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Extreme droughts are expected to increase in frequency and severity in many regions of the world, threatening multiple ecosystem services provided by forests. Effective strategies to adapt forests to such droughts require comprehensive information on the effects and importance of the factors influencing forest resistance and resilience. We used a unique combination of inventory and dendrochronological data from a long‐term (>30 years) silvicultural experiment in mixed silver fir and Norway spruce mountain forests along a temperature and precipitation gradient in southwestern Germany. We aimed at examining the mechanisms and forest stand characteristics underpinning the resistance and resilience to past mild and severe droughts. We found that (i) fir benefited from mild droughts and showed higher resistance (i.e., lower growth loss during drought) and resilience (i.e., faster return to pre‐drought growth levels) than spruce to all droughts; (ii) species identity determined mild drought responses while species interactions and management‐related factors strongly influenced the responses to severe droughts; (iii) intraspecific and interspecific interactions had contrasting effects on the two species, with spruce being less resistant to severe droughts when exposed to interaction with fir and beech; (iv) higher values of residual stand basal area following thinning were associated with lower resistance and resilience to severe droughts; and (v) larger trees were resilient to mild drought events but highly vulnerable to severe droughts. Our study provides an analytical approach for examining the effects of different factors on individual tree‐ and stand‐level drought response. The forests investigated here were to a certain extent resilient to mild droughts, and even benefited from such conditions, but were strongly affected by severe droughts. Lastly, negative effects of severe droughts can be reduced through modifying species composition, tree size distribution and stand density in mixed silver fir‐Norway spruce forests., We examined mechanisms and stand characteristics underpinning the growth resistance (Rt), recovery (Rc) and resilience (Rs) to past mild and severe droughts in mixed silver fir and Norway spruce mountain forests in southwestern Germany. We found that the forests investigated were to a certain extent resilient to mild droughts, and even benefited from such conditions, but were strongly affected by severe droughts (especially those stands with higher residual basal area and larger trees). Lastly, negative effects of severe droughts can be reduced through modifying species composition, tree size distribution and stand density in mixed silver fir‐Norway spruce forests.

International audience; In this Letter, in "About 75% of this reduction is expected to come from emission reductions and the remaining 25% from land use, land-use change and forestry", `25%' should read `1%' and '75%' should read '99%'. In the sentence "The carbon-sink-maximizing portfolio has a small negative effect on annual precipitation (-2 mm) and no effect on air temperature (Table 1)" the word `precipitation' was omitted. Denmark was accidentally deleted during the conversion of Fig. 1. The original Letter has been corrected online.

Many derived Earth Observation products share surface reflectance as a common step in their processing chains. This makes the maintenance and improvement of surface reflectance product quality of fundamental importance to ensure information derived from these downstream products can be trusted. Despite this, the literature is relatively light on the implementation of validation methodologies designed for surface reflectance. In response to the need to improve general EO validation methodologies, the concept of fiducial reference measurements (FRM) was created that would produce validation data that is fully characterised and independent, with associated uncertainties, and traceable to SI. This paper describes a field campaign designed to produce surface reflectance validation data, in line with the FRM ideology, for validating the Sentinel-2 L2A (S2) and Proba-V S1-TOC (Proba) surface reflectance products. The key methodological procedures are outlined in detail to facilitate uptake of FRM methods in future validation studies. These include the calibration and characterisation of field instruments, the field measurement protocol, and uncertainty propagation. Comparison of S2 with field measurements showed agreement within the stated uncertainties present for all bands and locations at the pixel and area scales. The Proba comparison results demonstrated a general disagreement within the stated uncertainties. However, there is a lack of uncertainty information provided by the product as well as publicly available product uncertainty requirements which mean that it is difficult to assess this fully. The aim of this practical demonstration of FRM-based surface reflectance validation, that utilises metrological practices for uncertainty characterisation, is to encourage the adoption of these procedures in future land surface reflectance validation studies and operational activities.

