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Resource estimation is commonly performed in separate domains that are defined using different criteria depending on the type and geometry of the deposit, the mining method used, and the estimation method applied. The validity of estimation domains can be critical to the quality of produced resource estimates as they control various steps of the estimation process, including sample and block selection. Estimation domains also affect statistical and geostatistical analyses because they define what estimation practitioners will consider as statistically separate distributions of data. Sometimes, samples from different estimation domains share similar grade properties close to the contact between domains, a situation known as a soft boundary. In such cases, it can be useful to include samples from different domains at short distances from the boundary. Contact profile analysis is a technique that allows for the measurement of the relationship between grades on either side of the contact between two estimation domains. As discussed in the study presented in this paper, contact profile analysis can help validate the defined estimation domains and control the application depth of any soft boundaries found between domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pedersen Process was developed at the beginning of the 20th century as an alternative process to the Bayer route for producing alumina Al2O3. A successful operation in an industrial environment took place in Norway from 1925 to 1969. It ended due to economic reasons. Having a smaller environmental footprint (no bauxite residue) and the ability to handle alternative raw materials makes the approach promising for grappling with future challenges in Europe. This paper shows the status of the ongoing European Commission-funded work and the outline of a first industrial process concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe has been experiencing an increasing number of sweltering heat waves in recent years. This run of hot extremes induces a significant impact on the human environment, especially in terms of excess mortality, highlighting the urgent need for improved heat-health action planning. This is particularly true in countries situated in the eastern Mediterranean, which is considered a climate change hot spot. To increase preparedness and response to overheating risks, heat-health warning systems (HHWSs) are of vital importance. In this direction, the principal aim of the HEAT-ALARM research project is to provide a novel scientific and technological framework for the development of efficient HHWSs, employing Greece as a testbed. Going beyond the simple notion that outdoor meteorological conditions alone can adequately describe the heat-health nexus, a sophisticated human-biometeorological index, the modified physiologically equivalent temperature (mPET), is used. Advanced statistical models and tools are employed in order to establish a clear link between mPET and excess mortality at regional-unit administrative level. Moreover, urban climate factors produced by combining remote sensing and geographical information system techniques are incorporated into the HHWS via a state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction model. The latter includes a scheme that combines the parameterization and modeling of building effects and energy, respectively, in order to account for the urban indoor thermal conditions and the intra-urban differential heat exposure within the five highest populated cities of Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion and Larissa). Further, the human body's acclimatization ability is considered, as well as the physiological characteristics of different vulnerable groups of people, including the elderly, women and outdoor workers. The current paper describes the scientific background of HEAT-ALARM and provides preliminary results associated with the project's realization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lack of lifelong learning courses on raw materials in Eastern and Southeastern Europe (ESEE) results in lower levels of innovativeness for this region's professionals. The consortium of Dubrovnik International ESEE Mining school—DIM ESEE project (2016–2020) conducted several questionnaire campaigns in order to establish the main needs, challenges, and current status of innovation utilization among raw materials professionals in the ESEE region. Based on these results, the DIM consortium developed four annual 3-day workshops within the new project, DIM ESEE-2: Implementing innovations, which would secure relevant content delivered by expert lecturers for an affordable price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface solar radiation (SSR) is a crucial parameter for both the Earth's climate and human activities, and it consists of two components: the direct beam from the sun and diffuse radiation, with the latter being scattered by atmospheric molecules, aerosols, or clouds. The multidecadal variations of SSR, known as Global Dimming and Brightening (GDB), should also arise from a corresponding variability of either the direct or the diffuse radiation. Thus, the determination of the trends of both the direct and the diffuse radiation is important for showing the causes of GDB. In the present study, we estimate the trends of global and diffuse radiation on a global scale during the period 1984-2018, using worldwide reference ground-based measurements from the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) and the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). An increasing tendency of SSR is observed over most locations on our planet, while a decreasing trend occurs in India. On the other hand, the diffuse radiation has decreased over Europe and parts of Asia, whereas it has increased over the USA, India, and East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil loss by water is a major form of land degradation with environmental and economic consequences. In particular, erosion rates are sensitive to both climate and land cover changes. The present study investigates the temporal changes in soil loss rate over South Europe during the 1980-2018 period. To that end, the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was applied by integrating information from freely available geospatial datasets to conduct a multi-decadal assessment. In this frame, the temporal variability of the two dynamic RUSLE factors, namely rainfall erosivity (R) and cover management (C), was explored. Specifically, the rainfall erosivity values per decade were acquired from a newly developed dataset from the European Soil Data Center (ESDAC), coupling the Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and UERRA regional reanalysis rainfall data. On the other hand, land cover data were retrieved from the CORINE dataset (CLC) through the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service for different reference years. The appropriate values were assigned to each CLC category per country according to the recent literature to determine the C-factor. In terms of the other three static RUSLE factors, namely soil erodibility (K), slope length and steepness (LS) and support practice (P), these were obtained from the ESDAC database by exploiting the results of previous pan-European assessments. The results indicate that the mean annual soil erosion rates in South Europe were 6.82, 4.90, 4.89 and 5.26 t/ha/year for the decades 1981-1990, 1991-2000, 2001-2010 and 2011-2018, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe and repeated droughts in Europe have significant impacts on agriculture, transport, energy and healthcare. During the summer of 2003, more than the two-thirds of Europe was under drought. The drought events of 2010 and 2018 were of a similar extent to 2003. An unprecedented stress on water levels