Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Trade-Offs Between Three Forest Ecosystem Services Across The State Of New Hampshire, Usa: Timber, Carbon, And Albedo, David A. Lutz, Elizabeth A. Burakowski, Mackenzie B. Murphy, Mark E. Borsuk

Dartmouth Scholarship

Forests are more frequently being managed to store and sequester carbon for the purposes of climate change mitigation. Generally, this practice involves long-term conservation of intact mature forests and/or reductions in the frequency and intensity of timber harvests. However, incorporating the influence of forest surface albedo often suggests that long rotation lengths may not always be optimal in mitigating climate change in forests characterized by frequent snowfall. To address this, we investigated trade-offs between three ecosystem services: carbon storage, albedo-related radiative forcing, and timber provisioning. We calculated optimal rotation length at 498 diverse Forest Inventory and Analysis forest sites in …

Adaptation On A Budget: How Vietnamese Innovators Are Trying To Design Their Way Out Of Climate Change, Shanti R. Johnson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the rapidly developing Mekong Delta of Vietnam, young innovators are facing a challenge far greater than simply trying to catch up with the wealthier world. In a growing trend, the next generation of Vietnamese is acting under a common understanding: climate change is real, it’s here and the time to respond is growing short.

For over a decade, Southern Vietnam has consistently been ranked by international organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as one of the most vulnerable places in the world to the impacts of climate change. That vulnerability is heightened by the fact that the …

Margaret Chase Smith Essay: Maine And Climate Change: The View From Greenland, Angus King

Maine Policy Review

Senator King discusses the issue of climate change and what it may mean for Maine and the nation in light of trip he took to Greenland in August 2016.

Predicting The Impact Of Future Climate On Ecologically Important Macroalgae, Charlie Phelps

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Macroalgae play an important role in coastal reef systems and are often referred to as ecosystem engineers. They serve as primary producers, supporting a diverse range of organisms, and are a sink for atmospheric CO2. Water acidification and ocean warming caused by anthropogenic activities are affecting many marine flora and fauna, potentially impacting the physical and chemical performance of macroalgae and the consumption rates of associated herbivores. Many studies have focused on ocean acidification or ocean warming individually but there is an overall lack of research investigating the combined effects and the ensuing repercussions on consumer-prey relationships.

Three species of …

Losing Ground, Alison Kanski

Capstones

Climate change and sea level rise are slowly decimating beaches. But the U.S. government and loyal residents won't let go of the beaches so easily.

A determined resident of the Rockaways in New York fights for the money and attention from governments to sustain his lifelong home and stop it from washing away.

Long-Term Landscape Changes In A Subalpine Spruce-Fir Forest In Central Utah, Usa, Jesse L. Morris, R. Justin Derose, Andrea R. Brunelle

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Background: In Western North America, increasing wildfire and outbreaks of native bark beetles have been mediated by warming climate conditions. Bioclimatic models forecast the loss of key high elevation species throughout the region. This study uses retrospective vegetation and fire history data to reconstruct the drivers of past disturbance and environmental change. Understanding the relationship among climate, antecedent disturbances, and the legacy effects of settlement-era logging can help identify the patterns and processes that create landscapes susceptible to bark beetle epidemics. Methods: Our analysis uses data from lake sediment cores, stand inventories, and historical records. Sediment cores were dated with …

Odu, William & Mary Seek Funds For Joint Center On Sea-Level Rise, Dave Mayfield

News Items

No abstract provided.

Can The Financialised Atmosphere Be Effectively Regulated And Accounted For?, Patty Mcnicholas, Carolyn Windsor

Carolyn Windsor

Purpose – This paper aims to carry out a critical analysis of the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme (ETS) as a complex market solution to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). Specifically it seeks to examine the financial regulatory infrastructure that will more than likely oversee the Australian ETS, the same regulatory infrastructure which failed to prevent the global financial crisis.Design/methodology/approach – A critical examination of the financialisation of the atmosphere that follows the growth of the financialisation of capitalism when economic activity shifted from production and service sectors to finance. Financialisation of capitalism is supported by capitalist regulation influenced by neo-liberal …

Disaggregating The Effect Of Drought And Heat Stress During Flowering On Spikelet Fertility In Rice, Lisa Straussberger

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to rice’s wide geographic distribution, extending from 50°N to 35°S, rice is

forecasted to be the most vulnerable crop to warming global climates. Previous studies have

predicted lower rice yields and increasing rice yield variability due to higher frequencies of heat

stress events, and a higher variability in precipitation patterns due to global warming. As such,

understanding the effects of drought and heat stress intensity and frequency on rice yields is of

upmost importance to feeding the growing global population.

