Scottish Association for Marine Science

About: Scottish Association for Marine Science is a facility organization based out in Oban, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Sea ice & Benthic zone. The organization has 524 authors who have published 1765 publications receiving 70783 citations. The organization is also known as: SAMS & Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research.

Comparison of three different methods for assessing in situ friction velocity: A case study from Loch Etive, Scotland

Abstract: Three approaches, Eddy Correlation (EC), Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE), and Inertial Dissipation (ID) methods, were compared to evaluate their potential for estimation of friction velocity in a Scottish sea loch. As an independent assessment parameter, we used simultaneous O2 recordings of the diffusive boundary layer (DBL) that were compared with theoretical distribution as derived from the respective friction velocity estimates. Friction velocities were calculated based on the three approaches using continuously measured turbulent properties, and values estimated by the TKE method were significantly higher than values of the two other approaches. Time series of calculated friction velocity were subsequently employed as input parameters for nonsteady calculations of the O2 distribution within the DBL. The friction velocity is a controlling factor for the eddy diffusivity distribution immediately above the sediment surface and for the DBL thickness, and friction velocity values of the TKE method derived significantly higher theoretical O2 concentration while the EC and the ID approach provided results that were not significantly different. Overall differences from measured O2 concentration in the DBL were 0.2% for the EC method, 9.8% for the TKE method, and 0.7% for the ID method. The results reveal that the EC method appear to be the best approach for estimating friction velocities though not significantly different from the ID method, whereas the TKE method was unreliable at the ~70 m deep, relatively calm study site. This information is important for future research in similar sounds, fjords, and sea-lochs.

Making climate information services accessible to communities: What can we learn from environmental risk communication research?

Abstract: This paper evaluates the role of socio-cultural issues in developing climate information services that are accessible and engaging to urban communities. Two public-facing city-level climate information provision initiatives in Japan are evaluated in light of theory in environmental risk communication. The first case is Fukuoka City, Kyushu, in particular increased flood and heat risk. The second case is Tomakomai City, Hokkaido, particularly municipal data provision on potential localised climate risks related to marine environmental change. Evaluation is undertaken through in-depth interviews with local-level actors (policymakers, scientists, NGOs, citizens), and field observation in each location. The paper argues that at a stage where principles and best practices on climate information service provision are still emerging, it is crucial to avoid assumptions about what communities will want to know about climate risks. The paper hence proposes principles for more appropriate climate risk communication. These include (a) identifying which institutions citizens look to for information on local weather and climate; (b) acknowledging that publics can, in appropriate contexts, be able and willing to engage with complex information on urban climate risk; and (c) considering how data-driven information services fit with the more informal ways in which people can experience environmental change.

How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models

Abstract: . Improving our knowledge of the temporal and spatial variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) surface mass balance (SMB) is crucial to reduce the uncertainties of past, present, and future Antarctic contributions to sea level rise. An examination of the surface air temperature–SMB relationship in model simulations demonstrates a strong link between the two. Reconstructions based on ice cores display a weaker relationship, indicating a model–data discrepancy that may be due to model biases or to the non-climatic noise present in the records. We find that, on the regional scale, the modeled relationship between surface air temperature and SMB is often stronger than between temperature and δ18O . This suggests that SMB data can be used to reconstruct past surface air temperature. Using this finding, we assimilate isotope-enabled SMB and δ18O model output with ice core observations to generate a new surface air temperature reconstruction. Although an independent evaluation of the skill is difficult because of the short observational time series, this new reconstruction outperforms the previous reconstructions for the continental-mean temperature that were based on δ18O alone. The improvement is most significant for the East Antarctic region, where the uncertainties are particularly large. Finally, using the same data assimilation method as for the surface air temperature reconstruction, we provide a spatial SMB reconstruction for the AIS over the last 2 centuries, showing large variability in SMB trends at a regional scale, with an increase (0.82 Gt yr −2 ) in West Antarctica over 1957–2000 and a decrease in East Antarctica during the same period ( −0.13 Gt yr −2 ). As expected, this is consistent with the recent reconstruction used as a constraint in the data assimilation.