Digital Commons Network^™

Exposure To Climate Change Information Predicts Public Support For Solar Geoengineering In Singapore And The United States, Sonny Rosenthal, Peter J. Irvine, Christopher L. Cummings, Shirley S. Ho

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Solar geoengineering is a controversial climate policy measure that could lower global temperature by increasing the amount of light reflected by the Earth. As scientists and policymakers increasingly consider this idea, an understanding of the level and drivers of public support for its research and potential deployment will be key. This study focuses on the role of climate change information in public support for research and deployment of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) in Singapore (n = 503) and the United States (n = 505). Findings were consistent with the idea that exposure to information underlies support for research and deployment. …

Learning With Treescapes In Environmentally Endangered Times

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Before Showtime, Amy Kaler

The Goose

In this piece of creative nonfiction, I reflect on the experience of having time on my hands in peri-urban spaces that are characterized by transience, liminality, and contingency, while waiting for performance time at youth cheerleading competitions. I describe walking around these places, specifically Las Vegas and Abbotsford (BC). I connect my experience to other accounts of aimless wandering, such as the "derive" of psychogeography, and note the ways in which the exercises of power and potential world-ending catastrophe are present, but latent, in these landscapes. In particular, I consider the historic cold-war threat of a nuclear bomb as well …

Strong Correlations Of Sea Ice Cover With Macroalgal Cover Along The Antarctic Peninsula: Ramifications For Present And Future Benthic Communities, Charles D. Amsler, Margaret O. Amsler, Andrew Klein, Aaron W. Galloway, Katrin Iken, James B. Mcclintock, Sabrina Heiser, Alex T. Lowe, Julie Schram, Ross Whippo

Faculty, Staff, and Students

Macroalgal forests dominate shallow hard bottom areas along the northern portion of the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). Macroalgal biomass and diversity are known to be dramatically lower in the southern WAP and at similar latitudes around Antarctica, but few reports detail the distributions of macroalgae or associated macroinvertebrates in the central WAP. We used satellite imagery to identify 14 sites differing in sea ice coverage but similar in terms of turbidity along the central WAP. Fleshy macroalgal cover was strongly, negatively correlated with ice concentration, but there was no significant correlation between macroinvertebrate cover and sea ice. Overall community (all …

Ecological Change And Livestock Governance In A Peruvian National Park, Kenneth R. Young, Eyner Alata, Rodney Chimner, Randall B. Boone, Gillian Bowser, Laura Bourgeau-Chavez, Beatriz Fuentealba, Jessica Gilbert, Javier A. Ñaupari, Molly H. Polk, Sigrid Resh, Cecilia Turin, Melody Zarria-Samanamud

Michigan Tech Publications

While the grazing of livestock has occurred for millennia in the Andes, current sustainability debates center on concerns with co-managing climate change and pastoralism. These discussions have special resonance in places protected by the state for biodiversity, scenery, and sustainable and traditional land uses, such as those found in protected areas and biosphere reserves. For this article, we integrate data from a social-ecological research project on the land use systems that affect high-elevation ecosystems in Peru’s Huascarán National Park, with special emphasis on the wetlands. We used land cover and land use data and insights from interactions with pastoralists to …

Climate Futures: Classroom Engagements For Imagining Otherwise, Elaine Alvey

Faculty and Staff

Given the realities currently at hand, it is easy to imagine the worst-case scenario climate futures, to become paralyzed by climate grief or to disengage all together. Inspired by pedagogical engagements with imagination and drawing on foundational geography skills, this three-day mini-unit invites secondary students to first analyze localized impacts of climate change, and then look to examples of positive climate futures before finally imagining for their own community’s resilient climate future.