The Paris Agreement promotes forest management as a pathway towards halting climate warming through the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions1. However, the climate benefits from carbon sequestration through forest management may be reinforced, counteracted or even offset by concurrent management-induced changes in surface albedo, land-surface roughness, emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds, transpiration and sensible heat flux2–4. Consequently, forest management could offset CO2 emissions without halting global temperature rise. It therefore remains to be confirmed whether commonly proposed sustainable European forest-management portfolios would comply with the Paris Agreement—that is, whether they can reduce the growth rate of atmospheric CO2, reduce the radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, and neither increase the near-surface air temperature nor decrease precipitation by the end of the twenty-first century. Here we show that the portfolio made up of management systems that locally maximize the carbon sink through carbon sequestration, wood use and product and energy substitution reduces the growth rate of atmospheric CO2, but does not meet any of the other criteria. The portfolios that maximize the carbon sink or forest albedo pass only one—different in each case—criterion. Managing the European forests with the objective of reducing near-surface air temperature, on the other hand, will also reduce the atmospheric CO2 growth rate, thus meeting two of the four criteria. Trade-off are thus unavoidable when using European forests to meet climate objectives. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that if present-day forest cover is sustained, the additional climate benefits achieved through forest management would be modest and local, rather than global. On the basis of these findings, we argue that Europe should not rely on forest management to mitigate climate change. The modest climate effects from changes in forest management imply, however, that if adaptation to future climate were to require large-scale changes in species composition and silvicultural systems over Europe5,6, the forests could be adapted to climate change with neither positive nor negative climate effects. Simulations of commonly proposed forest-management portfolios for Europe show that no single portfolio would meet all the requirements of the Paris Agreement, and climate benefits from forest management would be modest and local.

In order to better simulate heat fluxes over multilayer ecosystems, in particular tropical forests and savannahs, the next generation of Earth system models will likely include vertically-resolved vegetation structure and multi-level energy budgets. We present here a multi-level radiation transfer scheme which is capable of being used in conjunction with such methods. It is based on a previously established scheme which encapsulates the three dimensional nature of canopies, through the use of a domain-averaged structure factor, referred to here as the effective leaf area index. The fluxes are tracked throughout the canopy in an iterative fashion until they escape into the atmosphere or are absorbed by the canopy or soil; this approach explicitly includes multiple scattering between the canopy layers. A series of tests show that the results from the two-layer case are in acceptable agreement with those from the single layer, although the computational cost is necessarily increased due to the iterations. The ten-layer case is less precise, but still provides results to within an acceptable range. This new approach allows for the calculation of radiation transfer in vertically resolved vegetation canopies simulated in global circulation models.

Canopy structure is one of the most important vegetation characteristics for land–atmosphere interactions, as it determines the energy and scalar exchanges between the land surface and the overlying air mass. In this study we evaluated the performance of a newly developed multi-layer energy budget in the ORCHIDEE-CAN v1.0 land surface model (Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems – CANopy), which simulates canopy structure and can be coupled to an atmospheric model using an implicit coupling procedure. We aim to provide a set of acceptable parameter values for a range of forest types. Top-canopy and sub-canopy flux observations from eight sites were collected in order to conduct this evaluation. The sites crossed climate zones from temperate to boreal and the vegetation types included deciduous, evergreen broad-leaved and evergreen needle-leaved forest with a maximum leaf area index (LAI; all-sided) ranging from 3.5 to 7.0. The parametrization approach proposed in this study was based on three selected physical processes – namely the diffusion, advection, and turbulent mixing within the canopy. Short-term sub-canopy observations and long-term surface fluxes were used to calibrate the parameters in the sub-canopy radiation, turbulence, and resistance modules with an automatic tuning process. The multi-layer model was found to capture the dynamics of sub-canopy turbulence, temperature, and energy fluxes. The performance of the new multi-layer model was further compared against the existing single-layer model. Although the multi-layer model simulation results showed few or no improvements to both the nighttime energy balance and energy partitioning during winter compared with a single-layer model simulation, the increased model complexity does provide a more detailed description of the canopy micrometeorology of various forest types. The multi-layer model links to potential future environmental and ecological studies such as the assessment of in-canopy species vulnerability to climate change, the climate effects of disturbance intensities and frequencies, and the consequences of biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions from the terrestrial ecosystem.

