Quantification of methane emissions from hotspots and during COVID-19 using a global atmospheric inversion

Concentrations of atmospheric methane (CH4), the second most important greenhouse gas, continue to grow. In recent years this growth rate has increased further (2020: +14.7 ppb), the cause of which remains largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate a high-resolution (~80 km), short-window (24-hour) 4D-Var global inversion system based on the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and newly available satellite observations. The largest national disagreement found between prior (63.1 Tg yr−1) and posterior (59.8 Tg yr−1) CH4 emissions is from China, mainly attributed to the energy sector. Emissions estimated form our global system agree well with previous basin-wide regional studies and point source specific studies. Emission events (leaks/blowouts) >10 t hr−1 were detected, but without accurate prior uncertainty information, were not well quantified. Our results suggest that global anthropogenic CH4 emissions for 2020 were 5.7 Tg yr−1 (+1.6 %) higher than for 2019, mainly attributed to the energy and agricultural sectors. Regionally, the largest 2020 increases were seen from China (+2.6 Tg yr−1, 4.3 %), with smaller increases from India (+0.8 Tg yr−1, 2.2 %) and Indonesia (+0.3 Tg yr−1, 2.6 %). Results show the rise in emissions, and subsequent atmospheric growth, would have occurred with or without the COVID-19 slowdown. During the onset of the global slowdown (March–April, 2020) energy sector CH4 emissions from China increased; however, during later months (May–June, 2020) emissions decreased below expected pre-slowdown levels. The accumulated impact of the slowdown on CH4 emissions from March–June 2020 is found to be small. Changes in atmospheric chemistry, not investigated here, may have contributed to the observed growth in 2020. Future work aims to develop the global IFS inversion system and to extend the 4D-Var window-length using a hybrid ensemble-variational method.

Regional studies and political science. The theory of the dual unity of Silesia

This paper concerns the status of regional studies in political science research. Analysing the theory of the dual unity of Silesia presented by the Polish political scientist Józef Kokot, the author attempts to formulate theoretical criteria that make a region an object of interest for political scientists and regional studies, a subdiscipline of political science.

REPRODUCTION OF LABOR RESOURCES AND LABOR MOBILIZATION OF THE POPULATION OF THE USSR UNDER WAR TIME (1941-1945)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the reproduction of labor resources in 1941-1945 and the role of labor mobilization in this process. The changes in all phases of the reproduction of labor resources during the Great Patriotic War are determined. Using information from central archives and regional studies, the author analyzes the main types of labor resources, the scale of attracting the population to work. The novelty of the research lies in the consideration of labor resources from the point of view of the economic process of reproduction of labor resources, its transformation. The researcher makes the following conclusions: firstly, the process of reproduction of labor resources was adapted to wartime conditions; secondly, labor resources was the main source of staff replenishment, which made it possible to attract about 12 million people for permanent and seasonal work.

Die Rolle des Radiointerviews im Landeskundeunterricht Ein Mediascher in Paraguay

The tendency to apply media in regional studies for students of German as a foreign language (Deutsch als Fremdsprache, DaF) is no longer a novelty. Thus, we see media applied as such in multiple different forms, like videos, press releases, radio segments or online statements. This contribution is focused on the radio interview, as a constitutive part of the regional studies’ courses for DaF students of Germanistik in Romania. As a starting point serves the assumption, that the application of visual media can be enhanced through dialogue sequences, which further highlight the subject of the course. Through chosen interviews, that have been aired by the state channels, students can become familiar with such issues, that affect the German minority in Romania. The authenticity that is being sought for, will result from the primary situation of the interviewer and the interviewee communicating, as well as through the utilization of Rumäniendeutsch as the standard language of the German minority, living in Romania. Thus can cultural, social, historical and linguistic phenomena that are specific for the local German speaking population and that are (re)constructing the cultural inheritance of Germans in Romania, be regarded in greater detail.

Commerce and the Agrarian Empires: Northern India

This article focuses on the shifts in the ways of seeing the history and historiography of the emergence of agrarian landscapes, manufacture of crafts, and trade and commerce in north India, during the mid-first millennium bce to the 13th century. Continued manifestation of settled agrarian localities, or janapadas, with its attendant concomitant processes, is visibly more noticeable from the middle of the first millennium ce onward, though their early beginnings can be traced back to the later Vedic times. The study of the janapadas or localities and regions, as distinguished from earlier regional studies, focusing on the trajectory of sociopolitical developments through time is a development dating to around the turn of the 21st century. It has much to do with the recognition of the fact that historical or cultural regions and modern state boundaries, which are the result of administrative decision-making, do not necessarily converge. Simultaneously, instead of engaging in macro-generalizations, historians have moved on to acknowledge that spaces in the past, as in the present, were differentiated, and there were uneven patterns of growth across regions and junctures. Consequently, since 1990 denser and richer narratives of the regions have been available. These constructions in terms of the patterns for early India have moved away from the earlier accounts of wider generalizations in time and space, colonization by Gangetic north India, and crisis. Alternatively, they look for change through continuities and try to problematize issues that were earlier subsumed under broader generalizations, and provide local and regional societies with the necessary agency. Rural settlements and rural society through the regions are receiving their due, and so are their networks of linkages with artisanal production, markets, merchants, and trade. The grades of peasants, markets, and merchants as well as their changing forms have attracted the notice of the historian. This in turn has compelled a shift in focus from being mostly absorbed with subcontinental history to situating it in its Asiatic and Indian Ocean background.

