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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

We Need A Solid Scientific Basis For Nature-Based Climate Solutions In The United States, Kimberly A. Novick, Trevor F. Keenan, William R L Anderegg, Caroline P. Normile, Benjamin R K Runkle, Emily E. Oldfield, Gyami Shrestha, Margaret E K Evans, Dennis D. Baldocchi, James T. Randerson, Jonathan Sanderman, Margaret S. Torn, Anna T. Trugman, Christopher A. Williams Apr 2024

We Need A Solid Scientific Basis For Nature-Based Climate Solutions In The United States, Kimberly A. Novick, Trevor F. Keenan, William R L Anderegg, Caroline P. Normile, Benjamin R K Runkle, Emily E. Oldfield, Gyami Shrestha, Margaret E K Evans, Dennis D. Baldocchi, James T. Randerson, Jonathan Sanderman, Margaret S. Torn, Anna T. Trugman, Christopher A. Williams

Geography

Opinion piece mapping the many challenges and variables around nature-based climate solutions (NbCS) in the United States, and the need to pinpoint large-scale strategies that will lead to significant, durable, and measurable net climate cooling. They must do so without simply displacing emissions to other locations.


Reduced Fire Severity Offers Near-Term Buffer To Climate-Driven Declines In Conifer Resilience Across The Western United States, Kimberley T. Davis, Marcos D. Robles, Kerry B. Kemp, Philip E. Higuera, Teresa Chapman, Kerry L. Metlen, Jamie L. Peeler, Kyle C. Rodman, Travis Woolley, Robert N. Addington, Brian J. Buma, Alina C. Cansler, Michael J. Case, Brandon M. Collins, Jonathan D. Coop, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Nathan S. Gill, Collin Haffey, Lucas B. Harris, Brian J. Harvey, Ryan D. Haugo, Matthew D. Hurteau, Dominik Kulakowski, Caitlin E. Littlefield, Lisa A. Mccauley, Nicholas Povak, Kristen L. Shive, Edward Smith, Jens T. Stevens, Camille S. Stevens-Rumann, Alan H. Taylor, Alan J. Tepley, Derek J.N. Young, Robert A. Andrus, Mike A. Battaglia, Julia K. Berkey, Sebastian U. Busby, Amanda R. Carlson, Marin E. Chambers, Erich Kyle Dodson, Daniel Donato, William M. Downing, Paula J. Fornwalt, Joshua S. Halofsky, Ashley Hoffman, Andrés Holz, Jose M. Iniguez, Meg A. Krawchuk, Mark R. Krieder, Andrew J. Larson, Garrett W. Meigs, John Paul Roccaforte, Monica T. Rother, Hugh Safford, Michael Schaedel, Jason S. Sibold, Megan P. Singleton, Alexandra K. Urza, Kyra D. Clark-Wolf, Monica G. Turner Mar 2023

Reduced Fire Severity Offers Near-Term Buffer To Climate-Driven Declines In Conifer Resilience Across The Western United States, Kimberley T. Davis, Marcos D. Robles, Kerry B. Kemp, Philip E. Higuera, Teresa Chapman, Kerry L. Metlen, Jamie L. Peeler, Kyle C. Rodman, Travis Woolley, Robert N. Addington, Brian J. Buma, Alina C. Cansler, Michael J. Case, Brandon M. Collins, Jonathan D. Coop, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Nathan S. Gill, Collin Haffey, Lucas B. Harris, Brian J. Harvey, Ryan D. Haugo, Matthew D. Hurteau, Dominik Kulakowski, Caitlin E. Littlefield, Lisa A. Mccauley, Nicholas Povak, Kristen L. Shive, Edward Smith, Jens T. Stevens, Camille S. Stevens-Rumann, Alan H. Taylor, Alan J. Tepley, Derek J.N. Young, Robert A. Andrus, Mike A. Battaglia, Julia K. Berkey, Sebastian U. Busby, Amanda R. Carlson, Marin E. Chambers, Erich Kyle Dodson, Daniel Donato, William M. Downing, Paula J. Fornwalt, Joshua S. Halofsky, Ashley Hoffman, Andrés Holz, Jose M. Iniguez, Meg A. Krawchuk, Mark R. Krieder, Andrew J. Larson, Garrett W. Meigs, John Paul Roccaforte, Monica T. Rother, Hugh Safford, Michael Schaedel, Jason S. Sibold, Megan P. Singleton, Alexandra K. Urza, Kyra D. Clark-Wolf, Monica G. Turner

