scholarly journals Non-Equilibrium Uranium as an Indicator of Global Climate Variations—The World Ocean and Large Lakes

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 3514
Author(s):  
Igor Tokarev ◽  
Evgeny Yakovlev

In natural water, as a rule, there is a violation of radioactive equilibrium in the chain 238U … → 234U → 230Th →. Groundwater usually has a 234U/238U ratio in the range of 0.8–3.0 (by activity). However, in some regions, the 234U/238U ratio reaches >10 and up to 50. Ultrahigh excesses of 234U can be explained by climatic variations. During a cold period, minerals accumulate 234U as a normal component of the radioactive chain, and after the melting of permafrost, it is lost from the mineral lattice faster than 238U due to its higher geochemical mobility. This hypothesis was tested using data on the isotopic composition of uranium in the chemo- and bio-genic formations of the World Ocean and large lakes, which are reservoirs that accumulate continental runoff. The World Ocean has the most significant 234U enrichments in the polar and inland seas during periods of climatic warming in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. In the bottom sediments of Lake Baikal, the 234U/238U ratio also increases during warm periods and significantly exceeds the 234U excess of the World Ocean. Furthermore, the 234U/238U ratio in the water of Lake Baikal and its tributaries increases from north to south following a decrease in the area of the continuous permafrost and has a seasonal variation with a maximum 234U/238U ratio in summer. The behavior of 234U in large water reservoirs is consistent with the hypothesis about the decisive influence of permafrost degradation on the anomalies in 234U/238U ratios in groundwater.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Dmitry V. Pozdnyakov ◽  
Natalia V. Gnatiuk ◽  
Richard Davy ◽  
Leonid P. Bobylev

Emiliania huxleyi (Lohmann) evolved from the genus Gephyrocapsa Kamptner (Prymneosiophyceae) of the coccolithophore family Naёlaerhadaceae. Over the past 100 thousand years E. huxleyi has acquired the status of the most ecologically predominant coccolithophore due to its remarkable adaptability to a variety of environmental conditions and interspecific competitiveness. E. huxleyi plays an important role in both the marine carbon system and carbon cycling between the atmosphere and ocean due to its ability to produce organic and inorganic carbon as well as to form massive blooms throughout the world ocean. This study examines both older information and recent findings to shed light on the current tendencies in the two-way interactions between E. huxleyi blooms and the immediate and global environment under conditions of climate change. The assembled knowledge has emerged from laboratory and mesocosm instrumental investigations, retrievals of satellite remote sensing data, machine learning/statistical analyses, and numerical simulations. Special attention is given to both the quantitative data reported over the last two decades on such interactions, and the only very recently appearing mid-term projections of E. huxleyi bloom dynamics across the world ocean. These blooms strongly affect the atmosphere and ocean carbon cycles. They reduce CO2 fluxes from by ~50% to ~150% as is documented for the North Atlantic, and on the global scale release particulate inorganic carbon as calcium calcite in the amounts assessed at 0.4 to 4.8 PgC/yr. At the same time, they are also sensitive to the atmospheric and oceanic state. This results in E. huxleyi blooms having an increased impact on the environment in response to ongoing global warming.


Geosciences ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 468
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Fedorov

Permafrost landscapes occupy 25% of the world’s land area. The formation, dynamics, and evolution of these landscapes are greatly controlled by permafrost processes and thus require special approaches to classification and mapping. Alases, pingoes, edoma, thermokarst mounds, stone streams, low-centre polygonal tundra, and other surface features are associated with the presence of permafrost. Permafrost degradation and greenhouse gas emission due to global climate warming are among the major potential dangers facing the world. Improvements in knowledge about permafrost landscapes are therefore increasingly important. This special issue, titled “Permafrost Landscapes: Classification and Mapping”, presents articles on classification, mapping, monitoring, and stability assessment of permafrost landscapes, providing an overview of current work in the most important areas of cold regions research.


The study of climate embraces a broad range of timescales, from weeks to millions of years. This paper concentrates on the narrow spectral band ‘several weeks to several decades’ chosen for study in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). The programme is divided into three streams, concerned with climate variation on timescales of several weeks, several years and several decades, respectively. The aim is to discover how far it is possible to predict natural climate variation and man’s influence on climate in each of these spectral bands. It is believed that an improved understanding of, and an ability to monitor and model, the World Ocean will be critical to the success of the WCRP in each stream. International experiments are now being planned to achieve these improvements. Satellite monitoring of the ocean offers a number of advantages for these experiments, including the following: global coverage, accuracy and consistency, novel products, tracking and communication. The paper reviews specifications for monitoring the ocean in the context of the WCRP and assesses the extent to which satellite monitoring will help towards meeting these requirements. The special needs of two major projects, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA), are described. The prospects seem good for a new generation of ocean-observing satellites suitable for climate research in the next decade. They will be crucial to the success of the World Climate Research Programme.


2006 ◽  
pp. 133-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Arystanbekov

Kazakhstan’s economic policy results in 1995-2005 are considered in the article. In particular, the analysis of the relationship between economic growth and some indicators of nation states - population, territory, direct access to the World Ocean, and extraction of crude petroleum - is presented. Basic problems in the sphere of economic policy in Kazakhstan are formulated.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-91
Author(s):  
V. G. Neiman

The main content of the work consists of certain systematization and addition of longexisting, but eventually deformed and partly lost qualitative ideas about the role of thermal and wind factors that determine the physical mechanism of the World Ocean’s General Circulation System (OGCS). It is noted that the conceptual foundations of the theory of the OGCS in one form or another are contained in the works of many well-known hydrophysicists of the last century, but the aggregate, logically coherent description of the key factors determining the physical model of the OGCS in the public literature is not so easy to find. An attempt is made to clarify and concretize some general ideas about the two key blocks that form the basis of an adequate physical model of the system of oceanic water masses motion in a climatic scale. Attention is drawn to the fact that when analyzing the OGCS it is necessary to take into account not only immediate but also indirect effects of thermal and wind factors on the ocean surface. In conclusion, it is noted that, in the end, by the uneven flow of heat to the surface of the ocean can be explained the nature of both external and almost all internal factors, in one way or another contributing to the excitation of the general, or climatic, ocean circulation.


Author(s):  
D. Lazarus ◽  
C. Spencer-Cervato ◽  
M. Pika-Biolzi ◽  
J.P. Beckmann ◽  
K. von Salis ◽  
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