Unequal Impact: Climate Change And The Rights Of Women And Minority Groups In Africa, Michael Addaney, Yvonne Claire Dumenu, Victor Kwadwo Boseah

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The 2021 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change observed that “vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change differs substantially among and within regions […], driven by patterns of intersecting socio-economic development, unsustainable ocean and land use, inequity, marginalization, historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism, and governance.” The uneven distribution of climate change impacts is influenced by historical and spatial injustice stemming from systemic discrimination, inequality and marginalization, imperialism, slavery, and colonialism. Sudden and slow onset climate impacts such as rising temperatures and sea levels, increased flooding and drought, ocean acidification, as well as the …

Utahns' Perceptions Of Climate Change And Disaster Vulnerabilities, Mufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed, Jennifer E. Givens, Peter D. Howe, Jessica D. Ulrich-Schad

Utah People and Environment Poll (UPEP)

Climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, making people more vulnerable in a variety of ways^1-2. It is essential to determine if individuals believe they are susceptible to the effects of climate change in order to develop effective adaptation strategies.

Climate change has contributed to extreme weather occurrences in Utah in recent years. For instance, in the summer of 2022, there was a severe or extreme drought in all of Utah's counties³. Health effects of drought vary with intensity⁴ and can cause climate related deaths directly and indirectly, such as by …

How Sensitive Are Catchment Runoff Estimates To On-Farm Storages Under Current And Future Climates?, David E. Robertson, Hongxing Zheng, Jorge L. Pena-Arancibia, Francis H S Chiew, Santosh Aryal, Martino E. Malerba, Nicholas J. Wright

Climate Science Research Articles

Storage of water in farm dams is important to support irrigation, stock requirements and domestic uses when reticulated water is unavailable. Farm dams that fill by intercepting landscape runoff change the total volume and seasonality of catchment streamflow, potentially impacting water policy outcomes. While numerous studies have quantified how climate change and farm dams independently change streamflow characteristics, few studies have investigated their interactions. This study investigates the interactions between farm dams and climate change in the Murray-Darling Basin of southern and eastern Australia. We use hydrological modelling that explicitly represent farm dams and remotely sensed data describing historical farm …

The Great Displacement: Climate Change And The Next American Migration, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Weather/Natural Disasters

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Magnitude, Trends, And Variability Of The Global Ocean Carbon Sink From 1985 To 2018, Tim Devries, Kana Yamamoto, Rik Wanninkhof, Nicolas Gruber, Judith Hauck, Jens Daniel Müller, Laurent Bopp, Dustin Carroll, Brendan Carter, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Scott C. Doney, Marion Gehlen, Lucas Gloege, Luke Gregor, Stephanie Henson, Ji Hyun Kim, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Peter Landschützer

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This contribution to the RECCAP2 (REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes) assessment analyzes the processes that determine the global ocean carbon sink, and its trends and variability over the period 1985–2018, using a combination of models and observation-based products. The mean sea-air CO2 flux from 1985 to 2018 is −1.6 ± 0.2 PgC yr−1 based on an ensemble of reconstructions of the history of sea surface pCO2 (pCO2 products). Models indicate that the dominant component of this flux is the net oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2, which is estimated at −2.1 ± 0.3 PgC yr−1 by an ensemble of ocean …

Partnering For Climate Resilience: Exploring The Maturity Of Private-Sector Efforts In The Great Lakes Region, Lisa Greenwood, Yewande Abraham, Jennifer Schneider, Vicki Lin

Articles

Communities and businesses continue to experience the effects of climate change as global temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more frequent. In the United States (US), the public sector has traditionally been responsible for mitigating these risks; however, engaging the private sector is crucial, given industrial impacts on and vulnerability to climate change. Private-sector mitigation and adaptation efforts are critical in the Great Lakes Region due to aging infrastructure as well as its economic, environmental, and political importance in the US and Canada. This study explores private-sector resilience efforts in three Great Lakes cities to identify opportunities and trends …

Climate Change Impacts And Adaptation To Permafrost Change In High Mountain Asia: A Comprehensive Review, Prashant Baral, Simon Allen, Jakob F. Steiner, Tika R. Gurung, Graham Mcdowell

