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„Auf engstem Raum“
(2018)
Phytoplankton biomass and production regulates key aspects of freshwater ecosystems yet its variability and subsequent predictability is poorly understood. We estimated within-lake variation in biomass using high-frequency chlorophyll fluorescence data from 18 globally distributed lakes. We tested how variation in fluorescence at monthly, daily, and hourly scales was related to high-frequency variability of wind, water temperature, and radiation within lakes as well as productivity and physical attributes among lakes. Within lakes, monthly variation dominated, but combined daily and hourly variation were equivalent to that expressed monthly. Among lakes, biomass variability increased with trophic status while, within-lake biomass variation increased with increasing variability in wind speed. Our results highlight the benefits of high-frequency chlorophyll monitoring and suggest that predicted changes associated with climate, as well as ongoing cultural eutrophication, are likely to substantially increase the temporal variability of algal biomass and thus the predictability of the services it provides.
Diverse Entwicklungen der letzten Jahrzehnte zeigten die Relevanz am Diskurs um eine sogenannte „nachhaltige Entwicklung“ auf. Nachhaltiger Entwicklung wird dabei eine immer größere Bedeutung zugesprochen und zudem wird die Bildung als eine der wichtigsten Kräfte, um eine nachhaltige Entwicklung voranzutreiben, angesehen. Im Rahmen der Bachelorarbeit soll deshalb untersucht werden, welches Verständnis Schülerinnen und Schüler vom Begriff Nachhaltigkeit haben. Zunächst wird der theoretische Hintergrund zu nachhaltiger Entwicklung und einer „Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung“ geklärt. Auf Basis dieser theoretischen Fundierung wird dann ein leitfadengestütztes Interview entwickelt. Aus den Ergebnissen sollen unter Verwendung der zusammenfassenden Inhaltsanalyse nach Mayring Rückschlüsse über das Verständnis der Schüler*innen gezogen werden. Auf der Basis der Ergebnisse und Interpretationen sollen abschließend Überlegungen gemacht werden, wie das Verständnis der Schüler*innen erweitert werden kann. Im Rahmen der Untersuchung wurden schließlich sechs Schülerinnen und Schüler der Jahrgangsstufe zehn einer Gesamtschule mit einem Interview befragt. Es wurde festgestellt, dass ein Verständnis von Nachhaltigkeit nur bei vier der sechs Befragten vorhanden war und auch dort größtenteils in Bezug auf ökologische und soziale Aspekte. Dabei konnten das persönliche Interesse, der Lebensweltbezug, und auch der Unterricht als Grund für beide Seiten ausgemacht werden.
We present a pollen record for last 28 cal kyr BP from the eastern basin of Lake Karakul, the largest lake in Tajikistan, located in the eastern Pamir Mountains at 3915 m asl, a geographically complex region. The pollen record is dominated by Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae, while other taxa, apart from Poaceae, are present in low quantities and rarely exceed 5% in total. Arboreal pollen occur predominantly from similar to 28 to similar to 13 cal kyr BP, but as likely no trees occurred in the high mountain regions of the eastern Pamir during this time due to the high altitude and cold climate, arboreal taxa are attributed to long distance transport, probably by the Westerlies, the dominant atmospheric circulation. Tree pollen influx decreases strongly after similar to 13 cal kyr BP, allowing the pollen spectra to be interpreted as a regional vegetation signal. We infer that from 27.6 to 19.4 cal kyr BP the eastern Pamir was dominated by dry mountain steppe with low vegetation cover, while from 19.0 to 13.6 cal kyr BP Artemisia values increase and Chenopodiaceae, most herb taxa, and inferred far distant input from arboreal taxa decrease. Between 12.9 and 6.7 cal kyr BP open steppe vegetation dominated with maximum values in Ephedra, and while steppe taxa still dominated the spectra from 5.4 to 1 cal kyr BP, meadow taxa start to increase. During the last millennium, alpine steppe and alpine meadows expanded and a weak human influence can be ascertained from the increase of Asteraceae and the occurrence of Plantago pollen in the spectra.
The climate conditions during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 were similar to present-day conditions, but whether humidity then exceeded present levels is debated, and the driving mechanisms of palaeoclimate evolution since MIS 3 remain unclear. Here, we use pollen data from Wulagai Lake, Inner Mongolia, to reconstruct vegetation and climate changes since the middle MIS 3. The steppe biome is reconstructed as the first dominant biome and the desert biome as the second, and the results show that the vegetation was steppe over the last 43,800 years. Poaceae, Artemisia, Caryophyllaceae and Humulus were abundant from middle to late MIS 3, indicating humid climate conditions. As drought-tolerant species such as Hippophae, Nitraria and Chenopodiaceae spread during MIS 2, the climate became arid. The Holocene is characterized by the dominance of steppe with mixed coniferous-broadleaved forests in the Greater Hinggan Range, and the desert biome retains high affinity scores, indicating that the climate was semi-arid. The climate from middle to late MIS 3 was wetter than in the Holocene; this shift was related to changes in the Northern Hemisphere's solar insolation and ice volume. The humid conditions during MIS 3 were attributed to strong ice–albedo feedback, which led to evaporation that was less than the precipitation. The enhanced evaporation caused by increased solar insolation and decreased ice volume might have exceeded the precipitation during the Holocene and resulted in low effective humidity in the Wulagai Lake basin.
