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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Optimization Of Over-Summer Snow Storage At Midlatitudes And Low Elevation, Hannah S. Weiss, Paul R. Bierman, Yves Dubief, Scott D. Hamshaw Dec 2019

Optimization Of Over-Summer Snow Storage At Midlatitudes And Low Elevation, Hannah S. Weiss, Paul R. Bierman, Yves Dubief, Scott D. Hamshaw

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change, including warmer winter temperatures, a shortened snowfall season, and more rain-on-snow events, threatens nordic skiing as a sport. In response, oversummer snow storage, attempted primarily using woodchips as a cover material, has been successfully employed as a climate change adaptation strategy by high-elevation and/or high-latitude ski centers in Europe and Canada. Such storage has never been attempted at a site that is both low elevation and midlatitude, and few studies have quantified storage losses repeatedly through the summer. Such data, along with tests of different cover strategies, are prerequisites to optimizing snow storage strategies. Here, we assess the …


The Northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet During The Early Pleistocene Was Similar To Today, Andrew J. Christ, Paul R. Bierman, Paul C. Knutz, Lee B. Corbett, Julie C. Fosdick, Elizabeth K. Thomas, Owen C. Cowling, Alan J. Hidy, Marc W. Caffee Dec 2019

The Northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet During The Early Pleistocene Was Similar To Today, Andrew J. Christ, Paul R. Bierman, Paul C. Knutz, Lee B. Corbett, Julie C. Fosdick, Elizabeth K. Thomas, Owen C. Cowling, Alan J. Hidy, Marc W. Caffee

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

The multi-million year history of the Greenland Ice Sheet remains poorly known. Ice-proximal glacial marine diamict provides a direct but discontinuous record of ice sheet behavior; it is underutilized as a climate archive. Here, we present a novel multiproxy analysis of an Early Pleistocene marine diamict from northwestern Greenland. Low cosmogenic nuclide concentrations indicate minimal near-surface exposure, similar to modern terrestrial sediment. Detrital apatite (U-Th-Sm)/He (AHe) ages all predate glaciation by >150 million years, suggesting the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet had, by 1.9 Ma, not yet incised fjords of sufficient depth to excavate grains with young AHe ages. The diamict …


Water Quality Improvements Offset The Climatic Debt For Stream Macroinvertebrates Over Twenty Years, Ian P. Vaughan, Nicholas J. Gotelli Dec 2019

Water Quality Improvements Offset The Climatic Debt For Stream Macroinvertebrates Over Twenty Years, Ian P. Vaughan, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Many species are accumulating climatic debt as they fail to keep pace with increasing global temperatures. In theory, concomitant decreases in other stressors (e.g. pollution, fragmentation) could offset some warming effects, paying climatic debt with accrued environmental credit. This process may be occurring in many western European rivers. We fit a Markov chain model to ~20,000 macroinvertebrate samples from England and Wales, and demonstrate that despite large temperature increases 1991–2011, macroinvertebrate communities remained close to their predicted equilibrium with environmental conditions. Using a novel analysis of multiple stressors, an accumulated climatic debt of 0.64 (±0.13 standard error) °C of warming …


Sustainablewell-Being Challenge: A Student-Centered Pedagogical Tool Linking Human Well-Being To Ecological Flourishing, Christine Vatovec, Haley Ferrer Dec 2019

Sustainablewell-Being Challenge: A Student-Centered Pedagogical Tool Linking Human Well-Being To Ecological Flourishing, Christine Vatovec, Haley Ferrer

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Human behavioral change is necessary if we wish to evolve into a more sustainable human society, but change is hard, especially given that many people equate environmentalism with personal sacrifice. This paper highlights a semester-long assignment in which undergraduate students examined five behaviors that claim to increase happiness with minimal ecological footprints. We used mixed methods to analyze students' self-reported positive and negative affect scores before and after completing each of the five activities, along with descriptions of the carbon footprint of each activity and student self-reflections on whether each challenge promoted "sustainability". Results indicated that students' positive affect increased …


