Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Ground Electric Field, Atmospheric Weather And Electric Grid Variations In Northeast Greece Influenced By The March 2012 Solar Activity And The Moderate To Intense Geomagnetic Storms, Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Anastasios Karkanis, Athanasios Kampatagis, Panagiotis Marhavilas, Sofia-Anna Menesidou, Dimitrios Efthymiadis, Stefanos Keskinis, Dimitar Ouzounov, Nick Hatzigeorgiu, Michael Danakis

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In a recent paper, we extended a previous study on the solar solar influence to the generation of the March 2012 heatwave in the northeastern USA. In the present study we check the possible relationship of solar activity with the early March 2012 bad weather in northeast Thrace, Greece. To this end, we examined data from various remote sensing instrumentation monitoring the Sun (SDO satellite), Interplanetary space (ACE satellite), the Earth’s magnetosphere (Earth-based measurements, NOAA-19 satellite), the top of the clouds (Terra and Aqua satellites), and the near ground atmosphere. Our comparative data analysis suggests that: (i) the winter-like weather …

Yearly Population Data At Census Tract Level Revealed That More People Are Now Living In Highly Fire-Prone Zones In California, Usa, Slade Lazeweski, Shenyue Jia, Jessica E. Viner, Wesley Ho, Brian Hoover, Seung Hee Kim, Menas C. Kafatos

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

In California (CA), the wildland-urban interface (WUI) faces escalating challenges due to surging population and real estate development. This study evaluates communities along CA's WUI that have witnessed substantial population growth from 2010 to 2021, utilizing demographic data and the 2020 WUI boundaries by the University of Wisconsin-Madison SILVIS Lab. Employing the Mann-Kendall test, we analyze yearly population trends for each census tract along the CA WUI and assess their significance. House ownership, affordability, and wildfire risk are examined as potential drivers of this demographic shift. Our findings indicate that 12.7% of CA's total population now resides in census tracts …

Fauna, Flora, And Land Cover Changes Over The Last Two Decades In The Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, Gabriel De Oliveria, Steven R. Schultze, Guilherme Mataveli

Technical Reports

A technical report documenting ecosystem changes to the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta region due to urban expansion over approximately two decades (2001-2019).

Analysis And Assessment Of Land Use / Land Cover Impact On Human And Natural Ecosystems In The Salton Sea Watershed, 2013 - 2021, Diego Ramirez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study represents an interdisciplinary analysis of the changing landscape of the Salton Sea Watershed from 2013 to 2021, focusing on land use land cover (LULC) category changes, climatic variations, and socioeconomic factors. The findings of this research show a shift in land cover categories, portrayed by the changes of natural landscapes and vegetative areas into rapidly increasing urbanized expansion and increased impervious surfaces. These changes pose concerns about increased temperature in the region, a decrease in overall water availability and groundwater infiltration, and an increase in pollution. The study explores 10 sub-watersheds within the Salton Sea Watershed basin, focusing …

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 10 No. 2, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

Stephen J. Gould’s prophetic piece, “The Golden Rule: A Proper Scale for Our Environmental Crisis”, noted that, “Patience enjoys a long pedigree of favor”, which he elaborated, “usually involves a deep understanding of the fundamental principle… rarely grasped in daily life – the effects of scale.” Scientists observe changes incessantly, in dimensions and time, from microscopic conditions of cellular biology to the inconceivable distances of galaxies and their influences on Earth.

The Future Of Indiana’S Water Resources: A Report From The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Keith Cherkauer, Robert Barr, Laura C. Bowling, Kyuhyun Byun, Indrajeet Chaubey, Natalie Chin, Chun-Mei Chiu, Darren Ficklin, Alan Hamlet, Stephen Kines, Charlotte Lee, Ram Neupane, Garett Pignotti, Sanoar Rahman, Sarmistha Singh, Pandara Valappil Femeena, Tanja Williamson, Melissa Widhalm, Jeffrey Dukes

Water Report

This report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment (IN CCIA) applies climate change projections for the state to explore how continued changes in Indiana’s climate are going to affect all aspects of water resources, including soil water, evaporation, runoff, snow cover, streamflow, drought, and flooding. As local temperatures continue to rise and rainfall patterns shift, managing the multiple water needs of communities, natural systems, recreation, industry, and agriculture will become increasingly difficult. Ensuring that enough water is available in the right places and at the right times will require awareness of Indiana’s changing water resources and planning at regional …

Energy And Climate Change Issues Around Csudh, Alex E. Perez, Tara B. Jones, Raju Bista, Parveen K. Chhetri

