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The observed rapid climate warming in the Arctic requires improvements in permafrost and carbon cycle monitoring, accomplished by setting up long-term observation sites with high-quality in-situ measurements of turbulent heat, water and carbon fluxes as well as soil physical parameters in an Arctic landscape. But accurate quantification and well adapted parameterizations of turbulent fluxes in polar environments presents fundamental problems in soil-snow-ice-vegetation-atmosphere interaction studies. One of these problems is the accurate estimation of the surface or aerodynamic temperature T(0) required to force most of the bulk aerodynamic formula currently used. Results from the Arctic-Turbulence-Experiment (ARCTEX-2006) performed on Svalbard during the winter/spring transition 2006 helped to better understand the physical exchange and transport processes of energy. The existence of an untypical temperature profile close to the surface in the Arctic spring at Svalbard could be proven to be one of the major issues hindering estimation of the appropriate surface temperature. Thus, it is essential to adjust the set-up of measurement systems carefully when applying flux-gradient methods that are commonly used to force atmosphere-ocean/land-ice models. The results of a comparison of different sensible heat-flux parameterizations with direct measurements indicate that only the use of a hydrodynamic three-layer temperature-profile model achieves enough accuracy for heat flux calculations as it reliably reproduces the temporal variability of the surface temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the framework of EU project RIMAP [Risk Based Inspection and Maintenance Procedures for European Industry (2000)] a new European Guideline for optimized risk based maintenance and inspection planning of industrial plants (RBLM, Risk Based Life Management) is being developed. The RIMAP project consists of the three clustered projects[•] development (RTD) [•] demonstration (DEMO) [•] thematic network (TN) Current work and future, planned work in RIMAP demonstration project on applications of the RIMAP methodology in power plants are presented briefly in the first part of the paper. Also presented in the paper are the results of a preliminary analysis of piping system in power plant Heilbronn using the concept of risk-based monitoring as part of overall concept of risk-based life management. Shortly the following issues are discussed in the paper[•] identification of critical components [•] application of a multilevel risk analysis (…from ‘screening’ to ‘detailed analysis’) [•] determination of PoF (Probability of Failure) [•] determination of CoF (Consequence of Failure) [•] optimation of inspection and maintenance plan From our experience with the application of the RIMAP methodology the following conclusions can be drawn: The use of risk-based methods in inspection and maintenance of piping systems in power plants gives transparency to the decision making process and gives an optimized maintenance policy based on current state of the components. The results of the work clearly show the power of the proposed method for concentration on critical items: out of 64 monitored components 5 were selected for intermediate analysis and only 1 for the detailed analysis (probabilistic high temperature fracture mechanics). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]