Our limited knowledge of the climate prevailing over Europe during former glaciations is the main obstacle to reconstruct the past evolution of the ice coverage over the Alps by numerical modelling. To address this challenge, we perform a two-step modelling approach: First, a regional climate model is used to downscale the time slice simulations of a global earth system model in high resolution, leading to climate snapshots during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Marine Isotope Stage 4 (MIS4). Second, we combine these snapshots and a climate signal proxy to build a transient climate over the last glacial period and force the Parallel Ice Sheet Model to simulate the dynamical evolution of glaciers in the Alps. The results show that the extent of modelled glaciers during the LGM agrees with several independent key geological imprints, including moraine-based maximal reconstructed glacial extents, known ice transfluences and trajectories of erratic boulders of known origin and deposition. Our results highlight the benefit of multiphysical coupled climate and glacier transient modelling over simpler approaches to help reconstruct paleo glacier fluctuations in agreement with traces they have left on the landscape.

We tackle the problem of simulating seat- and vote-shares for a party system of a given size. We show how these shares can be generated using unordered and ordered Dirichlet distributions. We show that a distribution with a mean vector given by the rule described in Taagepera and Allik (2006, Electoral Studies 25, 696–713) fits real-world data almost as well as a saturated model where there is a parameter for each rank/system size combination.

This research note investigates how mainstream party strategies affect the success of radical right parties (RRPs). It is a widespread view that mainstream party accommodation of radical right core issue positions would reduce the radical right's success. Empirical evidence for this claim, however, remains inconclusive. Using party level data as well as micro-level voter transitions between mainstream and RRPs, we re-evaluate the effectiveness of accommodative strategies and also test whether they work contingent on specific conditions, e.g., the newness of radical right challengers or the existence of a cordon sanitaire. We do not find any evidence that accommodative strategies reduce radical right support. If anything, our results suggest that they lead to more voters defecting to the radical right. Our findings have important implications for the study of multi-party competition as they challenge what has become a core assumption of this literature: that accommodative strategies reduce niche party success.

The long-term prospective multi-centre nationwide (French) observational study FRANCISCO will provide new information on perimembranous ventricular septal defect with left ventricular overload but no pulmonary hypertension in children older than 1 year. Outcomes will be compared according to treatment strategy (watchful waiting, surgical closure, or percutaneous closure) and anatomic features of the defect. The results are expected to provide additional guidance about the optimal treatment of this specific population, which is unclear at present.

Modelling paleo-glacier networks in mountain ranges on the millennial timescales requires ice flow approximations. Hybrid models calculating ice flow by combining vertical shearing (shallow ice approximation) and longitudinal stretching (shallow shelf approximation) have been applied to model paleo-glacier networks on steep terrain, yet their validity has not yet been assessed quantitatively. Moreover, hybrid models consistently yield higher ice thicknesses than Last Glacial Maximum geomorphological reconstructions in the European Alps. Here, we compare results based on the hybrid Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) and the Stokes model Elmer/Ice on the Rhine Glacier, a catchment of the former European Alpine Icefield. For PISM, we also test two magnitudes of flux limitation in a scheme that reduces shearing velocities. We find that the flux limitation typically used in PISM yields significantly reduced shearing speeds and increases ice thicknesses by up to 500 m, partly explaining previous overestimations. However, reducing the ice flux limitation allows the hybrid model to minimize this mismatch and captures sliding speeds, ice thicknesses, ice extent and basal temperatures in close agreement with those obtained with the Stokes model.

What attracts voters to far-right parties? Emphasizing the repercussions of far-right parties' past achievements on the mobilization of voters' electoral demand, this paper develops an argument of context-dependent strategic far-right voting. Far-right parties seek to mobilize on a combination of demand for nativist policies and anti-establishment protest sentiment. Their capacity of doing so, however, critically depends on the strategic incentives they supply. My findings from a comparative analysis based on six waves of the European Election Study show that far-right parties' past attainment of legislative strength boosts the credibility of their policy appeal and broadens the scope of their protest appeal whereas their participation in government jeopardizes their capacity to mobilize on popular discontent.

A laboratory device was built to measure the forces that ice exerts on a 0.05 m diameter rigid plastic sphere in two different configurations: in contact with a flat bed or isolated from the bed. Measurements indicated that bed-normal contact forces were 1.8 times larger than drag forces due to creeping flow past a slippery sphere isolated from the bed. Measurements of forces as a function of the bed-normal ice velocity, estimations of the ice viscosity parameter and observations of markers in the ice indicate ice is Newtonian with a viscosity of ~1.3x 1011 Pas. Newtonian behavior is expected due to small and transient stresses. A model of regelation indicates that it had a negligible (<5%) influence on forces. Water pressure in the cavity beneath the sphere in contact with the bed had a likewise negligible influence on contact forces. When no cavity is present, drag forces can be correctly estimated using Stokes’s law (Newtonian viscosity) for a slippery sphere. The same law with a bed-enhancement factor of 1.8 is appropriate for estimating bed-normal contact forces. These results reinforce previous laboratory measurements and theories but provide no support for explanations of high debris/bed friction or rates of abrasion that depend on high contact forces.