CSU Journal of Sustainability and Climate Change

Climate change is posing significant challenges to California’s energy sector. Extreme weather events (heat and cold) may pressure existing infrastructure. Many studies have indicated that extreme climate events would impact the energy system by affecting peak electricity demand. However, very few studies have been conducted to understand how disadvantaged communities (DACs) will be impacted. Because of unequal access to energy infrastructure (electricity generation and battery storage), DACs are more vulnerable to power outages due to the rising number of significant weather events caused by climate change. To address the issue of how DACs are disproportionately affected by climate change-related energy …

Individual-Level Responses To Rapid Climate Change In Common Terns (Sterna Hirundo) And Arctic Terns (Sterna Paradisaea), Kaiulani A. Sund

Student Publications

This study examines fine-scale environmental changes and intraspecific variation in the diet and foraging behavior of two seabirds in the Gulf of Maine, one of the fastest-warming regions of the ocean. This variation on the individual level, or behavioral plasticity, may help long-lived species to persist in rapidly changing environments. As the water warms, seabirds’ preferred prey (hake and herring) follow cooler waters deeper and farther offshore. It is unlikely that all individuals respond to changing food availability in the same way. For common terns (Sterna hirundo) and Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) breeding on Petit Manan …

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 10 No. 1, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

New Year’s Day has always been, for me, a time to reflect and project into the near future. Nature’s influence on us all certainly tops my listing with several environmental concerns. For example, the frequency and intensity of hurricanes to Long Island. A decade has passed since Superstorm Sandy re-opened the “Old Inlet” on Long Island which now has mostly naturally closed. So, the new year immediately prompts me to assess the previous year’s Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 system, with winds exceeding 150 mph, which had considerable impact in Florida, and then proceeded north resulting in over 2 inches …

Carbon Sequestration Capacities Of Different Land Cover Types And Climate Change, Nicole L. Melnick, Annabel Gorman, Adam F. Warren

Student Publications

Human-caused climate change creates a positive feedback loop that emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of being sequestered in the Earth or its oceans. A major contributor to this feedback loop is deforestation in order to use land for agriculture and livestock. This study aims to investigate differences in carbon sequestration capabilities of forests, pastures, and cropland through soil and tree sampling in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The main hypothesis of this study is that forested land will be the most effective at carbon sequestration. The loss on ignition method (LOI) was used to determine the percent organic material in …

A Simulation Of The Impacts Of Climate Change On Civil Aircraft Takeoff Performance, Thomas D. Pellegrin

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Climate change affects the near-surface environmental conditions that prevail at airports worldwide. Among these, air density and headwind speed are major determinants of takeoff performance, and their sensitivity to global warming carries potential operational and economic implications for the commercial air transport industry. Previous archival and prospective research observed a weakening in headwind strength and predicted an increase in near-surface temperatures, respectively, resulting in an increase in takeoff distances and weight restrictions. The main purpose of the present study was to update and generalize the extant prospective research using a more representative sample of worldwide airports, a wider range of …

Climate Services: The Business Of Physical Risk, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

A growing number of investors, insurers, financial services providers, and nonprofits rely on information about localized physical climate risks, like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires. The outcomes of these risk projections have significant consequences in the economy, including allocating investment capital, impacting housing prices and demographic shifts, and prioritizing adaptation infrastructure projects. The climate risk information available to individual citizens and municipalities, however, is limited and expensive to access. Further, many providers of climate services use black box models that make overseeing the scientific rigor of their methodologies impossible— a concern given scientific critiques that many may be obfuscating the uncertainty …

Appendix 1. Database Of Eicat Impact Assessment Summaries For 169 Potential Sleeper Invasive Plants In The Northeast United States, Ayodelé C. O'Uhuru, Bethany A. Bradley, Toni Lyn Morelli, Justin Salva

Data and Datasets

Environmental Impacts Classification of Alien Taxa (EICAT) assessments for 169 introduced, established plants in the Northeast (states of CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT) that could become invasive with climate change.

Characterizing The Vegetation And Effects Of Climate Change On Parris Island, A Sea Island Ecosystem, Cody Hart Goodson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Coastal habitats provide many ecosystem services, protecting coastlines from storm surges and erosion, diminishing the effects of eutrophication, sequestering large amounts of carbon, and acting as vital wildlife habitat. Sea-level rise and increased storm surge intensity associated with climate change are increasingly disrupting coastal habitats. These disturbances can shift environmental gradients that drive the zonation of coastal vegetation types, driving habitat conversion. Monitoring coastal habitat conversion can improve our understanding of the dynamic effects of climate change on these landscapes. Therefore, our objectives for chapter 1 were to identify and describe the distributions of vegetation types present on Marine Corps …

Climate Change And The Law Of National Security Adaptation, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest employer in the world, owns and operates an enormous global real estate portfolio, and emits more Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) than many nations. Entrusted with the national security, the DoD is now threatened by a new enemy—climate change. Climate change imperils national security infrastructure while undermining the military’s capacity to respond to climate-driven disasters at home and abroad. However, legal scholarship has yet to address what I call “the law of national security adaptation” and related questions. For example, how do environmental and climate change laws apply to the U.S. military? What laws …

