bacterial denitrification) and the most important N2O sink (UV photolysis) on samples prepared in laboratory experiments. An extension of the QCLAS method to natural samples can be achieved by hyphenation with a preconcentration technique that increases concentration of the analyte and standardizes the sample matrix. This article provides an overview of currently applied preconcentration techniques in the field of greenhouse-gas analysis and a description of the preconcentration device TREX that will be employed in future projects with the developed QCLAS method

Automated fragment identification for electron ionisation mass spectrometry: application to atmospheric measurements of halocarbons

Non-target screening consists in searching a sample for all present substances, suspected or unknown, with very little prior knowledge about the sample. This approach has been introduced more than a decade ago in the field of water analysis, together with dedicated compound identification tools, but is still very scarce for indoor and atmospheric trace gas measurements, despite the clear need for a better understanding of the atmospheric trace gas composition.For a systematic detection of emerging trace gases in the atmosphere, a new and powerful analytical method is gas chromatography (GC) of preconcentrated samples, followed by electron ionisation, high resolution mass spectrometry (EI-HRMS). In this work, we present data analysis tools to enable automated fragment formula annotation for unknown compounds measured by GC-EI-HRMS. Based on co-eluting mass/charge fragments, we developed an innovative data analysis method to reliably reconstruct the chemical formulae of the fragments, using efficient combinatorics and graph theory. The method does not require the presence of the molecular ion, which is absent in ~40% of EI spectra. Our method has been trained and validated on \textgreater50 halocarbons and hydrocarbons, with 3 to 20 atoms and molar masses of 30 to 330 g mol-1, measured with a mass resolution of approx.~3500. For 90% of the compounds, more than 90% of the annotated fragment formulae are correct. Cases of wrong identification can be attributed to the scarcity of detected fragments per compound or the lack of isotopic constraint (no minor isotopocule detected).Our method enables to reconstruct most probable chemical formulae independently from spectral databases. Therefore, it demonstrates the suitability of EI-HRMS data for non-target analysis and paves the way for the identification of substances for which no EI mass spectrum is registered in databases. We illustrate the performances of our method for atmospheric trace gases and suggest that it may be well suited for many other types of samples. The L-GPL licenced Python code is released under the name ALPINAC for ALgorithmic Process for Identification of Non-targeted Atmospheric Compounds.Comment: Journal of Cheminformatics, Chemistry Central Ltd. and BioMed Central, 202

Recent advances in measurement techniques for atmospheric carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide observations

International audienceCarbon monoxide (CO) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) are two key parameters in the observation of the atmosphere, relevant to air quality and climate change, respectively. For CO, various analytical techniques have been in use over the last few decades. In contrast, N 2 O was mainly measured using gas chromatography (GC) with an electron capture detector (ECD). In recent years, new spectroscopic methods have become available which are suitable for both CO and N 2 O. These include infrared (IR) spectroscopic techniques such as cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS), off-axis integrated cavity output spectroscopy (OA-ICOS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Corresponding instruments became recently commercially available and are increasingly used at atmospheric monitoring stations. We analysed results obtained through performance audits conducted within the framework of the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) quality management system of the World Meteorology Organization (WMO). These results reveal that current spectroscopic measurement techniques have clear advantages with respect to data quality objectives compared to more traditional methods for measuring CO and N 2 O. Further , they allow for a smooth continuation of historic CO and N 2 O time series. However, special care is required concerning potential water vapour interference on the CO amount fraction reported by near-IR CRDS instruments. This is reflected in the results of parallel measurement campaigns, which clearly indicate that drying the sample air leads to an improved accuracy of CO measurements with such near-IR CRDS instruments

Ammonia monitoring at trace level using photoacoustic spectroscopy in industrial and environmental applications

An ammonia traces analyser based on photoacoustic spectroscopy is described. The system uses a CO2 laser and a properly designed resonant photoacoustic cell to achieve ammonia detection at sub-parts-per- billion (ppb) level. The instrument features unattended automatic on-line monitoring of ammonia with a detection limit of 0.1 ppb. Interferences from atmospheric CO2 and H2O are efficiently suppressed by a careful selection of the laser wavelength and a compensation of the water vapour signal made with a high-precision hygrometer. The cell design enables continuous measurement at high flow rates (up to 51/min), which guarantees a fast response time of the system for the monitoring of ammonia, a sticky polar molecule that adheres to most surfaces. Various examples of applications of the instrument in the semiconductor industry and for atmospheric pollution monitoring are presented. They demonstrate the excellent performances of the system and its suitability for these applications. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Methane preconcentration by adsorption: a methodology for materials and conditions selection

Methane (CH $$_4$$ 4 ) adsorption has been widely studied, mainly in the context of natural gas purification. A much less prominent, but highly relevant application is the preconcentration of CH $$_4$$ 4 from ambient air. In this study, we compare six different commercial adsorbent materials with respect to their effectiveness for methane preconcentration: a macroporous polymeric resin (HayeSep D), multi-walled carbon nanotubes, two microporous metal-organic frameworks (HKUST-1 and ZIF-8), and two zeolites (5A and 13X). The most relevant properties, such as isosteric enthalpy of adsorption, specific surface area and the selectivity for CH $$_4$$ 4 adsorption over N $$_2$$ 2 were characterized by analyzing adsorption/desorption isotherms. Using these parameters, we discuss the tested adsorbents with respect to the most important properties and identify the most promising candidates. Furthermore we identify the experimental conditions that are expected to give the best results with respect to practical applications

Uncertainty of emission measurements for manual and automatic reference methods. Comparison between uncertainty budget approach and inter-laboratory field test approach

The aim of this presentation is to give a comparison of the GUM approach which gives an overall uncertainty calculated through an uncertainty budget and the field approach which gives repeatability and reproducibility uncertainties. Two examples will be shown from the experiences within CEN TC264 WG16 by means of a manual reference method for SO2 and an automatic reference method for NOX