With the growing size and use of night light time series from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite Day/Night Band (DNB), it is important to understand the stability of the dataset. All satellites observe differences in pixel values during repeat observations. In the case of night light data, these changes can be due to both environmental effects and changes in light emission. Here we examine the stability of individual locations of particular large scale light sources (e.g., airports and prisons) in the monthly composites of DNB data from April 2012 to September 2017. The radiances for individual pixels of most large light emitters are approximately normally distributed, with a standard deviation of typically 15-20% of the mean. Greenhouses and flares, however, are not stable sources. We observe geospatial autocorrelation in the monthly variations for nearby sites, while the correlation for sites separated by large distances is small. This suggests that local factors contribute most to the variation in the pixel radiances and furthermore that averaging radiances over large areas will reduce the total variation. A better understanding of the causes of temporal variation would improve the sensitivity of DNB to lighting changes.
For bare soil conditions, the most important process driving and initiating splash and interrill erosion is the detachment of soil particles via raindrop impact. The kinetic energy of a rainfall event is controlled by the drop size and fall velocity distribution, which is often directly or indirectly implemented in erosion models. Therefore, numerous theoretical functions have been developed for the estimation of rainfall kinetic energy from available rainfall intensity measurements. The aim of this study is to assess differences inherent in a wide number of kinetic energy-rainfall intensity (KE-I) relations and their role in soil erosion modelling. Therefore, 32 KE-I relations are compared against measured rainfall energies based on optical distrometer measurements carried out at five stations of two substantially different rainfall regimes. These allow for continuous high-resolution (1-min) direct measurements of rainfall kinetic energies from a detailed spectrum of measured drop sizes and corresponding fall velocities. To quantify the effect of different KE-I relations on sediment delivery, we apply the erosion model WATEM/SEDEM in an experimental setup to four catchments of NE-Germany. The distrometer data shows substantial differences between measured and theoretical models of drop size and fall velocity distributions. For low intensities the number of small drops is overestimated by the Marshall and Palmer (1948; MP) drop size distribution, while for high intensities the proportion of large drops is overestimated by the MP distribution. The distrometer measurements show a considerable proportion of large drops falling at slower velocities than predicted by the Gunn and Kinzer (1949) terminal velocity model. For almost all rainfall events at all stations, the KE-I relations predicted higher cumulative kinetic energy sums compared to the direct measurements of the optical distrometers. The different KE-I relations show individual characteristics over the course of rainfall intensity levels. Our results indicate a high sensitivity (up to a range from 10 to 27 t ha(-1)) of the simulated sediment delivery related to different KE-I relations. Hence, the uncertainty associated with KE-I relations for soil erosion modelling is of critical importance.
Arctic tundra landscapes are composed of a complex mosaic of patterned ground features, varying in soil moisture, vegetation composition, and surface hydrology over small spatial scales (10-100 m). The importance of microtopography and associated geomorphic landforms in influencing ecosystem structure and function is well founded, however, spatial data products describing local to regional scale distribution of patterned ground or polygonal tundra geomorphology are largely unavailable. Thus, our understanding of local impacts on regional scale processes (e.g., carbon dynamics) may be limited. We produced two key spatiotemporal datasets spanning the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska (similar to 60,000 km(2)) to evaluate climate-geomorphological controls on arctic tundra productivity change, using (1) a novel 30m classification of polygonal tundra geomorphology and (2) decadal-trends in surface greenness using the Landsat archive (1999-2014). These datasets can be easily integrated and adapted in an array of local to regional applications such as (1) upscaling plot-level measurements (e.g., carbon/energy fluxes), (2) mapping of soils, vegetation, or permafrost, and/or (3) initializing ecosystem biogeochemistry, hydrology, and/or habitat modeling.
Peatlands represent large terrestrial carbon banks. Given that most peat accumulates in boreal regions, where low temperatures and water saturation preserve organic matter, the existence of peat in (sub)tropical regions remains enigmatic. Here we examined peat and plant chemistry across a latitudinal transect from the Arctic to the tropics. Near-surface low-latitude peat has lower carbohydrate and greater aromatic content than near-surface high-latitude peat, creating a reduced oxidation state and resulting recalcitrance. This recalcitrance allows peat to persist in the (sub)tropics despite warm temperatures. Because we observed similar declines in carbohydrate content with depth in high-latitude peat, our data explain recent field-scale deep peat warming experiments in which catotelm (deeper) peat remained stable despite temperature increases up to 9 degrees C. We suggest that high-latitude deep peat reservoirs may be stabilized in the face of climate change by their ultimately lower carbohydrate and higher aromatic composition, similar to tropical peats.