International audience; The snow‐albedo feedback is a crucial component in high‐altitude cryospheric change but is poorly quantified over the Third Pole, encompassing the Karakoram and Tibetan Plateau. Here we present an analysis of present‐day and future spring snow‐albedo feedback over the Third Pole, using a 28 year satellite‐based albedo and the latest climate model simulations. We show that present‐day spring snow‐albedo feedback strength is primarily determined by the decrease in albedo due to snow metamorphosis, rather than that due to reduced snow cover in the Karakoram, but not found in Southeastern Tibet. We further demonstrate an emergent relationship between snow‐albedo feedback from the seasonal cycle and that from climate change across models. Combined with contemporary satellite‐based snow‐albedo feedback from seasonal cycle, this relationship enables us to estimate that the feedback strength for the Karakoram with a relatively high glaciated area is −2.42 ± 0.48% K−1 under an unmitigated scenario, which is much stronger than that for Southeastern Tibet (−1.64 ± 0.48% K−1) and for the Third Pole (−0.89 ± 0.44% K−1), respectively. Moreover, it is noteworthy that the magnitude of the constrained strength is only half of the unconstrained model estimate for the Third Pole, suggesting that current climate models generally overestimate the feedback of spring snow change to temperature change based on the unmitigated scenario.

The thermodynamic optimization of differing Reverse Brayton Refrigeration (RBR) cycle configurations is presented in this study. These cycle configurations include: Conventional 1-stage compression cycle; Conventional 2-stage compression cycle; 1-stage compression Modified cycle with intermediate cooling of the recuperator using an auxiliary cooler; and an Integrated 2-stage expansion RBR cycle. For high pressure ratio applications, multi-stage compressors with intercooling are considered. Analytical solutions for the conventional cycles are developed including thermal and fluid flow irreversibilities of the recuperators and all heat exchangers in addition to the compression and expansion processes. Exergy analysis is performed and the exergy destruction of different components of the RBR cycles for different configurations is presented and the effects of important system parameters on performance are investigated. Thermodynamic optimization of the cycles with intermediate cooling of the recuperator is included. Effects of the 2nd law/exergy efficiency of the auxiliary cooler on the total system efficiencies are presented.

Canopy structure is one of the most important vegetation characteristics for land-atmosphere interactions, as it determines the energy and scalar exchanges between the land surface and the overlying air mass. In this study we evaluated the performance of a newly developed multi-layer energy budget in the land surface model ORCHIDEE-CAN (Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems – CANopy), which simulates canopy structure and can be coupled to an atmospheric model using an implicit coupling procedure. We aim to provide a set of acceptable parameter values for a range of forest types. Top-canopy and sub-canopy flux observations from eight sites were collected in order to conduct this evaluation. The sites crossed climate zones from temperate to boreal and the vegetation types included deciduous, evergreen broad leaved and evergreen needle leaved forest with a maximum LAI (all-sided) ranging from 3.5 to 7.0. The parametrization approach proposed in this study was based on three selected physical processes – namely the diffusion, advection and turbulent mixing within the canopy. Short-term sub-canopy observations and long-term surface fluxes were used to calibrate the parameters in the sub-canopy radiation, turbulence and resistances modules with an automatic tuning process. The multi-layer model was found to capture the dynamics of sub-canopy turbulence, temperature and energy fluxes. The performance of the new multi-layer model was further compared against the existing single-layer model. Although, the multi-layer model simulation results showed little or no improvements to both the nighttime energy balance and energy partitioning during winter compared with a single-layer model simulation, the increased model complexity does provide a more detailed description of the canopy micrometeorology of various forest types. The multi-layer model links to potential future environmental and ecological studies such as the assessment of in-canopy species vulnerability to climate change, the climate effects of disturbance intensities and frequencies, and the consequences of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) emissions from the terrestrial ecosystem.

Europe's managed forests contribute to warming For most of the past 250 years, surprisingly it seems that Europe's managed forests have been a net source of carbon, contributing to climate warming rather than mitigating it. Naudts et al. reconstructed the history of forest management in Europe in the context of a land-atmosphere model. The release of carbon otherwise stored in litter, dead wood, and soil carbon pools in managed forests was one key factor contributing to climate warming. Second, the conversion of broadleaved forests to coniferous forests has changed the albedo and evapotranspiration of those forests, also leading to warming. Thus, climate change mitigation policies in Europe and elsewhere may need to consider changes in forest management. Science , this issue p. 597

