Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Changing Surface Ocean Conditions On The Dissolution Of Aerosol Iron, Matthew P. Fishwick, Peter N. Sedwick, Maeve C. Lohan, Paul J. Worsfold, Kristen N. Buck, Thomas M. Church, Simon J. Ussher

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The proportion of aerosol iron (Fe) that dissolves in seawater varies greatly and is dependent on aerosol composition and the physicochemical conditions of seawater, which may change depending on location or be altered by global environmental change. Aerosol and surface seawater samples were collected in the Sargasso Sea and used to investigate the impact of these changing conditions on aerosol Fe dissolution in seawater. Our data show that seawater temperature, pH, and oxygen concentration, within the range of current and projected future values, had no significant effect on the dissolution of aerosol Fe. However, the source and composition of aerosols …

The Extent Of Heat On Health And Sustainable Farming In Ghana - Bawku East, Kwasi Frimpong, Jacques Oosthuizen, Eddie J. Van Etten

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Little is known about the health effects of heat in outdoor work and appropriate work and rest schedules for farmers working in developing countries. As temperatures continue to increase in tropical regions, such as Northern Ghana, it is necessary to evaluate how farmers experience and respond to high heat exposures. In this study, WBGT (Wet Bulb Globe Temperature) estimates and the ISO work / rest standards were applied to a cohort of farmers in the rural areas of Bawku East, Northern Ghana, to assess how farmers respond to high heat and how much they rest to protect their health, as …

Teaching Climate Literacy Using Geospatial Tools, Steven L. Babcock

LSU Master's Theses

Antarctica is the world’s coldest, driest and windiest continent. It is a harsh environment that few people will ever see but it is a very important part of our Earth system. Over the past 34 million years the climate in Antarctica has deteriorated from one that supported lush vegetation to the conditions observed today. By studying this trend and the associated changes to ice and vegetation we can gain critical insight into climate changes taking place today. This thesis presents three pieces of curricula that will help students and the general public understand some of the research currently underway in …

Experiences Of Heat Stress Vulnerability And Climate Change Among Farmers In Ghana, Kwasi Frimpong, Jacques D. Oosthuizen, Eddie J. Van Etten

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The trend over the last decade of increasing temperature associated with climate change with the impacts being felt in the poorest communities of the developing world is unequivocal. Bawku East of northern Ghana is assessed as one of the poorest communities. Being a farming community the study investigates the extent of farmers’ experiences on heat and climate change. A selected number of 308 farmers from a farming population of over 15,000 were interviewed about heat stress and climate change to gauge their level of vulnerability to heat stress at the household and farm levels, as well as their general experiences …

Impacts Of Climate Change On Water Resources And Corresponding Adaptation Strategies Of The Nam Ngum River Basin, Laos, Dumindu Lasitha Jayasekera

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Nam Ngum River Basin (NNRB) in Laos has received attention of foreign investors due to high hydropower development potential and low per capita electricity consumption. The NNRB is rapidly developing due to its hydropower generation potentials while water demands will increase for agricultural and domestic purposes due to population increase and land-use changes. Water availability conditions will be affected with the increasing water demand and climate change may worsen the water availability conditions. Climate is often defined as the weather averaged over time whereas weather describes atmospheric conditions at a particular place and time in terms of air temperature, …

The Climate Change-Sustainable Development Nexus: A Proposal For Convergence, Alvin K. Leong

Dissertations & Theses

This thesis is founded on the proposition that climate change and sustainable development are inextricably linked with each other and form a “nexus” that should be understood in a pragmatic and holistic way. Accordingly, the climate change “problem” cannot be adequately addressed in “silos” or by traditional output control techniques but instead should be viewed as a multidimensional challenge that calls for transformative change in the world energy sector in light of the wider contexts of sustainability and social equity. This thesis observes that with the emergence of a post-2015 development agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United …

Lsu Research Fall 2013, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

Research Magazine

LSU Research is published annually by the Office of Research & Economic Development, Louisiana State University.