The cold-based termini of polythermal glaciers are usually assumed to adhere strongly to an immobile substrate and thereby supply significant resistance to the flow of warm-based ice up-glacier. This compressive environment is commonly thought to uplift basal sediment to the surface of the glacier by folding and thrust faulting. We present model and field evidence from the terminus of Storglaciären, Sweden, showing that the cold margin provides limited resistance to flow from up-glacier. Ice temperatures indicate that basal freezing occurs in this zone at 10−1 −10−2 m a−1, but model results indicate that basal motion at rates greater than 1 m a−1 must, nevertheless, persist there for surface and basal velocities to be consistent with measurements. Estimated longitudinal compressive stresses of 20–25 kPa within the terminus further indicate that basal resistance offered by the cold-based terminus is small. These results indicate that where polythermal glaciers are underlain by unlithified sediments, ice-flow trajectories and sediment transport pathways may be affected by subglacial topography and hydrology more than by the basal thermal regime.

Where polythermal glaciers have frozen margins that buttress otherwise temperate-based sliding ice, longitudinal compression can strongly influence ice-flow trajectory, and consequently sediment transport paths. Past efforts to model flow in the vicinity of a basal thermal transition (BTT) have generally relied on simplified boundary conditions or rheological idealizations, making these model results difficult to apply to real glacier termini. Herein, we present results of numerical simulations using a power-law rheology and with boundary conditions that better represent the frozen margin. Model results indicate that a transition to a non-sliding frozen margin causes a decline in surface velocity made possible by upward ice flow, implying either enhanced ablation for steady-state simulations or the formation of a surface bulge. Permitting ice loss by ablation combined with numerical smoothing of the basal slip transition subdues basal stress concentrations and thereby inhibits development of structural discontinuities such as thrust faults. Upward ice flow is accommodated by vertical extension up-glacier of the BTT. This strain regime can potentially account for key structural features in polythermal glacier termini without appealing to thrusting.

At Engabreen, Norway, an instrumented panel containing a decimetric obstacle was mounted flush with the bed surface beneath 210 m of ice. Simultaneous measurements of normal and shear stresses, ice velocity and temperature were obtained as dirty basal ice flowed past the obstacle. Our measurements were broadly consistent with ice thickness, flow conditions and bedrock topography near the site of the experiment. Ice speed 0.45 m above the bed was about 130 mm d−1, much less than the surface velocity of 800 mm d−1. Average normal stress on the panel was 1.0–1.6 MPa, smaller than the expected ice overburden pressure. Normal stress was larger and temperature was lower on the stoss side than on the lee side, in accord with flow dynamics and equilibrium thermodynamics. Annual differences in normal stresses were correlated with changes in sliding speed and ice-flow direction. These temporal variations may have been caused by changes in ice rheology associated with changes in sediment concentration, water content or both. Temperature and normal stress were generally correlated, except when clasts presumably collided with the panel. Temperature gradients in the obstacle indicated that regelation was negligible, consistent with the obstacle size. Melt rate was about 10% of the sliding speed. Despite high sliding speed, no significant ice/bed separation was observed in the lee of the obstacle. Frictional forces between sediment particles in the ice and the panel, estimated from Hallet’s (1981) model, indicated that friction accounted for about 5% of the measured bed-parallel force. This value is uncertain, as friction theories are largely untested. Some of these findings agree with sliding theories, others do not.

A three-dimensional finite-element model is used to analyze field data collected as dirty basal ice flowed past an instrumented obstacle at the bed of Engabreen, a temperate glacier in northern Norway The ice is modeled as an incompressible power-law fluid, with viscosity , where ΠD is the second invariant of the stretching tensor, and B and n are two parameters. Using measurements obtained in 1996 and 1997, two values of B are obtained, one using the measured normal stress difference across the obstacle, and the other using the measured bed-parallel force over the instrument. These two values are not equal, probably owing to small frictional forces at the bed unaccounted for in the numerical model. Hence, B ranges between 1.9 × 107 and 3.2 × 107 Pa s1/3 in 1996, and between 2.2 × 107 and 4.1 × 107 Pa s1/3 in 1997. These values are smaller than measured elsewhere for clean glacier or laboratory ice. Field measurements of water content, fabric and texture of the basal ice suggest that unbound water between thin sediment layers and lamellae of clean ice may act as a lubricant and significantly weaken the ice. Near-isotropic fabrics indicate that preferred fabric orientation does not enhance the deformation.