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Errata: Revised isoseismal maps for the 1956 Bay of Plenty and 1987 Edgecumbe, New Zealand, earthquakes – Implications for seismic hazard and risk
A different way of thinking about seismic risk

Seismic risk has traditionally been approached using probabilistic analysis. This dilutes the potential impact of low probability, extreme events that may lead to severe consequences including excessive land damage, building damage, injuries and death. The communication of risk in probabilistic terms is also not clearly understood by most audiences. Further, it is evident that few building developers, owners and users have a good understanding the implications of this and the capacity design of buildings, which may not be repairable after a severe event. There is also an adverse impact on planning and land use, where decisions that may affect many people are based on a limited view of adverse outcomes such as liquefaction, lateral spread and slope stability in severe earthquakes. A different way of thinking about seismic risk is proposed. An approach of using scenarios derived from a combination of deterministic as well as probabilistic thinking would prompt consideration of impacts over a range of events. This would allow full consideration of which outcomes are clearly not acceptable and which are. This may facilitate planning for both private and public sector, with a common understanding that is relatively easily communicated to both experts and lay people. This risk evaluation framework would also facilitate consideration of mitigation, by bringing focus on unacceptable outcomes of severe events that are currently obscured by pure probabilistic analysis. This was missing in Christchurch, which experienced the sort of event we can readily anticipate and should actively plan for in other parts of New Zealand. This would help us avoid future red zones and excessive damage and demolition. It will inform development of building codes and standards and will help us evaluate risk and provide resilience and redundancy across the range of interconnected infrastructure networks. Informed debate is needed with key decision makers to discuss the underlying objectives of our regulation and how these may be better met by such an approach, without engineers allowing themselves to be trapped in past thinking and assumptions.
Reflections on New Zealand’s earthquake resistant design approach

Perceived shortcomings in NZS 1170.5 [1] and some other Standards are highlighted and areas for improvement are suggested. A particular focus is placed on achieving the principal objective of achieving life safety at the limit state at which structural collapse is to be avoided. Topic areas commented on include: The objectives of earthquake resistant design, especially that of avoiding the collapse of structures The appropriateness of current classifications of buildings into importance levels The currency and adequacy of the design seismic hazard spectra requirements The justification for, and application of, a structural performance factor The force-based and displacement-based methods of analysis and design, and the effects of plastic hinging relieving member permanent load moments at plastic hinges adjacent to points of support Consideration of displacement effects, and effects on displacements, at the limit state at which collapse is to be avoided Achieving reparability Some shortcomings in the material Standards for both structural steel and reinforcing steel Consideration of site conditions, and in coastal locations the tsunami risk Comparability of New Zealand design requirements with other major design codes.
298 K rate coefficients for the reaction of OH with i - C3H7I, n - C3H7I and C3H8

The kinetics of the title reactions were investigated using the laser photolysis - resonance fluorescence method, employing the sequential two-photon dissociation of NO2 in the presence of H2  as the OH source. The 298 K rate constant for OH + C3H8 was found to be (1.15 ± 0.1) × 10-12 cm3 s-1, in excellent agreement with the literature recommendation, and with a separate determination using HNO3  photolysis at 248 nm as the OH source. The 298 K rate constants for OH + n - C3H7I and  i - C3H7I  were measured for the first time and found to be (1.47 ± 0.08) and (1.22 ± 0.06) × 10-12 cm3 s-1, respectively. The errors include an assessment of systematic error due to concentration measurement, which, for the propyl-iodides was minimised by on-line UV-absorption spectroscopy. These results show that reaction with OH is an important sink for  n - C3H7I and  i - C3H7I, which has implications for the reactive iodine budget of the marine boundary layer.
Coastal zone production of IO precursors: a 2-dimensional study

