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\"Under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, States have sovereign rights over the resources of their continental shelf out to 200 nautical miles from the coast. Where the physical shelf extends beyond 200 nautical miles, States may exercise rights over those resources to the outer limits of the continental shelf. More than 80 States may be entitled to claim sovereign rights over their continental shelf where it extends beyond 200 nautical miles from their coast, and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf is currently examining many of these claims. This book examines the nature of the rights and obligations of coastal States in this area, with a particular focus on the options for regulating activities on the extended continental shelf. Because the extended continental shelf lies below the high seas, the area poses unique legal challenges for coastal States that are different from those faced in respect of the shelf within 200 nautical miles. In addition, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea imposes some specific obligations that coastal States must comply with in respect of the extended continental shelf. The book discusses the development of the concept of the extended continental shelf. It explores a range of issues facing the coastal State in regulating matters such as environmental protection, fishing, bioprospecting, exploitation of non-living resources and marine scientific research on the extended continental shelf. The book proposes a framework for navigating the intersection between the high seas and the extended continental shelf and minimising the potential for conflict between flag and coastal States\" --Flap of cover.

The processes responsible for freshwater flux from the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS), ice‐shelf basal melting and iceberg calving, are generally poorly represented in current Earth System Models (ESMs). Here we document the cryosphere configuration of the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) v1.2. This includes simulating Antarctic ice‐shelf basal melting, which has been implemented through simulating the ocean circulation within static Antarctic ice‐shelf cavities, allowing for the ability to calculate ice‐shelf basal melt rates from the associated heat and freshwater fluxes. In addition, we added the capability to prescribe forcing from iceberg melt, allowing for realistic representation of the other dominant mass loss process from the AIS. In standard resolution simulations (using a noneddying ocean) under preindustrial climate forcing, we find high sensitivity of modeled ocean/ice shelf interactions to the ocean state, which can result in a transition to a high basal melt regime under the Filchner‐Ronne Ice Shelf (FRIS), presenting a significant challenge to representing the ocean/ice shelf system in a coupled ESM. We show that inclusion of a spatially dependent parameterization of eddy‐induced transport reduces biases in water mass properties on the Antarctic continental shelf. With these improvements, E3SM produces realistic ice‐shelf basal melt rates across the continent that are generally within the range inferred from observations. The accurate representation of ice‐shelf basal melting within a coupled ESM is an important step toward reducing uncertainties in projections of the Antarctic response to climate change and Antarctica's contribution to global sea‐level rise. Plain Language Summary The future of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) has the potential to have broad impacts on global climate, perhaps most notably in contributing to sea‐level rise. The current generation of Earth System Models (ESMs) do not accurately represent the two primary means in which ice is lost from the AIS, through melting at the base of ice shelves floating on the ocean and the calving of icebergs. This limits our ability to make climate projections that incorporate the impacts of the AIS in a changing climate. Here, we demonstrate a novel capability to model one of those processes, ice‐shelf basal melting, in an ESM. We demonstrate the ability to simulate ice‐shelf basal melt rates across many Antarctic ice shelves that are in line with present day observations. We also find that, for certain ice shelves, modeled ice‐shelf basal melting can experience a rapid transition to high melting far above present‐day estimates, and this simulated high melting can be mitigated through improved ocean physics. Key Points Capabilities have been added to an Earth System Model to model realistic Antarctic ice‐shelf basal melt fluxes and prescribe iceberg forcing Simulated basal melt rates have a strong sensitivity to the ocean mesoscale eddy parameterization For one choice of the mesoscale eddy parameterization, the Filchner‐Ronne Ice Shelf transitions to a high melt regime

HighlightsThe progression of MXene's oxidation stability, the techniques available to monitor the phenomenon as well as the variables that contribute to its oxidation rate are discussed.Comprehensive aspects of the oxidation process in various storage settings and the debated oxidation mechanism along with the most effective antioxidation strategies are addressed in conjunction with current challenges to the air stability of MXenes.MXenes are under the spotlight due to their versatile physicochemical characteristics. Since their discovery in 2011, significant advancements have been achieved in their synthesis and application sectors. However, the spontaneous oxidation of MXenes, which is critical to its processing and product lifespan, has gotten less attention due to its chemical complexity and poorly understood oxidation mechanism. This perspective focuses on the oxidation stability of MXenes and addresses the most recent advancements in understanding and the possible countermeasures to limit the spontaneous oxidation of MXenes. A section is dedicated to the presently accessible methods for monitoring oxidation, with a discussion on the debatable oxidation mechanism and coherently operating factors that contribute to the complexity of MXenes oxidation. The current potential solutions for mitigating MXenes oxidation and the existing challenges are also discussed with prospects to prolong MXene’s shelf-life storage and expand their application scope.