Given that drought and high-temperature stress often occur together, it is essential to

disaggregate the two individual stressors and …

Pathogen Removal In Natural Wastewater Treatment And Resource Recovery Systems: Solutions For Small Cities In An Urbanizing World, Matthew Eric Verbyla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sanitation, renewable energy, and food security are among the most pressing global development needs of the century, especially for small cities with rapid population growth. Currently, 53% of the world’s population either lacks access to improved sanitation or discharges fecal waste to the environment without treatment. Furthermore, 80% of food consumed in developing regions is produced by 500 million small farms, and while many of them are still rain-fed, irrigated agriculture is increasing. The post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, recently adopted by the United Nations, include targets to address the water-energy-food nexus. Wastewater reuse in agriculture can be an important solution …

Species Specific Microcalcification In Reef Building Caribbean Corals In Ocean Acidification Conditions, Ashley M. Dungan

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Coral reefs are one of the most economically important ecosystems on the planet. Despite their great contribution to the world economy, anthropogenic influence via carbon dioxide emissions is leading to unprecedented changes with concerns about subsequent negative impacts on reefs. Surface ocean pH has dropped 0.1 units in the past century; in spite of this rapid shift in oceanic chemistry, it is unclear if individual species or life stages of Caribbean stony corals will be more sensitive to ocean acidification (OA). Examined is the relationship between CO₂-induced seawater acidification, net calcification, photosynthesis, and respiration in three model Caribbean …

Virginia's Road To Resiliency, Paul Olsen

News Items

No abstract provided.

Know Tommorrow Brown University Poster, Shepard Fairey, Risd Archives

Ecology and Environment

Poster for Brown University student event to demand action to counter climate change. "Brown emPOWER is joining dozens of colleges across the country for Know Tomorrow, a national day of action to raise awareness about climate change and its consequences. 2015 is the year for climate action as world leaders meet for the UN climate talks in Paris to sign a global agreement on climate. On October 2nd, join us for an evening of live music, engaging speakers, and environmental action on the Main Green at Brown University! Featuring: Kerry Kennedy, What Cheer? Brigade, Voces Verdes- Latino Leadership in …

Laboratory Manual For Introductory Geology, Bradley Deline, Randa Harris, Karen Tefend

Geological Sciences and Geography Open Textbooks

This textbook is a comprehensive lab manual for the core curriculum Introductory Geosciences classes with both informational content and laboratory exercises. Topics include basic laws and theories in Geology, the Earth's interior and plate tectonics, water and climate change, igneous rocks and volcanoes, and earthquakes.

Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.

The Marketing Of Sacrifice, Enda Mcgovern

Presidential Seminar on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition

Slides from a presentation made by Enda McGovern from the Department of Marketing at Sacred Heart University to the University's Board of Trustees. He outlines plans for a class to marketing students whose core text will be Pope Francis' encyclical on June 18, 2015, which lays out and argument for a new partnership between science and religion to combat human-driven climate change.

