Dynamics of Multiscale Earth Systems PDF
Preview Dynamics of Multiscale Earth Systems
Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences Editors: S. Bhattacharji, Brooklyn G.M . Friedman, Brooklyn and Troy H. J. Neugebauer, Bonn A. Seilacher, Tuebingen and Yale Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York Hong Kong London Milan Paris Tokyo Horst J. Neugebauer Clemens Simmer (Eds.) Dynamics of Multiscale Earth Systems With approx. 150 Figures and 50 Tables Springer Editors Professor Horst J. Neugebauer Universitat Bonn Institut fur Geodynamik Nussallee 8 53115 Bonn Clemens Simmer Meteorologisches Institut der Universitat Bonn Auf dem Huge1 20 53121 Bonn "For all Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences published till now please see final pages of the book" ISSN 0930-03 17 ISBN 3-540-41796-6 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek. Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internetat <http://dnb.ddb.de>. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York a member of Bertelsmannspringer Science+Business Media GmbH O Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003 Printed in Germany The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use Typesetting: Camera ready by editors Printed on acid-free paper 3213 141 - 5 4 3 2 1 0 Preface In many aspects science becomes conducted nowadays through technology and preferential criteria of economy. Thus investigation and knowledge is evidently linked to a specific purpose. Especially Earth science is confronted with two majorhumanperspectivesconcerningournaturalenvironment:sustainability of resources and assessment of risks. Both aspects are expressing urgent needs of the living society, but in the same way those needs are addressing a long lasting fundamentalchallenge whichhassofarnotbeenmet.Following onthepatterns of economy and technology, the key is presumed to be found through a develop- mentoffeasibleconceptsforamanagement ofbothournaturalenvironmentand in one or the other way the realm of life. Although new techniques for observa- tionandanalysisledtoanincreaseofratherspecificknowledgeaboutparticular phenomena, yet we fail now even more frequently to avoid unforeseen implica- tions and sudden changes of a situation. Obviously the improved technological tools and the assigned expectations on a management of nature still exceed our traditional scientific experience and accumulated competence. Earth- and Life- Sciences are nowadays exceedingly faced with the puzzling nature of an almost boundless network of relations, i.e., the complexity of phenomena with respect to their variability. The disciplinary notations and their particular approaches arethusnolongeraccountingsufficientlyfortherecordedcontextofphenomena, for their permanent variability and their unpredictable implications. The large environmental changes of glacial climatic cycles, for instance, demonstrate this complexity of such a typical phenomenology. Ice age cycles involve beside the reorganisation of ice sheets as well changes of the ocean-atmosphere system, the physicsandchemistryoftheoceansandtheirsedimentaryboundaries.Theyare linked to the carbon cycle, and the marine and terrestrial ecosystems and last not least the crucial changes in the orbital parameters such as in eccentricity, precession frequency and tilt of the planet during its rotation and movement in space. So far changes of solar radiation through the activity of the sun itself have not yet been adequately incorporated. The entire dynamics of the climate system has therefore the potential to perform abrupt reorganisation as demon- strated by sedimentary records. It becomes quite obvious, in order to reveal the complexnatureofphenomenaweevidentlyhavetoreorganiseourownscientific perspectives and our disciplinary bounds as well. Reflecting assessment of environmental risks from a perspective of complex- ity, we may discover quickly our traditional addiction to representative averages and the idea of permanence which we equate with normality in contrast to ex- ceptional disasters. A closer look onto those extremes, however, gives ample evidence that even our normality is based onto ongoing changes which are usu- ally expressed through the variance around the extracted means. Within the conceptofcomplexitytheentirespectrumofchangehastobeconsidered,what- ever intensity it may have. In such a broader context, variability is usually not atallrepresentativefortheparticularityofphenomena.Wemightbeevenmore VI (cid:132)Preface