Mating behavior helps to shape the epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by determining the rate at which infectious and susceptible individuals make contact. To the extent that mating behavior shows spatial variation, it is expected that STI epidemics will also show spatial heterogeneity (provided that dispersal is limited). However, empirical data are lacking for natural systems. Here, therefore, we investigate the association between local mating behavior and STI epidemiology in natural populations of the two-spot ladybird, Adalia bipunctata, and dissect the causes of this variation. Variation in mating behavior was observed over local and regional spatial scales and high mating rate led to stronger local epidemics of the STI. Initial ecological observations suggested that reduced mating rate was associated largely with low food supply (and possibly to a lesser extent with local population density) and not with differences in thermal environment. We tested the potential role of food supply in fuelling STI epidemics in laboratory populations and confirmed that high food provision led to greater STI transmission. We conclude that food supply is strongly associated with mating rate in the field and that this produces heterogeneity in STI epidemiology. A consequence is that STI-induced sterility will reduce reproduction in habitat patches of high food quality.

This paper reports measurements of land–atmosphere fluxes of sensible and latent heat, momentum, CO 2 , volatile organic compounds (VOCs), NO, NO 2 , N 2 O and O 3 over a 30 m high rainforest canopy and a 12 m high oil palm plantation in the same region of Sabah in Borneo between April and July 2008. The daytime maximum CO 2 flux to the two canopies differs by approximately a factor of 2, 1200 mg C m −2 h −1 for the oil palm and 700 mg C m −2 h −1 for the rainforest, with the oil palm plantation showing a substantially greater quantum efficiency. Total VOC emissions are also larger over the oil palm than over the rainforest by a factor of 3. Emissions of isoprene from the oil palm canopy represented 80 per cent of the VOC emissions and exceeded those over the rainforest in similar light and temperature conditions by on average a factor of 5. Substantial emissions of estragole (1-allyl-4-methoxybenzene) from the oil palm plantation were detected and no trace of this VOC was detected in or above the rainforest. Deposition velocities for O 3 to the rainforest were a factor of 2 larger than over oil palm. Emissions of nitrous oxide were larger from the soils of the oil palm plantation than from the soils of the rainforest by approximately 25 per cent. It is clear from the measurements that the large change in the species composition generated by replacing rainforest with oil palm leads to profound changes in the net exchange of most of the trace gases measured, and thus on the chemical composition of the boundary layer over these surfaces.

Measurements of atmospheric composition have been made over a remote rainforest landscape. A box model has previously been demonstrated to model the observed daytime chemistry well. However the box model is unable to explain the nocturnal measurements of relatively high [NO] and [O3], but relatively low observed [NO2]. It is shown that a one-dimensional (1-D) column model with simple O3 -NOx chemistry and a simple representation of vertical transport is able to explain the observed nocturnal concentrations and predict the likely vertical profiles of these species in the nocturnal boundary layer (NBL). Concentrations of tracers carried over from the end of the night can affect the atmospheric chemistry of the following day. To ascertain the anomaly introduced by using the box model to represent the NBL, vertically-averaged NBL concentrations at the end of the night are compared between the 1-D model and the box model. It is found that, under low to medium [NOx] conditions (NOx 1 ppbv), the effect on the chemistry due to the vertical distribution of the species means no box model can adequately represent chemistry in the NBL without modifying reaction rate constants.

See, stats, and : https : / / www . researchgate . net / publication / 276534648 A - layer for simulations Article DOI : 10 . 5194 / gmdd - 7 - 8649 - 2014 CITATIONS 9 READS 155 12 , including : Some : land Master Jan French 193 , 481 SEE Eva Australian 98 , 225 SEE Vanessa The 85 SEE Juliane Climate (GERICS) 22 SEE All . The . Abstract In Earth system modelling , a description of the energy budget of the vegetated surface layer is fundamental as it determines the meteorological conditions in the planetary boundary layer and as such contributes to the atmospheric conditions and its circu - lation . The energy budget in most Earth system models has long been based on a 5 " big - leaf approach " , with averaging schemes that represent in - canopy processes . Such models have difficulties in reproducing consistently the energy balance in field obser - vations . We here outline a newly developed numerical model for energy budget simula - tion , as a component of the land surface model ORCHIDEE - CAN (Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems – CANopy) . This new model implements tech - 10 niques from single - site canopy models in a practical way . It includes representation of in - canopy transport , a multilayer longwave radiation budget , height - specific calculation of aerodynamic and stomatal conductance , and interaction with the bare soil flux within the canopy space . Significantly , it avoids iterations over the height of tha canopy and so maintains implicit coupling to the atmospheric model LMDz . As a first test , the model 15 is evaluated against data from both an intensive measurement campaign and longer term eddy covariance measurements for the intensively studied Eucalyptus stand at Tumbarumba , Australia . The model performs well in replicating both diurnal and an - nual cycles of fluxes , as well as the gradients of sensible heat fluxes . However , the model overestimates sensible heat flux against an underestimate of the radiation bud - 20 get . Improved performance is expected through the implementation of a more detailed calculation of stand albedo and a more up - to - date stomatal conductance calculation .

