The long and intertwined record of humans and the Campi Flegrei volcano (Italy)

The Campi Flegrei volcano (or Phlegraean Fields), Campania, Italy, generated the largest eruption in Europe in at least 200 ka. Here we summarise the volcanic and human history of Campi Flegrei and discuss the interactions between humans and the environment within the “burning fields” from around 10,000 years until the 1538 CE Monte Nuovo eruption and more recent times. The region’s incredibly rich written history documents how the landscape changed both naturally and anthropogenically, with the volcanic system fuelling these considerable natural changes. Humans have exploited the beautiful landscape, accessible resources (e.g. volcanic ash for pulvis puteolana mortar) and natural thermal springs associated with the volcano for millennia, but they have also endured the downsides of living in a volcanically active region—earthquakes, significant ground deformation and landscape altering eruptions. The pre-historic record is detailed, and various archaeological sites indicate that the region was certainly occupied in the last 10,000 years. This history has been reconstructed by identifying archaeological finds in sequences that often contain ash (tephra) layers from some of the numerous volcanic eruptions from Campi Flegrei and the other volcanoes in the region that were active at the time (Vesuvius and Ischia). These tephra layers provide both a relative and absolute chronology and allow the archaeology to be placed on a relatively precise timescale. The records testify that people have inhabited the area even when Campi Flegrei was particularly active. The archaeological sequences and outcrops of pyroclastic material preserve details about the eruption dynamics, buildings from Roman times, impressive craters that now host volcanic lakes and nature reserves, all of which make this region particularly mystic and fascinating, especially when we observe how society continues to live within the active caldera system. The volcanic activity and long record of occupation and use of volcanic resources in the region make it unique and here we outline key aspects of its geoheritage.

Crowd sourcing Welsh language data in the Covid era

Welsh language place names risk being forgotten as people choose to use English versions of street names, properties, towns and villages and even rename properties with English names. Many official datasets for historic buildings in Wales do not record the original Welsh names. This presentation will look at how we have adapted our projects to work online during the Pandemic, and how we are crowdsourcing Welsh names of Wales' built heritage and adding them to Wikidata. The talk will focus on the activities of our recent Wicipics project which saw the public contribute remotely, creating Welsh language data and sharing their openly licenced images of historic sites in their area. This session will also look at how we might use this data to enrich our historic record. For example, by combining with OpenStreetMap to develop a Welsh language map interface and by sharing our crowdsourced data with 3rd party websites and other Welsh heritage organisations.

On the use of satellite observations to fill gaps in the Halley station total ozone record

Measurements by the Dobson ozone spectrophotometer at the British Antarctic Survey's (BAS) Halley research station form a record of Antarctic total column ozone that dates back to 1956. Due to its location, length, and completeness, the record has been, and continues to be, uniquely important for studies of long-term changes in Antarctic ozone. However, a crack in the ice shelf on which it resides forced the station to abruptly close in February of 2017, leading to a gap of two ozone hole seasons in its historic record. We develop and test a method for filling in the record of Halley total ozone by combining and adjusting overpass data from a range of different satellite instruments. Comparisons to the Dobson suggest that our method reproduces monthly ground-based total ozone values with an average difference of 1.1 ± 6.2 DU for the satellites used to fill in the 2017–2018 gap. We show that our approach more closely reproduces the Dobson measurements than simply using the raw satellite average or data from a single satellite instrument. The method also provides a check on the consistency of the provisional data from the automated Dobson used at Halley after 2018 with earlier manual Dobson data and suggests that there were likely inconsistencies between the two. The filled Halley dataset provides further support that the Antarctic ozone hole is healing, not only during September but also in January.

On the Use of Satellite Observations to Fill Gaps in the Halley Station Total Ozone Record

<p>Measurements by the Dobson ozone spectrophotometer at the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) Halley research station form a record of Antarctic total column ozone that dates back to 1956. Due to its location, length, and completeness, the record has been, and continues to be, uniquely important for studies of long-term changes in Antarctic ozone. However, a crack in the ice shelf on which it resides forced the station to abruptly close for eight months and [SC-UB1]  led to a gap in its historic record.  We develop and test a method for filling in the record of Halley total ozone by combining and bias-correcting overpass data from a range of different satellite instruments. Tests suggest that our method reproduces the monthly ground-based Dobson total ozone values to within 20 Dobson units.  We show that our approach improves on the overall performance as compared to simply using the raw satellite average or an individual instrument. The method also provides a check on the consistency of the automated Dobson used at Halley after 2018 compared to earlier manual Dobson data, and suggests a significant difference between the two.  The filled Halley dataset provides further support that the Antarctic ozone hole is healing not only during September, but also in January.</p>

