Südchina, insbes. die Provinz Guandong, ist eines der am dichtesten besiedelten Gebiete der Erde. Positive Konsequenz dieser Ballung ist eine äußerst dynamische Wirtschaftsentwicklung, aber gerade diese von subtropischem Monsunklima geprägte Region ist auch immer wieder Ausgangspunkt für sich schnell und zunehmend global ausbreitende epidemische Krankheiten wie zuletzt SARS. Mit der globalen Erwärmung einhergehende Klimaveränderungen könnten sich für diese Region insbesondere durch Veränderungen der Häufigkeit und Intensität tropischer Wirbelstürme, aber auch Änderungen der Niederschlagsmenge- und Intensität bemerkbar machen. Im Gegensatz zu den schon recht umfangreichen Datensätzen aus der Südchinesischen See (SCS) gibt es bisher jedoch nur sehr wenige terrestrische Paläoklimaarchive aus der Region, die Klimaveränderungen während des Holozäns, des Spätglazials oder Glazials hochauflösend dokumentieren. Wir haben deshalb einen an der nördlichen Küste der SCS gelegenen Maarsee ausgewählt, um über die Analyse von Proxydaten aus Seesedimenten solche Paläo-Klimavariationen zu untersuchen. Aus dem Sediment des Huguang-Maarsees wurden mittels Usinger-Präzisionsstechtechnik von einem Floss aus insgesamt 7 Sedimentsequenzen gewonnen, von denen die tiefste bis 57 m unter den Seeboden reicht. Die zeitliche Einstufung der Profile wurde mit Hilfe von 17 Radiokohlenstoff-Datierungen vorgenommen und ergab ein extrapoliertes Maximalalter von ca. 78.000 Jahren. Ein breites Spektrum aus sedimentologischen, geochemischen, paläo- und gesteinsmagnetischen sowie palynologischen Methoden kam sodann zum Einsatz, um die Paläo-Umweltbedingungen, die natürlich immer das entsprechende Klima widerspiegeln, während dieses Zeitraumes zu rekonstruieren. Überraschenderweise ergab sich ein von vielen bekannten Klimaprofilen der Nordhemisphäre (insbes. des Atlantikraumes, aber auch mariner Kerne aus dem Indik und Südostasien) abweichendes Muster. Im Gegensatz zu dem bekannten Grundmuster eines vergleichsweise stabilen Klimas während des Holozäns und stärkerer Schwankungen während des letzten Glazials weisen die Daten aus dem Huguang-Maarsee für das letzte Glazial im Zeitraum zwischen 15.000 und 40.000 Jahren auf relativ stabile Umweltbedingungen hin. Die älteren Bereiche zwischen 40.000 und ca. 78.000 Jahren haben durch Eintrag von umgelagertem Torf eine eher lokale Komponente und sind somit für den regionalen und globalen Vergleich ungeeignet. Das Holozän hingegen zeichnet sich durch hohe Schwankungsamplituden vieler Proxydaten (Karbonatgehalt, magnetische Suszeptibilität, organischer Kohlenstoff, Trockendichte, gesteinsmagnetische Parameter, Redox-Verhältnisse) aus, die auf ein recht variables Klima hinweisen. Besonders interessant ist die Übergangsphase vom Glazial zum Holozän, die bei etwa 15.000 Jahren vor heute in etwa zeitgleich mit dem beobachteten stärksten Meeresspiegelanstieg der Südchinesischen See einsetzt und eine abrupte Intensitätszunahme des Sommermonsuns anzeigt
The Mediterranean Partner Countries of the European Union are confronted with a rapidly increasing energy demand caused by a growing population especially in cities and increasing living standards. The region has a great potential for the use of renewable energies, notably solar energy due to its high level of solar radiation. However, only a small variety of solar thermal technologies is used in the region. The state of technology and the political support mechanisms vary strongly across the region and in relation to the EU countries, where new solar thermal applications for water and space heating as well as cooling are developed. SOLATERM is an EU-funded project that brings together research institutions, energy agencies, authorities and enterprises from EU and the Southern Mediterranean partners. The project consortium with partners from eight Southern Mediterranean and five EU countries has the aim of promoting the application of a new generation of solar thermal systems in the Mediterranean partner countries. SOLATERM combines the technological know-how of EU research institutions with the specific experiences and knowledge of the Southern Mediterranean partners. The EU partners provide important experiences in developing a successful political framework to boost the use of renewable energy.