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Changing climatic conditions in High Mountain Asia (HMA), especially regional warming and changing precipitation patterns, have led to notable effects on mountain permafrost. Comprehensive knowledge of mountain permafrost in HMA is mostly limited to the mountains of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, with a strong cluster of research activity related to critical infrastructure providing a basis for related climate adaptation measures. Insights related to the extent and changing characteristics of permafrost in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), are much more limited. This study provides the first comprehensive review of peer-reviewed journal articles, focused on hydrological, ecological, and geomorphic impacts associated with thawing …

Combining Expert Opinions To Assess Risk Of Change In Earth Systems: Permafrost Collapse, Global Wildfire, And Water Security, Sayedeh Sara Sayedi

Theses and Dissertations

In a world of uncertainty and change, leaders should base their decisions on best available scientific evidence. However, history has shown that science is often inadequately incorporated into the decision-making process. This dissertation investigates three environmental issues to identify the challenges of considering Earth system dynamics in policymaking and management. I also propose solutions for improving the two-way exchange of knowledge and values between researchers and policymakers. In chapter one, I investigate subsea permafrost carbon sensitivity to climate change using an expert assessment. The analysis revealed that subsea permafrost contains significant carbon stocks and is already contributing to climate change …

New Frontiers In The Measurement Of Energy Metabolism, Alexandra Niclou, Philippe St-Martin, Leanne M. Redman, Audrey Bergouignan

Clinical Research Faculty Publications

This perspective highlights three key areas of current and future energy metabolism research: intergenerational health, climate change, and interplanetary exploration. We describe the recent advances in determining estimated energy requirements for a large subset of the general population using the gold standard method for free-living total daily energy expenditure estimates, the doubly labeled water method. The global rise in overweight and obesity demands particular attention to energy requirements in pregnancy and early life, as accumulating evidence contributes to our understanding of intergenerational health transmission and the potential for epigenetic programming in utero. We also acknowledge some gaps in necessary guidelines …

Expanding The Role Of The Temporal Dimension In Ecological Niche Models: A Study On Mexican Montane Small Mammals, Gonzalo E. Pinilla Buitrago

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ecological niche models (ENMs) are commonly used to estimate the potential geographic distributions of species and have various uses, such as predicting invasive species' potential distribution, assessing vulnerability to climate change, or estimating paleodistributions. However, ENM developments have primarily focused on solving spatially related issues, underemphasizing the temporal dimensionality of occurrence and environmental data collected over the last century. One limitation of ENMs is the common practice of using recent environmental averages that fail to capture the gradual environmental change over the time span of the occurrence records and can hide trends in environmental variables, a critical piece of information …

Africa’S Coastal Archaeological Record And Climate Change, Michael Murphy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the 1980s, archaeologists have warned about threats from anthropogenic climate change (ACC) to the world’s archaeological record in coastal areas. Until recently, such warnings did not include Africa’s archaeological record. There is a persistent gap in research on climate change and Africa’s archaeological and cultural heritage stretching back before the U.N. established the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the gap and help to narrow it. The approach is to take advantage of the availability of the dataset from the first geographically comprehensive study of climate change and coastal …

A Framework For Creating Virtual Reality Models For More Effective Coastal Flood Risk Communication, Tina Korani, Alexandrea Martinez

CSU Journal of Sustainability and Climate Change

Coastal cities are exposed to increasing risks of flooding from sea-level rise. Climate change is expected to double the frequency of coastal flooding within the next decade, and some areas could experience floods of a magnitude 100 times higher than currently (Vitousek et al., 2017). People living in at-risk areas often ignore the impact of climate change on flood intensity and frequency. Immersive visual storytelling techniques proved promising and powerful tools to engage with and raise awareness of flood hazards. Here, we are introducing a framework to use Virtual Reality (VR) to reach better people living in coastal cities and …

