Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Ambientalismos De La Vida Cotidiana: Políticas De Coalición, Reproducción Social Y Justicia Ambiental, Giovanna Di Chiro

Environmental Studies Faculty Works

This paper examines the intersectional, coalition politics forged by activists in US environmental justice and women's rights organisations. This coalitional politics articulates environmental and feminist concerns and rejects the limitations of a narrow-focused politics in favour of a more strategic, relational vision of social and environmental change. Framed by the Marxist-feminist concept of “social reproduction”, the analysis addresses the complex ways that globalised capitalism has transformed state and corporate responsibilities for social reproduction. The neoliberal policies of privatisation and deregulation have eroded the assurance of a liveable wage, affordable healthcare, decent education, breathable air, and clean water. Drawing on several …

How Does Climate Change Affect Coral Reefs?, Rachel Goff

Honors Theses

Climate change is a very real phenomenon that currently affects many of the ecosystems on Earth. Climate change occurs on a global scale and can be very detrimental to different environments. This occurrence can cause ocean warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and increased storm intensity. According to the EPA, the ocean's temperature has increased 1.4°F over the past century, and sea levels have risen 3.2 millimeters through the past 20 years. These changes to the oceans can greatly affect many of the ecosystems that reside in them. One of the main ecosystems that are being affected by climate change …

Impacts Of Climate Changes On The Spatiotemporal Distribution Of Precipitation In The Western United States, Peng Jiang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Precipitation in the Intermountain West is characterized by its great variability in both spatial and temporal distributions. Moreover, the spatiotemporal distribution of the precipitation is changing due to the climate changes. In this dissertation, three studies are conducted to investigate the multi-scale temporal variability of precipitation, the performance of current climate models on this variability, the influence of large-scale ocean oscillations on heavy precipitation, and the impact of human induced global warming on storm properties.

The first study is to examine the performance of current climate models on the simulation of the multi-scale temporal variability determined from the observed station …

Mass Bays Resource Inventory: Summary And Findings From The Review Of Plans And Assessments, Urban Harbors Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Urban Harbors Institute Publications

The Massachusetts Bays Program (MBP) contracted with the Urban Harbors Institute (UHI) of the University of Massachusetts Boston to conduct a review of papers, presentations, reports, and other relevant material produced from 1996 (the last CCMP) to present, that might inform the MBP’s update of their Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP). The review focused on five topics identified as priority topics by the MBP: water quality, invasive species, climate change/vulnerability, continuity of estuarine habitat, and estuarine habitat protection in the geographic region of the Mass Bays Program, particularly the 47 nearshore estuaries and embayments identified in the 2012 MBP …

Assessing Growth Response To Climate Controls In A Great Basin Artemisia Tridentata Plant Community, Lorenzo F. Apodaca

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An assessment of the growth response of key vegetative species to climatic variability is vital to identifying possible local impacts on ecosystems faced with imminent climate change. With current climate projections in Nevada predicting a shift to an even more arid climate with greater year-to-year variability, the imperative exists to identify the effects of specific climatic controls on plant growth and to research methods to assess large-scale vegetative changes, especially in more remote areas where readily available data sets may be lacking. This study utilized annual growth ring indices constructed from big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentatassp.tridentata) stems collected in Spring Valley, …

Diatom Community Response To Climate Variability Over The Past 37,000 Years In The Sub-Tropics Of The Southern Hemisphere, Sarah Hembrow, Kathryn Taffs, Pia Atahan, Jeffrey Parr, Atun Zawadzki, Henk Heijnis

Jeffrey Parr

Climate change is impacting global surface water resources, increasing the need for a deeper understanding of the interaction between climate and biological diversity. This is particularly the case in the Southern Hemisphere sub-tropics, where little information exists on the aquatic biota response to climate variations. Palaeolimnological techniques, in particular the use of diatoms, are well established and can significantly contribute to the understanding of climatic variability and the impacts that change in climate have on aquatic ecosystems. A sediment core from Lake McKenzie, Fraser Island (Australia), was used to investigate interactions between climate influences and aquatic ecosystems. This study utilises …

Where To Find 1.5 Million Yr Old Ice For The Ipics "Oldest Ice" Ice Core, H. Fischer, J. Severinghaus, E. Brook, E. Wolff, M. Albert