At Mace Head, Eire, in the coastal East Atlantic, diiodomethane has been identified as an important precursor of iodine oxide radicals. Peak concentrations of both CH2I2 and IO at low water indicate that the intertidal region is a strong source of organo-iodines. Atmospheric measurements of CH2I2 made in marine air are compared with the concentrations predicted by a 2-dimensional model incorporating horizontal and vertical dispersion of surface emissions. The model shows that micrometeorological variability, proximity of the site to emissions, and photolysis all play important roles in determining the CH2I2 concentrations at Mace Head. In addition to a tidal-height dependent intertidal flux, which was estimated from seaweed production data, a contribution from offshore (non-local) sources was required in order to reproduce the strong signature of photolysis in the CH2I2 observations. A combination of an offshore flux and an intertidal flux (of up to 1.4 × 109 molecules cm-2s-1 at low water) results in good agreement between the measured and modelled CH2I2 concentrations. Although this study does not necessarily infer emission of CH2I2 from the open ocean, it suggests that air-sea exchange of CH2I2 in coastal waters does occur.
A novel tandem differential mobility analyzer with organic vapor treatment of aerosol particles

A novel method to characterize the organic composition of aerosol particles has been developed. The method is based on organic vapor interaction with aerosol particles and it has been named an Organic Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer (OTDMA). The OTDMA method has been tested for inorganic (sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate) and organic (citric acid and adipic acid) particles. Growth curves of the particles have been measured in ethanol vapor and as a comparison in water vapor as a function of saturation ratio. Measurements in water vapor show that sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate as well as citric acid particles grow at water saturation ratios (S) of 0.8 and above, whereas adipic acid particles do not grow at S <  0.96. For sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate particles, a deliquescence point is observed at S = 0.75 and S = 0.79, respectively. Citric acid particles grow monotonously with increasing saturation ratios already at low saturation ratios and no clear deliquescence point is found. For sodium chloride and ammonium sulfate particles, no growth can be seen in ethanol vapor at saturation ratios below 0.93. In contrast, for adipic acid particles, the deliquescence takes place at around S = 0.95 in the ethanol vapor. The recrystallization of adipic acid takes place at S < 0.4. Citric acid particles grow in ethanol vapor similarly as in water vapor; the particles grow monotonously with increasing saturation ratios and no stepwise deliquescence is observed. The results show that the working principles of the OTDMA are operational for single-component aerosols. Furthermore, the results indicate that the OTDMA method may prove useful in determining whether aerosol particles contain organic substances, especially if the OTDMA is operated in parallel with a hygroscopicity TDMA, as the growth of many substances is different in ethanol and water vapors.
What does the global mean OH concentration tell us?

The global mean OH concentration ([OH]GM) has been used as an indicator of the atmospheric oxidizing efficiency and its changes over time. It is also used for evaluating the performance of atmospheric chemistry models by comparing with other models or with observationally-based reference [OH]GM levels. We contend that the treatment of this quantity in the recent literature renders it problematic for either of these purposes. Several different methods have historically been used to compute [OH]GM: weighting by atmospheric mass or volume, or by the reaction with CH4 or CH3CCl3. In addition, these have been applied over different domains to represent the troposphere. While it is clear that this can lead to inconsistent [OH]GM values, to date there has been no careful assessment of the differences expected when [OH]GM is computed using various weightings and domains. Here these differences are considered using four different 3D OH distributions, along with the weightings mentioned above applied over various atmospheric domains. We find that the [OH]GM values computed based on a given distribution but using different domains for the troposphere can result in differences of 10% or more, while different weightings can lead to differences of up to 30%, comparable to the uncertainty which is commonly stated for [OH]GM or its trend. Thus, at present comparing [OH]GM values from different studies does not provide clearly interpretable information about whether the OH amounts are actually similar or not, except in the few cases where the same weighting and domain have been used in both studies. We define the atmospheric oxidizing efficiency of OH with respect to a given gas as the inverse of the lifetime of that gas, and show that this is directly proportional to the [OH]GM value weighted by the reaction with that gas, where the proportionality constant depends on the temperature distribution and the domain. We find that the airmass-weighted and volume-weighted [OH]GM values, in contrast, are generally poor indicators of the global atmospheric oxidizing efficiency with respect to gases such as CH4 and CH3CCl3 with a strong temperature dependence in their reaction with OH. We recommend that future studies provide both the airmass-weighted and the CH4-reaction-weighted [OH]GM values, over the domain from the surface to a climatological tropopause. The combination of these values helps to reduce the chance of coincidental agreement between very different OH distributions. Serious evaluations of modeled OH concentrations would best be done with airmass-weighted [OH]GM broken down into atmospheric sub-compartments, especially focusing on the tropics, where the atmospheric oxidizing efficiency is the greatest for most gases.
Oxidation of SO2 by H2O2 on ice surfaces at 228 K: a sink for SO2 in ice clouds

