Knowledge of the contribution that individual countries have made to global radiative forcing is important to the implementation of the agreement on "common but differentiated responsibilities" reached by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Over the past three decades, China has experienced rapid economic development(1), accompanied by increased emission of greenhouse gases, ozone precursors and aerosols(2,3), but the magnitude of the associated radiative forcing has remained unclear. Here we use a global coupled biogeochemistry-climate model(4,5) and a chemistry and transport model(6) to quantify China's present-day contribution to global radiative forcing due to well-mixed greenhouse gases, short-lived atmospheric climate forcers and land-use-induced regional surface albedo changes. We find that China contributes 10% +/- 4% of the current global radiative forcing. China's relative contribution to the positive (warming) component of global radiative forcing, mainly induced by well-mixed greenhouse gases and black carbon aerosols, is 12% +/- 2%. Its relative contribution to the negative (cooling) component is 15% +/- 6%, dominated by the effect of sulfate and nitrate aerosols. China's strongest contributions are 0.16 +/- 0.02 watts per square metre for CO2 from fossil fuel burning, 0.13 +/- 0.05 watts per square metre for CH4, -0.11 +/- 0.05 watts per square metre for sulfate aerosols, and 0.09 +/- 0.06 watts per square metre for black carbon aerosols. China's eventual goal of improving air quality will result in changes in radiative forcing in the coming years: a reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions would drive a faster future warming, unless offset by larger reductions of radiative forcing from well-mixed greenhouse gases and black carbon.
Plasmonic nanostructures, which are used to generate surface plasmon polaritions (SPPs), always involve sharp corners where the charges can accumulate. This can result in strong localized electromagnetic fields at the metallic corners, forming the hot spots. The influence of the hot spots on the propagating SPPs are investigated theoretically and experimentally in a metallic slit structure. It is found that the electromagnetic fields radiated from the hot spots, termed as the hot spot cylindrical wave (HSCW), can greatly manipulate the SPP launching in the slit structure. The physical mechanism behind the manipulation of the SPP launching with the HSCW is explicated by a semi-analytic model. By using the HSCW, unidirectional SPP launching is experimentally realized in an ultra-small metallic step-slit structure. The HSCW bridges the localized surface plasmons and the propagating surface plasmons in an integrated platform and thus may pave a new route to the design of plasmonic devices and circuits.
Phosphorus (P) is viewed as one limiting factor for phytoplankton growth in freshwater lakes. Simple budget models are very efficient for cross-lakes comparisons, while neglecting key distinction between algal P and other forms. Here, a phosphorus budget model was developed to balance between process resolution and cross-system applicability, in which lake total phosphorus (TP) was divided into algal-bound P and other fractions. The model was tested for six lakes on the Yunnan Plateau, China and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm of Bayesian hierarchical inference was employed for parameters estimation. The model results showed that (a) both algal species composition and P loading are key factors that influence the efficiency of converting phosphorus into algal P; (b) variability of the settling velocity of non-algal P and algal P decreases with increasing TP concentrations, representing a lower capacity for restoration; and (c) settling velocity declined exponentially with the increase of trophic state index, indicating a potential rapid rise of P removal rates during eutrophication restoration. Two conceptual models were then proposed to identify the prior countermeasures for eutrophication restoration in the lakes: (a) for Conceptual Model II, e.g. Lake Lugu, increasing the physical settling of phosphorus should be given priority to; (b) for Conceptual Model I, including the other five lakes, increasing the biological settling of phosphorus should be paid extra attention. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Abstract Phosphorus (P) is viewed as one limiting factor for phytoplankton growth in freshwater lakes. Simple budget models are very efficient for cross-lakes comparisons, while neglecting key distinction between algal P and other forms. Here, a phosphorus budget model was developed to balance between process resolution and cross-system applicability, in which lake total phosphorus (TP) was divided into algal-bound P and other fractions. The model was tested for six lakes on the Yunnan Plateau, China and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm of Bayesian hierarchical inference was employed for parameters estimation. The model results showed that (a) both algal species composition and P loading are key factors that influence the efficiency of converting phosphorus into algal P; (b) variability of the settling velocity of non-algal P and algal P decreases with increasing TP concentrations, representing a lower capacity for restoration; and (c) settling velocity declined exponentially with the increase of trophic state index, indicating a potential rapid rise of P removal rates during eutrophication restoration. Two conceptual models were then proposed to identify the prior countermeasures for eutrophication restoration in the lakes: (a) for Conceptual Model II, e.g. Lake Lugu, increasing the physical settling of phosphorus should be given priority to; (b) for Conceptual Model I, including the other five lakes, increasing the biological settling of phosphorus should be paid extra attention.
The high efficiency of perovskite solar cells benefits from the high density of photoinduced free carriers. We studied how exciton and free carriers, as the two major photoproducts, coexist inside the CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite. A new density-resolved spectroscopic method was developed for this purpose. The density-dependent coexistence of excitons and free carriers over a wide density range was experimentally observed. The quantitative analysis on the density-resolved spectra revealed a moderate exciton binding energy of 24 +/- 2 meV. The results effectively proved that the strong ionic polarization inside the perovskite has a negligible contribution to exciton formation. The spectra also efficiently uncovered the effective mass of electron-hole pairs. Our spectroscopic method and the results profoundly enrich the understanding of the photophysics in perovskite materials for photovoltaic applications.