Geography

Increasing fire severity and warmer, drier postfire conditions are making forests in the western United States (West) vulnerable to ecological transformation. Yet, the relative importance of and interactions between these drivers of forest change remain unresolved, particularly over upcoming decades. Here, we assess how the interactive impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity influenced conifer regeneration after 334 wildfires, using a dataset of postfire conifer regeneration from 10,230 field plots. Our findings highlight declining regeneration capacity across the West over the past four decades for the eight dominant conifer species studied. Postfire regeneration is sensitive to high-severity fire, which limits …


Ten New Insights In Climate Science 2023/2024, Mercedes Bustamante, Joyashree Roy, Daniel Ospina, Ploy Achakulwisut, Anubha Aggarwal, Ana Bastos, Wendy Broadgate, Josep G. Canadell, Edward Carr, Deliang Chen, Helen A. Cleugh, Kristie L. Ebi Jan 2023

Ten New Insights In Climate Science 2023/2024, Mercedes Bustamante, Joyashree Roy, Daniel Ospina, Ploy Achakulwisut, Anubha Aggarwal, Ana Bastos, Wendy Broadgate, Josep G. Canadell, Edward Carr, Deliang Chen, Helen A. Cleugh, Kristie L. Ebi

Geography

Non-technical summary: We identify a set of essential recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, across natural and social sciences: (1) looming inevitability and implications of overshooting the 1.5°C warming limit, (2) urgent need for a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out, (3) challenges for scaling carbon dioxide removal, (4) uncertainties regarding the future contribution of natural carbon sinks, (5) intertwinedness of the crises of biodiversity loss and climate change, (6) compound events, (7) mountain glacier loss, (8) human immobility in the face of climate risks, (9) adaptation justice, and (10) just transitions in food systems. Technical …


Applying Landscape Fragmentation Analysis To Icescape Environments: Potential Impacts For The Pacific Walrus (Odobenus Rosmarus Divergens), Anthony Himmelberger, K E. Frey, Florencia Sangermano Jan 2022

Applying Landscape Fragmentation Analysis To Icescape Environments: Potential Impacts For The Pacific Walrus (Odobenus Rosmarus Divergens), Anthony Himmelberger, K E. Frey, Florencia Sangermano

Geography

Sea-ice cover across the Arctic has declined rapidly over the past several decades owing to amplified climate warming. The Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) relies on sea-ice floes in the St. Lawrence Island (SLI) and Wainwright regions of the Bering and Chukchi seas surrounding Alaska as a platform for rest, feeding and reproduction. Lower concentrations of thick ice floes are generally associated with earlier seasonal fragmentation and shorter annual persistence of sea-ice cover, potentially affecting the life history of the Pacific walrus. In this study, 24 Landsat satellite images were classified into thick ice, thin ice or open water to …


The Influence Of Burn Severity On Post-Fire Spectral Recovery Of Three Fires In The Southern Rocky Mountains, Jaclyn Guz, Florencia Sangermano, Dominik Kulakowski Jan 2022

The Influence Of Burn Severity On Post-Fire Spectral Recovery Of Three Fires In The Southern Rocky Mountains, Jaclyn Guz, Florencia Sangermano, Dominik Kulakowski

Geography

Increased wildfire activity and altered post-fire climate in the Southern Rocky Mountains has the potential to influence forest resilience. The Southern Rocky Mountains are a leading edge of climate change and have experienced record-breaking fires in recent years. The change in post-fire regeneration and forest resilience could potentially include future ecological trajectories. In this paper, we examined patterns of post-fire spectral recovery using Landsat time series. Additionally, we utilized random forest models to analyze the impact of climate and burn severity on three fire events in the Southern Rocky Mountains. Fifteen years following the fires, none of the burned stands …


Ecosystem Carbon Balance In The Hawaiian Islands Under Different Scenarios Of Future Climate And Land Use Change, Paul C. Selmants, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Tamara S. Wilson, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier, Gregory P. Asner Oct 2021

