Tools tell tales – climate trends changing threads in the prehistoric Pannonian Plain

This study of prehistoric textile production on the Pannonian Plain is based on indirect evidence dated to the period between the 5th and 2nd millennium BC; the study of technological trends and changes that occurred in manufacturing traditions concentrates on fibre processing and production. The functionality analysis of spindle-whorls served as a basis for comparing textile production trends with the results of the climate change model. Climatic changes in the area were simulated by means of a moderate-resolution Global Circulation Model (GCM). The simulation covered the mid-to-late Holocene, from 7000 years BP to the pre-industrial period.Predstavljamo študijo izdelave tkanin v prazgodovini na območju Panonske nižine, ki temelji na posrednih dokazih, ki datirajo v čas 5. in 2. tisočletja pr. n. št.; pri študiju tehnoloških trendov in sprememb, ki so se zgodile v tradicijah izdelave tkanin, se osredotočamo predvsem na procesiranje in izdelavo vlaken. Analiza funkcionalnosti predilnih vretenc nam je služila za osnovno primerjavo med proizvodnjo tkanin in rezultati modela klimatskih sprememb. Klimatske spremembe na tem območju smo simulirali s pomočjo svetovnega modela cirkulacije (ang. GCM) pri srednji resoluciji. Simulacija pokriva čas med srednjim in poznim holocenom, torej od 7000 let pred sedanjostjo do časa pred industrijsko revolucijo

Der derzeitige und der zukünftige Klimawandel in den historischen Parks Berlin-Brandenburgs

Um die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf historische Parkanlagen abzuschätzen, wurden beobachtete Klimadaten für die vier ausgewählte Parkanlagen in Berlin und Brandenburg ausgewertet und regionalen Modellsimulationen für zwei Zukunftsszenarien (RCP 4.5 und RCP 8.5) bis zum Jahr 2100 gegenüber gestellt. In der bodennahen Lufttemperatur erkennt man, dass im letzten Jahrhundert eine Erwärmung stattgefunden hat, die sich in der Zukunft fortsetzen wird (bis zum Jahr 2100 um ca. 1°C [RCP 4.5] bis 3°C [RCP 8.5]). Auch der Niederschlag hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten zugenommen, wobei der Winterniederschlag stärker anwuchs als der Sommerniederschlag. Dieser Trend setzt sich im RCP 8.5 Szenarium bis zum Jahr 2100 fort.In order to estimate the impact of climate change on historic parks, climate data for four selected parks in Berlin and Brandenburg were analysed and compared with regional model simulations for two future scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) up to the year 2100. In ground-level air temperature one can see that warming has occurred during the last century that will continue in future (up to the year 2100 by approximately 1°C [RCP 4.5] up to 3°C [RCP 8.5]). Rainfall has likewise increased in recent decades whereby winter precipitation increased more than summer precipitation. This trend will continue up to 2100 in the RCP 8.5 scenario

Sensitivity studies with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM 5.0 over the CORDEX Central Asia Domain

Due to its extension, geography and the presence of several underdeveloped or developing economies, the Central Asia domain of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) is one of the most vulnerable regions on Earth to the effects of climate changes. Reliable information on potential future changes with high spatial resolution acquire significant importance for the development of effective adaptation and mitigation strategies for the region. In this context, regional climate models (RCMs) play a fundamental role. In this paper, the results of a set of sensitivity experiments with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM version 5.0, for the Central Asia CORDEX domain, are presented. Starting from a reference model setup, general model performance is evaluated for the present day, testing the effects of singular changes in the model physical configuration and their mutual interaction with the simulation of monthly and seasonal values of three variables that are important for impact studies: near-surface temperature, precipitation and diurnal temperature range. The final goal of this study is two-fold: having a general overview of model performance and its uncertainties for the considered region and determining at the same time an optimal model configuration. Results show that the model presents remarkable deficiencies over different areas of the domain. The combined change of the albedo, taking into consideration the ratio of forest fractions, and the soil conductivity, taking into account the ratio of liquid water and ice in the soil, allows one to achieve the best improvements in model performance in terms of climatological means. Importantly, the model seems to be particularly sensitive to those parameterizations that deal with soil and surface features, and that could positively affect the repartition of incoming radiation. The analyses also show that improvements in model performance are not achievable for all domain subregions and variables, and they are the result of a compensation effect in the different cases. The proposed better performing configuration in terms of mean climate leads to similar positive improvements when considering different observational data sets and boundary data employed to force the simulations. On the other hand, due to the large uncertainties in the variability estimates from observations, the use of different boundaries and the model internal variability, it has not been possible to rank the different simulations according to their representation of the monthly variability. This work is the first ever sensitivity study of an RCM for the CORDEX Central Asia domain and its results are of fundamental importance for further model development and for future climate projections over the area

The long-standing dilemma of European summer temperatures at the mid-Holocene and other considerations on learning from the past for the future using a regional climate model

