EU Naval Force EUNAVFOR MED sets sail in troubled waters. CEPS Commentary, 26 June 2015

Apprehending pirates in the Indian Ocean is one thing. Defeating the networks through which smugglers traffic migrants through North Africa is quite another. The European Union’s new naval force deployment in the Mediterranean - EUNAVFOR MED - drew criticism from international partners and the general public alike when plans for a “boat-sinking” operation were unveiled, raising fears about unacceptable levels of violence and collateral damage; a European version of Mexico’s drug war. Yet the problems of EUNAVFOR MED lie less in clumsy public diplomacy than in the perilous mismatch between its stated objectives and the absence of a clear strategy and mandate, and this creates both operational and political risks for member states. Phase 1 of the operation: surveillance and assessment, has begun with no legal mandate to carry out the crucial phases 2 and 3: seek and destroy, whose military planning and outcomes are undetermined. Despite these limitations, the naval force could nevertheless mark a turning point in the EU’s security narrative, because it means that the Union is finally addressing the threats to security and the humanitarian tragedies in its southern neighbourhood.

Handling the Problem of Unbalanced Data Sets in the Classification of Technical Equipment States

Questions of handling unbalanced data considered in this article. As models for classification, PNN and MLP are used. Problem of estimation of model performance in case of unbalanced training set is solved. Several methods (clustering approach and boosting approach) considered as useful to deal with the problem of input data.

Stable carbon isotopes of Planulina wuellerstorfi of sediment core MD01-2444

The observation that Greenland and Antarctic temperatures have followed a specific 'asymmetrical' pattern on millennial time-scales sets rigid constraints on any viable theory of abrupt climate change. The further observation that the very same asymmetry is also reflected in planktonic and benthic d18O measurements from the Northeast Atlantic has extended this constraint to include a specific response in the ocean. Here we present records of deep-water temperature, d18O and d13C variability from the Northeast Atlantic that help to shed light on the links between overturning circulation perturbations, sea-level variability and inter-hemispheric climate change on millennial time-scales. Results indicate that while deep-water temperatures in the Northeast Atlantic have tracked Greenland climate, the d18O signature of local deepwater (d18Odw) has varied in a manner more reminiscent of Antarctic temperature variability. The previously identified correspondence of Antarctic warm events with benthic d18O minima in the Northeast Atlantic is thus found to apply specifically to d18Odw minima, and to extend beyond Marine Isotope Stage 3 to the entirety of the last 50 ka. It is impossible to reconcile completely the Iberian Margin d18Odw record with existing reconstructions of millennial sea-level variability, leading to the conclusion that a significant portion of the d18Odw record must represent local hydrographic change. This is supported by benthic d13C measurements, which suggest the incursion during Greenland stadials of a colder, low-d18O and low-d13C water-mass, of presumed Antarctic origin. These observations confirm a one-to-one coupling of inter-hemispheric climate events with changes in the Atlantic overturning circulation, but fail to rule in or out a unique mechanism by which they were triggered.