Sensitivity To Heat: A Comparative Study Of Phoenix, Arizona And Chicago, Illinois (2003-2006), Wen-Ching Chuang, Patricia Gober, Winston T. L. Chow, Jay Golden

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on how heat impacts human health has increased as climate change threatens to raise temperatures to new extremes. Excessive heat exposure increases death rates, as well as rates of nonfatal, adverse health outcomes. This study used the negative binomial regression model to examine the relationship between daily maximum temperature, heat index, and heat-related emergency calls in Phoenix, Arizona and Chicago, Illinois, from 2003 to 2006. Using model results, we estimated call volumes in a warmer climate, with temperature increase from 1 to 5.5 C. We found that: (1) heat-stress calls increase sharply when the temperature exceeds about 35 C …

Microclimate Moderates Plant Responses To Macroclimate Warming, Pieter De Frenne, Francisco Rodríguez-Sánchez, David Anthony Coomes, Lander Baeten, Gorik Verstraeten, Mark Vellend, Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, Carissa D. Brownd, Jörg Brunet, Johnny Cornelis, Guillaume M. Decocq, Hartmut Dierschke, Ove Eriksson, Frank S. Gilliam, Radim Hédl, Thilo Heinken, Martin Hermy, Patrick Hommel, Michael A. Jenkins, Daniel L. Kelly, Keith J. Kirby, Fraser J. G. Mitchell, Tobias Naaf, Miles Newman, George Peterken, Petr Petrík, Jan Schultz, Grégory Sonnier, Hans Van Calster, Donald M. Waller, Gian-Reto Walther, Peter S. White, Kerry D. Woods, Monika Wulf, Bente Jessen Graae, Kris Verheyen

Biological Sciences Faculty Research

Recent global warming is acting across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems to favor species adapted to warmer conditions and/or reduce the abundance of cold-adapted organisms (i.e., “thermophilization” of communities). Lack of community responses to increased temperature, however, has also been reported for several taxa and regions, suggesting that “climatic lags” may be frequent. Here we show that microclimatic effects brought about by forest canopy closure can buffer biotic responses to macroclimate warming, thus explaining an apparent climatic lag. Using data from 1,409 vegetation plots in European and North American temperate forests, each surveyed at least twice over an interval of …

Four Decades Of Andean Timberline Migration And Implications For Biodiversity Loss With Climate Change, David A. Lutz, Rebecca L. Powell, Miles R. Silman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Rapid 21st-century climate change may lead to large population decreases and extinction in tropical montane cloud forest species in the Andes. While prior research has focused on species migrations per se, ecotones may respond to different environmental factors than species. Even if species can migrate in response to climate change, if ecotones do not they can function as hard barriers to species migrations, making ecotone migrations central to understanding species persistence under scenarios of climate change. We examined a 42-year span of aerial photographs and high resolution satellite imagery to calculate migration rates of timberline–the grassland-forest ecotone–inside and outside of …

Adaptation And The Courtroom: Judging Climate Science, Kirsten Engel, Jonathan Overpeck

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Climate science is increasingly showing up in courtroom disputes over the duty to adapt to climate change. While judges play a critical role in evaluating scientific evidence, they are not apt to be familiar with the basic methods of climate science nor with the role played by peer review, publication, and training of climate scientists. This Article is an attempt to educate the bench and the bar on the basics of the discipline of climate science, which we contend is a distinct scientific discipline. We propose a series of principles to guide a judge’s evaluation of the reliability and weight …

Climate Change Impacts On Streamflow And Subbasin- Scale Hydrology In The Upper Colorado River Basin, Darren L. Ficklin, Edwin P. Maurer, Iris T. Stewert