Dartmouth Scholarship

Abstract. The recovery of a 1.5 million yr long ice core from Antarctica represents a keystone of our understanding of Quaternary climate, the progression of glaciation over this time period and the role of greenhouse gas cycles in this pro- gression. Here we tackle the question of where such ice may still be found in the Antarctic ice sheet. We can show that such old ice is most likely to exist in the plateau area of the East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS) without stratigraphic distur- bance and should be able to be recovered after careful pre- site selection studies. Based …

Agenda: Free, Prior And Informed Consent: Pathways For A New Millennium, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law. American Indian Law Program

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Pathways for a New Millennium (November 1)

Presented by the University of Colorado's American Indian Law Program and the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy & the Environment.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), along with treaties, instruments, and decisions of international law, recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to give "free, prior, and informed consent" to legislation and development affecting their lands, natural resources, and other interests, and to receive remedies for losses of property taken without such consent. With approximately 150 nations, including the United States, endorsing the UNDRIP, this requirement gives rise to emerging standards, obligations, and opportunities …

Global Change Factors On Ecosystem Invasibility, Raj Lal, Jeffrey Dukes, Michael J. Schuster, Nick G. Smith

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Current climate and human-induced changes are projected to alter many regimes of ecosystem functioning. It is projected that invasive species, nonnative species that can be of great detriment to an ecosystem, will benefit under these conditions. The Prairie Invasion and Climate Experiment (PRICLE) studies the effects of two global change factors – N addition and altered precipitation – on invasive species success and the traits that are selected for in a mixed-grass prairie ecosystem. PRICLE is a two by two factorial design over three replications in a restored mixed-grass prairie ecosystem. The major findings from the community traits examination of …

Identification Of Extreme Precipitation Threat Across Midlatitude Regions Based On Short-Wave Circulations, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Robert E. Davies, Robert R. Gillies

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The most severe thunderstorms, producing extreme precipitation, occur over subtropical and midlatitude regions. Atmospheric conditions conducive to organized, intense thunderstorms commonly involve the coupling of a low-level jet (LLJ) with a synoptic short wave. The midlatitude synoptic activity is frequently modulated by the circumglobal teleconnection (CGT), in which meridional gradients of the jet stream act as a guide for short Rossby waves. Previous research has linked extreme precipitation events with either the CGT or the LLJ but has not linked the two circulation features together. In this study, a circulation-based index was developed by combining (a) the degree of the …

Visiting Lecturer Will Link Public Health Risks To Climate Change, Public Affairs & News Bureau, Old Dominion University

News Items

No abstract provided.

Quantifying Risks Of Climate Change And Sea Level Rise To Naval Station Norfolk (Serdp Rc-1701), Kelly Burks-Copes

October 2, 2013: Quantifying Risks and Moving Forward

No abstract provided.

Quantifying Crop Yield, Bioenergy Production And Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cropland And Marginal Land Using A Model-Data Fusion Approach, Zhangcai Qin

Open Access Dissertations

Bioenergy is becoming increasingly attractive to many countries, but has sparked an intensive debate regarding energy, economy, society and environment. Biofuels provide alternative energy to conventional fossil fuels. However, the environmental impact of producing and using biofuel is a major concern to our society. This study is dedicated to quantifying and evaluating biofuel production and potential climate change mitigation due to potential large-scale bioenergy expansion in the conterminous United States, using model-data fusion approaches.

Biofuel made from conventional (e.g., maize (Zea mays L.)) and cellulosic crops (e.g., switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and Miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus)) …

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 …

Collaborative Research: Exploring A 2 Million + Year Ice Climate Archive-Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (2mbia), Andrei V. Kurbatov, Paul Andrew Mayewski

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to generate an absolute timescale for the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (BIA), and then to reconstruct details of past climate changes and greenhouse gas concentrations for certain time periods back to 2.5 Ma. Ice ages will be determined by applying emerging methods for absolute and relative dating of trapped air bubbles (based on Argon-40/Argon-38, delta-18O of O2, and the O2/N2 ratio). To demonstrate the potential of the Allan Hills BIAs as a paleoclimate archive trenches and ice cores will be collected for age intervals corresponding to 110-140 ka, 1 Ma, and 2.5 Ma. During …