Making Trees Count: Measurement And Reporting Of Agroforestry In Unfccc National Communications Of Non-Annex I Countries, Todd S. Rosenstock, Andreas Wilkes, Courtney Jallo, Nictor Namoi, Medha Bulusu, Marta Suber, Damaris Mboi, Rachmat Mulia, Elisabeth Simelton, Meryl Richards, Noel Gurwick, Eva Wollenberg Nov 2019

Making Trees Count: Measurement And Reporting Of Agroforestry In Unfccc National Communications Of Non-Annex I Countries, Todd S. Rosenstock, Andreas Wilkes, Courtney Jallo, Nictor Namoi, Medha Bulusu, Marta Suber, Damaris Mboi, Rachmat Mulia, Elisabeth Simelton, Meryl Richards, Noel Gurwick, Eva Wollenberg

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Agroforestry—the integration of trees with crops and livestock—generates many benefits directly relevant to the UNFCCC's Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, including: (i) building resilience, (ii) increasing soil carbon and improving soil health, (iii) providing fodder and shade for sustainable livestock production and (iv) diversifying human diets and economic opportunities. Despite its significance to the climate agenda, agroforestry may not be included in measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems under the UNFCCC. Here we report on a first appraisal of how agroforestry is treated in national MRV systems under the UNFCCC. We examined national communications (NCs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) …


Soil Aggregates As A Source Of Dissolved Organic Carbon To Streams: An Experimental Study On The Effect Of Solution Chemistry On Water Extractable Carbon, Malayika M. Cincotta, Julia N. Perdrial, Aaron Shavitz, Arianna Libenson, Maxwell Landsman-Gerjoi, Nicolas Perdrial, Jesse Armfield, Thomas Adler, James B. Shanley Nov 2019

Soil Aggregates As A Source Of Dissolved Organic Carbon To Streams: An Experimental Study On The Effect Of Solution Chemistry On Water Extractable Carbon, Malayika M. Cincotta, Julia N. Perdrial, Aaron Shavitz, Arianna Libenson, Maxwell Landsman-Gerjoi, Nicolas Perdrial, Jesse Armfield, Thomas Adler, James B. Shanley

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, headwater streams of the northern hemisphere have shown increased amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), coinciding with decreased acid deposition. The exact nature of the mechanistic link between precipitation composition and stream water DOC is still widely debated in the literature. We hypothesize that soil aggregates are the main source of stream water DOC and that DOC release is greater in organic rich, riparian soils vs. hillslope soils. To test these hypotheses, we collected soils from two main landscape positions (hillslope and riparian zones) from the acid-impacted Sleepers River Research Watershed in northeastern Vermont. We …


Designing A Global Mechanism For Intergovernmental Biodiversity Financing, Nils Droste, Joshua Farley, Irene Ring, Peter H. May, Taylor H. Ricketts Nov 2019

Designing A Global Mechanism For Intergovernmental Biodiversity Financing, Nils Droste, Joshua Farley, Irene Ring, Peter H. May, Taylor H. Ricketts

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

The Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol display a broad international consensus for biodiversity conservation and equitable benefit sharing. Yet, the Aichi biodiversity targets show a lack of progress and thus indicate a need for additional action such as enhanced and better targeted financial resource mobilization. To date, no global financial burden-sharing instrument has been proposed. Developing a global-scale financial mechanism to support biodiversity conservation through intergovernmental transfers, we simulate three allocation designs: ecocentric, socioecological, and anthropocentric. We analyze the corresponding incentives needed to reach the Aichi target of terrestrial protected area coverage by 2020. Here we show …


Payment For Ecosystem Services: Incentives To Support Environmental Quality & Farming In Vermont, Stephen Posner, Taylor Ricketts, Eric Roy Oct 2019

Payment For Ecosystem Services: Incentives To Support Environmental Quality & Farming In Vermont, Stephen Posner, Taylor Ricketts, Eric Roy

Reports and Policy Briefs

Environmental quality is an ongoing concern in the Lake Champlain Basin. Vermont farmers are in a unique position to manage land in a way that maintains and improves environmental quality. A payment for ecosystem services (PES) program for Vermont would both support the economic vi- ability of Vermont farms and incentivize farmers to improve water quality and soil health. How- ever, conceptual and practical implementation challenges remain.