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

In the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB), the principal source of water in the southwestern U.S., demand exceeds supply in most years, and will likely continue to rise. While General Circulation Models (GCMs) project surface temperature warming by 3.5 to 5.6uC for the area, precipitation projections are variable, with no wetter or drier consensus. We assess the impacts of projected 21st century climatic changes on subbasins in the UCRB using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, for all hydrologic components (snowmelt, evapotranspiration, surface runoff, subsurface runoff, and streamflow), and for 16 GCMs under the A2 emission scenario. Over the GCM …

Phenology-Assisted Classification Of C3 And C4 Grasses In The U.S. Great Plains And Their Climate Dependency With Modis Time Series, Cuizhen Wang, E. Raymond Hunt Jr., Li Zhang, Huadong Guo

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Grassland ecosystems in the North America are primarily composed of C3 and C4 plant functional types (PFTs) that have different responses to the changing climate. Knowledge of their spatial distributions and temporal variations helps us better understand the ecological functions and climate dependencies of grasslands. This study used the 500-m MODIS surface reflectance products (MOD09A1) from 2000 to 2009 to extract NDVI time series of C3 and C4 grass PFTs in different floristic regions (tallgrass, shortgrass, and mixed-grass prairies.) A set of phenology metrics, including Start of Season, End of Season, Season Length, Peak NDVI, Peak Date, andΣNDVI, were found …

Frequency, Intensity, And Sensitivity To Sea Surface Temperature Of North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones In Best-Track And Simulated Data, Sarah Strazzo, James B. Elsner, Jill C. Trepanier, Kerry A. Emanuel

Publications

Synthetic hurricane track data generated from a downscaling approach are compared to best-track (observed) data to analyze differences in regional frequency, intensity, and sensitivity of limiting intensity to sea surface temperature (SST). Overall, the spatial distributions of observed and simulated hurricane counts match well, although there are relatively fewer synthetic storms in the eastern quarter of the basin. Additionally, regions of intense synthetic hurricanes tend to coincide with regions of intense observed hurricanes. The sensitivity of limiting hurricane intensity to SST computed from synthetic data is slightly lower than sensitivity computed from observed data (5.561.31 m s21 (standard error, SE) …

Adaptation And The Physiology Of Ocean Acidification, Morgan W. Kelly, Gretchen E. Hofmann

Faculty Publications

Ocean acidification, caused by the uptake of atmospheric CO2, is a threat to marine biodiversity, potentially rivalling the threat imposed by rising temperatures in some marine ecosystems. Although a growing body of literature documents negative effects of acidification on marine organisms, the majority of this work has focused on the effects of future conditions on modern populations, ignoring the potential effects of adaptation and physiological acclimatization. We review current literature on the potential for adaptation to elevated pCO2 in marine organisms. Although this body of work is currently quite small, we argue that data on the physiological effects of acidification, …

Local Adaptation To Climate Change In A Calcareous Grassland System, Catherine Ravenscroft

Biology - Dissertations

Annual manipulations of temperature and rainfall have been maintained in intact calcareous grassland since 1993 at the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory (BCCIL) in northern England (UK). Here I investigated the role of local adaptation as mechanism of the apparent resistance of species' to long-term climate manipulations at BCCIL using a common forb, Plantago lanceolata. Plantago lanceolata is a rosette-forming, perennial herb of wide-ranging distribution, and one of the more common forbs in calcareous grasslands, including BCCIL. In the first study I used a common garden approach to test for evidence of selection for different suites of functional traits in …

Warming Winters And Changing Habitats: Interactive Effects On Raptor Populations And Implications For Conservation, Neil A. Paprocki

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Studies across multiple spatial and temporal scales will improve understanding of the drivers of global change including habitat degradation, invasive species, and climate change. How global drivers affect the ecology of wintering raptors in western North America and the Great Basin may have important implications for changes in distribution and abundance, and consequently population persistence. I examined the winter distributions of six western North America raptor species using Christmas Bird Count data from 1975-2011 to assess range shifts over time and in relation to temperature. Also, I considered whether population patterns within Bird Conservation Regions (BCR) were best explained by …