The past as an analogue for the future is one of the main motivations to use climate models for paleoclimate applications. Assessing possible model limitations in simulating past climate changes can lead to an improved understanding and representation of the response of the climate system to changes in the forcing, setting the basis for more reliable information for the future. In this study, the regional climate model (RCM) COSMO-CLM is used for the investigation of the mid-Holocene (MH, 6000 years ago) European climate, aiming to contribute to the solution of the long-standing debate on the reconstruction of MH summer temperatures for the region, and gaining more insights into the development of appropriate methods for the production of future climate projections. Two physically perturbed ensembles (PPEs) are first built by perturbing model physics and parameter values, consistently over two periods characterized by different forcing (i.e., the MH and pre-industrial, PI). The goal is to uncover possible processes associated with the considered changes that could deliver a response in MH summer temperatures closer to evidence from continental-scale pollen-based reconstructions. None of the investigated changes in model configuration produces remarkable differences with respect to the mean model behavior. This indicates a limited sensitivity of the model to changes in the climate forcing, in terms of its structural uncertainty. Additional sensitivity tests are further conducted for the MH, by perturbing the model initial soil moisture conditions at the beginning of spring. A strong spatial dependency of summer near-surface temperatures on the soil moisture available in spring is evinced from these experiments, with particularly remarkable differences evident over the Balkans and the areas north of the Black Sea. This emphasizes the role of soil–atmosphere interactions as one of the possible drivers of the differences in proxy-based summer temperatures evident between northern and southern Europe. A well-known deficiency of the considered land scheme of COSMO-CLM in properly retaining spring soil moisture, confirmed by the performed tests, suggests that more attention should be paid to the performance of the soil component of climate models applied to this case study. The consideration of more complex soil schemes may be required to help bridging the gap between models and proxy reconstructions. Finally, the distribution of the PPEs with changes in model configuration is analyzed for different variables. In almost all of the considered cases the results show that what is optimal for one period, in terms of a model configuration, is not the best for another characterized by different radiative forcing. These results raise concerns about the usefulness of automatic and objective calibration methods for RCMs, suggesting that a preferable approach is the production of small PPEs that target a set of model configurations, properly representing climate phenomena characteristic of the target region and that will be likely to contain the best model answer under different forcing

Temporalities in the study of mobility

The relationship between humans, their landscapes, and the natural environment is complex and underlies mutual non-material and material fluxes. Especially challenging is the attempt to reconstruct this relationship in order to understand the role and relevance of Space and Knowledge of Ancient Civilizations, the core theme of the cluster of excellence Exc 264 Topoi, funded from 2007–2019. In this book we present the results of an attempt to use a system-oriented concept of social ecology as tool for interdisciplinary collaboration and integrative research on aspects of human-environmental relationship. In six different interdisciplinary projects the developed social ecological model is applied and critically discussed

Improving Protein Crystal Quality by the Without-Oil Microbatch Method: Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray Diffraction Analysis of Glutathione Synthetase from Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis

Glutathione synthetases catalyze the ATP-dependent synthesis of glutathione from l-γ-glutamyl- l-cysteine and glycine. Although these enzymes have been sequenced and characterized from a variety of biological sources, their exact catalytic mechanism is not fully understood and nothing is known about their adaptation at extremophilic environments. Glutathione synthetase from the Antarctic eubacterium Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis (PhGshB) has been expressed, purified and successfully crystallized. An overall improvement of the crystal quality has been obtained by adapting the crystal growth conditions found with vapor diffusion experiments to the without-oil microbatch method. The best crystals of PhGshB diffract to 2.34 Å resolution and belong to space group P212121, with unit-cell parameters a = 83.28 Å, b = 119.88 Å, c = 159.82 Å. Refinement of the model, obtained using phases derived from the structure of the same enzyme from Escherichia coli by molecular replacement, is in progress. The structural determination will provide the first structural characterization of a psychrophilic glutathione synthetase reported to date

Notes for a Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary People

The research group Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary Communities encompasses three research projects examining archaeological remains from various time periods in the Nile Delta, the foothills of the Kopet Dag and in the steppe region of western Eurasia; a fourth project in the group consists of climate and ecological modeling for Europe over the past 6000 years. The researchers in this group are investigating processes and dynamics which played out in different geographic spaces and different chronological periods between 9000 and 300 BCE. We propose a triad of three terms, Umgebung, Umwelt, and Mitwelt to serve as a conceptual basis for all of these projects, which vary greatly in terms of the chronological period, location and the way of life of the populations under study, as well as with respect to the archaeological database. The projects can be described on the basis of evidence of multifaceted practical actions. These actions on the part of the populations under study, revealed only fragmentarily in the archaeological record, are being investigated using the research strategies presented here. The strategies have been developed from the discussion on political ecology associated with discourses in the social sciences and humanities

Overview of the PALM model system 6.0

In this paper, we describe the PALM model system 6.0. PALM (formerly an abbreviation for Parallelized Large-eddy Simulation Model and now an independent name) is a Fortran-based code and has been applied for studying a variety of atmospheric and oceanic boundary layers for about 20 years. The model is optimized for use on massively parallel computer architectures. This is a follow-up paper to the PALM 4.0 model description in Maronga et al. (2015). During the last years, PALM has been significantly improved and now offers a variety of new components. In particular, much effort was made to enhance the model with components needed for applications in urban environments, like fully interactive land surface and radiation schemes, chemistry, and an indoor model. This paper serves as an overview paper of the PALM 6.0 model system and we describe its current model core. The individual components for urban applications, case studies, validation runs, and issues with suitable input data are presented and discussed in a series of companion papers in this special issue

Understanding the role of imidazolium-based ionic liquids in the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction

The development of efficient CO 2 capture and utilization technologies driven by renewable energy sources is mandatory to reduce the impact of climate change. Herein, seven imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs) with different anions and cations were tested as catholytes for the CO2 electrocatalytic reduction to CO over Ag electrode. Relevant activity and stability, but different selectivities for CO2 reduction or the side H 2 evolution were observed. Density functional theory results show that depending on the IL anions the CO 2 is captured or converted. Acetate anions (being strong Lewis bases) enhance CO2 capture and H2 evolution, while fluorinated anions (being weaker Lewis bases) favour the CO2 electroreduction. Differently from the hydrolytically unstable 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, 1-Butyl-3-Methylimidazolium Triflate was the most promising IL, showing the highest Faradaic efficiency to CO (>95%), and up to 8 h of stable operation at high current rates (−20 mA & −60 mA), which opens the way for a prospective process scale-up