astonishedbeingconfrontedwithaninabilityofpredictingnotonlytheextreme disasters, but equally well the small changes within the range of variance about averages, what we called previously the case of normality. Encouraged by the potential of new technologies, we might again become tempted to “search for the key where we may have some light, but where we neverhavelostit”.Thatmeans,theideaofmanagementwithoutimprovingour understanding of complexity of Earth-systems will just continue creating popu- lar, weak and disappointing approaches of the known type. It is definitely nor sufficientandneithersuccessfultosearchforsomepopularcompactsolutions in terms of some kind of index-values or thresholds of particular variables for the sake of our convenience. Complexity of phenomena is rather based on ongoing change of an extended network of conditional relations; that means, the change of a system can generally not be related to one specific cause. What we there- fore need for the search of appropriate concepts of sustainability is primarily an improvedcomplex competence.Atthatstatewearefacinginthefirstordervery fundamental scientific problems ahead of the technological ones. We encounter a class of difficulties which exceed by far any limited disciplinary competence as well as any aspect of economical advantage. The difficulties we do encounter when investigating complexity are well expressed synonymously by the univer- sal multi-scale character of phenomena. We might thus strive for an enhanced discussionoftheexpandingscaleconceptfortheinvestigationofgeo-complexity. Scales are geometrical measures and quite suitable to express general prop- erties or qualities of phenomena such as length, size or volume. Even so space- related features, as for instance intensity or momentum might be addressed by scalesaswell.Thecloserelationshipofscalestoourperceptionofspacejustifies theiruniversalcharacterandutility.Anentirescale-concept mightbeestablished and practised through characterising objects and phenomena by their represen- tative scales.Inthissensewemightevencomprehendacomplexphenomenology by analysing it with respect to its inherent hierarchy of related scales. The con- sideration of scales might give us equally well an idea about the conditional background of phenomena and their peculiar variability. Complexity of change of entire systems such as for instance fracture pattern, slope instabilities, distri- bution of precipitation and others are progressively investigated by means of a statisticalanalysisofscalesthroughthefitofcharacteristicscaling laws tolarge datasets.Atpresent,itappearstobethemostefficientwayofrevealingthehid- dennatureofcomplexityofphenomenawhicharedependingonalargecontext. Insight comes thereafter mostly from the conditions, necessary for reproducing statistical probability distributions through modelling. However, our traditional addiction to the common background of linear deterministic relations gives us a hard time establishing quantitative models on complex system behaviour. Rep- resenting complex change quantitatively requires the interaction between differ- ent variables and parameters at least on a local basis. Consequently, there are numerous attempts to build representative complex models through gradually adopting non-linearity up to the degree of self-organisation in the critical state. Conceptualaswellasmethodologicalproblemsofbothanalysingandmodelling DynamicsofMulti-ScaleEarthSystemsVII complexity have been assigned to the scale-concept for the convenience of a universal standard for comparison. Within this context a key question becomes addressed implicitly throughout the various measurements, techniques of anal- ysis and complex modelling which will be discussed: do our considerations of natural phenomena yield sufficient evidence for the existence of representative averages. About ten traditional disciplines, among them applied mathematics, com- puter science, physics, photogrammetry and most of the geo-sciences formed a united power of competence in addressing the complexity of Earth-systems on different manifestations. Related to a limited area of mountain and basin struc- turesalongasectionoftheLowerRhine,westudiedtwomajor aspects:thehis- torical component of past processes from Earth history by means of structural and sedimentary records as well as temporary perspectives of ongoing processes of change through recent observations. Our common matter of understanding was the conceptual aim of performing complementary quantitative modelling. Therefore the presented volume gives in the beginning a comprehensive