The response of a wide shelf to subinertial and barotropic offshore pressure signals from the shelf edge was investigated. By relaxing the semigeostrophic approximation, an elliptical wave structure equation was formulated and solved with the integral transform method. It was found that when the imposed offshore signal has an along-shelf length scale similar to the shelf width, it can efficiently break the potential vorticity barrier and propagate toward the coast, producing a significant coastal sea level setup. Thereafter, the pressure signal reflects from the coast or the sloping topography, producing a transient eddy and propagates to the downshelf. The intensities of the coastal setup and the eddy increase as the along-shelf scale of the subinertial signal decreases or when its time scale is close to the inertial period. For a signal with longer time scale, the eddy is insignificant. The nature of the shelf response is controlled by the shelf conductivity κ ≡ r /( fsB ), in which r is the Rayleigh friction coefficient, f is the Coriolis parameter, s is the shelf slope, and B is the shelf width, respectively. For a given offshore signal, coastal setup increases with κ . For large κ , the eddy energy is concentrated at low modes, producing a large eddy, whereas a small κ produces a small eddy. The proposed theory can explain coastal sea level fluctuations under eddy impingement in the Mid-Atlantic Bight or other similar areas.

Summary Pectate lyase genes have been documented as excellent candidates for improvement of fruit firmness. However, implementation of pectate lyase in regulating fruit postharvest deterioration has not been fully explored. In this report, 22 individual pectate lyase genes in tomato were identified, and one pectate lyase gene SlPL (Solyc03g111690) showed dominant expression during fruit maturation. RNA interference of SlPL resulted in enhanced fruit firmness and changes in pericarp cells. More importantly, the SlPL‐RNAi fruit demonstrated greater antirotting and pathogen‐resisting ability. Compared to wild‐type, SlPL‐RNAi fruit had higher levels of cellulose and hemicellulose, whereas the level of water‐soluble pectin was lower. Consistent with this, the activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase were higher in SlPL‐RNAi fruit, and the malondialdehyde concentration was lower. RNA‐Seq results showed large amounts of differentially expressed genes involved in hormone signalling, cell wall modification, oxidative stress and pathogen resistance. Collectively, these data demonstrate that pectate lyase plays an important role in both fruit softening and pathogen resistance. This may advance knowledge of postharvest fruit preservation in tomato and other fleshy fruit.

Data analysis of continental shelf currents and coastal sea level, together with the application of a semi-analytical model, are used to estimate the importance of remote wind forcing on the subinertial variability of the current in the central and northern areas of the South Brazil Bight. Results from both the data analysis and from the semi-analytical model are robust in showing subinertial variability that propagates along-shelf leaving the coast to the left in accordance with theoretical studies of Continental Shelf Waves (CSW). Both the subinertial variability observed in along-shelf currents and sea level oscillations present different propagation speeds for the narrow northern part of the SBB (~ 6–7 m/s) and the wide central SBB region (~ 11 m/s), those estimates being in agreement with the modeled CSW propagation speed. On the inner and middle shelf, observed along-shelf subinertial currents show higher correlation coefficients with the winds located southward and earlier in time than with the local wind at the current meter mooring position and at the time of measurement. The inclusion of the remote (located southwestward) wind forcing improves the prediction of the subinertial currents when compared to the currents forced only by the local wind, since the along-shelf-modeled currents present correlation coefficients with observed along-shelf currents up to 20% higher on the inner and middle shelf when the remote wind is included. For most of the outer shelf, on the other hand, this is not observed since usually, the correlation between the currents and the synoptic winds is not statistically significant.