The objective of this project is to quantify near-surface processes for predicting soil degradation by erosion and changes in the water balance, in the context of dry environmental conditions. Field and laboratory experiments, remote sensing observations, and hydrological and erosion modelling are combined to improve process understanding and to further develop prognostic methods for the assessment of soil degradation. The study area is located in refilled landscapes left over from the Niederlausitzer coal-mining industry (Brandenburg region, Eastern Germany ). The area is particularly suitable for this study because it is characterised by exceptionally dry climate conditions for Central European standards, and because it is free of vegetation or covered by sparse vegetation only. Specific goals of the study are: Monitoring and modelling of near-surface processes to predict runoff generation and erosion by water. Coupling of remote sensing data with field measurements to derive information about soil surface characteristics, erosion status and near-surface soil moisture content. Examining the influence of soil moisture / dryness on soil-physical and hydrological parameters, such as hydrophobicity, surface crusts, infiltration capacity, water storage capacity. Study area: The study area in Welzow-Süd (South-East of Germany, close to the town of Cottbus) of 4 ha in size was refilled in 2001 after mining by sediments of different origin and properties, with the major contributions being composed of two different sandy materials of Tertiary and Quaternary origin and, third, by clay deposits. The focus of the this study is on the sandy areas. While the Tertiary deposits are free of vegetation, an initial sparse vegetation cover of grasses has developed on the other areas. Runoff from the test site is episodic. These conditions, together with low annual rainfall volumes, make the test site a valuable pilot study area for the development of monitoring and modelling approaches to assess erosion and soil degradation processes in dryland areas.
Erosion of the often uncovered soil is a major problem for the establishment of smallholder fruit tree plantations in North Thailand. The use of multi-purpose cover plants can not only conserve useful soil resources but also create further income for peasants. Dried plant material from the passion flower (Passiflora incarnata L.) is used for herbal tea and extracts to be used as sedativa. The species is widespread in the Southern USA. The drug is often produced based on wild collections and exported to Europe. In exploratory trials in Thailand passion flower showed a good drought resistance due to its deep rooting system, and a good resistance against weeds and diseases. The yield potential and the amounts of ingredients appear to be promising with regard for the adoption by farmers. The flavonoids in the passion flower are mostly flavone-C-glycosides and are used for characterisation of the drug. Quantitative studies of imported drug material showed large differences in quantities and types of the flavone-C-glycosides. The causes for these differences are still not understood. Not much is known about the effect of cultivation techniques, fertilizer, growth stage on the content of flavonoids. The objective of this project is to study the potential of the passion flower as a soil cover plant in smallholder fruit tree plantations in North Thailand. Factors to be monitored are the effects of fertilizer and growth stage at harvest on plant yield and components.
South Tirol is an important region for apple production in Europe. The mild climate allows a high productivity but during the last decades, winter damage on apple trees was observed in 3 to 4 year intervals at numerous sites in South Tirol. This winter damage in apple orchards is economically relevant as e.g. in season 2004/2005 costs of more than 6 Mio Euros were caused. There are several indications that the observed dieback of crown parts or even trees was related to frost drought. The situation is comparable to that of trees at the timberline, where winter damage was analysed in previous projects. Based on our experience with trees growing at the alpine timberline, we hypothesize that winter damage in South Tirol apple orchards is strongly influenced by the duration of water uptake blockages, the extent of transpirational water losses, the trees water storage capacity as well as the climatic conditions in autumn. We expect damage in living tissues as well as xylem embolism to cause prolonged drought stress in spring. In the proposed project, these aspects will be analysed and avoidance strategies will be developed. In field measurements at five apple orchards in South Tirol, climatic conditions and effects on tree water relations (water potential, hydraulic conductivity, water storage, transpiration) as well as winter injury will be quantified, and in experimental approaches important parameters will be analysed in detail. These data will be compared with hydraulic characteristics (vulnerability to embolism, drought resistance of living tissues, water storage capacity) of studied varieties. In consequence, numerous varieties will be screened for resistance to frost drought, whereby hydraulic as well as related anatomical parameters will be analysed to develop a valuable screening protocol for variety selection. Cultivation techniques to avoid winter damage will also be tested in thi u.s.w.