"Green" Corporate Governance, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores the rise and future of “green” corporate governance, including how concerns about the changing climate are shaping long-extant debates in corporate law.² This area is difficult to survey in one short chapter, both because it has exploded in importance, and because it intersects in its own way with many of the topics discussed in the above chapters. Compliance, directors’ duties, corporate purpose, corporate groups, and investor stewardship, are just a few of the issues bound up in the rapid and recent shift toward thinking about climate change and its intersection with corporate governance.³

The rise …

Climate Change And The Specter Of Statelessness, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

What happens when climate change extinguishes entire nations? Neither international nor environmental law has provided a satisfactory answer to this weighty question. Climate change-induced flooding, storm surge, and sea level rise threaten the territorial integrity and habitability of several small island developing states, raising the specter of statelessness. We know that climate catastrophe is coming, but we have failed to take the necessary steps to safeguard several developing nations. This Article argues that innovative legal and policy solutions are needed today to prevent nation extinction tomorrow. I focus on two potential international governance solutions: the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate …

Sea Ice Formation, Glacial Melt And The Solubility Pump Boundary Conditions In The Ross Sea, Brice Loose, Sharon Stammerjohn, Peter Sedwick, Stephen Ackley

OES Faculty Publications

Seasonal formation of Dense Shelf Water (DSW) in the Ross Sea is a direct precursor to Antarctic Bottom Water, which fills the deep ocean with atmospheric gases in what composes the southern limb of the solubility pump. Measurements of seawater noble gas concentrations during katabatic wind events in two Ross Sea polynyas reveal the physical processes that determine the boundary value properties for DSW. This decomposition reveals 5–6 g kg⁻¹ of glacial meltwater in DSW and sea-ice production rates of up to 14 m yr⁻¹ within the Terra Nova Bay polynya. Despite winds upwards of 35 m s …

Crisisready's Novel Framework For Transdisciplinary Translation: Case-Studies In Wildfire And Hurricane Response, Andrew Schroeder, Caleb Dresser, Akash Yadav, Jennifer Chan, Shenyue Jia, Caroline Buckee, Satchit Balsari

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

Extreme weather events including wildfires and hurricanes are becoming increasingly hazardous due to climate change, and often result in transient or permanent population displacements. Disaster-related disruptions in infrastructure, workforce, wages, and social networks can combine with population displacements to result in interruptions in health care access and prolonged impacts on morbidity and mortality. The data needed to make health systems and emergency management approaches more resilient to these hazards, and more responsive to the needs of affected populations, are sequestered in silos across private corporations and public agencies. In two case studies, we describe how our research team at CrisisReady …

An Interdisciplinary Discussion On Climate Change, Aamira Shah, Jaley F. Adkins, Kelsey Littrell, Priyadarshini Chandrashekhar

The Cardinal Edge

No abstract provided.

Chromosome Number Evolution, Phylogeography, And The Effects Of Climate Change On Species Distributions In Polyploid Plant Systems, Courtney H. Babin

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Polyploidy, a term used to describe organisms with cells having more than two paired sets of chromosomes, is a significant driver of diversification among land plants. Over a century of research has advanced our understanding of polyploidization in some taxa, but polyploid organisms remain understudied. In this dissertation, I investigate chromosome number evolution, phylogeographic structure, genetic differentiation, and the effects of climate change on ploidy level distribution using polyploid plant systems. In the first chapter, I inferred a molecular phylogeny of Allium, an economically important genus that includes cultivated crops and ornamentals, to investigate evolutionary transitions in chromosome number …

Changes In Western U.S. Streamflow Extremes Under Climate Change, Rama Bedri

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

We are analyzing streamflow extremes in Western U.S. rivers due to climate change. Global warming causes natural disasters to reach extreme points and affects river volumes, snowfall, and precipitation amounts. We analyze the data for 17 stations in the Colorado River Basin, whose rivers provide Southern California’s drinking water supply. Disruptions in streamflow due to climate change affect the region’s water availability and make it difficult to predict future trends. We compared historical streamflow data to eight possible climate scenarios. The different scenarios are Warm Dry, Cool Wet, Average, and Other at emission levels of RCP 4.5 and 8.5. First, …

Black Carbon Dominated Dust In Recent Radiative Forcing On Rocky Mountain Snowpacks, Kelly E. Gleason, Joseph R. Mcconnell, Monica M. Arienzo, Graham Sexstone, Stefan Rahimi

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The vast majority of surface water resources in the semi-arid western United States start as winter snowpack. Solar radiation is a primary driver of snowmelt, making snowpack water resources especially sensitive to even small increases in concentrations of light absorbing particles such as mineral dust and combustion-related black carbon (BC). Here we show, using fresh snow measurements and snowpack modeling at 51 widely distributed sites in the Rocky Mountain region, that BC dominated impurity-driven radiative forcing in 2018. BC contributed three times more radiative forcing on average than dust, and up to 17 times more at individual locations. Evaluation of …