Green Infrastructure Solutions To Health Impacts Of Climate Change: Perspectives Of Affected Residents In Detroit, Michigan, Usa, Christine Carmichael, Cecilia Danks, Christine Vatovec Oct 2019

Green Infrastructure Solutions To Health Impacts Of Climate Change: Perspectives Of Affected Residents In Detroit, Michigan, Usa, Christine Carmichael, Cecilia Danks, Christine Vatovec

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Cities worldwide are incorporating green infrastructure to mitigate climate change and achieve health cobenefits. However, green infrastructure projects are often distributed inequitably based on race and class. Residents' perspectives are necessary to develop and enact effective and equitable 'green' strategies to address climate change and its health impacts. This study reports findings from interviews and ethnographic observations with diverse residents of Detroit, Michigan, USA, who have experience with both green infrastructure projects and intense weather events (flooding). Residents expressed widespread support for green infrastructure solutions, while also sharing concerns about unintended health consequences from unsatisfactory governance of green spaces and …


Loving The Mess: Navigating Diversity And Conflict In Social Values For Sustainability, Jasper O. Kenter, Christopher M. Raymond, Carena J. Van Riper, Elaine Azzopardi, Michelle R. Brear, Fulvia Calcagni, Ian Christie, Michael Christie, Anne Fordham, Rachelle K. Gould, Christopher D. Ives, Adam P. Hejnowicz, Richard Gunton, Andra Ioana Horcea-Milcu, Dave Kendal, Jakub Kronenberg, Julian R. Massenberg, Seb O’Connor, Neil Ravenscroft, Andrea Rawluk, Ivan J. Raymond, Jorge Rodríguez-Morales, Samarthia Thankappan Sep 2019

Loving The Mess: Navigating Diversity And Conflict In Social Values For Sustainability, Jasper O. Kenter, Christopher M. Raymond, Carena J. Van Riper, Elaine Azzopardi, Michelle R. Brear, Fulvia Calcagni, Ian Christie, Michael Christie, Anne Fordham, Rachelle K. Gould, Christopher D. Ives, Adam P. Hejnowicz, Richard Gunton, Andra Ioana Horcea-Milcu, Dave Kendal, Jakub Kronenberg, Julian R. Massenberg, Seb O’Connor, Neil Ravenscroft, Andrea Rawluk, Ivan J. Raymond, Jorge Rodríguez-Morales, Samarthia Thankappan

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas …


Policy Options To Streamline The Carbon Market For Agricultural Nitrous Oxide Emissions, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah Waterhouse, Robert Parkhurst, Eileen L. Mclellan, Sara Kroopf Aug 2019

Policy Options To Streamline The Carbon Market For Agricultural Nitrous Oxide Emissions, Meredith T. Niles, Hannah Waterhouse, Robert Parkhurst, Eileen L. Mclellan, Sara Kroopf

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The majority of emissions of nitrous oxide – a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) – are from agricultural sources, particularly nitrogen fertilizer applications. A growing focus on these emission sources has led to the development in the United States of GHG offset protocols that could enable payment to farmers for reducing fertilizer use or implementing other nitrogen management strategies. Despite the development of several protocols, the current regional scope is narrow, adoption by farmers is low, and policy implementation of protocols has a significant time lag. Here we utilize existing research and policy structures to propose an ‘umbrella’ approach for nitrogen …


An Analog Approach For Weather Estimation Using Climate Projections And Reanalysis Data, Patrick J. Clemins, Gabriela Bucini, Jonathan M. Winter, Brian Beckage, Erin Towler, Alan Betts, Rory Cummings, Henrique Chang Queiroz Aug 2019