Whose Growth In Whose Planetary Boundaries? Decolonising Planetary Justice In The Anthropocene, Farhana Sultana

Geography and the Environment - All Scholarship

This critical analysis examines the geopolitics of planetary environmental injustice and the imperative for systems change to address the intertwined crises of climate breakdown and unsustainable economic growth. Climate breakdown has heightened attention to uneven anthropogenic use and abuse of the planet's biosphere and common pool resources. Recent arguments by climate scholars suggest that various planetary boundaries have already been breached, resulting in dramatic and harmful socio-ecological consequences. These trends raise crucial questions of equity and justice, especially concerning responsibilities and impacts. By centring Global South perspectives, prevailing ideologies promoting hyperconsumption, overproduction and waste are interrogated. The incommensurability of socioecological …

Federal Climate Policy Successes: Co-Benefits, Business Acceptance, And Partisan Politics, Roger Karapin, David Vogel

Publications and Research

While most literature on federal climate change policies has focused on failures to adopt broad policies, this article describes and explains successes in two important sectors. Regulations to improve the fuel economy of motor vehicles and efficiency standards for appliances and equipment have produced substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions although they largely have other goals and hence can be considered implicit climate policies.

We synthesize existing literature with our analyses of case studies to offer three explanations for the adoption of effective sectoral policies in these two sectors. First, the policies delivered politically popular co-benefits such as reducing consumers’ …

Beyond The North–South Divide: Litigation's Role In Resolving Climate Change Loss And Damage Claims, Maria Antonia Tigre, Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Within the international climate regime, legal aspects surrounding loss and damage (L&D) are contentious topics, implicating liability, compensation and notions of vulnerability. The attribution of responsibility and the pursuit of redress for L&D present intricate legal and governance challenges. The ongoing debates under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are characterized by a pronounced North–South divide and have done little to provide tangible support to those most affected by L&D. This apparent neglect has prompted exploration of alternative avenues for climate harm redress. The burgeoning field of litigation for liability and compensation of climate harm holds potential significance …

A Systematic Review On The Ecosystem Services Provided By Green Infrastructure, Daniel Jato-Espino, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro, Vanessa Moscardó, Leticia Bartolome Del Pino, Fernando Mayor-Vitoria, Laura Gallardo, Patricia Carracedo, Kristin Dietrich

Faculty Publications

Urbanization and climate change are endangering the sustainability of public spaces through increased land artificialization, ecological fragmentation, reduced resource availability, and limited accessibility to natural and seminatural areas. Properly managing Green Infrastructure (GI) can contribute to mitigating these challenges by delivering multiple provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural Ecosystem Services (ES). This would facilitate the implementation of strategically planned GI networks in cities for urban regeneration purposes. In this context, this study developed a systematic review on the ES provided by GI using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. The analysis of 199 eligible articles indicated …

Roles Of Reservoirs In Regulating Basin Flood And Droughts Risks Under Climate Change: Historical Assessment And Future Projection, Jingxuan Sun, Wei Chen, Boting Hu, Y. Jun Xu, Guangxin Zhang, Yanfeng Wu, Baojun Hu, Zheng Song

Faculty Publications

Study region: Nenjiang River Basin (NRB), Northeast China. Study focus: Water safety management and sustainable development planning increasingly seek to incorporate the impact of reservoirs on downstream floods and droughts; while the effectiveness of reservoir operation in regulating flood and drought risks under climate change has not been assessed extensively. We focus on discerning whether and to what extent reservoirs can mitigate the risk of hydrologic extremes from the perspective of historical and future climate change. New hydrological insight for the region: We found that coupling reservoir operations into basin hydrological simulation can efficiently improve model capacity to capture both …

Using Terrestrial Laser Scanning To Estimate Canopy Structure In Peatland Conifers Under A Climate Manipulation, Angela D. Seibert