Ecosystem Carbon Balance In The Hawaiian Islands Under Different Scenarios Of Future Climate And Land Use Change, Paul C. Selmants, Benjamin M. Sleeter, Jinxun Liu, Tamara S. Wilson, Clay Trauernicht, Abby G. Frazier, Gregory P. Asner

Geography

The State of Hawai'i passed legislation to be carbon neutral by 2045, a goal that will partly depend on carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems. However, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future direction and magnitude of the land carbon sink in the Hawaiian Islands. We used the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS), a spatially explicit stochastic simulation model that integrates landscape change and carbon gain-loss, to assess how projected future changes in climate and land use will influence ecosystem carbon balance in the Hawaiian Islands under all combinations of two radiative forcing scenarios (RCPs 4.5 and 8.5) and …


Covid-19 And The Case For Global Development, Johan A. Oldekop, Rory Horner, David Hulme, Roshan Adhikari, Bina Agarwal, Matthew Alford, Oliver Bakewell, Nicola Banks, Stephanie Barrientos, Tanja Bastia, Anthony J. Bebbington, Upasak Das, Ralitza Dimova, Richard Duncombe, Charis Enns, David Fielding, Christopher Foster, Timothy Foster, Tomas Frederiksen, Ping Gao, Tom Gillespie, Richard Heeks, Sam Hickey, Martin Hess, Nicholas Jepson, Ambarish Karamchedu, Uma Kothari, Aarti Krishnan, Tom Lavers, Aminu Mamman, Diana Mitlin, Negar Monazam Tabrizi Oct 2020

Covid-19 And The Case For Global Development, Johan A. Oldekop, Rory Horner, David Hulme, Roshan Adhikari, Bina Agarwal, Matthew Alford, Oliver Bakewell, Nicola Banks, Stephanie Barrientos, Tanja Bastia, Anthony J. Bebbington, Upasak Das, Ralitza Dimova, Richard Duncombe, Charis Enns, David Fielding, Christopher Foster, Timothy Foster, Tomas Frederiksen, Ping Gao, Tom Gillespie, Richard Heeks, Sam Hickey, Martin Hess, Nicholas Jepson, Ambarish Karamchedu, Uma Kothari, Aarti Krishnan, Tom Lavers, Aminu Mamman, Diana Mitlin, Negar Monazam Tabrizi

Geography

COVID-19 accentuates the case for a global, rather than an international, development paradigm. The novel disease is a prime example of a development challenge for all countries, through the failure of public health as a global public good. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the falsity of any assumption that the global North has all the expertise and solutions to tackle global challenges, and has further highlighted the need for multi-directional learning and transformation in all countries towards a more sustainable and equitable world. We illustrate our argument for a global development paradigm by examining the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic …


Cognitive Biases About Climate Variability In Smallholder Farming Systems In Zambia, Kurt B. Waldman, Noemi Vergopolan, Shahzeen Z. Attari, Justin Sheffield, Lyndon Estes, Kelly K. Caylor, Tom P. Evans Apr 2019

Cognitive Biases About Climate Variability In Smallholder Farming Systems In Zambia, Kurt B. Waldman, Noemi Vergopolan, Shahzeen Z. Attari, Justin Sheffield, Lyndon Estes, Kelly K. Caylor, Tom P. Evans

Geography

Given the varying manifestations of climate change over time and the influence of climate perceptions on adaptation, it is important to understand whether farmer perceptions match patterns of environmental change from observational data. We use a combination of social and environmental data to understand farmer perceptions related to rainy season onset. Household surveys were conducted with 1171 farmers across Zambia at the end of the 2015/16 growing season eliciting their perceptions of historic changes in rainy season onset and their heuristics about when rain onset occurs. We compare farmers' perceptions with satellite-gauge-derived rainfall data from the Climate Hazards Group Infrared …


High-Resolution Mapping Of Time Since Disturbance And Forest Carbon Flux From Remote Sensing And Inventory Data To Assess Harvest, Fire, And Beetle Disturbance Legacies In The Pacific Northwest, Huan Gu, Christopher A. Williams, Bardan Ghimire, Feng Zhao, Chengquan Huang Jan 2016