An Analog Approach For Weather Estimation Using Climate Projections And Reanalysis Data, Patrick J. Clemins, Gabriela Bucini, Jonathan M. Winter, Brian Beckage, Erin Towler, Alan Betts, Rory Cummings, Henrique Chang Queiroz

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

General circulation models (GCMs) are essential for projecting future climate; however, despite the rapid advances in their ability to simulate the climate system at increasing spatial resolution, GCMs cannot capture the local and regional weather dynamics necessary for climate impacts assessments. Temperature and precipitation, for which dense observational records are available, can be bias corrected and downscaled, but many climate impacts models require a larger set of variables such as relative humidity, cloud cover, wind speed and direction, and solar radiation. To address this need, we develop and demonstrate an analog-based approach, which we call a ‘‘weather estimator.’’ The weather …


Late Quaternary Tectonics, Incision, And Landscape Evolution Of The Calchaquí River Catchment, Eastern Cordillera, Nw Argentina, James A. Mccarthy, Lindsay M. Schoenbohm, Paul R. Bierman, Dylan Rood, Alan J. Hidy Aug 2019

Late Quaternary Tectonics, Incision, And Landscape Evolution Of The Calchaquí River Catchment, Eastern Cordillera, Nw Argentina, James A. Mccarthy, Lindsay M. Schoenbohm, Paul R. Bierman, Dylan Rood, Alan J. Hidy

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Unraveling the relative impacts of climate, tectonics, and lithology on landscape evolution is complicated by the temporal and spatial scale over which observations are made. We use soil and desert pavement classification, longitudinal river profiles, 10Be-derived catchment mean modern and paleo-erosion rates, and vertical incision rates to test whether, if we restrict our analyses to a spatial scale over which climate is relatively invariant, tectonic and lithologic factors will dominate the late Quaternary landscape evolution of the Calchaquí River Catchment, NW Argentina. We find that the spatial distribution of erosion rates, normalized channel steepness indices, and concavity indices reflect active …


Engaging Policy In Science Writing: Patterns And Strategies, J. B. Ruhl, Stephen M. Posner, Taylor H. Ricketts Aug 2019

Engaging Policy In Science Writing: Patterns And Strategies, J. B. Ruhl, Stephen M. Posner, Taylor H. Ricketts

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Many scientific researchers aspire to engage policy in their writing, but translating scientific research and findings into policy discussion often requires an understanding of the institutional complexities of legal and policy processes and actors. To examine how researchers have undertaken that challenge, we developed a set of metrics and applied them to articles published in one of the principal academic publication venues for science and policy—Science magazine’s Policy Forum. We reviewed each Policy Forum article published over a five-year period (2011–15), 220 in all. For each article, we assessed the level of policy content based on presence of a stated …


Aligning Evidence Generation And Use Across Health, Development, And Environment, Heather Tallis, Katharine Kreis, Lydia Olander, Claudia Ringler, David Ameyaw, Mark E. Borsuk, Diana Fletschner, Edward Game, Daniel O. Gilligan, Marc Jeuland, Gina Kennedy, Yuta J. Masuda, Sumi Mehta, Nicholas Miller, Megan Parker, Carmel Pollino, Julie Rajaratnam, David Wilkie, Wei Zhang, Selena Ahmed, Oluyede C. Ajayi, Harold Alderman, George Arhonditsis, Ines Azevedo, Ruchi Badola, Rob Bailis, Patricia Balvanera, Emily Barbour, Mark Bardini, David N. Barton, Jill Baumgartner Aug 2019

