scholarly journals The archaeology of climate change: The case for cultural diversity

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (30) ◽  
pp. e2108537118
Author(s):  
Ariane Burke ◽  
Matthew C. Peros ◽  
Colin D. Wren ◽  
Francesco S. R. Pausata ◽  
Julien Riel-Salvatore ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
The Past ◽  
Environmental Transformation ◽  
Contemporary Climate

Anthropogenic climate change is currently driving environmental transformation on a scale and at a pace that exceeds historical records. This represents an undeniably serious challenge to existing social, political, and economic systems. Humans have successfully faced similar challenges in the past, however. The archaeological record and Earth archives offer rare opportunities to observe the complex interaction between environmental and human systems under different climate regimes and at different spatial and temporal scales. The archaeology of climate change offers opportunities to identify the factors that promoted human resilience in the past and apply the knowledge gained to the present, contributing a much-needed, long-term perspective to climate research. One of the strengths of the archaeological record is the cultural diversity it encompasses, which offers alternatives to the solutions proposed from within the Western agro-industrial complex, which might not be viable cross-culturally. While contemporary climate discourse focuses on the importance of biodiversity, we highlight the importance of cultural diversity as a source of resilience.

scholarly journals Statistics and Analysis of the Relations between Rainstorm Floods and Earthquakes

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Baodeng Hou ◽  
Yongxiang Wu ◽  
Jianhua Wang ◽  
Kai Wu ◽  
Weihua Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Input Data ◽  
Computational Results ◽  
Occurrence Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Water Vapors ◽  
Transmission Zone ◽  
Chinese Scholars

The frequent occurrence of geophysical disasters under climate change has drawn Chinese scholars to pay their attention to disaster relations. If the occurrence sequence of disasters could be identified, long-term disaster forecast could be realized. Based on the Earth Degassing Effect (EDE) which is valid, this paper took the magnitude, epicenter, and occurrence time of the earthquake, as well as the epicenter and occurrence time of the rainstorm floods as basic factors to establish an integrated model to study the correlation between rainstorm floods and earthquakes. 2461 severe earthquakes occurred in China or within 3000 km from China and the 169 heavy rainstorm floods occurred in China over the past 200+ years as the input data of the model. The computational results showed that although most of the rainstorm floods have nothing to do with the severe earthquakes from a statistical perspective, some floods might relate to earthquakes. This is especially true when the earthquakes happen in the vapor transmission zone where rainstorms lead to abundant water vapors. In this regard, earthquakes are more likely to cause big rainstorm floods. However, many cases of rainstorm floods could be found after severe earthquakes with a large extent of uncertainty.

scholarly journals ON MEASURES OF STATE SUPPORT AND REGULATION OF AIC

2022 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 75-81
Author(s):  
Andrej Valerianov ◽  
Natalya Alekseeva ◽  
Tatyana Medvedeva ◽  
Artur Semenov ◽  
Niyaz Safiullin
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Current System ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
State Support ◽  
The Past ◽  
Physical Volume ◽  
Fixed Assets ◽  
Chuvash Republic ◽  
Maximum Development

For the second decade, the agro-industrial complex has been receiving significant amounts of state support. At the same time, the issue of its effectiveness is becoming more and more urgent. In various sources, you can find a variety of approaches to assessing the effectiveness of budgetary funds allocated for the development of agriculture. The fact of state support in itself does not guarantee a return in the form of an increase in gross output, attraction of investments in the industry, an increase in wages in the countryside, an increase in tax revenues from enterprises in the industry. The methods of state support must adapt to modern challenges. They should stimulate recipients not for maximum development and subsequent cessation of activities, but for stable and long-term activities. This fine line usually prevents a sharp increase in the effectiveness of state support for the agro-industrial complex. The result of this study is an assessment of the rationality and effectiveness of state support for agriculture in the Chuvash Republic. The existing measures of state support in the Chuvash Republic properly support the development of the agricultural sector: investors have shown interest, fixed assets are being updated, labor productivity and production volumes are growing. But the current system does not quite cope with staffing problems in the countryside. The index of the physical volume of agricultural production, which amounted to 126.4% over the past 7 years, is far from a breakthrough rate. A significant increase in production volumes cannot be achieved with a reduction in the number of employees. Using the correlation-regression method, it was revealed that the growth of the level of wages in the countryside was largely influenced by the labor market laws, and not by state support measures. What is needed is motivating rather than compensatory measures on the part of the state, which will ensure the outstripping growth of wages in agriculture

scholarly journals Modeling Long-Term Temporal Variation of Dew Formation in Jordan and Its Link to Climate Change