At ANDRILL site SMS (Southern McMurdo Sound) an longer than 1000m sediment core will be drilled from a sea-ice platform covering Early/Middle Miocene (ca17 Ma) to Pleistocene strata of McMurdo Sound, Ross Sea, Antarctica. The target sediments were deposited on the western flank of the Victoria Land Basin (VLB), a structural half-graben that forms part of the West Antarctic Rift system, and experienced subsidence since late Eocene times. On this sediment core we propose to combine high-resolution on-ice measurement of chemical element concentrations using XRF core-scanner with off-ice high-precision chemical and sedimentological analysis on bulk samples (XRF, XRD, ICP-MS, biogenic components) and individual lithoclasts (LA-ICP-MS, electron microprobe, microscopy). The resulting multiple dataset will provide detailed information on sediment composition and, thus, contribute to several scientific objectives of ANDRILL such as the history of Ross/West Antarctic ice shelf expansion and retreat since ca17 million years, sea-ice presence/absence in the McMurdo region, and the history of Neogene sediment provenance and accumulation rates in the VLB. Our major goal is to improve our understanding of the Neogene paleoenvironmental evolution of Antarctica with a special focus on the Mid-Miocene climatic optimum (ca17-15 Ma) and the subsequent onset of major cooling (ca14 Ma) along with the key question on the stability of cold-polar climate conditions during the last 14 million years
In the framework of the international ANtarctic DRILLing program (ANDRILL) the 1138 m deep core borehole SMS was drilled in the Southern McMurdo Sound (Ross Sea). The investigations of Antarctic Neogene ice sheet variations, of long-term climate evolutions and of the tectonic history of McMurdo Sound represent the main project aims. One part of the German participation in the ANDRILL project is the extensive geophysical logging of the SMS borehole. It delivers a main basis for answering a lot of questions in the scope of the whole project consisting of about 100 scientists. Interpreting the downhole logging data permits among other things to establish a complete lithological log, to characterize the drilled sediments petrophysically, to determine sedimentary structures and to get evidence about palaeoclimatic conditions during up to 19 Mio years. Seismic experiments in the borehole allow linking detailed geological information with shipborne seismic sections. This way, local results can be transformed into spatial information thus providing an important contribution to the understanding of the tectonic structure of the Ross Sea.
Tephra layers in isce cores from Antarctica help to constrain corrleations between distant deep ice cores and represent important time markers in the case they can be related to an eruption of known age. These time markers can be combined with existing chemo-stratigraphic parameters such as stratigraphy based on ä18O and äD/H. To that end, we plan to determine major and trace element compositions, grain size and morphologxy of tephra layers from the deep ice cores EPICA-Dronning Maud Land and Dome Fuji (Dronning Maud Land). This data will be used for correlations to other ice cores from Marie Byrd Land (West Antarctica), Vostok and Dome C (Wilkes Land). Such data will also allow the identification of potential source areas for the tephra, e.g.volcanic regions in Antarctica (Ross Sea Rift, Marie Bird Land, South Shetland Islands) as well as New Zealand, Patagonia and the volcanic ozean islands in the southern oceans.
The physiological fundamentals of temperature dependent distribution limits in cold oceans are addressed as a precondition to understand ecological performance and ecosystem function. The study will focus on the specific role of extracellular ion concentration in setting limitations to lifestyle and life history evolution. The biogeography of marine crustaceans in cold oceans is related to the combined effects of extracellular Mg2+ levels (Mg2+)e and low temperature, which act synergistically to slow muscular activity in the cold. The highly active cephalopod molluscs may have overcome the constraint of high (Mg2+)e by slightly increasing the extracellular potassium concentration ((K+)e), thereby exploiting the antagonistic effects of magnesium and potassium. We attempt to develop quantitative knowledge of the temperature dependent effects of potassium and magnesium on animal life cycle resulting from changes in physiology performance, larval development, and growth rate. In addition, it appears most crucial to understand the biochemical mechanisms leading to the increased magnesium effect in the cold. Within the crustacean phyla this work will focus on the lithodid crabs. They are suitable for such studies since they have a wide distribution range north and south of the Antarctic convergence and thus covering a broad temperature regime. For comparable studies boreal reptant crabs and boreal and Antarctic natant shrimps will also be included. Within the cephalopod phyla we will concentrate on the boreal species Sepia officinalis to investigate principle mechanisms. Accordingly, the present study is intended to explore, from a more conceptual point of view, whether limitations in ion regulation capacities and costs may play a role in setting the levels of biodiversity observed in extant Antarctic marine fauna.
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