Aligning Evidence Generation And Use Across Health, Development, And Environment, Heather Tallis, Katharine Kreis, Lydia Olander, Claudia Ringler, David Ameyaw, Mark E. Borsuk, Diana Fletschner, Edward Game, Daniel O. Gilligan, Marc Jeuland, Gina Kennedy, Yuta J. Masuda, Sumi Mehta, Nicholas Miller, Megan Parker, Carmel Pollino, Julie Rajaratnam, David Wilkie, Wei Zhang, Selena Ahmed, Oluyede C. Ajayi, Harold Alderman, George Arhonditsis, Ines Azevedo, Ruchi Badola, Rob Bailis, Patricia Balvanera, Emily Barbour, Mark Bardini, David N. Barton, Jill Baumgartner

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Although health, development, and environment challenges are interconnected, evidence remains fractured across sectors due to methodological and conceptual differences in research and practice. Aligned methods are needed to support Sustainable Development Goal advances and similar agendas. The Bridge Collaborative, an emergent research-practice collaboration, presents principles and recommendations that help harmonize methods for evidence generation and use. Recommendations were generated in the context of designing and evaluating evidence of impact for interventions related to five global challenges (stabilizing the global climate, making food production sustainable, decreasing air pollution and respiratory disease, improving sanitation and water security, and solving hunger and malnutrition) …


The Climate Sensitivity Of Carbon, Timber, And Species Richness Covaries With Forest Age In Boreal–Temperate North America, Dominik Thom, Marina Golivets, Laura Edling, Garrett W. Meigs, Jesse D. Gourevitch, Laura J. Sonter, Gillian L. Galford, William S. Keeton Jul 2019

The Climate Sensitivity Of Carbon, Timber, And Species Richness Covaries With Forest Age In Boreal–Temperate North America, Dominik Thom, Marina Golivets, Laura Edling, Garrett W. Meigs, Jesse D. Gourevitch, Laura J. Sonter, Gillian L. Galford, William S. Keeton

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Climate change threatens the provisioning of forest ecosystem services and biodiversity (ESB). The climate sensitivity of ESB may vary with forest development from young to old-growth conditions as structure and composition shift over time and space. This study addresses knowledge gaps hindering implementation of adaptive forest management strategies to sustain ESB. We focused on a number of ESB indicators to (a) analyze associations among carbon storage, timber growth rate, and species richness along a forest development gradient; (b) test the sensitivity of these associations to climatic changes; and (c) identify hotspots of climate sensitivity across the boreal–temperate forests of eastern …


Optimizing Wetland Restoration To Improve Water Quality At A Regional Scale, Nitin K. Singh, Jesse D. Gourevitch, Beverley C. Wemple, Keri B. Watson, Donna M. Rizzo, Stephen Polasky, Taylor H. Ricketts May 2019

Optimizing Wetland Restoration To Improve Water Quality At A Regional Scale, Nitin K. Singh, Jesse D. Gourevitch, Beverley C. Wemple, Keri B. Watson, Donna M. Rizzo, Stephen Polasky, Taylor H. Ricketts

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. Excessive phosphorus (P) export to aquatic ecosystems can lead to impaired water quality. There is a growing interest among watershed managers in using restored wetlands to retain P from agricultural landscapes and improve water quality. We develop a novel framework for prioritizing wetland restoration at a regional scale. The framework uses an ecosystem service model and an optimization algorithm that maximizes P reduction for given levels of restoration cost. Applying our framework in the Lake Champlain Basin, we find that wetland restoration can reduce P export by 2.6% for a budget of $50 M and …


Optimizing Wetland Restoration To Improve Water Quality At A Regional Scale, Nitin K. Singh, Jesse D. Gourevitch, Beverley C. Wemple, Keri B. Watson, Donna M. Rizzo, Stephen Polasky, Taylor H. Ricketts May 2019

Optimizing Wetland Restoration To Improve Water Quality At A Regional Scale, Nitin K. Singh, Jesse D. Gourevitch, Beverley C. Wemple, Keri B. Watson, Donna M. Rizzo, Stephen Polasky, Taylor H. Ricketts