High-Resolution Mapping Of Time Since Disturbance And Forest Carbon Flux From Remote Sensing And Inventory Data To Assess Harvest, Fire, And Beetle Disturbance Legacies In The Pacific Northwest, Huan Gu, Christopher A. Williams, Bardan Ghimire, Feng Zhao, Chengquan Huang

Geography

Accurate assessment of forest carbon storage and uptake is central to policymaking aimed at mitigating climate change and understanding the role forests play in the global carbon cycle. Disturbances have highly diverse impacts on forest carbon dynamics, making them a challenge to quantify and report. Time since disturbance is a key intermediate determinant that AIDS the assessment of disturbancedriven carbon emissions and removals legacies. We propose a new methodology of quantifying time since disturbance and carbon flux across forested landscapes in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) at a fine scale (30 m) by combining remote sensing (RS)-based disturbance year, disturbance type, …


Political Ecologies Of Resource Extraction: Agendas Pendientes, Anthony J. Bebbington Jan 2015

Political Ecologies Of Resource Extraction: Agendas Pendientes, Anthony J. Bebbington

Geography

Research related to extractive industries has grown significantly over the last decade. As the commodities boom appears to be winding down, this essay outlines areas for potential future research. Emphasis is placed on the need for research on: the relationships among extractivism, climate change and societal transitions; the aggregate effects of the commodity boom on the environment, on societal structures, on elite formation and on cultural politics; the implications of resource extraction on the couplings of space and power at different scales and with particular reference to the Colombian peace process; and the gendered and generation dimensions of the effects …


Heat And Drought Extremes Likely To Stress Ecosystem Productivity Equally Or More In A Warmer, Co2rich Future, Christopher A. Williams Jan 2014

Heat And Drought Extremes Likely To Stress Ecosystem Productivity Equally Or More In A Warmer, Co2rich Future, Christopher A. Williams

Geography

Reduced carbon uptake caused by recent heat and drought extremes raises concerns about biospheric feedbacks that amplify global warming. However, elevated carbon dioxide is expected to boost terrestrial ecosystem productivity over the 21st century, potentially alleviating some of the adverse carbon impacts of climate extremes. Using CMIP5 earth system model (ESM) results, Ian Williams and colleagues (2014 Environ. Res. Lett. 9 094011) find that the carbon impacts of heat and drought extremes in the future are likely to be similar to those seen in today's climate only shifted toward fluctuations around a higher average temperature. However, they also find that …


We Have Never Been "Post-Political", James Mccarthy Jan 2013

We Have Never Been "Post-Political", James Mccarthy

Geography

The Progressive Era attempt to 'depoliticize' environmental governance was of course an utter failure for a host of reasons: powerful economic and political interests found or made entry points into supposedly sealed-off arenas, eventually culminating in the phenomenon of agency capture. Scientists and technocrats carried their own politics into their work, consciously or unconsciously; the people affected by new property relations and management regimes resisted and reconfigured the newly emergent socionatures in their areas in a variety of ways, producing a reality more complicated than, and often at odds with, the superficially clear official policy; and so on. It is …


Improving Operational Land Surface Model Canopy Evapotranspiration In Africa Using A Direct Remote Sensing Approach, M. Marshall, K. Tu, C. Funk, J. Michaelsen, P. Williams, Christopher A. Williams, J. Ardö, M. Boucher, B. Cappelaere, A. De Grandcourt, A. Nickless, Y. Nouvellon, R. Scholes, W. Kutsch Jan 2013

Improving Operational Land Surface Model Canopy Evapotranspiration In Africa Using A Direct Remote Sensing Approach, M. Marshall, K. Tu, C. Funk, J. Michaelsen, P. Williams, Christopher A. Williams, J. Ardö, M. Boucher, B. Cappelaere, A. De Grandcourt, A. Nickless, Y. Nouvellon, R. Scholes, W. Kutsch

Geography

Climate change is expected to have the greatest impact on the world's economically poor. In the Sahel, a climatically sensitive region where rain-fed agriculture is the primary livelihood, expected decreases in water supply will increase food insecurity. Studies on climate change and the intensification of the water cycle in sub-Saharan Africa are few. This is due in part to poor calibration of modeled evapotranspiration (ET), a key input in continental-scale hydrologic models. In this study, a remote sensing model of transpiration (the primary component of ET), driven by a time series of vegetation indices, was used to substitute transpiration from …


