The long-term management of tailings from former uranium (U) mines requires an in-depth understanding of the hydrogeological processes and water flow paths. In France, most of the legacy U mines are ...located in fractured crystalline (plutonic) rocks, where the intrinsic subsurface heterogeneity adds to the uncertainties about the former extraction and milling activities and the state of the mine when production was ceased. U ores were mainly processed by sulfuric acid leaching, leading to high-sulfate-content mill tailings now contained in several tailing storage facilities (TSFs). The La Ribière site, located in western central France, is a former open-pit and underground U mine, closed in 1992 and used to store mill tailings. This site is being used as a test case to establish a workflow in order to explain and predict water flow and subsurface contaminant transport. A conceptual model of water flow and sulfate transport, at the scale of the La Ribière watershed, is first developed based on available information and hydrogeochemical monitoring. Recent geophysical investigations allows refining this model. Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) proves to be efficient at localizing the extent of the highly conductive sulfate plume inherited from the U-mill tailings, but also at imaging the weathering profile. Magnetic Resonance Sounding (MRS), despite the limited signal intensity due to the low porosity in crystalline rocks, gives some insight into the porosity values, the depth of the fractured layer and the location of the low-porosity ore-processing muds. Based on this conceptual model, a 3D flow and non-reactive transport model with the METIS code is developed and calibrated. This model allows predicting the evolution of the sulfate plume, but will also be used in future investigations, to build reactive transport models with simplified hydrogeology for U and other reactive contaminants.
•Parsimonious approach to modeling a small but complex site with large uncertainties.•Water table and long-term sulfate monitoring highly valuable for model calibration.•Sulfate plume extent localized thanks to ERT sounding.•Boundaries of underground workings in former open pit identified by MRS sounding.
In this letter we show that the Marangoni flow contribution to the evaporation rate of small heated water droplets resting on hot substrates is negligible. We compare data of evaporating droplet ...experiments with numerical results and assess the effect of Marangoni flow and its contribution to the evaporation process. We demonstrate that heat conduction inside these water droplets is sufficient to give an accurate estimate of evaporation rates. Although convection in evaporating water droplets remains an open problem, our aim in this study is to demonstrate that these effects can be neglected in the investigation of evaporation rate evaluation. It is worth noting that the presented results apply to volatile heated drops which might differ from spontaneously evaporating cases.
Antarctic icebergs distributions 1992–2014 Tournadre, J.; Bouhier, N.; Girard‐Ardhuin, F. ...
Journal of geophysical research. Oceans,
January 2016, 2016-01-00, 20160101, 2016-01, Volume:
121, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Basal melting of floating ice shelves and iceberg calving constitute the two almost equal paths of freshwater flux between the Antarctic ice cap and the Southern Ocean. The largest icebergs (>100 ...km2) transport most of the ice volume but their basal melting is small compared to their breaking into smaller icebergs that constitute thus the major vector of freshwater. The archives of nine altimeters have been processed to create a database of small icebergs (<8 km2) within open water containing the positions, sizes, and volumes spanning the 1992–2014 period. The intercalibrated monthly ice volumes from the different altimeters have been merged in a homogeneous 23 year climatology. The iceberg size distribution, covering the 0.1–10,000 km2 range, estimated by combining small and large icebergs size measurements follows well a power law of slope −1.52 ± 0.32 close to the −3/2 laws observed and modeled for brittle fragmentation. The global volume of ice and its distribution between the ocean basins present a very strong interannual variability only partially explained by the number of large icebergs. Indeed, vast zones of the Southern Ocean free of large icebergs are largely populated by small iceberg drifting over thousands of kilometers. The correlation between the global small and large icebergs volumes shows that small icebergs are mainly generated by large ones breaking. Drifting and trapping by sea ice can transport small icebergs for long period and distances. Small icebergs act as an ice diffuse process along large icebergs trajectories while sea ice trapping acts as a buffer delaying melting.
Key Points:
1992–2014 small icebergs (<8 km2) database and monthly ice volume climatology for the Southern Ocean
Icebergs size distribution follows a −3/2 power law representative of brittle fragmentation
Small icebergs are mainly generated by the fragmentation of larges ones
Key Uncertainties in the Recent Air‐Sea Flux of CO2 Woolf, D.K.; Shutler, J.D.; Goddijn‐Murphy, L. ...