Multi-Scale Environmental Filters And Niche Partitioning Govern The Distributions Of Riparian Vegetation Guilds, Nate Hough-Snee, Brian G. Laub, David M. Merritt, Arin Lexine Long, Lloyd L. Nackley, Brett B. Roper, Joseph Michael Wheaton

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Across landscapes, riparian plant communities assemble under varying levels of disturbance, environmental stress, and resource availability, leading to the development of distinct riparian life-history guilds over evolutionary timescales. Identifying the environmental filters that exert selective pressures on specific riparian vegetation guilds is a critical step in setting baseline expectations for how riparian vegetation may respond to environmental conditions anticipated under future global change scenarios. In this study, we ask: (1) What riparian plant guilds exist across the interior Columbia and upper Missouri River basins? (2) What environmental filters shape riparian guild distributions? (3) How does resource partitioning among guilds influence …

Sea Level Rise In Virginia – Causes, Effects And Response, Tal Ezer, Larry P. Atkinson

Virginia Journal of Science

Sea level rise (SLR) along Virginia’s coasts and around the Chesapeake Bay as measured by tide gauges is analyzed and discussed. It is shown that the SLR rates vary between one location to another and in most locations the rates increase over time (i.e., SLR is accelerating). The latest science of SLR is reviewed and the causes of the high SLR rates in Virginia are discussed. The impacts of land subsidence and ocean currents (changes in the Gulf Stream in particular) on sea level are especially notable and important for predicting future SLR in Virginia. The consequences of SLR on …

Environmental Education In Vietnam: A Case Study At Le Loi Elementary School, Emily Heck Heck

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of the research I conducted for this Independent Study Project was to get an in-depth understanding of how elementary school teachers and students think about the environment, environmental problems, and how to include environmental themes in education in Vietnam. I chose to focus on primary school-aged children, as they are a generation growing up in an era of global warming and daunting threats to the environment brought on by human activity. I conducted my research at Le Loi Elementary School in Hue, Vietnam, where I used a variety of research methods to learn from teachers and students including …

Coastal Ice-Core Record Of Recent Northwest Greenland Temperature And Sea-Ice Concentration, Erich C. Osterberg, Robert L. Hawley, Gifford Wong, Ben Kopec, David Ferris, Jennifer Howley

Dartmouth Scholarship

Coastal ice cores provide an opportunity to investigate regional climate and sea-ice variability in the past to complement hemispheric-scale climate reconstructions from ice-sheet-interior ice cores. Here we describe robust proxies of Baffin Bay temperature and sea-ice concentration from the coastal 2Barrel ice core collected in the Thule region of northwest Greenland. Over the 1990–2010 record, 2Barrel annually averaged methanesulfonic acid (MSA) concentrations are significantly correlated with May–June Baffin Bay sea-ice concentrations and summer temperatures. Higher MSA is observed during warmer years with less sea ice, indicative of enhanced primary productivity in Baffin Bay. Similarly, 2Barrel annually averaged deuterium excess (d-excess) …

Odu's Ray Toll To Discuss Sea Level Rise On 'With Good Reason', Publicaffairs & Newsbureau, Old Dominion University

News Items

No abstract provided.

Experts: Sea-Level Rise In Hampton Roads Is A 'Manageable Problem', Tamara Dietrich

News Items

No abstract provided.

Putting The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Into Context, George H. Denton, Brenda L. Hall

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to develop new insights into the cause and pattern of events during the last glacial termination in South America and Antarctica. One emerging view is that a warming Southern Ocean (SO), driven by a chain of events initiated in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and tied to the interhemispheric climate seesaw of the last termination, was the underlying mechanism that drove the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) from its Late Glacial Maximum (LGM) position back to present-day grounding lines. This ocean thermal forcing would have impacted WAIS by accelerating basal melt rates on fringing floating ice …

The Impact Of Climate Change On Select Ecosystems, Mary Snow, Richard Snow

Publications

Terrestrial and marine environments are experiencing pronounced changes. As species and their ecosystems undergo rising temperatures, varying precipitation patterns and alterations in their chemistry and phenology, there is a great deal of added stress on many organisms. Many species attempting to adapt to a rapidly changing climate are forced to migrate or to become extinct. Forest communities are changing in composition as well as migrating northward. Often, roads, cities, and other forms of development physically impede migration. Some species are not able to migrate at the pace with which their ecosystems are warming. In some forest communities, southern boundaries are …

Climate-Suitable Planting As A Strategy For Maintaining Forest Productivity And Functional Diversity, Matthew Joshua Duveneck, Robert M. Scheller