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Northern peatlands are major terrestrial carbon sinks, storing 415 ± 150 Gt of carbon. The composition of peatland vegetation affects this carbon storage capacity, and thus quantifying the vegetation helps to constrain uncertainty in peatland carbon storage estimates. Ground layer vegetation, such as Sphagnum sp. moss contributes greatly to carbon storage capacity. In forested peatlands, the tree canopy structure directly influences peatland solar insolation, soil temperature, and water table levels. Each of these factors impacts the ground layer vegetation. Currently, there is uncertainty about how the peatland tree canopy structure is influenced by elevated levels of carbon dioxide (CO_{2 …}

Greening The Desert: Emirati Youth’S Perceptions Of Green Branding, Gergana Alzeer, Tilde Rosmer

All Works

This chapter focuses on Emirati youth’s understanding of and practices related to a green shift in the UAE and how this correlates with the state’s efforts to brand the UAE as green and sustainable. This is part of a larger research project that investigates Emirati youth’s understanding of climate change. The UAE experience of environmental sustainability is unique as its green shift was initiated by the government in a top-down approach compared to the bottom-up green movements in most western states that has been the focus of most environmental studies so far. Environmental sustainability is part of UAE’s national Agenda …

Addressing Health Crises Through Courts? Climate Litigation In Latin America, The Right To Health And Vulnerable Populations, Thalia Viveros Uehara

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

As Latin America faces increasing climate-related health crises that disproportionately affect populations experiencing poverty and social exclusion, it becomes increasingly urgent to realize the most vulnerable's right to health. While the region's new constitutionalism (NLAC) has made progress in protecting this right, it has only recently begun to intersect with climate change law through rights-based climate litigation. This dissertation takes a transdisciplinary multi-methods research approach to answer the following question: How do health crises emerge within, and how are they addressed by courts through, domestic climate litigation in Latin America? Specifically, it examines how health concerns for vulnerable populations are …

How Active Rainwater Harvesting May Help Reduce Nuisance Flooding: Flood Analysis And Social Barriers To Adoption, Isabel Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As urbanization continues to expand, fewer pervious surfaces are available to help reduce stormwater runoff from rainfall. The impacts of urbanization are becoming evident through sunny day flooding - flooding that occurs in areas not designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as flood zones. Nevertheless, water accumulates in low-lying areas and compromises street intersections and other parts of neighborhoods. Some methods can help alleviate the impacts of unexpected heavy rains, such as passive and active rainwater harvesting. As a pilot study, in a selected area in the northeast of El Paso, the level of adoption (e.g., what percentage …

Modelling Climate Litigation Risk For (Re)Insurers, Martin Lockman

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In response to the growing threat of climate change, the insurance industry has made significant investments in modelling and quantifying physical climate risks. However, the emerging risk of climate litigation has proven particularly difficult to model. In 2015 Mark Carney, then-Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, warned that climate litigation poses “long-tail risks” for insurers that may be “significant, uncertain and non-linear.” Since that warning, the number of climate-related cases has more than doubled, and the scope and financial significance of climate litigation has become increasingly clear. However, insurers and regulators still struggle …

Institute For Global Health And Development : Issue 5 - July 2023, Institute For Global Health And Development

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Coral Adaptive Capacity Insufficient To Halt Global Transition Of Coral Reefs Into Net Erosion Under Climate Change, Christopher Edward Cornwall, Steeve Comeau, Simon D. Donner, Chris Perry, John Dunne, Ruben Van Hooidonk, James S. Ryan, Cheryl A. Logan

Marine Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Projecting the effects of climate change on net reef calcium carbonate production is critical to understanding the future impacts on ecosystem function, but prior estimates have not included corals' natural adaptive capacity to such change. Here we estimate how the ability of symbionts to evolve tolerance to heat stress, or for coral hosts to shuffle to favourable symbionts, and their combination, may influence responses to the combined impacts of ocean warming and acidification under three representative concentration pathway (RCP) emissions scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). We show that symbiont evolution and shuffling, both individually and when combined, favours persistent positive …