• European Marine Science
• Research softwareclose
• Other research productsclose
• European Commission close
• EC|FP7 close
• EC|FP7|SP1 close
• IT close
• RO close

Evento scientifico - divulgativo, organizzato dal CNR nell'ambito della manifestazione internazionale EXPO2015, volto a comunicare la ricerca in atto negli Istituti del CNR, ISPA ed ISE, nell'ambito delle nuove risorse alimentari. L'evento è focalizzato su microalghe, meduse ed insetti come fonti di nutrimento alternative o ad integrazione dei cibi tradizionali, anche in previsione delle modificazioni della popolazione mondiale e della necessità di ridurre la malnutrizione. Intervengono studiosi ed esperti internazionali: Graziella Chini Zittelli (CNR-ISE-Fi); Antonella Leone (CNR-ISPA-Lecce); Francesco Gai (CNR-ISPA-Torino); Vitor Verdelho Vieira, Lisbon, (Portugal); Paul Vantomme, FAO Rome; Stefano Piraino, University of Salento and CoNISMa(Italy); Lucas Brotz, University of British Columbia (Canada); Silvio Mangini, Archimede Ricerche SRL, (Italy); Wolfgang Gelbmann, EFSA (EU); Maria Gabriella Giuffrida, CNR-ISPA-To (Italy); Gabriella Morini, University of Gastronomic Sciences, (Italy); Elena Pagliarino, CNR-IRCrES, (Italy); Gennaro Esposito (chef) Torre del Saracino, Vico Equense, Naples, (Italy); Antonio Francesco Logrieco, Direttore CNR-ISPA; Francesco Loreto, Direttore CNR-DISBA.

In this paper we provide an overview of new knowledge on oxygen depletion (hypoxia) and related phenomena in aquatic systems resulting from the EU-FP7 project HYPOX ("In situ monitoring of oxygen depletion in hypoxic ecosystems of coastal and open seas, and landlocked water bodies", http://www.hypox.net). In view of the anticipated oxygen loss in aquatic systems due to eutrophication and climate change, HYPOX was set up to improve capacities to monitor hypoxia as well as to understand its causes and consequences. Temporal dynamics and spatial patterns of hypoxia were analyzed in field studies in various aquatic environments, including the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, Scottish and Scandinavian fjords, Ionian Sea lagoons and embayments, and Swiss lakes. Examples of episodic and rapid (hours) occurrences of hypoxia, as well as seasonal changes in bottom-water oxygenation in stratified systems, are discussed. Geologically driven hypoxia caused by gas seepage is demonstrated. Using novel technologies, temporal and spatial patterns of water-column oxygenation, from basin-scale seasonal patterns to meter-scale sub-micromolar oxygen distributions, were resolved. Existing multidecadal monitoring data were used to demonstrate the imprint of climate change and eutrophication on long-term oxygen distributions. Organic and inorganic proxies were used to extend investigations on past oxygen conditions to centennial and even longer timescales that cannot be resolved by monitoring. The effects of hypoxia on faunal communities and biogeochemical processes were also addressed in the project. An investigation of benthic fauna is presented as an example of hypoxia-devastated benthic communities that slowly recover upon a reduction in eutrophication in a system where naturally occurring hypoxia overlaps with anthropogenic hypoxia. Biogeochemical investigations reveal that oxygen intrusions have a strong effect on the microbially mediated redox cycling of elements. Observations and modeling studies of the sediments demonstrate the effect of seasonally changing oxygen conditions on benthic mineralization pathways and fluxes. Data quality and access are crucial in hypoxia research. Technical issues are therefore also addressed, including the availability of suitable sensor technology to resolve the gradual changes in bottom-water oxygen in marine systems that can be expected as a result of climate change. Using cabled observatories as examples, we show how the benefit of continuous oxygen monitoring can be maximized by adopting proper quality control. Finally, we discuss strategies for state-of-the-art data archiving and dissemination in compliance with global standards, and how ocean observations can contribute to global earth observation attempts.

The Climate SPHINX (Stochastic Physics HIgh resolutioN eXperiments) project is a comprehensive set of ensemble simulations aimed at evaluating the sensitivity of present and future climate to model resolution and stochastic parameterisation. The EC-Earth Earth system model is used to explore the impact of stochastic physics in a large ensemble of 30-year climate integrations at five different atmospheric horizontal resolutions (from 125 up to 16 km). The project includes more than 120 simulations in both a historical scenario (1979–2008) and a climate change projection (2039–2068), together with coupled transient runs (1850–2100). A total of 20.4 million core hours have been used, made available from a single year grant from PRACE (the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and close to 1.5 PB of output data have been produced on SuperMUC IBM Petascale System at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Garching, Germany. About 140 TB of post-processed data are stored on the CINECA supercomputing centre archives and are freely accessible to the community thanks to an EUDAT data pilot project. This paper presents the technical and scientific set-up of the experiments, including the details on the forcing used for the simulations performed, defining the SPHINX v1.0 protocol. In addition, an overview of preliminary results is given. An improvement in the simulation of Euro-Atlantic atmospheric blocking following resolution increase is observed. It is also shown that including stochastic parameterisation in the low-resolution runs helps to improve some aspects of the tropical climate – specifically the Madden–Julian Oscillation and the tropical rainfall variability. These findings show the importance of representing the impact of small-scale processes on the large-scale climate variability either explicitly (with high-resolution simulations) or stochastically (in low-resolution simulations).