The heterogeneous reaction SO2 + H2O2 <img border="0" src="/img/rarrow.gif" width="24" height="9">  H2SO4 on ice at 228 K has been studied in a low temperature coated-wall flow tube. With H2O2 in excess of SO2, the loss of SO2 on an ice surface is time dependent with the reaction most efficient on a freshly exposed surface. The deactivation of the surface arises because the protons formed in the reaction inhibit the dissociation of adsorbed SO2. This lowers the surface concentrations of HSO3-, a participant in the rate-determining step of the oxidation mechanism. For a fixed SO2 partial pressure of 1.4 x 10-4 Pa, the reaction probabilities for SO2 loss on a freshly exposed surface scale linearly with H2O2 partial pressures between 2.7 x 10-3 and 2.7 x 10-2 Pa because the H2O2 surface coverage is unsaturated in this regime. Conversely, the reaction probabilities decrease as the partial pressure of SO2 is raised from 2.7 x 10-5 to 1.3 x 10-3 Pa, for a fixed H2O2 partial pressure of 8.7 x 10-3 Pa. This is expected if the rate determining step for the mechanism involves HSO3- rather than SO2. It may also arise to some degree if there is competition between gas phase SO2 and H2O2 for adsorption sites. The reaction is sufficiently fast that the lifetime of SO2 within ice clouds could be controlled by this heterogeneous reaction and not by the gas-phase reaction with OH.
Nitrous oxide emissions from the Arabian Sea: A synthesis

We computed high-resolution (1º latitude x  1º longitude) seasonal and annual nitrous oxide (N2O) concentration fields for the Arabian Sea surface layer using a database containing more than 2400 values measured between December 1977 and July 1997. N2O concentrations are highest during the southwest (SW) monsoon along the southern Indian continental shelf. Annual emissions range from 0.33 to 0.70 Tg N2O and are dominated by fluxes from coastal regions during the SW and northeast monsoons. Our revised estimate for the annual N2O flux from the Arabian Sea is much more tightly constrained than the previous consensus derived using averaged in-situ data from a smaller number of studies. However, the tendency to focus on measurements in locally restricted features in combination with insufficient seasonal data coverage leads to considerable uncertainties of the concentration fields and thus in the flux estimates, especially in the coastal zones of the northern and eastern Arabian Sea. The overall mean relative error of the annual N2O emissions from the Arabian Sea was estimated to be at least 65%.
Nucleation events in the continental boundary layer: Influence of physical and meteorological parameters

The relationship between nucleation events and numerous physical and meteorological parameters was analysed using data collected at the Station for Measuring Forest Ecosystem-Atmosphere Relations (SMEAR II) in Hyytiälä, Finland. To do this, measurements of solar radiation (ultraviolet [UV], global, photosynthetically active radiation [PAR], net, reflected global radiation and reflected PAR), gas concentrations, temperature, humidity, wind direction, horizontal and vertical wind speed, horizontal and vertical wind variances and particle concentrations were collected over a 4 year period. For the year 1999 a detailed analysis of data were completed by examining parameters in order to determine the physical and meteorological conditions favourable to the formation of new particles. A comparison of different wavelength bands during the bursts of new particles led to the suggestion, that UV-A solar radiation seems to be the most probable radiation band concerning the photochemical reactions involved in the production of condensable vapours. Furthermore a high correlation between the daily curves of UV-A irradiance and the concentration of 3 - 5 nm particles was found throughout the year and examples will be given for two days. During the whole year the concentration of H2O is very low at times nucleation occurs compared to the average of the corresponding month. Especially in June and July many non-event days with high solar irradiance show high amounts of water molecules. To combine these results a "nucleation parameter" was calculated for the year 1999, by dividing UV-A solar radiation by the concentration of H2O and temperature. Throughout the year nearly all nucleation event days reach a value of the "nucleation parameter" of at least 5.4 x 10-25 W m molecules-1 K-1.  Non-event days with high values (> 2.7 x 10-25 W m molecules-1 K-1) are mostly accompanied by high concentrations of existing particles.