Forecasting sagebrush ecosystem components and greater sage-grouse habitat for 2050: Learning from past climate patterns and Landsat imagery to predict the future

Treaty obligations: science and art in Antarctica

Extending Ecocriticism ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781784994396.003.0012 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mike Pearson

Keyword(s):

International Treaties ◽

Cultural Space ◽

Past Climate ◽

Science And Art ◽

Cruise Ships ◽

Environmental Controls ◽

The Arts ◽

Climate Patterns ◽

Military Activity ◽

Unique Status

In this chapter Mike Pearson takes us to Antarctica. This continent is a vital record of past climate patterns, and our future depends on the fate of its covering of ice. Pearson considers how international treaties have imposed strict environmental controls on what is permissible on the continent, and discusses its unique status as an area where military activity is banned. These controls cover the scientists who are stationed there and the relatively small number of visitors that will arrive in cruise ships. He notes that science holds an unchallenged hegemonic position and that the Treaty makes no acknowledgement of the arts and that the advent of tourism was unforeseen. In this context, he considers how more recent programmes have aimed to promote understanding and appreciation of the values of Antarctica through the contribution of writers, artists and musicians. He considers how such initiatives as the Antarctica Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale have challenged the scientific domination of the continent by claiming Antarctica as a cultural space.

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Past Climate Sensitivity Not Always Key to the Future

Eos ◽

10.1029/2019eo130889 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 100 ◽

Author(s):

Terri Cook

Keyword(s):

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Climate Sensitivity ◽

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽

Past Climate ◽

Geologic Time ◽

The Future ◽

Solar Brightness ◽

Carbon Dioxide Levels ◽

Earth’S Climate ◽

New Research

New research suggests that changes in continental configuration, solar brightness, and background atmospheric carbon dioxide levels all conspire to drive Earth’s climate sensitivity over geologic time.

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Applying Multi-Temporal Landsat Satellite Data and Markov-Cellular Automata to Predict Forest Cover Change and Forest Degradation of Sundarban Reserve Forest, Bangladesh

Forests ◽

10.3390/f11091016 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 1016

Author(s):

Mohammad Emran Hasan ◽

Biswajit Nath ◽

A.H.M. Raihan Sarker ◽

Zhihua Wang ◽

Li Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cellular Automata ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Landsat Imagery ◽

Forest Degradation ◽

Primary Data ◽

Forest Cover Change ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

Reserve Forest ◽

Health Quality

Overdependence on and exploitation of forest resources have significantly transformed the natural reserve forest of Sundarban, which shares the largest mangrove territory in the world, into a great degradation status. By observing these, a most pressing concern is how much degradation occurred in the past, and what will be the scenarios in the future if they continue? To confirm the degradation status in the past decades and reveal the future trend, we took Sundarban Reserve Forest (SRF) as an example, and used satellite Earth observation historical Landsat imagery between 1989 and 2019 as existing data and primary data. Moreover, a geographic information system model was considered to estimate land cover (LC) change and spatial health quality of the SRF from 1989 to 2029 based on the large and small tree categories. The maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) technique was employed to classify the historical images with five different LC types, which were further considered for future projection (2029) including trends based on 2019 simulation results from 1989 and 2019 LC maps using the Markov-cellular automata model. The overall accuracy achieved was 82.30%~90.49% with a kappa value of 0.75~0.87. The historical result showed forest degradation in the past (1989–2019) of 4773.02 ha yr−1, considered as great forest degradation (GFD) and showed a declining status when moving with the projection (2019–2029) of 1508.53 ha yr−1 and overall there was a decline of 3956.90 ha yr−1 in the 1989–2029 time period. Moreover, the study also observed that dense forest was gradually degraded (good to bad) but, conversely, light forest was enhanced, which will continue in the future even to 2029 if no effective management is carried out. Therefore, by observing the GFD, through spatial forest health quality and forest degradation mapping and assessment, the study suggests a few policies that require the immediate attention of forest policy-makers to implement them immediately and ensure sustainable development in the SRF.

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Using resistance and resilience concepts to reduce impacts of invasive annual grasses and altered fire regimes on the sagebrush ecosystem and greater sage-grouse: A strategic multi-scale approach

10.2737/rmrs-gtr-326 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Jeanne C. Chambers ◽

David A. Pyke ◽

Jeremy D. Maestas ◽

Mike Pellant ◽

Chad S. Boyd ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fire Regimes ◽

Sage Grouse ◽

Multi Scale ◽

Sagebrush Ecosystem ◽

Annual Grasses

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Warm climates of the past—a lesson for the future?

Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.2013.0146 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 371 (2001) ◽

pp. 20130146 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

D. J. Lunt ◽

H. Elderfield ◽

R. Pancost ◽

A. Ridgwell ◽

G. L. Foster ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Numerical Models ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Data ◽

Comprehensive Overview ◽

Past Climate ◽

The Past ◽

The Future ◽

Warm Climates

This Discussion Meeting Issue of the Philosophical Transactions A had its genesis in a Discussion Meeting of the Royal Society which took place on 10–11 October 2011. The Discussion Meeting, entitled ‘Warm climates of the past: a lesson for the future?’, brought together 16 eminent international speakers from the field of palaeoclimate, and was attended by over 280 scientists and members of the public. Many of the speakers have contributed to the papers compiled in this Discussion Meeting Issue. The papers summarize the talks at the meeting, and present further or related work. This Discussion Meeting Issue asks to what extent information gleaned from the study of past climates can aid our understanding of future climate change. Climate change is currently an issue at the forefront of environmental science, and also has important sociological and political implications. Most future predictions are carried out by complex numerical models; however, these models cannot be rigorously tested for scenarios outside of the modern, without making use of past climate data. Furthermore, past climate data can inform our understanding of how the Earth system operates, and can provide important contextual information related to environmental change. All past time periods can be useful in this context; here, we focus on past climates that were warmer than the modern climate, as these are likely to be the most similar to the future. This introductory paper is not meant as a comprehensive overview of all work in this field. Instead, it gives an introduction to the important issues therein, using the papers in this Discussion Meeting Issue, and other works from all the Discussion Meeting speakers, as exemplars of the various ways in which past climates can inform projections of future climate. Furthermore, we present new work that uses a palaeo constraint to quantitatively inform projections of future equilibrium ice sheet change.

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