Since 70 % of global forests are managed and forests impact the global carbon cycle and the energy exchange with the overlying atmosphere, forest management has the potential to mitigate climate change. Yet, none of the land-surface models used in Earth system models, and therefore none of today's predictions of future climate, accounts for the interactions between climate and forest management. We addressed this gap in modelling capability by developing and parametrising a version of the ORCHIDEE land-surface model to simulate the biogeochemical and biophysical effects of forest management. The most significant changes between the new branch called ORCHIDEE-CAN (SVN r2290) and the trunk version of ORCHIDEE (SVN r2243) are the allometric-based allocation of carbon to leaf, root, wood, fruit and reserve pools; the transmittance, absorbance and reflectance of radiation within the canopy; and the vertical discretisation of the energy budget calculations. In addition, conceptual changes were introduced towards a better process representation for the interaction of radiation with snow, the hydraulic architecture of plants, the representation of forest management and a numerical solution for the photosynthesis formalism of Farquhar, von Caemmerer and Berry. For consistency reasons, these changes were extensively linked throughout the code. Parametrisation was revisited after introducing 12 new parameter sets that represent specific tree species or genera rather than a group of often distantly related or even unrelated species, as is the case in widely used plant functional types. Performance of the new model was compared against the trunk and validated against independent spatially explicit data for basal area, tree height, canopy structure, gross primary production (GPP), albedo and evapotranspiration over Europe. For all tested variables, ORCHIDEE-CAN outperformed the trunk regarding its ability to reproduce large-scale spatial patterns as well as their inter-annual variability over Europe. Depending on the data stream, ORCHIDEE-CAN had a 67 to 92 % chance to reproduce the spatial and temporal variability of the validation data.

Introduction: Participation in science and technology education - presenting the challenge and introducing project IRIS.- Section 1:Theoretical perspectives on educational choice.- Chapter 1: Expectancy-value perspectives on STEM choice in late-modern societies.- Chapter 2. A narrative approach to understand students' identities and choices.- Chapter 3: Gender, STEM studies and educational choices. Insights from feminist perspectives.- Section 2: Interest and participation in STEM from primary school to phD.- Chapter 4: STEM attitudes, interests and career choice.- Chapter 5: Science aspirations and gender identity: Lessons from the ASPIRES project.- Chapter 6: The impact of science curriculum content on students' subject choices in post-compulsory schooling.- Chapter 7: A place for STEM: Probing the reasons for undergraduate course choices.- Chapter 8: Short stories of educational choice - in the words of science and technology students.- Chapter 9: Understanding declining science participation in Australia: A systemic perspective.- Chapter 10: Choice patterns of PhD students: why should i pursue a PhD?.- Chapter 11: The impact of outreach and out-of-school activities on Norwegian upper secondary students' STEM motivations.- Section 3: Staying in STEM, leaving STEM?.- Chapter 12: Why do students in stem higher education programmes drop/opt out? Explanations offered from research.- Chapter 13: What makes them leave and where do they go? Non-completion and institutional departures in STEM.- Chapter 14: The first-year experience: Students' encounter with science and engineering programmes.- Chapter 15: Keeping pace. Educational choice motivations and first-year experiences in the words of Italian students.- Section 4: Applying feminist perspectives to understand STEM participation.- Chapter 16: When research challenges gender stereotypes: Exploring narratives of girls' educational choices.- Chapter 17: Italian female and male students' choices: STEM studies and motivations.- Chapter 18: Being a woman in a man's place or being a man in a women's place: insights into students' experiences of science and engineering at university.- Chapter 19: Italian students' ideas about gender and science in late modern societies. interpretations from a feminist perspective.- Section 5: Understanding and improving STEM participation: Conclusions and recommendations.- Chapter 20: Understanding student participation and choice in science and technology education: The contribution of IRIS.- Chapter 21: Improving participation in science and technology higher education: Ways forward.- Appendix: The IRIS questionnaire: Brief account of instrument development, data collection and respondents.