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Within the time frame of the longevity of tree species, climate change will change faster than the ability of natural tree migration. Migration lags may result in reduced productivity and reduced diversity in forests under current management and climate change. We evaluated the efficacy of planting climate-suitable tree species (CSP), those tree species with current or historic distributions immediately south of a focal landscape, to maintain or increase aboveground biomass, productivity, and species and functional diversity. We modeled forest change with the LANDIS-II forest simulation model for 100 years (2000–2100) at a 2-ha cell resolution and five-year time steps within …

Converting Croplands To Grassland: A Spatial Analysis Of The Economic Feasibility Of Soil Greenhouse Gas Mitigation In Midwest, United States, Paco C. Defrancis

Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby

The global agriculture sector is responsible for close 20% of the aggregate anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emitted since the start of the industrial age. Much of these emissions are attributed to the degradation of soils due to land use change when native ecosystems were converted to agricultural fields. Soil organic carbon (SOC) has been found to decrease in temperate soils when the native (such as a forest or grassland) ecosystem is replace by croplands. The aggregate amount of organic carbon stored in soils globally is estimated be 3.3x the size of the atmospheric carbon pool. Further soil degradation and …

The Value Of Dune Width In Avalon, New Jersey: A Hedonic Pricing Analysis, Matt Mignon

Journal of Environmental and Resource Economics at Colby

Previous research on the economics of coastal housing markets has proven that housing values along the east coast of the United States capitalize on the attributes of local beaches. These recent studies document two important findings: that beach width positively affects coastal property values and that there is a proximity effect, in which distance from the beach plays a significant role in the capitalization of local beach attributes. This paper builds upon these findings to explore the influence that dune width has on coastal property values in Avalon, New Jersey. I hypothesize that as dune width increases, local property values …

Climate Warming Reduces Essential Fatty Acid Production In Algae, Michael T. Arts, Stefanie M. Hixson, Samantha Mercieca

21st International Conference on Environmental Indicators (ICEI 2015)

No abstract provided.

Gender And Climate Change In The Indian Himalayas: Global Threats, Local Vulnerabilities, And Livelihood Diversification At The Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, Monica V. Ogra, Ruchi Badola

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Global climate change has numerous implications for members of mountain communities who feel the impacts in both physical and social dimensions. In the western Himalayas of India, a majority of residents maintain a livelihood strategy that includes a combination of subsistence or small-scale agriculture, livestock rearing, seasonal or long-term migration, and localized natural resource extraction. While warming temperatures, irregular patterns of precipitation and snowmelt, and changing biological systems present challenges to the viability of these traditional livelihood portfolios in general, we find that climate change is also undermining local communities’ livelihood assets in gender-specific ways. In this paper, we present …

Riparian Vegetation, Colorado River, And Climate: Five Decades Of Spatiotemporal Dynamics In The Grand Canyon With River Regulation, Joel B. Sankey, Barbara Ralston, Paul E. Grams, John C. Schmidt, Laura E. Cagney

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Documentation of the interacting effects of river regulation and climate on riparian vegetation has typically been limited to small segments of rivers or focused on individual plant species. We examine spatiotemporal variability in riparian vegetation for the Colorado River in Grand Canyon relative to river regulation and climate, over the five decades since completion of the upstream Glen Canyon Dam in 1963. Long-term changes along this highly modified, large segment of the river provide insights for management of similar riparian ecosystems around the world. We analyze vegetation extent based on maps and imagery from eight dates between 1965 and 2009, …

Impacts Of Changing Snowmelt Timing On Non-Irrigated Crop Yield, Erin Murray

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

As climate changes, the final date of spring snowmelt is projected to occur earlier in the year within the western United States. This earlier snowmelt timing may impact crop yield in snow-dominated watersheds by changing the timing of water delivery to agricultural fields. There is considerable uncertainty about how agricultural impacts of snowmelt timing may vary by region, crop type, and practices like irrigation vs. dryland farming. We utilize parametric regression techniques to isolate the magnitude of impact snowmelt timing has had on historical crop yield independently of climate and physiographic variables that also impact yield. To do this, we …