Individual And Combined Effects Of Land Use/Cover And Climate Change On Wolf Bay Watershed Streamflow In Southern Alabama, Ruoyu Wang

Ruoyu Wang

Uncertainty In Climatic Change Impacts On Multiscale Watershed Systems, Olga V. Tsvetkova

Open Access Dissertations

Uncertainty in climate change plays a major role in watershed systems. The increase in variability and intensity in temperature and precipitation affects hydrologic cycle in spatial and temporal dimensions. Predicting uncertainty in climate change impacts on watershed systems can help to understand future climate-induced risk on watershed systems and is essential for designing policies for mitigation and adaptation. Modeling the temporal patterns of uncertainties is assessed in the New England region for temperature and precipitation patterns over a long term. The regional uncertainty is modeled using Python scripting and GIS to analyze spatial patterns of climate change uncertainties over space …

Evidence For 20th Century Climate Warming And Wetland Drying In The North American Prairie Pothole Region, Brett A. Werner, W. Carter Johnson, Glenn R. Guntenspergen

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America is a globally important resource that provides abundant and valuable ecosystem goods and services in the form of biodiversity, groundwater recharge, water purification, flood attenuation, and water and forage for agriculture. Numerous studies have found these wetlands, which number in the millions, to be highly sensitive to climate variability. Here, we compare wetland conditions between two 30-year periods (1946–1975; 1976–2005) using a hindcast simulation approach to determine if recent climate warming in the region has already resulted in changes in wetland condition. Simulations using the WETLANDSCAPE model show that 20th century climate …

Dynamical Downscaling Projections Of Twenty-First-Century Atlantic Hurricane Activity: Cmip3 And Cmip5 Model-Based Scenarios, Thomas R. Knutson, Joseph J. Sirutis, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Stephen Garner, Ming Zhao, Hyeong-Seog Kim, Morris Bender, Robert E. Tuleya, Isaac M. Held, Gabriele Villarini

CCPO Publications

Twenty-first-century projections of Atlantic climate change are downscaled to explore the robustness of potential changes in hurricane activity. Multimodel ensembles using the phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3)/Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A1B (SRES A1B; late-twenty-first century) and phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5)/representative concentration pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5; early- and late-twenty-first century) scenarios are examined. Ten individual CMIP3 models are downscaled to assess the spread of results among the CMIP3 (but not the CMIP5) models. Downscaling simulations are compared for 18-km grid regional and 50-km grid global models. Storm cases from the regional model …

The Effects Of Increasing Salinity On Exchange Processes In Coastal Lowland Acid Sulfate Soils, Vanessa Wong, Scott Johnston, Richard Bush, Leigh Sullivan, Edward Burton, Peter Slavich

Associate Professor Edward D Burton

10 coastal lowland acid sulfate soils (CLASS) from floodplains in eastern Australia were subjected to increasing seawater concentrations to determine the effects of exchange processes on metal desorption due to increasing ionic strength. Soils were subjected to one of six treatments; 0%, 10%, 20%, 50%, 80% or 100% seawater diluted in deionised water. pH decreased with increasing seawater concentration. In general, concentrations of Al, Cd, Fe2+ and Mn increased in soils sampled from levees, organic and mineral sulfuric horizons with increasing salinity. Increasing trace metal concentrations with increasing seawater concentration is attributed to both exchange processes and pH effects. The …

Collaborative Research: Globec Pan-Regional Synthesis: End-To-End Energy Budgets In Us-Globec Regions, Andrew C. Thomas

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

The research addresses the overarching question: are marine food webs leading to fisheries controlled from the top-down, the bottom up, or a combination of the two? To address this question we will (1) compare end-to-end energy budgets of the 4 US-GLOBEC study regions in the context of top-down v. bottom-up forcing, (2) assess the skills of the regional models in capturing basic material fluxes, (3) extract diagnostics from the regional models that will be used to evaluate the effects of climate change and fishing pressure across GLOBEC regions and (4) develop quantitative methods to compare the diagnostics. The major successes …

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) …

Circulation, Vol. 18, No. 3, Center For Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University, Tal Ezer, Larry P. Atkinson

CCPO Circulation

Summer 2013 issue of CCPO Circulation featuring article "The Connection Between Local Sea Level Rise, Climate Change and Ocean Circulation" by Tal Ezer and Larry P. Atkinson