Global biogeochemical cycles,
December 2019, 20191201, 2019-12, Volume:
33, Issue:
12
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The contemporary air‐sea flux of CO2 is investigated by the use of an air‐sea flux equation, with particular attention to the uncertainties in global values and their origin with respect to that ...equation. In particular, uncertainties deriving from the transfer velocity and from sparse upper ocean sampling are investigated. Eight formulations of air‐sea gas transfer velocity are used to evaluate the combined standard uncertainty resulting from several sources of error. Depending on expert opinion, a standard uncertainty in transfer velocity of either ~5% or ~10% can be argued and that will contribute a proportional error in air‐sea flux. The limited sampling of upper ocean fCO2 is readily apparent in the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas databases. The effect of sparse sampling on the calculated fluxes was investigated by a bootstrap method, that is, treating each ship cruise to an oceanic region as a random episode and creating 10 synthetic data sets by randomly selecting episodes with replacement. Convincing values of global net air‐sea flux can only be achieved using upper ocean data collected over several decades but referenced to a standard year. The global annual referenced values are robust to sparse sampling, but seasonal and regional values exhibit more sampling uncertainty. Additional uncertainties are related to thermal and haline effects and to aspects of air‐sea gas exchange not captured by standard models. An estimate of global net CO2 exchange referenced to 2010 of −3.0 ± 0.6 Pg C/year is proposed, where the uncertainty derives primarily from uncertainty in the transfer velocity.
Plain Language Summary
The oceanic carbon sink reduces the rate of accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere but is also responsible for the acidification of the ocean. One method of estimating the size of the oceanic carbon sink depends on a calculation of upward and downward flows of CO2 at the sea surface. This study revisits this calculation using updated knowledge of the transfer processes at the sea surface and the results of a large international collaborative effort (Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas) to collect and compile measurements of CO2 in the upper ocean. Greater sampling of the oceans improves estimates, but direct calculation in each year is not practical. Instead, we calculate fluxes in a recent year (2010) using upper ocean measurements of CO2 over many years. The remaining uncertainty is dominated by limited knowledge of the efficiency of stirring of gas across the sea surface, the air‐sea transfer velocity. The study suggests a relatively large downward flow of CO2 into the ocean compared to previous applications of this method and other methods to estimate the oceanic carbon sink. Increased knowledge is rewarded by reduced uncertainty in the net global flux; that flux is estimated at −3.0 ± 0.6 Pg C/year. Further understanding of transfer velocities and better sampling may reduce the uncertainty in the future.
Key Points
Increased understanding of air‐sea gas transfer processes and better sampling of the upper ocean enables higher confidence in calculations of air‐sea CO2 fluxes
The calculations imply a relatively large global net air‐to‐sea flux of −3.0 Pg C/year (referenced to 2010)
This flux is known within 0.6 Pg C/year, where uncertainty in air‐sea transfer velocity is the largest contribution to the combined uncertainty
Hurricane Laura made landfall in southwestern Louisiana in August 2020 while the world was several months into the COVID-19 pandemic. In the present research, we examined pandemic precautionary ...behaviors in a sample of adults who varied in exposure and damage due to Hurricane Laura, a destructive Category 4 hurricane. A total of 127 participants responded to an online survey that assessed pandemic worry and precautionary behaviors, hurricane exposure and damage, and health-related quality of life. We found that Hurricane Laura victims neglected pandemic precautionary behaviors at significantly higher levels in the weeks immediately following Hurricane Laura than did indirectly impacted control participants, although the two comparison groups did not differ in COVID-19 worry or adherence to precautionary pandemic behavior 14–22 months after Hurricane Laura made landfall. Older age was negatively correlated with COVID-19 worry prior to Hurricane Laura, which was unexpected given that older people in general were more vulnerable to COVID-19 by their membership in a high-risk group. Future directions for research on post-disaster vulnerabilities during a global pandemic are discussed.
Abstract
The DARWIN observatory is a proposed next-generation experiment to search for particle dark matter and for the neutrinoless double beta decay of
$$^{136}$$
136
Xe. Out of its 50 t total ...natural xenon inventory, 40 t will be the active target of a time projection chamber which thus contains about 3.6 t of
$$^{136}$$
136
Xe. Here, we show that its projected half-life sensitivity is
$$2.4\times {10}^{27}\,{\hbox {year}}$$
2.4
×
10
27
year
, using a fiducial volume of 5 t of natural xenon and 10 year of operation with a background rate of less than 0.2 events/(t
$$\cdot $$
·
year) in the energy region of interest. This sensitivity is based on a detailed Monte Carlo simulation study of the background and event topologies in the large, homogeneous target. DARWIN will be comparable in its science reach to dedicated double beta decay experiments using xenon enriched in
$$^{136}$$
136
Xe.