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Excessive phosphorus (P) export to aquatic ecosystems can lead to impaired water quality. There is a growing interest among watershed managers in using restored wetlands to retain P from agricultural landscapes and improve water quality. We develop a novel framework for prioritizing wetland restoration at a regional scale. The framework uses an ecosystem service model and an optimization algorithm that maximizes P reduction for given levels of restoration cost. Applying our framework in the Lake Champlain Basin, we find that wetland restoration can reduce P export by 2.6% for a budget of $50 M and 5.1% for a budget of …


A Comparative Analysis Of Governance And Leadership In Agricultural Development Policy Networks, Jessica Rudnick, Meredith Niles, Mark Lubell, Laura Cramer May 2019

A Comparative Analysis Of Governance And Leadership In Agricultural Development Policy Networks, Jessica Rudnick, Meredith Niles, Mark Lubell, Laura Cramer

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Agricultural development initiatives feature many public and private organizations working together across sectors and scales to pursue the goals of food security and climate resilience. Policy networks are considered a crucial ingredient for the learning and cooperation needed to effectively implement agricultural development projects and increase community resiliency, yet very little comparative empirical data has been collected to assess where and how these networks operate. We contribute to filling this gap by characterizing the governance and leadership patterns within agricultural development policy networks that connect organizations working on climate resilience and food security activities in 14 smallholder farming communities across …


Electricity Rates For The Zero Marginal Cost Grid, Helen Lo, Seth Blumsack, Paul Hines, Sean Meyn Apr 2019

Electricity Rates For The Zero Marginal Cost Grid, Helen Lo, Seth Blumsack, Paul Hines, Sean Meyn

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

The electricity industry is rapidly changing: costs are increasingly dominated by capital and technology is turning loads into resources. This is similar to the early days of the Internet. Building on rate-structures used in the communications industry, utilities of the future should offer customers a portfolio of service contract options that provide a signal to the utility regarding the type and amount of infrastructure that should be deployed.


Ecological Drift And Competitive Interactions Predict Unique Patterns In Temporal Fluctuations Of Population Size, Werner Ulrich, Radosław Puchałka, Marcin Koprowski, Giovanni Strona, Nicholas J. Gotelli Apr 2019

Ecological Drift And Competitive Interactions Predict Unique Patterns In Temporal Fluctuations Of Population Size, Werner Ulrich, Radosław Puchałka, Marcin Koprowski, Giovanni Strona, Nicholas J. Gotelli

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Recent studies have highlighted the importance of higher-order competitive interactions in stabilizing population dynamics in multi-species communities. But how does the structure of competitive hierarchies affect population dynamics and extinction processes? We tackled this important question by using spatially explicit simulations of ecological drift (10 species in a homogeneous landscape of 64 patches) in which birth rates were influenced by interspecific competition. Specifically, we examined how transitive (linear pecking orders) and intransitive (pecking orders with loops) competitive hierarchies affected extinction rates and population dynamics in simulated communities through time. In comparison to a pure neutral model, an ecological drift model …


Tracking Microhabitat Temperature Variation With Ibutton Data Loggers, Susan Fawcett, Seeta Sistla, Manny Dacosta-Calheiros, Abdullah Kahraman, Anton A. Reznicek, Rachel Rosenberg, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg Apr 2019

Tracking Microhabitat Temperature Variation With Ibutton Data Loggers, Susan Fawcett, Seeta Sistla, Manny Dacosta-Calheiros, Abdullah Kahraman, Anton A. Reznicek, Rachel Rosenberg, Eric J.B. Von Wettberg

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Applications in Plant Sciences is published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of the Botanical Society of America Premise of the Study: Fine-scale variation in temperature and soil moisture contribute to microhabitats across the landscape, affecting plant phenology, distribution, and fitness. The recent availability of compact and inexpensive temperature and humidity data loggers such as iButtons has facilitated research on microclimates. Methods and Results: Here, we highlight the use of iButtons in three distinct settings: comparisons of empirical data to modeled climate data for rare rock ferns in the genus Asplenium in eastern North America; generation of fine-scale data to …