The Connection Between Local Sea Level Rise, Climate Change And Ocean Circulation, Tal Ezer, Larry P. Atkinson

CCPO Publications

In recent years, Norfolk has become a symbol for a city that is already battling the impact of sea level rise (SLR). Street flooding during high tides (Fig. 1, left) is much more common now than in the past, and storm surges (Fig. 1, right) are more severe and last longer. Therefore, as part of Old Dominion University’s Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative (CCSLRI), CCPO scientists focus on studies that enhance our understanding of the causes of local SLR and improve our ability to predict future SLR. This information can help policy makers, insurers, city planners and other …

Old Dominion University Climate Change And Sea Level Rise Initiative, Summer 2013, Larry P. Atkinson (Editor), Hans-Peter Plag (Editor)

CCSLRI Newsletters

Summer 2013 Newsletter of the Old Dominion University Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative

Updating Maryland's Sea-Level Rise Projections, Donald F. Boesch, Larry P. Atkinson, William C. Boicourt, John D. Boon, Donald R. Cahoon, Robert A. Dalrymple, Tal Ezer, Benjamin P. Horton, Zoe P. Johnson, Robert E. Kopp, Ming Li, Richard H. Moss, Adam Parris, Christopher K. Sommerfield

CCPO Publications

With its 3,100 miles of tidal shoreline and low-lying rural and urban lands, "The Free State" is one of the most vulnerable to sea-level rise. Historically, Marylanders have long had to contend with rising water levels along its Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean and coastal bay shores. Shorelines eroded and low-relief lands and islands, some previously inhabited, were inundated. Prior to the 20th century, this was largely due to the slow sinking of the land since Earth’s crust is still adjusting to the melting of large masses of ice following the last glacial period. Over the 20th century, however, the …

Agriculture In A Water Scarce World, Allison Roberts, Amjad Assi, Bassel Daher, Men Li

Student Papers in Public Policy

According to the McKinsey report (2009), the world is facing a water scarcity challenge where agriculture is its predominant consumer. It accounts for approximately 3100 billion m³, or 71 percent of global water withdrawals today, and is expected to increase to 4500 billion m³ by 2030. This increase is due to a number of factors: growing population and the ever growing necessity to cater for its food needs, economic growth, the variability of precipitation trends and increase in global temperatures. In addition to the increase in water scarcity, the agricultural sector faces an enormous challenge of producing …

Slides: What Does Climate Change Mean For Cold Water Fisheries, Stan Bradshaw

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

1 page "Abstract" and 8 slides

Insights Into Spatial Sensitivities Of Ice Mass Response To Environmental Change From The Searise Ice Sheet Modeling Project I : Antarctica, Sophie Nowicki, Robert A. Bindschadler, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Andy Aschwanden, Ed Bueler, Hyeungu Choi, Jim Fastook, Glen Granzow, Ralf Greve, Gail Gutowski, Ute Herzfeld, Charles Jackson, Jesse Johnson, Constantine Khroulev, Eric Larour, Anders Levermann, William Lipscomb, Maria A. Martin, Mathieu Morlighem, Byron R. Parizek, David Pollard, Stephen F. Price, Diandong Ren, Eric Rignot, Fuyuki Saito, Tatsuru Sato, Hakime Seddik, Helene Seroussi, Kunio Takahashi, Ryan Walker, Wei Li Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Atmospheric, oceanic, and subglacial forcing scenarios from the Sea-level Response tovIce Sheet Evolution (SeaRISE) project are applied to six three-dimensional thermomechanical ice-sheet models to assess Antarctic ice sheet sensitivity over a 500 year timescale and to inform future modeling and field studies. Results indicate (i) growth with warming, except within low-latitude basins (where inland thickening is outpaced by marginal thinning); (ii) mass loss with enhanced sliding (with basins dominated by high driving stresses affected more than basins with low-surface-slope streaming ice); and (iii) mass loss with enhanced ice shelf melting (with changes in West Antarctica dominating the signal due to …

Slides: Is There A Dust Bowl In Our Future?: Projections For The Eastern Rockies And Central Great Plains, Dennis Ojima

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Dennis Ojima, Senior Research Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University (NREL/CSU)

30 slides