European forest use for fuel, timber and food dates back to pre-Roman times. Century-scale ecological processes and their legacy effects require accounting for forest management when studying today's forest carbon sink. Forest management reconstructions that are used to drive land surface models are one way to quantify the impact of both historical and today's large scale application of forest management on today's forest-related carbon sink and surface climate. In this study we reconstruct European forest management from 1600 to 2010 making use of diverse approaches, data sources and assumptions. Between 1600 and 1828, a demand-supply approach was used in which wood supply was reconstructed based on estimates of historical annual wood increment and land cover reconstructions. For the same period demand estimates accounted for the fuelwood needed in households, wood used in food processing, charcoal used in metal smelting and salt production, timber for construction and population estimates. Comparing estimated demand and supply resulted in a spatially explicit reconstruction of the share of forests under coppice, high stand management and forest left unmanaged. For the reconstruction between 1829 and 2010 a supply-driven back-casting method was used. The method used age reconstructions from the years 1950 to 2010 as its starting point. Our reconstruction reproduces the most important changes in forest management between 1600 and 2010: (1) an increase of 593 000 km2 in conifers at the expense of deciduous forest (decreasing by 538 000 km2), (2) a 612 000 km2 decrease in unmanaged forest, (3) a 152 000 km2 decrease in coppice management, (4) a 818 000 km2 increase in high stand management, and (5) the rise and fall of litter raking which at its peak in 1853 removed 50 Tg dry litter per year.

Second-law of thermodynamics (2nd law) and exergy analyses and optimization offour Reverse Brayton Refrigeration (RBR) cryogenic cycle configurations: Conventional 1-stage compression cycle; Conventional 2-stage compression cycle; 1-stage compressionModified cycle with intermediate cooling of the recuperator using an auxiliary cooler; andan Integrated 2-stage expansion RBR cycle are performed. The conventional RBR cyclesare analyzed for low and high pressure ratio applications using multistage compressorswith intercooling. Analytical solutions for the conventional cycles are developed includingthermal and fluid flow irreversibilities of the recuperators and all heat exchangers inaddition to the compression and expansion processes. Analytical solutions are used to findthe thermodynamic bounds for the performance of the cycles. Exergy irreversibilitydiagrams of the cycles are developed and the effects of important system parameters onRBR cycle performance are investigated. 2nd law/exergy analyses, and optimization of thecycles with intermediate cooling of the recuperator, considering the cooling temperatureand the recuperator effectiveness and pressure drop, are included. The effect of the 2ndlaw/exergy efficiency of the auxiliary cooler on the total system efficiencies is presented.

Measurements of significant concentrations of IO, I2 and BrO in a semi-polluted coast environment at Roscoff, in North-West France, have been made as part of the Reactive Halogens in the Marine Boundary Layer (RHaMBLe) campaign undertaken in September 2006. We use a one-dimensional column model, with idealised I2 emissions predicted using macroalgael maps and tidal data from the littoral area surrounding Roscoff, to investigate the probable causes for these observations. The coupled microphysical and chemical aerosol model simulates mixed-phase halogen chemistry using two separate particle modes, seasalt and non-seasalt, each comprising of eight size-sections. This work confirms the finding of a previous study that the BrO measurements are most likely caused by unknown, local sources. We find that the remote observations of IO and I2 are best replicated using the I2 recycling mechanism suggested by previous studies, but that such a mechanism is not wholly necessary. However in-situ measurements of I2 can only be explained by invoking an I2 recycling mechanism. We suggest that focussed observations of the changes in NOx and NOy concentrations, as well as changes in the nitrate fraction of the non-seasalt aerosol mode, in the presence of I2 bursts could be used to determine the atmospheric relevance of the predicted I2 recycling mechanism.