Changes in both global and regional mean sea level, and changes in the magnitude of extreme flood heights, are the result of a combination of several distinct contributions most, but not all, of which are associated with climate change. These contributions include effects in the solid earth, gravity field, changes in ocean mass due to ice loss from ice sheets and glaciers, thermal expansion, alterations in ocean circulation driven by climate change and changing freshwater fluxes, and the intensity of storm surges. Due to the diverse range of models required to simulate these systems, the contributions to sea-level change have usually been discussed in isolation rather than in one self-consistent assessment. Focusing on the coastline of northwest Europe, we consider all the processes mentioned above and their relative impact on 21st century regional mean sea levels and the 50-year return flood height. As far as possible our projections of change are derived from process-based models forced by the A1B emissions scenario to provide a self-consistent comparison of the contributions. We address uncertainty by considering both a mid-range and an illustrative high-end combination of the different components. For our mid-range ice loss scenario we find that thermal expansion of seawater is the dominant contributor to change in northwest European sea level by 2100. However, the projected contribution to extreme sea level, due to changes in storminess alone, is in some places significant and comparable to the global mean contribution of thermal expansion. For example, under the A1B emissions scenario, by 2100, change in storminess contributes around 15 cm to the increase in projected height of the 50-year storm surge on the west coast of the Jutland Peninsula, compared with a contribution of around 22 cm due to thermal expansion and a total of 58 cm from all of the contributions we consider. An illustrative combination of our high-end projections suggests increases in the 50-year return level of 86 cm at Sheerness, 95 cm at Roscoff, 106 cm at Esbjerg, and 67cm at Bergen. The notable regional differences between these locations arise primarily from differences in the rates of vertical land movement and changes in storminess.

The OGC netCDF encoding supports electronic encoding of geospatial data, that is, digital geospatial information representing space and time-varying phenomena. This standard specifies the CF-netCDF data model extension. This standard specifies the CF-netCDF data model mapping onto the ISO 19123 coverage schema. This standard deals with multi-dimensional gridded data and multi-dimensional multipoint data. In particular, this extension standard encoding profile is limited to multi-point, and regular and warped grids; however, irregular grids are important in the CF-netCDF community and work is underway to expand the CF-netCDF to encompass other coverages types, including irregular gridded datasets.

Disegni costruttivi delle appendici Vortex Generators e dei relativi componenti meccanici per l'allestimento della carena C.2568, nell'ambito del progetto STREAMLINE

Laboratory experiments were performed to study the dynamics of three- dimensional mechanically generated waves propagating over an oblique current in partial opposition. The flow velocity varied along the mean wave direction of propagation with an increasing trend between the wave-maker and the centre of the tank. Tests with regular wave packets traversing the area of positive current gradient showed that the concurrent increase of wave steepness triggered modulational instability on otherwise stable wave trains and hence induced the development of very large amplitude waves. In random directional wave fields, the presence of the oblique current resulted in a weak reinforcement of wave instability with a subsequent increase of the probability of occurrence of extreme events. This seems to partially compensate the suppression of strongly non-Gaussian properties due to directional energy distribution.

The OGC CF-netCDF data model supports multi-dimensional gridded data and multi-dimensional multi-point data, representing space and time-varying phenomena. In particular, this extension standard is limited to multi-point, and regular and warped grids. This standard specifies the CF-netCDF data model encoding using the OGC GML 3.2.1 coverage application schema, as well as CF-netCDF data exchange format and protocol encoding. This standard specifies: (a) the CF-netCDF GML encoding to be used by OGC standards; (b) the CF-netCDF data format exchanged using OGC standards; (c) the Internet protocol characteristics to effectively exchange CF-netCDF data. As per the GML 3.3. standard, GML 3.3 imports the 3.2 schema. The canonical location of the 3.2 all components schema document for 3.3 is http://schemas.opengis.net/gml/3.2.1/gml.xsd

A detailed survey of a high Arctic fjord (Kongsfjorden, Svalbard), subjected to a large glacier discharge, was carried out from 24 July to 13 August 2016. Field activities addressed the identification of the effects of glacier and iceberg melting on the evolution of nutrient, dissolved organic matter and carbonate systems in this coastal marine environment. Hydrological (CTD downcasts) and biogeochemical (bottle sampling) data were collected during six oceanographic surveys in the inner area of the fjord, in concomitance to the annual phase of maximum air warming. An extensive sampling was also carried out in all glacier drainage systems located around the fjord and from several iceberg samples, in order to characterize all freshwater loads. The dataset includes hydrological data (T, Sal., density) carbonate chemistry data (pH, DIC, TA) and the concentrations of dissolved oxygen (DO), inorganic nutrients (NO3-, NO2-, NH4+, PO43-, SiO2), dissolved organic matter (DOC, DON) and some micronutrients (Fe, Mn).

At every station, pressure (P), salinity (S), potential temperature (?) dissolved oxygen concentration (DO) and Fluorescence have been acquired and are part of the database