Pace And Process Of Active Folding And Fluvial Incision Across The Kantishna Hills Anticline, Central Alaska, A. M. Bender, R. O. Lease, P. J. Haeussler, T. Rittenour, L. B. Corbett, P. R. Bierman, M. W. Caffee Mar 2019

Pace And Process Of Active Folding And Fluvial Incision Across The Kantishna Hills Anticline, Central Alaska, A. M. Bender, R. O. Lease, P. J. Haeussler, T. Rittenour, L. B. Corbett, P. R. Bierman, M. W. Caffee

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Rates of northern Alaska Range thrust system deformation are poorly constrained. Shortening at the system's west end is focused on the Kantishna Hills anticline. Where the McKinley River cuts across the anticline, the landscape records both Late Pleistocene deformation and climatic change. New optically stimulated luminescence and cosmogenic 10Be depth profile dates of three McKinley River terrace levels (~22, ~18, and ~14–9 ka) match independently determined ages of local glacial maxima, consistent with climate-driven terrace formation. Terrace ages quantify rates of differential bedrock incision, uplift, and shortening based on fault depth inferred from microseismicity. Differential rock uplift and incision (≤1.4 …


Seeing Is Not Always Believing: Crop Loss And Climate Change Perceptions Among Farm Advisors, Meredith T. Niles, Sarah Wiener, Rachel E. Schattman, Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally, Julian Reyes Mar 2019

Seeing Is Not Always Believing: Crop Loss And Climate Change Perceptions Among Farm Advisors, Meredith T. Niles, Sarah Wiener, Rachel E. Schattman, Gabrielle Roesch-Mcnally, Julian Reyes

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

As climate change is expected to significantly affect agricultural systems globally, agricultural farm advisors have been increasingly recognized as an important resource in helping farmers address these challenges. While there have been many studies exploring the climate change belief and risk perceptions as well as behaviors of both farmers and agricultural farm advisors, there are very few studies that have explored how these perceptions relate to actual climate impacts in agriculture. Here we couple survey data from United States Department of Agriculture farm service employees (n = 6, 514) with historical crop loss data across the United States to explore …


Can Nature Deliver On The Sustainable Development Goals?, Brendan Fisher, Diego Herrera, Diane Adams, Helen E. Fox, Louise Gallagher, Drew Gerkey, David Gill, Christopher D. Golden, David Hole, Kiersten Johnson, Mark Mulligan, Samuel S. Myers, Robin Naidoo, Alexander Pfaff, Ranaivo Rasolofoson, Elizabeth R. Selig, David Tickner, Timothy Treuer, Taylor Ricketts Mar 2019

Can Nature Deliver On The Sustainable Development Goals?, Brendan Fisher, Diego Herrera, Diane Adams, Helen E. Fox, Louise Gallagher, Drew Gerkey, David Gill, Christopher D. Golden, David Hole, Kiersten Johnson, Mark Mulligan, Samuel S. Myers, Robin Naidoo, Alexander Pfaff, Ranaivo Rasolofoson, Elizabeth R. Selig, David Tickner, Timothy Treuer, Taylor Ricketts

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Food And Earth Systems: Priorities For Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation For Agriculture And Food Systems, Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Bruce M. Campbell, Peter J.M. Cooper, James W. Hansen, Todd Rosenstock, Eva Wollenberg Mar 2019

Food And Earth Systems: Priorities For Climate Change Adaptation And Mitigation For Agriculture And Food Systems, Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Bruce M. Campbell, Peter J.M. Cooper, James W. Hansen, Todd Rosenstock, Eva Wollenberg

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Human activities and their relation with land, through agriculture and forestry, are significantly impacting Earth system functioning. Specifically, agriculture has increasingly become a key sector for adaptation and mitigation initiatives that address climate change and help ensure food security for a growing global population. Climate change and agricultural outcomes influence our ability to reach targets for at least seven of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. By 2015, 103 nations had committed themselves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, while 102 countries had prioritized agriculture in their adaptation agenda. Adaptation and mitigation actions within agriculture still receive insufficient support across …