Comparing and Advancing Approaches to Long-Term Flood Projection

<p>How should design flood magnitudes be estimated under climate change? Apart from assuming stationarity, the two main approaches are hydrologic simulation and informed-parameter, which is generally based on either trend or climate covariates. Here, we compare these approaches across a large set of hydro-climatologically diverse basins located throughout the contiguous United States, splitting the historic record into a calibration and validation time period. We evaluate performance when the approaches are forced with observed climate as well as simulated climate from general circulation models. We also investigate how the strengths of the climate informed and hydrologic simulation approaches can be combined to improve projections; here, we use the outputs of hydrologic simulation as covariates in the climate informed approach. The results provide a quantitative perspective on key long-term flood projection issues and provide a route forward to improving projections given the identified strengths and weaknesses of each approach.</p>

On the Use of Satellite Observations to Fill Gaps in the Halley Station Total Ozone Record

Measurements by the Dobson ozone spectrophotometer at the British Antarctic Survey's (BAS) Halley research station form a record of Antarctic total column ozone that dates back to 1956. Due to its location, length, and completeness, the record has been, and continues to be, uniquely important for studies of long-term changes in Antarctic ozone. However, a crack in the ice shelf on which it resides forced the station to abruptly close, leading to a gap of two ozone hole seasons in its historic record. We develop and test a method for filling in the record of Halley total ozone by combining and adjusting overpass data from a range of different satellite instruments. Tests suggest that our method reproduces the monthly ground-based Dobson total ozone values to within an average of 2 Dobson units. We show that our approach improves on the overall performance as compared to simply using the raw satellite average or data from a single satellite instrument. The method also provides a check on the consistency of the provisional data from the automated Dobson used at Halley after 2018 with earlier manual Dobson data, and suggests that there was a significant difference between the two. The filled Halley dataset provides further support that the Antarctic ozone hole is healing, not only during September, but also in January.

Semantic Segmentation Deep Learning for Extracting Surface Mine Extents from Historic Topographic Maps

Historic topographic maps, which are georeferenced and made publicly available by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Map’s Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC), are a valuable source of historic land cover and land use (LCLU) information that could be used to expand the historic record when combined with data from moderate spatial resolution Earth observation missions. This is especially true for landscape disturbances that have a long and complex historic record, such as surface coal mining in the Appalachian region of the eastern United States. In this study, we investigate this specific mapping problem using modified UNet semantic segmentation deep learning (DL), which is based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and a large example dataset of historic surface mine disturbance extents from the USGS Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Science Center (GGGSC). The primary objectives of this study are to (1) evaluate model generalization to new geographic extents and topographic maps and (2) to assess the impact of training sample size, or the number of manually interpreted topographic maps, on model performance. Using data from the state of Kentucky, our findings suggest that DL semantic segmentation can detect surface mine disturbance features from topographic maps with a high level of accuracy (Dice coefficient = 0.902) and relatively balanced omission and commission error rates (Precision = 0.891, Recall = 0.917). When the model is applied to new topographic maps in Ohio and Virginia to assess generalization, model performance decreases; however, performance is still strong (Ohio Dice coefficient = 0.837 and Virginia Dice coefficient = 0.763). Further, when reducing the number of topographic maps used to derive training image chips from 84 to 15, model performance was only slightly reduced, suggesting that models that generalize well to new data and geographic extents may not require a large training set. We suggest the incorporation of DL semantic segmentation methods into applied workflows to decrease manual digitizing labor requirements and call for additional research associated with applying semantic segmentation methods to alternative cartographic representations to supplement research focused on multispectral image analysis and classification.

Intelligence for an American Century: Creating the CIA

This chapter is an introduction to US intelligence mechanisms before the CIA was created. The focus is on Civil War and codebreaking mechanisms in the First World War. Most of the chapter focuses on changes to the US intelligence community. Analysis of the historic record shows that change began in July 1941 with the creation of the office for the Coordinator of Information soon evolving into the Office of Strategic Services. Key figures in the evolutionary process such as William J. Donovan, Roosevelt and Truman are studies within. It also includes discussion of changes between cessation of hostilities and passing of the National Security Act, 1947, which created both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. Document: Dulles-Jackson-Correra Report.