More than half the world's rainforest has been lost to agriculture since the Industrial Revolution. Among the most widespread tropical crops is oil palm ( Elaeis guineensis ): global production now exceeds 35 million tonnes per year. In Malaysia, for example, 13% of land area is now oil palm plantation, compared with 1% in 1974. There are enormous pressures to increase palm oil production for food, domestic products, and, especially, biofuels. Greater use of palm oil for biofuel production is predicated on the assumption that palm oil is an “environmentally friendly” fuel feedstock. Here we show, using measurements and models, that oil palm plantations in Malaysia directly emit more oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds than rainforest. These compounds lead to the production of ground-level ozone (O 3 ), an air pollutant that damages human health, plants, and materials, reduces crop productivity, and has effects on the Earth's climate. Our measurements show that, at present, O 3 concentrations do not differ significantly over rainforest and adjacent oil palm plantation landscapes. However, our model calculations predict that if concentrations of oxides of nitrogen in Borneo are allowed to reach those currently seen over rural North America and Europe, ground-level O 3 concentrations will reach 100 parts per billion (10 9 ) volume (ppbv) and exceed levels known to be harmful to human health. Our study provides an early warning of the urgent need to develop policies that manage nitrogen emissions if the detrimental effects of palm oil production on air quality and climate are to be avoided.

Atmospheric aerosol measurements were conducted near Danum Valley, in the Malaysian state of Sabah, North-East Borneo, as part of the OP3 and ACES projects, in April and June/July 2008. Here, aerosol fluxes and diurnal variability in and above the rainforest canopy were examined in order to gain an understanding of their behaviour in the surface layer of the South-East Asian rainforest. Aerosol fluxes were calculated by eddy covariance from measurements above the rainforest canopy on the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) tower. Upward fluxes were seen on most mornings between 09:00 and 11:00 local time and this could be attributed to venting of the nocturnal boundary layer as it broke up in the morning. Measurements were also conducted within the canopy and trunk space at a nearby site. Profiles in aerosol number concentrations were investigated using GRIMM Optical Particle Counters (OPCs) at various levels within the rainforest canopy and trunk space, as well as a single OPC on a vertically moving platform. These showed an overnight increase in larger particles (1–20 μm) at all levels, but much more prominently near the top of the canopy, which could be attributed to fog formation. At ground level, number concentrations in this size range correlated with enhancements in biological aerosol concentrations, measured using a Wide Issue Bioaerosol Spectrometer (WIBS) located near the forest floor, suggesting that coarse particle number concentrations were dominated by biological aerosols. A comparison of particle number concentrations (in the size range 0.5–1.0 μm) between above canopy and the trunk space showed correlations, despite turbulence data suggesting persistent decoupling between the two measurement sites. These correlations often relied on a shift of the particle time-series against each other, implying a time delay in observations between the sites, which varied according to time of day. This lag time was shortest during the middle of the day by a significant margin. This was not observed for aerosols larger than 1.0 μm. Further evidence of daytime coupling between above canopy and the trunk space in terms of aerosol measurements is implied by comparison of measurements from an Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) at the GAW tower and simultaneous bag sampling at the in-canopy site, subsequently analysed with the AMS. Transport of particles through the canopy seems to occur through large-scale, sporadic turbulent events, suggesting that the coupling between the canopy space and the air above is due to these ventilation events.

The object of this thesis was to construct a model to simulate the arterial, capillary and venous networks of the pulmonary circulation and to compute transit times of red blood cells and neutrophils through the human lung. A complete model of the arterial system was constructed using existing anatomical data for the arterial branching system combined with a set of probabilities to describe the branching nature of the arterial network beyond the existing data. Flow continuity and energy balance equations were used to estimate the total pressure drops through a wide range of possible pathways in this network. When flow had reached the capillary bed, a strictly stochastic model of cell transit through a randomly generated grid network was used to simulate capillary flow. Finally, the flow was returned to the left atrium by modifying the arterial network to represent the venous system. Studies in several species have shown that neutrophils have much longer transit times than red blood cells in the pulmonary circulation. The model described above was used to test the hypothesis that this delay is due to the greater deformability of red blood cells with respect to neutrophils. The results show that erythrocyte transit times are accurately predicted from physical data using the model. However, the neutrophil transit times predicted from the delay which neutrophils experience as they deform to enter smaller capillary segments are shorter than current experimental results. This suggests that factors additional to those that result from cell deformation times delay the neutrophils. These factors could include either receptor-mediated neutrophil adhesion to endothelial cells or the time required for neutrophils to actively move through segments with very low driving pressures. It further suggests that these components are responsible for a major time delay of neutrophils in the pulmonary microcirculation which could not be modelled with currently available data. The results obtained with the model also suggests that the fall in pulmonary vascular resistance and rise in circulating neutrophil count associated with increased pulmonary blood flow could be related to the flushing of neutrophils out of the pulmonary capillary bed.