Deliberation And The Promise Of A Deeply Democratic Sustainability Transition, Michael B. Wironen, Robert V. Bartlett, Jon D. Erickson Feb 2019

Deliberation And The Promise Of A Deeply Democratic Sustainability Transition, Michael B. Wironen, Robert V. Bartlett, Jon D. Erickson

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Ecological economics arose as a normative transdiscipline aiming to generate knowledge and tools to help transition the economy toward a scale which is sustainable within the bounds of the earth system. Yet it remains unclear in practice how to legitimize its explicitly normative agenda. One potential means for legitimation can be found in deliberative social and political theory. We review how deliberative theory has informed ecological economics, pointing to three uses: first, to support valuation of non-market goods and services; second, to inform environmental decision-making more broadly; third, to ground alternative theories of development and wellbeing. We argue that deliberation …


Does Stream Water Composition At Sleepers River In Vermont Reflect Dynamic Changes In Soils During Recovery From Acidification?, Jesse R. Armfield, Julia N. Perdrial, Alex Gagnon, Jack Ehrenkranz, Nicolas Perdrial, Malayika Cincotta, Donald Ross, James B. Shanley, Kristen L. Underwood, Peter Ryan Feb 2019

Does Stream Water Composition At Sleepers River In Vermont Reflect Dynamic Changes In Soils During Recovery From Acidification?, Jesse R. Armfield, Julia N. Perdrial, Alex Gagnon, Jack Ehrenkranz, Nicolas Perdrial, Malayika Cincotta, Donald Ross, James B. Shanley, Kristen L. Underwood, Peter Ryan

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Stream water pH and composition are widely used to monitor ongoing recovery from the deposition of strong anthropogenic acids in many forested headwater catchments in the northeastern United States. However, stream water composition is a function of highly complex and coupled processes, flowpaths, and variations in soil and bedrock composition. Spatial heterogeneity is especially pronounced in headwater catchments with steep topography, potentially limiting stream water composition as an indicator of changes in critical zone (CZ) dynamics during system recovery. To investigate the link between catchment characteristics, landscape position, and stream water composition we used long-term data (1991–2015) from the Sleepers …


Social Media Usage Patterns During Natural Hazards, Meredith T. Niles, Benjamin F. Emery, Andrew J. Reagan, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth Feb 2019

Social Media Usage Patterns During Natural Hazards, Meredith T. Niles, Benjamin F. Emery, Andrew J. Reagan, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth

College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications

Natural hazards are becoming increasingly expensive as climate change and development are exposing communities to greater risks. Preparation and recovery are critical for climate change resilience, and social media are being used more and more to communicate before, during, and after disasters. While there is a growing body of research aimed at understanding how people use social media surrounding disaster events, most existing work has focused on a single disaster case study. In the present study, we analyze five of the costliest disasters in the last decade in the United States (Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, two sets of tornado outbreaks, …


Human And Natural Controls On Erosion In The Lower Jinsha River, China, Amanda H. Schmidt, Alison R. Denn, Alan J. Hidy, Paul R. Bierman, Ya Tang Feb 2019

Human And Natural Controls On Erosion In The Lower Jinsha River, China, Amanda H. Schmidt, Alison R. Denn, Alan J. Hidy, Paul R. Bierman, Ya Tang

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

The lower Jinsha River has the highest sediment yield rates of the entire Yangtze watershed; these high yields have previously been attributed to a mix of the local geologic setting as well as intensive human land use, particularly agriculture. Prior studies have not quantified long-term background rates of sediment generation, making it difficult to know if modern sediment yield is elevated relative to the long-term rate of sediment generation. Using in situ 10Be in detrital river sediments, we measured sediment generation rates for tributaries to the lower Jinsha River. We find that the ratio of modern sediment yield to long-term …