Temporal Changes In Surface Water Availability: Patterns Of Seasonal Shift On Water Stress In The Conterminous Us Under A Changing Climate, Quinn Montana

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The argument could be made that there is nothing more valuable on the planet than water. Our lives depend upon it. Climate change is already having an impact on the United States (US) and water stress will be one of the problems we increasingly face in coming decades. Regional research has shown that one or another part of the conterminous US (CONUS) is expected to experience an annual deficit or a surplus in runoff. Further studies have looked at changing patterns over the CONUS as a whole. Other research has focused on a particular season. This work addresses a gap …

Fast Fashion: A Price The Planet Has To Pay, Abby Gager

Environmental Law Journal blog

With fashion trends rapidly changing, the fashion industry is placed under pressure to produce new styles quickly and for a cheap price. Although consumers enjoy having the latest trends at their fingertips with the convenience of online shopping, the rise of fast fashion will have a long-lasting detrimental impact on the environment. Fashion is considered “fast” for a variety of reasons; the constant change in trends is fast, the rate of production is fast, the consumer’s decision and methods of buying are fast, delivery is fast, and articles of clothing are worn fast before they are tossed and to never …

Los Impactos Del Cambio Climático En Las Comunidades Aymaras En Putre, El Valle De Azapa Y Arica, Lindsey Kaufman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Research Question: How is climate change affecting Aymara communities in Putre, the valley of Azapa, and Putre?

Objectives: To understand the effects of climate on communities by 1) describing which environmental problems exist and their impact on agriculture and ranching, 2) understanding the patterns of migration away from the ancestral land, 3) exploring the connections to the social determinants of health that exist with these change, and 4) analyzing the significance of these changes in the agriculture for the communities’ traditions and connection to the land.

Background: Aymara communities have historically inhabited agricultural and ranching lands in …

Future Of Winter In Northeastern North America: Climate Indicators Portray Warming And Snow Loss That Will Impact Ecosystems And Communities, Elizabeth Burakowski, Alix Contosta, Danielle Grogan, Sarah Nelson, Sarah Garlick, Nora Casson

Faculty Publications

Winters in northeastern North America have warmed faster than summers, with impacts on ecosystems and society. Global climate models (GCMs) indicate that winters will continue to warm and lose snow in the future, but uncertainty remains regarding the magnitude of warming. Here, we project future trends in winter indicators under lower and higher climate-warming scenarios based on emission levels across northeastern North America at a fine spatial scale (1/16°) relevant to climate-related decision making. Under both climate scenarios, winters continue to warm with coincident increases in days above freezing, decreases in days with snow cover, and fewer nights below freezing. …

Sustainability & (Em)Powering Community Based Action In Chula Vista, Gabriella Medina, Darbi Berry

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The City of Chula Vista (Chula Vista / the City) has already begun to experience the localized impacts of climate change through record-breaking heat waves, droughts, and wildfires. In response to the impacts of climate change posing a threat to Chula Vista residents’ quality of life, the City declared a climate emergency in March 2022. This declaration advanced the City’s commitment to update its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction goals, strengthen existing efforts like the City Operations Sustainability Plan, and encourage new City-wide and voluntary actions by residents and businesses. The Chula Vista DIY Sustainable Home Toolkit (Toolkit) is a best …

Electrifying Encinitas, Gabriella Medina, Darbi Berry

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

Advancing the San Diego region’s resilience to climate change impacts within the nexus of social, environmental, and economic prosperity is a top priority for local planning and efforts. As the region continues to face impacts on quality of life from climate change, the City of Encinitas is taking action to respond by leading efforts of energy resilience with their recently passed Green Building Ordinance (Ordinance). The Ordinance requires all new residential and non-residential buildings constructed in Encinitas to be “all-electric” unless an exception applies. As the San Diego region moves towards decarbonizing, Encinitas is the first city to mandate building …

Revolutionizing The Integration Of Sustainability & Zero Net Energy In The San Diego Region, Gabriella Medina, Darbi Berry

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The San Diego County Regional Airport Airport Authority (Airport Authority) manages the day-to-day operations of the San Diego International Airport (SAN) and addresses the region’s long-term air transportation needs. SAN is also the busiest single-run commercial airport in the United States. To lessen SAN’s greenhouse gas emissions impact on local climate change vulnerabilities from the airport’s operations (i.e. minimizing energy usage), the Airport Authority has integrated sustainability across its social, environmental, and economic functions. In their commitment to sustainability, the Airport Authority is using the New Terminal 1 (New T1) project and zero-net energy (ZNE) Airline Support Facilities (ASF) as …