presen- tation on the different aspects of the scale-concept. According to the addressed phenomenathescalerelatedrepresentationofbothspatialdatasetsandphysical processeswillbediscussedinthechapterstwoandthree.Finallysomestructural and dynamical modelling aspects of the complexity of change in earth systems will be presented with reference to the scale-concept. Afteraperiodoftenyearsofinterdisciplinaryresearch,plentyofscientificex- perience has been developed and accumulated. Naturally, even a long record for warmacknowledgementsarosefromawidespectrumofsupportwhichmadethis unusual scientific approach possible. Therefore the present book will give some representativesamplingofourthemes,methodsandresultsatanadvancedstate of research work. We will take the opportunity to gratefully acknowledge the substantial funding of our scientific interests within the Collaborative Research Centre 350: Interaction between and Modelling of Continental Geo-Systems — by the German science foundation — Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft — en- closing the large group of critical reviewers. In the same sense we like to thank our head board of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University at Bonn. Large amounts of data have been kindly provided from various sources: a peat mining company,watersupplycompaniesandvariousfederalinstitutesandsurveys.We are very grateful for the numerous occasions of generous help. Finally we like to thank our colleagues from two European research programs in the Nether- lands and Switzerland. The editors are indebted to Michael Pullmann and Sven Hunecke for their valuable help in preparing this book. Last not least, we like to acknowledge the assistance of the reviewers with the contributing papers with gratitude. Horst J. Neugebauer & Clemens Simmer Table of Contents I Scale Concepts in Geosciences Scale Aspects of Geo-Data Sampling ................................. 5 Hans-Joachim Ku¨mpel Notions of Scale in Geosciences ...................................... 17 Wolfgang F¨orstner Complexity of Change and the Scale Concept in Earth System Modelling . 41 Horst J. Neugebauer II Multi-Scale Representation of Data Wavelet Analysis of Geoscientific Data................................ 69 Thomas Gerstner, Hans-Peter Helfrich, and Angela Kunoth Diffusion Methods for Form Generalisation............................ 89 Andre Braunmandl, Thomas Canarius, and Hans-Peter Helfrich Multi-Scale Aspects in the Management of Geologically Defined Geometries103 Martin Breunig, Armin B. Cremers, Serge Shumilov, and Jo¨rg Siebeck III Scale Problems in Physical Process Models Wavelet and Multigrid Methods for Convection-Diffusion Equations ...... 123 Thomas Gerstner, Frank Kiefer, and Angela Kunoth AnalyticalCouplingofScales—TransportofWaterandSolutesinPorous Media ............................................................ 135 Thomas Canarius, Hans-Peter Helfrich, and G.W. Bru¨mmer Upscaling of Hydrological Models by Means of Parameter Aggregation Technique......................................................... 145 Bernd Diekkru¨ger Parameterisation of Turbulent Transport in the Atmosphere............. 167 Matthias Raschendorfer, Clemens Simmer, and Patrick Gross Precipitation Dynamics of Convective Clouds.......................... 186 Gu¨nther Heinemann and Christoph Reudenbach Sediment Transport — from Grains to Partial Differential Equations ..... 199 Stefan Hergarten, Markus Hinterkausen, and Michael Ku¨pper XTableofContents Water Uptake by Plant Roots — a Multi-Scale Approach ............... 215 Markus Mendel, Stefan Hergarten, and Horst J. Neugebauer IV Scale-Related Approaches to Geo-Processes Fractals – Pretty Pictures or a Key to Understanding Earth Processes? ... 237 Stefan Hergarten Fractal Variability of Drilling Profiles in the Upper Crystalline Crust ..... 257 Sabrina Leonardi Is the Earth’s Surface Critical? The Role of Fluvial Erosion and Landslides271 Stefan Hergarten Scale Problems in Geometric-Kinematic Modelling of Geological Objects.. 291 Agemar Siehl and Andreas Thomsen Depositional Systems and Missing Depositional Records ................ 307 Andreas Sch¨afer Multi-Scale Processes and the Reconstruction of Palaeoclimate .......... 325 Christoph Gebhardt, Norbert Ku¨hl, Andreas Hense, and Thomas Litt AStatistical-DynamicAnalysisofPrecipitationDatawithHighTemporal Resolution ........................................................ 337 Hildegard Steinhorst, Clemens Simmer, and Heinz-Dieter Schilling
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