Projecting Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration Of The Southeastern United States In The 21st Century, Xia Song, Hanqin Tian, Xiaofeng Xu, Dafeng Hui, Guangsheng Chen, Greg Sommers, Luke Marzen, Mingliang Liu

Biology Faculty Research

How terrestrial ecosystems respond to future environmental change in the 21st century is critically important for understanding the feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to global climate change. The southeastern United States (SEUS) has been one of the major regions acting as a carbon sink over the past century; yet it is unclear how its terrestrial ecosystems will respond to global environmental change in the 21st century. Applying a process-based ecosystem model (Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model, DLEM) in combination with three projected climate change scenarios (A1B, A2, and B1 from the IPCC report) and changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, nitrogen deposition, and …

Wetlands Regulation In An Era Of Climate Change: Can Section 404 Meet The Challenge?, Alyson C. Flournoy, Allison Fischman

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article raises the question of how we should assess the potential threat to wetlands posed by the impacts of a changing climate and considers the role that section 404 of the Clean Water Act can play both in assessing and responding to that threat. Our inquiry is two-fold. First, should we be concerned about climate impacts on wetlands? And if so, how can section 404 help us to assess and respond to this threat?

Part I surveys the scientific literature on the projected impacts of climate change of particular relevance to wetlands and the impacts anticipated for particular types …

A Critical Evaluation Of The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: An Example Of Things To Come?, Philip Martin, Stephen Grimes, Hayley Manners, Malcolm Hart

The Plymouth Student Scientist

The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), arguably the most dramatic hyperthermal event recorded to date, occurred approximately 55 million years ago (Ma). During this event thousands of petagrams of carbon were released into the atmosphere and hydrosphere affecting the climate, ocean chemistry and marine and terrestrial ecosystems. With a duration of approximately 100,000 years (though possibly as long as 170,000 years) and global temperature increases of between 4- 8°C, terrestrial and marine faunal turnover occurred including mammalian dispersal, rapid evolutionary and ecological change and transient diversification. The PETM, therefore, offers a valuable insight into shifts in the climate regime and the …

Trade-Offs, Geography, And Limits To Thermal Adaptation In A Tide Pool Copepod, Morgan W. Kelly, Richard K. Grosberg, Eric Sanford

Faculty Publications

Antagonistic correlations among traits may slow the rate of adaptation to a changing environment. The tide pool copepod Tigriopus californicus is locally adapted to temperature, but within populations, the response to selection for increased heat tolerance plateaus rapidly, suggesting either limited variation within populations or costs of increased tolerance. To measure possible costs of thermal tolerance, we selected for increased upper lethal limits for 10 generations in 22 lines of T. californicus from six populations. Then, for each line, we measured six fitness-related traits. Selected lines showed an overall increase in male and female body sizes, fecundity, and starvation resistance, …

Border Carbon Adjustment And International Trade: A Literature Review, Madison Condon, Ada Ignaciuk

Faculty Scholarship

An important source of political opposition to measures aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) arises from concerns over their negative effects on the competitiveness of domestic firms, especially those that are energy-intensive and exposed to competition from foreign producers. Politicians and industry representatives alike fear that imports from countries without similar regulations can gain cost-of-production advantages over domestic goods. With many of the major economies of the world contemplating unilateral action to restrict their carbon emissions (while continuing to pursue co-ordinated multilateral action), the parallel concern of carbon leakage — whereby domestic reductions in emissions are partially or …

There's A Pattern Here: The Case To Integrate Environmental Security Into Homeland Security Strategy, James D. Ramsay

Applied Aviation Sciences - Daytona Beach

The time is long overdue to acknowledge that global climate and resource stresses, encompassed by the concept of environmental security (ES), are an increasingly important part of "homeland" security (HS) study and practice, by even the most restricted definitions of HS. Environmental security issues will affect global economic and political stability, US national interests, and the risk of war and terrorism. Just as homeland security encompasses many complex issues and interconnected subfields, environmental security (ES) is interdisciplinary by nature. In essence, ES is an emergent discipline borrowing from a combination of environmental studies — which decades ago integrated environmental science …