Rapid eye movements (REM) are characteristic of the eponymous phase of sleep, yet the underlying motor commands remain an enigma. Here, we identified a cluster of Calbindin-D28K-expressing neurons in ...the Nucleus papilio (NP
), located in the dorsal paragigantocellular nucleus, which are active during REM sleep and project to the three contralateral eye-muscle nuclei. The firing of opto-tagged NP
neurons is augmented prior to the onset of eye movements during REM sleep. Optogenetic activation of NP
neurons triggers eye movements selectively during REM sleep, while their genetic ablation or optogenetic silencing suppresses them. None of these perturbations led to a change in the duration of REM sleep episodes. Our study provides the first evidence for a brainstem premotor command contributing to the control of eye movements selectively during REM sleep in the mammalian brain.
The DARWIN observatory is a proposed next-generation experiment with 40 tonnes of liquid xenon as an active target in a time projection chamber. To study challenges related to the construction and ...operation of a multi-tonne scale detector, we have designed and constructed a vertical, full-scale demonstrator for the DARWIN experiment at the University of Zurich. Here, we present the first results from a several-months run with
343
kg
of xenon and electron drift lifetime and transport measurements with a
53
cm
tall purity monitor immersed in the cryogenic liquid. After
88
days
of continuous purification, the electron lifetime reached a value of
(
664
±
23
)
μ
s
. We measured the drift velocity of electrons for electric fields in the range (25–75) V/cm, and found values consistent with previous measurements. We also calculated the longitudinal diffusion constant of the electron cloud in the same field range, and compared with previous data, as well as with predictions from an empirical model.
Large uncertainties exist on the volume of ice transported by the Southern Ocean large icebergs, a key parameter for climate studies, because of the paucity of information, especially on iceberg ...thickness. Using icebergs tracks from the National Ice Center (NIC) and Brigham Young University (BYU) databases to select altimeter data over icebergs and a method of analysis of altimeter waveforms, a database of 5366 icebergs freeboard elevation, length, and backscatter covering the 2002–2012 period has been created. The database is analyzed in terms of distributions of freeboard, length, and backscatter showing differences as a function of the iceberg's quadrant of origin. The database allows to analyze the temporal evolution of icebergs and to estimate a melt rate of 35–39 m·yr−1 (neglecting the firn compaction). The total daily volume of ice, estimated by combining the NIC and altimeter sizes and the altimeter freeboards, regularly decreases from 2.2 104km3 in 2002 to 0.9 104km3 in 2012. During this decade, the total loss of ice (
∼1800 km3·yr−1) is twice as large as than the input (
∼960 km3·yr−1) showing that the system is out of equilibrium after a very large input of ice between 1997 and 2002. Breaking into small icebergs represents 80% (
∼1500 km3·yr−1) of the total ice loss while basal melting is only 18% (
∼320 km3·yr−1). Small icebergs are thus the major vector of freshwater input in the Southern Ocean.
Key Points:
New technique to measure the freeboard of large icebergs
Analysis of the volume of ice and its variability for the 2002–2012 period
Estimation of the melt rate and breaking of large iceberg
The surface nuclear magnetic resonance (SNMR) method is a geophysical method designed for non-invasive groundwater investigations. Inversion of experimental data provides the spatial distribution of ...the water content in the subsurface. However, SNMR inversion is ill-posed and admits many solutions because of the imaging equation properties that are compounded by experimental error. SNMR data sets are conveniently presented as complex numbers, thus possessing phase and amplitude components. Subsurface electroconductive formations and fluctuations of the Earth's magnetic field cause non-negligible phase shifts. Consequently, the forward modelling of the SNMR signal generated by 3-D water saturated formations is achieved in the complex domain. Nevertheless, in many cases, phase measurements are less reliable than amplitude measurements and water content rendering cannot be carried out using the complex SNMR signal. This problem is resolved by performing inversion using complex forward modelling whose resulting signal amplitude is used for comparison with the data. Along with water content boundaries ranging from 0 to 1, this property turns the linear initial value inversion problem into a non-linear one. In such a situation, the comprehensive analysis of inversion uncertainties is achieved by performing a solution space exploration based on a Monte Carlo approach. An adapted Metropolis–Hastings algorithm has been used on SNMR 3-D data sets to perform such an exploration. Computing time depends on the problem dimensions. With a standard laptop computer about 10 hr were necessary for the inversion of our field data set. The resulting model collection is used to calculate the probability density functions of the water content. From there, it is possible to estimate the uncertainty of the water content imagery. Using both synthetic and experimental data, we show that our routine provides robust estimates of the spatial distribution of the water content for the SNMR 3-D initial amplitude inversion.
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