Assessments of Available Riverine Hydrokinetic Energy: A Review

Methods of estimating riverine hydrokinetic (HK) power for localized and regional studies are reviewed, evaluated, and compared. It was found that localized HK studies were not entirely consistent, with the most common discrepancies being discharge variability characterization, uncertainty analysis, and the amount of data used to derive the results. The issues associated with localized assessments were amplified for regional assessments. Regional HK assessments were less common, the methods were less consistent across studies, and the amount and type of data available varied widely across regions. New techniques and technologies, developed in Canada and globally, were evaluated for their usefulness to improve regional HK assessments. Emphasis was put on satellite remote sensing methods to estimate discharge and channel dimensions, as well as regionalized curve fitting to estimate channel roughness. The review of new techniques suggests that accuracy of the results is dependent on the amount and quality of the data available.

Recovery and Restoration of Biloxi Marsh in the Mississippi River Delta

The State of Louisiana is leading an integrated wetland restoration and flood risk reduction program in the Mississippi River Delta. East of New Orleans, Biloxi Marsh, a ~1700 km2 peninsula jutting 60 km north toward the State of Mississippi is one of few Delta wetland tracts well positioned to dissipate hurricane surge and waves threatening the city’s newly rebuilt hurricane flood defenses. Both its location on the eastern margin of the Delta, and its genesis as the geologic core of the shallow water St. Bernard/Terre aux Boeuf sub-delta, which was the primary Mississippi outlet for almost 2000 years, make Biloxi Marsh attractive for restoration, now that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet deep-draft ship channel has been dammed, and 50 years of impacts from construction and operation have abated. Now, the cascade of ecosystem damage it caused can be reversed or offset by restoration projects that leverage natural recovery and increased access to suspended sediment from the Mississippi River. Biloxi Marsh is (1) geologically stable, (2) benefiting from increased input of river sediment, and (3) could be restored to sustainability earlier and for a longer period than most of the rest of the submerging Mississippi Delta. The focus of this review is on the Biloxi Marsh, but it also provides a template for regional studies, including analysis of 2D and 3D seismic and other energy industry data to explore why existing marshes that look similar on the ground or from the air may respond to restoration measures with different levels of success. Properties of inherent durability and resilience can be exploited in restoration project selection, sequencing and expenditure. Issues encountered and investigative methods applied in the Biloxi Marsh are likely to resonate across initiatives now contemplated to sustain valuable river deltas worldwide.

Confessional Regional Studies: Directions and Approaches in Research

Introduction. The article analyzes the subject-thematic content of modern scientific domestic and foreign works, the field of study of which is religion in countries and regions. The article deals with theoretical issues related to an integrated approach to regional studies in the development and functioning of the confessional space. Methods and materials. Statistical methods of data processing were applied, as well as the visualization of statistical data reflecting the functioning of the structural elements of the geo-confessional space. Analysis. Based on the specifics of the subject area, it is proposed to identify such thematic areas: historical-cultural, spatial (chorological), political-legal, socio-economic. A brief description of each of the designated areas is given. Within the framework of the spatial direction, the essence of two approaches is separately reflected: the institutionalterritorial and the religious-landscape. The necessity of using the scientific and factual basis of each of the selected areas for conducting a comprehensive study of the confessional space is indicated. Attention is paid to the use of scientific tools in comprehensive regional-confessional studies. Results. The importance of expanding the range of mathematical and statistical methods adopted in regional studies is indicated, since the results of calculating the coefficients of unevenness, advantages, etc. are the evidence base for identifying regional differences in the placement of religious infrastructure, etc. and can be applied in scientific works in all regional and confessional areas. For clarity, the provisions presented in the article are illustrated with examples related to elements of the confessional space of different regions and countries. The most promising for further development in the field of regional-confessional research, as the least studied, the authors call the political-legal and socio-economic directions, while maintaining the importance of historical and cultural as well as spatial in the meaning of independent research, and as a basis for a comprehensive one.