Peatlands represent large terrestrial carbon banks. Given that most peat accumulates in boreal regions, where low temperatures and water saturation preserve organic matter, the existence of peat in (sub)tropical regions remains enigmatic. Here we examined peat and plant chemistry across a latitudinal transect from the Arctic to the tropics. Near-surface low-latitude peat has lower carbohydrate and greater aromatic content than near-surface high-latitude peat, creating a reduced oxidation state and resulting recalcitrance. This recalcitrance allows peat to persist in the (sub)tropics despite warm temperatures. Because we observed similar declines in carbohydrate content with depth in high-latitude peat, our data explain recent field-scale deep peat warming experiments in which catotelm (deeper) peat remained stable despite temperature increases up to 9 degrees C. We suggest that high-latitude deep peat reservoirs may be stabilized in the face of climate change by their ultimately lower carbohydrate and higher aromatic composition, similar to tropical peats.
The Engineering Strong-Motion (ESM) flatfile is a parametric table which contains verified and reliable metadata and intensity measures of manually processed waveforms included in the ESM database. The flatfile has been developed within the Seismology Thematic Core Service of EPOS-IP (European Plate Observing System Implementation Phase) and it is disseminated throughout a web portal for research and technical purposes. The adopted criteria for flatfile compilation aim to collect strong motion data and related metadata in a uniform, updated, traceable and quality-checked way to develop Ground Motion Models (GMMs) for Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) and engineering applications. In this paper, we present the characteristics of ESM flatfile in terms of recording, event and station distributions, and we discuss the most relevant features of the Intensity Measures (IMs) of engineering interest included in the table. The dataset for flatfile compilation includes 23,014 recordings from 2179 earthquakes and 2080 stations from Europe and Middle-East. The events are characterized by magnitudes in the range 3.5-8.0 and refer to different tectonics regimes, such as shallow active crustal and subduction zones. Intensity measures include peak and integral parameters and duration of each waveform. The spectral amplitudes of the (5% damping) acceleration and displacement response are provided for 36 periods, in the interval 0.01-10 s, as well as the 103 amplitudes of the Fourier spectrum for the frequency range 0.04-50 Hz. Several statistics are shown with reference to the most significant metadata for GMMs calibrations, such as moment magnitude, focal depth, several distance metrics, style of faulting and parameters for site characterization. Furthermore, we also compare and explain the most relevant differences between the metadata of ESM flatfile with those provided by the previous flatfile derived in RESORCE (Reference Database for Seismic Ground Motion in Europe) project.
We applied coarse spectral analysis to more than 2 decades of daily near-surface water temperature (WT) measurements from Muggelsee, a shallow polymictic lake in Germany, to systematically characterize patterns in WT variability from daily to yearly temporal scales. Comparison of WT with local air temperature indicates that the WT variability patterns are likely attributable to both meteorological forcing and internal lake dynamics. We identified seasonal patterns of WT variability and showed that WT variability increases with increasing Schmidt stability, decreasing Lake number and decreasing ice cover duration, and is higher near the shore than in open water. We introduced the slope of WT spectra as an indicator for the degree of lake mixing to help explain the identified temporal and spatial scales of WT variability. The explanatory power of this indicator in other lakes with different mixing regimes remains to be established.
The Kohat and Potwar fold thrust belts (KP-FTB) in Pakistan exhibit structural variations over 250 km along strike within the Himalayan fold and thrust system. Our 3D deformation model shows that Kohat surface structures evolved above an active roof thrust in Eocene evaporites. The ramp-forming duplexes in the Kohat were stacked and passively transported toward the foreland above new ramps, resulting in up to 5 km of thickening between the two decollements. Ramps from the Kohat extend into the Potwar as thrust tips of fault propagation folds. The basement slope changes from flat (beta < 1 degrees) below the northern part to north-dipping (beta > 1 degrees) below the southern part, corresponding to the change in structural style and complexity of the KP-FTB. The Kalabagh Fault Zone, linking the two belts, is interpreted as a zone of complex dextral strike-slip rotational faulting. Salt expulsed from the hanging walls of normal faults and under synclines in the Kalabagh Fault Zone moved toward the footwall of normal faults, accumulated in the cores of anticlines, and formed lobe structures at the deformation front. The fundamental reasons for the variable structural styles are changes in decollement strength, basement slope, preexisting normal faulting, presence of a secondary decollement and spatially-variable salt mobility and accumulation.