The Consciousness Of Water: Narrative Flows, Environmental Change, And The Voice Of Yemen, Tricia Nellessen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Icebergs are melting in the Arctic. The Gulf of Mexico is warming and producing hurricanes such as Katrina. The delta of the southern United States is drying. And, Yemen will be the first country in modern history to experience a lack of accessible ground water, as soon as 2017 possibly. Yemen's situation has been tracked by scholars and governments since the 1960s. Despite this fact, cities have expanded in Yemen and the population has increased its use of water while little has been invested in desalination or infrastructure to offset growth. Climate change has affected humans for thousands of years; …

Land Use And Land Cover Dynamics Under Climate Change In Urbanizing Intermountain West: A Case Study From Cache County, Utah, Enjie Li

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Climate change is tightly linked with urbanization. Urban development with increasing greenhouse gas emission worsens climate change, while climate change in turn influence hydroclimate and ecosystem functions, and indirectly affect urban systems. The Intermountain West is experiencing rapid urban growth, climate change interacting with urbanization poses new challenges to the Intermountain West. Urban planning needs to adapt to these new changes and constrains, and to develop new tools and plans to effectively respond to climate changes. An urban growth model SLEUTH is applied to predict the future urban growth and land use dynamics in the Intermountain west, using Cache County …

Disclosing Climate Change Patterns Using An Adaptive Markov Chain Pattern Detection Method, Zhaoxia Wang, Gary Lee, Hoong Maeng Chan, Reuben Li, Xiuju Fu, Rick Goh, Pauline A. W. Poh Kim, Martin L. Hibberd, Hoong Chor Chin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes an adaptive Markov chain pattern detection (AMCPD) method for disclosing the climate change patterns of Singapore through meteorological data mining. Meteorological variables, including daily mean temperature, mean dew point temperature, mean visibility, mean wind speed, maximum sustained wind speed, maximum temperature and minimum temperature are simultaneously considered for identifying climate change patterns in this study. The results depict various weather patterns from 1962 to 2011 in Singapore, based on the records of the Changi Meteorological Station. Different scenarios with varied cluster thresholds are employed for testing the sensitivity of the proposed method. The robustness of the proposed …

The Effects Of Changes In Climate And Other Environmental Factors On Permafrost Evolution, Elchin Jafarov

Geosciences

Permafrost is a product of a past colder climate. It underlies most of the terrestrial Arctic, where it influences landscape hydrology, biogeochemical environments and human activity. The current thermal regime of permafrost is mediated by different environmental factors, including snow, topography, vegetation and soil texture. The dependence of permafrost on these factors greatly complicates the modeling of permafrost dynamics. Accurate modeling of these dynamics, however, is critical for evaluating potential impacts of climate change on permafrost stability. The objectives of this study were to a) improve modeling of ground temperature during snow season; b) analyze the effects of post-fire environmental …

Seven Principles For Equitable Adaptation, Alice Kaswan

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Clark Magazine, Spring 2013, Clark University

Clark Magazine

The Spring 2013 edition of Clark Magazine. Clark Magazine is a twice-yearly publication primarily geared towards Clark University Alumni.

The cover story is 'From Sea to Rising Sea: From the Arctic Circle to the Yucatan Peninsula, from the frigid seas of Siberia to the scorched forests of Colorado and in their labs and classrooms, Clark researchers are meeting the challenge of global climate change with a perfect storm of scientific rigor, moral conviction, and urgency'.

Helping Connecticut Towns Plan For Climate Change, Juliana Barrett, Jennifer Pagach

Wrack Lines

A NOAA Climate Change Adaptation Training Workshop helps Connecticut towns plan ahead.