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The year 1540 was unprecedented in centuries. It was dreadful, bright, and hot. Bright weather and heat... lasted for 29 weeks, in which rain fell on not more than 6 days. ... Meadows and forests were yellow from the heat, and the earth opened large cracks; at several locations, grapes and vine withered, many forests burned, fountains and springs dried out completely... (but) there was an abundance of corn and a lot of delicious wine.Translated from German, a contemporary witness describing the contrasting impacts of a megaheat and drought event of 1540 in Europe (1). The impacts of climate extremes have always been of crucial importance to human societies, but they also play a key role in affecting structure and functioning of ecosystems. Whether there are any impacts at all, and how these impacts manifest themselves, critically depends on the timing, magnitude, extent, and type of the climate anomaly. Although many studies have been undertaken to investigate the impacts of climate extremes on ecosystem functioning, attempts to build an overarching framework have had little success so far and many open questions remain (2). A study published in PNAS (3) provides new insights into the question of how impacts of climate extremes occurring during different periods of the year can interact and counteract each other. Wolf et al. (3) investigated the year 2012 and its impacts on terrestrial carbon fluxes in the continental United States, an extreme year in which a record warm spring was followed by a severely dry and hot summer (4, 5). The authors analyzed three independent streams of observational data and data-driven models, and demonstrated that losses in net carbon uptake during summer were largely offset by unusual carbon gains in spring caused by its record-exceeding warmth and early arrival. In this way, the … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: ssippel{at}bgc-jena.mpg.de. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

The EU DEMO Plant Electrical System (PES) main scopes are to supply all the plant electrical loads and to deliver to the Power Transmission Grid (PTG) the net electrical power generated. The studies on the PES during the Pre- Concept Design (PCD) Phase were mainly addressed to understand the possible issues, related to the special features both of the power generated, with respect to a power plant of the same size, and of the power to be supplied to the electrical loads. For this purpose, the approach was to start the design of the different PES components adopting technologies already utilized in fusion experiments and in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) to verify their applicability and identify possible limits when scaled to the DEMO size and applied to the specific pulsed operating conditions. This work is not completed, however several issues have been already identified related to the pulsed operation of the turbine generator, the large amount of recirculation power, the very high peaks of active power required for the plasma formation and control, the huge reactive power demand, if thyristor converter technology was adopted to supply the superconducting coils, etc.. The paper gives an overview on the features and scope of the PES and its subsystems, on the main achievements during the Pre- Concept Design (PCD) Phase, on the challenges for the development of the conceptual design in the next framework program and on the plan to face them.

Infrared to visible upconversion (UC) is a promising way to enhance the efficiency of silicon based solar cells. In this paper, the spectral conversion and recovery of sub-band gap photons of the solar spectrum, from NIR-IR to the VIS-NIR wavelength region, is investigated in two fluorides hosts doped with trivalent erbium ions (Er3+). The efficiency gain due to upconversion in silicon solar cells is compared for single crystal samples of BaY2F8:Er3+ and LiYF4:Er3+ in a dedicated upconverter solar cell device (UCSCD) with monochromatic excitation in the 1.5 mu m spectral region. The highest external quantum efficiency due to upconversion was found for the UCSCD using the BaY2F8:30 at% Er3+ single crystal, reaching an EQE of 6.8 +/- 0.2% for (1.10 +/- 0.12).10(5) W m(-2) spectral irradiance at 1494 nm. We present a comprehensive spectroscopic study of the crystal samples also taking into account the effects of the different crystal symmetry as well as the different phonon energies. Our findings enable us to explain the higher efficiency of the BaY2F8:Er3+ compared to the LiYF4:Er3+ upconverter in terms of both static and dynamic properties. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This work aimed to investigate the contamination pattern in Kongsfjorden marine environment (Svalbard, 79°N 12°E) and to disentangle primary and secondary emissions. Surface seawater, sampled in two seasons, was analysed by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS to detect polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), nonylphenols (NPs), bisphenol A (BPA) and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). In summer, average ΣPAHs, BPA, ΣNPs, ΣPFASs and ΣPCBs concentrations were 17.3 ± 11.1 ng/L, 0.9 ± 0.3 ng/L, 10.0 ± 6.9 ng/L, 0.4 ± 0.7 ng/L and 1.8 ± 1.3 pg/L, respectively; while in winter, they were 13.6 ± 10.1 ng/L, 0.5 ± 0.2 ng/L, 6.8 ± 3.3 ng/L,

AbstractSummer fires frequently rage across Mediterranean Europe, often intensified by high temperatures and droughts. According to the state-of-the-art regional fire risk projections, in forthcoming decades climate effects are expected to become stronger and possibly overcome fire prevention efforts. However, significant uncertainties exist and the direct effect of climate change in regulating fuel moisture (e.g. warmer conditions increasing fuel dryness) could be counterbalanced by the indirect effects on fuel structure (e.g. warmer conditions limiting fuel amount), affecting the transition between climate-driven and fuel-limited fire regimes as temperatures increase. Here we analyse and model the impact of coincident drought and antecedent wet conditions (proxy for the climatic factor influencing total fuel and fine fuel structure) on the summer Burned Area (BA) across all eco-regions in Mediterranean Europe. This approach allows BA to be linked to the key drivers of fire in the region. We show a statistically significant relationship between fire and same-summer droughts in most regions, while antecedent climate conditions play a relatively minor role, except in few specific eco-regions. The presented models for individual eco-regions provide insights on the impacts of climate variability on BA, and appear to be promising for developing a seasonal forecast system supporting fire management strategies.

Heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria (76 strains) belonging to Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc and Weissella species which are important in fermentation, spoilage or as probiotics were screened in a factorial experiment for their ability to grow, produce catalase and consume oxygen in aerobiosis or in anaerobiosis, with or without supplementation with hemin and/or menaquinone in a medium containing glucose as a carbohydrate source. Aerobiosis improved growth with a few exceptions. The effect of supplementation with heme and/or menaquinone was strain specific and clear evidence of heme-boosted respiration was found in some cases. Heme-catalase was produced by strains of L. brevis, W. minor and Leuc. mesenteroides; some strains of the latter species produced non-heme catalase. Shaken flasks experiments showed that aerobic growth resulted in increased maximum growth rate and in a limited increase in biomass. Heme supplementation during aerobic growth resulted in a further increase in growth rate and final biomass only for a few strains; this was often related to catalase, which was also responsible for increased tolerance of H2O2. In both experiments we found evidence of heme toxicity, especially in anaerobiosis and in absence of menaquinone. Dose response curves for aerobic growth in the presence of combinations of hemin and menaquinone were non-monotonic, with growth stimulation at low doses of heme (<2.5 mg/l) and toxicity at higher doses. Menaquinone at 0.25-8 mg/l increased growth stimulation and partially reduced toxicity.