throughout the entire EU was created by the combination of severe drought and heat waves during August 2022--the worst drought event in 500 years according to according to the Commission's Joint Research Centre. A raised awareness of drought characteristics is essential for better drought forecasting and monitoring in order to provide reliable adaptation strategies for drought hazard. In this study, the drought over six European stations for the last three decades using the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) was analyzed. SPI reveals that there are no significant changes in dry and wet conditions, while SPEI shows a significant increase in the drought frequency during the last decades for Central Europe and the Mediterranean. The discrepancies between the two indices can be explained by the increasing temperature and evapotranspiration that are fundamental components of drought occurrence in Europe. The SPI12 index managed to identify the drought of August 2022 in many regions in Europe, but with less intensity than it was recorded. Conversely, SPEI12 was able to identify the intensity of the drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution is an important environmental risk factor associated with increased morbidity and excess mortality. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a complex mixture of both organic and inorganic compounds, depending on emissions sources and atmospheric chemistry. According to toxicological studies, there is strong evidence that anthropogenic carbonaceous aerosols, especially those emitted from combustion sources, are more hazardous to human health than other types of fine particles. In this study, we use WRF-Chem to simulate PM2.5 and the carbonaceous sub-components (black carbon and organics from anthropogenic sources) over Europe. The excess mortality attributed to long-term exposure to these particles is quantified using the MR-BRT (meta-Regression-Bayesian, regularized, trimmed) and the Global Exposure Mortality Model (GEMM) exposure-response functions to assess the public health outcomes. Differential toxicity of carbonaceous aerosols is assumed to account for their potentially more pronounced effect on excess mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In urban areas, people live under poor air quality conditions since exceedances in limit concentrations set by the European Union are usually recorded. In port cities, air quality is further deteriorated due to emissions from port activities. This work investigates the variation in fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) through the recordings of PurpleAir low-cost sensors in Aarhus, Hamburg, and Lisbon, which are in northern, central, and southern Europe, respectively, for the period of 2020-2022. Moreover, the calculation of the Intake Dose (ID) was attempted for active population groups of men and women aged from 21 to 61 years old. The results showed that the male population groups of active working ages generally inhale higher amounts of particulate matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aviation turbulence is a major concern for flight safety. Detecting and nowcasting upper-level turbulence is usually associated with known sources of turbulence, such as convective clouds and transverse cirrus bands. However, in extended clear-air conditions where no optical indicators are present, this can be challenging for both aviation forecasters and pilots. This study aims to evaluate heavy-severe aviation scale turbulence events over 20.000 ft, by utilizing satellite data from MSG SEVIRI radiometer and in situ turbulence reports from en-route aircraft flights over Europe. We analyze 92 heavy-severe turbulence events during November 2009. The results could give an estimate of possible turbulence detection to pilots and aviation forecasters to identify and avoid upper-level turbulence, increasing flight safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interdecadal changes of the incident solar radiation at the Earth's surface (SSR) are mainly driven by changes in clouds and aerosols. In order to investigate their contribution to the SSR changes (global dimming and brightening or GDB), the FORTH radiative transfer model (RTM) is used to compute the SSR fluxes. The cloud input data were taken from satellite observations of ISCCP-H, while aerosols and meteorological data were taken from the MERRA-2 reanalysis dataset. The RTM operates on a monthly basis and in 0.5° x 0.625° latitude-longitude spatial resolution. The GDB was also computed keeping constant at their initial 1984 values, each input parameter that was examined, resulting in a GDB with the 'frozen' parameter. The contribution of each parameter to the GDB is defined as the subtraction of the frozen GDB from the base-run GDB, and the positive/negative values of the contribution indicate that the interdecadal variability of the examined parameter increased/decreased the SSR. The aerosol optical depth (AOD) produced a dimming in India, Amazonia, and S. China, whereas it induced a brightening in Europe and Mexico. On the other hand, the total cloud cover (TCC) changes caused a dimming over the Arctic, Australia, and the South Ocean against a brightening in Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and South America. The global mean contribution of changing AOD is 0.37 W/m², and for TCC, it is 4.7 W/m², indicating that globally, the counteraction of cloud cover to the overall global dimming is larger. Opposite contributions to GDB from AOD and TCC may occur over specific regions, highlighting the complexity of the causes of the GDB phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate future changes of agro-climatic zones over Europe under two different IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) based on an ensemble of 11 bias-corrected regional climate model simulations covering the period 1981-2100. Eight distinct agro-climatic zones were identified by applying the k-means clustering method for the reference period 1981-2010 on two temperature-related parameters: the growing season length and the active temperature sum. Our results point towards a strong northward shift of the agro-climatic zones, especially under RCP8.5, towards the end of the century. A significant shift of the agro-climatic zones is also projected for RCP4.5 in the near-future and the end-of-the-century periods for large areas in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change (changes in temperature and weather patterns) plays a significant role in the outbreak of tick-borne diseases such as Lyme borreliosis (LB) disease and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in Europe. The prevalence of LB disease has increased lately and TBE, one of the most serious infections of the central nervous system, significantly affects public health. Changes in abiotic factors are the main determinants affecting their vectors. The warmer weather during winter has prolonged the extension of the period in which ticks are most active. Therefore, the increased risk of transmission of tick-borne diseases influenced by the climate conditions could be determined by advanced climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snow significantly affects the economy of many European countries, especially in the sector of winter tourism. It affects the operation of ski resorts, the mountain real estate, and can cause disruptions in transportations. The objective of this study is to analyze trends in snow depth at ski resorts in Europe based on the CERRA-land reanalysis data. Time series are computed between 1985-2020 for 4507 European ski resorts. Results show that the majority of ski resorts are severely affected by decreasing trends in snow depth, especially in winter and spring. Spatial patterns based on the elevation of ski resorts are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]