Geothermal fields in subduction-related orogens are closely linked to areas characterized by young magmatic and tectonic activity, both in arc- and back-arc settings. The spatio-temporal interaction of Quaternary volcanic complexes with regional extensional and transtensional structures might favor a hydrothermal circuit between meteoric water and magmatic fluids. This study encompasses a kinematic analysis of fault structures from the high-enthalpy system located at the western flank of the Domuyo volcano in Argentina. An analysis of remote sensing data was applied to detect regional lineaments, lineament density, and to identify fracture patterns possibly associated with the different deformational stages documented in the area. These results were combined with detailed fracture analysis and kinematic study of mesoscale faults, as well as existing geological, structural, and geophysical data. The integration suggests that the fluid dynamics of the Domuyo geothermal field are directly conditioned by pre-existing basement structures that were reactivated as normal faults during Pliocene to-Quaternary times. Furthermore, the intensely fracture late Triassic - early Jurassic units are interpreted as the potential level for the reservoir. The fault reactivation was likely associated with the accommodation of regional extension along pre-existing fault structures, and locally enhanced by hydrothermal effects of the Domuyo geothermal field.
On April 29, 2017 at 0:56 UTC (2:56 local time), an M (W) = 2.8 earthquake struck the metropolitan area between Leipzig and Halle, Germany, near the small town of Markranstadt. The earthquake was felt within 50 km from the epicenter and reached a local intensity of I (0) = IV. Already in 2015 and only 15 km northwest of the epicenter, a M (W) = 3.2 earthquake struck the area with a similar large felt radius and I (0) = IV. More than 1.1 million people live in the region, and the unusual occurrence of the two earthquakes led to public attention, because the tectonic activity is unclear and induced earthquakes have occurred in neighboring regions. Historical earthquakes south of Leipzig had estimated magnitudes up to M (W) ae 5 and coincide with NW-SE striking crustal basement faults. We use different seismological methods to analyze the two recent earthquakes and discuss them in the context of the known tectonic structures and historical seismicity. Novel stochastic full waveform simulation and inversion approaches are adapted for the application to weak, local earthquakes, to analyze mechanisms and ground motions and their relation to observed intensities. We find NW-SE striking normal faulting mechanisms for both earthquakes and centroid depths of 26 and 29 km. The earthquakes are located where faults with large vertical offsets of several hundred meters and Hercynian strike have developed since the Mesozoic. We use a stochastic full waveform simulation to explain the local peak ground velocities and calibrate the method to simulate intensities. Since the area is densely populated and has sensitive infrastructure, we simulate scenarios assuming that a 12-km long fault segment between the two recent earthquakes is ruptured and study the impact of rupture parameters on ground motions and expected damage.
Inland salt meadows are particularly valuable ecosystems, because they support a variety of salt-adapted species (halophytes). They can be found throughout Europe; including the peatlands of the glacial lowlands in northeast Germany. These German ecosystems have been seriously damaged through drainage. To assess and ultimately limit the damages, temporal monitoring of soil salinity is essential, which can be conducted by geoelectrical techniques that measure the soil electrical conductivity. However, there is limited knowledge on how to interpret electrical conductivity surveys of peaty salt meadows. In this study, temporal and spatial monitoring of dissolved salts was conducted in saline peatland soils using different geoelectrical techniques at different scales (1D: conductivity probe, 2D: conductivity cross-sections). Cores and soil samples were taken to validate the geoelectrical surveys. Although the influence of peat on bulk conductivity is large, the seasonal dynamics of dissolved salts within the soil profile could be monitored by repeated geoelectrical measurements. A close correlation is observed between conductivity (similar to salinity) at different depths and temperature, precipitation and corresponding groundwater level. The conductivity distribution between top- and subsoil during the growing season reflected the leaching of dissolved salts by precipitation and the capillary rise of dissolved salts by increasing temperature (similar to evaporation). Groundwater levels below 0.38 cm resulted in very low conductivities in the topsoil, which is presumably due to limited soil moisture and thus precipitation of salts. Therefore, to prevent the disappearance of dissolved salts from the rooting zone, which are essential for the halophytes, groundwater levels should be adjusted to maintain depths of between 20 and 35 cm. Lower groundwater levels will lead to the loss of dissolved salts from the rooting zone and higher levels to increasing dilution with fresh rainwater. The easy-to-handle conductivity probe is an appropriate tool for salinity monitoring. Using this probe with regressions adjusted for sandy and organic substrates (peat and organic gyttja) additional influences on bulk conductivity (e.g. cation exchange capacity, water content) can be compensated for and the correlation between salinity and electrical conductivity is high.
Schwarz-Rot-Geil
(2018)
Räume, Linien, Punkte
(2018)