Predicting How Adaptation To Climate Change Could Affect Ecological Conservation: Secondary Impacts Of Shifting Agricultural Suitability, Bethany A. Bradley, Lyndon D. Estes, David G. Hole, Stephen Holness, Michael Oppenheimer, Will R. Turner, Hein Beukes, Roland E. Schulze, Mark A. Tadross, David S. Wilcove May 2012

Predicting How Adaptation To Climate Change Could Affect Ecological Conservation: Secondary Impacts Of Shifting Agricultural Suitability, Bethany A. Bradley, Lyndon D. Estes, David G. Hole, Stephen Holness, Michael Oppenheimer, Will R. Turner, Hein Beukes, Roland E. Schulze, Mark A. Tadross, David S. Wilcove

Geography

Aim: Ecosystems face numerous well-documented threats from climate change. The well-being of people also is threatened by climate change, most prominently by reduced food security. Human adaptation to food scarcity, including shifting agricultural zones, will create new threats for natural ecosystems. We investigated how shifts in crop suitability because of climate change may overlap currently protected areas (PAs) and priority sites for PA expansion in South Africa. Predicting the locations of suitable climate conditions for crop growth will assist conservationists and decision-makers in planning for climate change. Location: South Africa. Methods: We modelled climatic suitability in 2055 for maize and …


Spatial And Interannual Variability Of Dissolved Organic Matter In The Kolyma River, East Siberia, Observed Using Satellite Imagery, Claire G. Griffin, Karen E. Frey, John Rogan, Robert M. Holmes Jan 2011

Spatial And Interannual Variability Of Dissolved Organic Matter In The Kolyma River, East Siberia, Observed Using Satellite Imagery, Claire G. Griffin, Karen E. Frey, John Rogan, Robert M. Holmes

Geography

The Kolyma River basin in northeastern Siberia, the sixth largest river basin draining to the Arctic Ocean, contains vast reserves of carbon in Pleistocene-aged permafrost soils. Permafrost degradation, as a result of climate change, may cause shifts in riverine biogeochemistry as this old source of organic matter is exposed. Satellite remote sensing offers an opportunity to complement and extrapolate field sampling of dissolved organic matter in this expansive and remote region. We develop empirically based algorithms that estimate chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the Kolyma River and its major tributaries in the vicinity of …


Does Terrestrial Drought Explain Global Co 2 Flux Anomalies Induced By El Niño?, C. R. Schwalm, Christopher A. Williams, K. Schaefer, I. Baker, G. J. Collatz, C. Rödenbeck Jan 2011

Does Terrestrial Drought Explain Global Co 2 Flux Anomalies Induced By El Niño?, C. R. Schwalm, Christopher A. Williams, K. Schaefer, I. Baker, G. J. Collatz, C. Rödenbeck

Geography

The El Niño Southern Oscillation is the dominant year-to-year mode of global climate variability. El Niño effects on terrestrial carbon cycling are mediated by associated climate anomalies, primarily drought, influencing fire emissions and biotic net ecosystem exchange (NEE). Here we evaluate whether El Niño produces a consistent response from the global carbon cycle. We apply a novel bottom-up approach to estimating global NEE anomalies based on FLUXNET data using land cover maps and weather reanalysis. We analyze 13 years (1997-2009) of globally gridded observational NEE anomalies derived from eddy covariance flux data, remotely-sensed fire emissions at the monthly time step, …


Climate Change: Helping Nature Survive The Human Response, Will R. Turner, Bethany A. Bradley, Lyndon D. Estes, David G. Hole, Michael Oppenheimer, David S. Wilcove Sep 2010

Climate Change: Helping Nature Survive The Human Response, Will R. Turner, Bethany A. Bradley, Lyndon D. Estes, David G. Hole, Michael Oppenheimer, David S. Wilcove

Geography

Climate change poses profound, direct, and well-documented threats to biodiversity. A significant fraction of Earth's species is at risk of extinction due to changing precipitation and temperature regimes, rising and acidifying oceans, and other factors. There is also growing awareness of the diversity and magnitude of responses, both proactive and reactive, that people will undertake as lives and livelihoods are affected by climate change. Yet to date few studies have examined the relationship between these two powerful forces. The natural systems upon which people depend, already under direct assault from climate change, are further threatened by how we respond to …