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 2186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nahid Atashi ◽  
Dariush Rahimi ◽  
Mustafa Al Kuisi ◽  
Anwar Jiries ◽  
Henri Vuollekoski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mediterranean Climate ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Dust Storms ◽  
Arid Climate ◽  
Seasonal Patterns ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dew Formation

In this study, we performed model simulations to investigate the spatial, seasonal, and annual dew yield during 40 years (1979–2018) at ten locations reflecting the variation of climate and environmental conditions in Jordan. In accordance with the climate zones in Jordan, the dew formation had distinguished characteristics features with respect to the yield, seasonal variation, and spatial variation. The highest water dew yield (an overall annual mean cumulative dew yield as high as 88 mm) was obtained for the Mountains Heights Plateau, which has a Mediterranean climate. The least dew yield (as low as 19 mm) was obtained in Badia, which has an arid climate. The dew yield had a decreasing trend in the past 40 years due to climate change impacts such as increased desertification and the potential of sand and dust storms in the region. In addition, increased anthropogenic air pollution slows down the conversion of vapor to liquid phase change, which also impacts the potential of dew formation. The dew yield showed three distinguished seasonal patterns reflecting the three climates in Jordan. The Mountains Heights Plateau (Mediterranean climate) has the highest potential for dew harvesting (especially during the summer) than Badia (semi-arid climate).

scholarly journals The Dynamic Change of Bosten Lake Area in Response to Climate in the Past 30 Years

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoai Dai ◽  
Xingping Yang ◽  
Meilian Wang ◽  
Yu Gao ◽  
Senhao Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Area ◽  
Water Body ◽  
Meteorological Factors ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Bosten Lake ◽  
Water Index ◽  
The Past ◽  
Normalized Difference Water Index

The widely distributed lakes, as one of the major components of the inland water system, are the primary available freshwater resources on the earth and are sensitive to accelerated climate change and extensive human activities. Lakes play an important role in the terrestrial water cycle and biogeochemical cycle and substantially influence the health of humans living in the surrounding areas. Given the importance of lakes in the ecosystem, long-term monitoring of dynamic changes has important theoretical and practical significance. Here, we extracted water body information and monitored the long-term dynamics of Bosten Lake, which is the largest inland lake in China. We quantified the meteorological factors of the study area from the observation data of meteorological stations between 1988 and 2018. The characteristics of climate change and its correlation with the change of area in the Bosten Lake Basin in the past 30 years were analyzed. The major contributions of this study are as follows: (1) The initial water body was segmented based on the water index model Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) with a pre-assigned threshold value. The results were evaluated with the area extracted through artificial visual interpretation. Then we conducted mathematical morphology operators, opening and closing operations, and median filter to eliminate noise to ensure the accuracy of water body information extraction from the Bosten Lake. A long-term water surface area database of the Bosten Lake was established from high-resolution remote sensing images during 1988–2018. (2) Due to the seasonal difference of snow, ice content, and other objects on images, the areadynamics of Bosten Lake in the recent 30 years were analyzed separately in dry season and rainy season. The water surface area of Bosten Lake showed large inter-annual variations between 1988–2018. (3) Based on the assumption that climatic change has more direct effects on lake than human activities, six meteorological factors were selected to analyze the impacts of climate change on the annual mean lake surface area. The result indicated that in the past 30 years, climate conditions in the Bosten Lake Basin fluctuated greatly. We conducted correlations analysis between the areal dynamics of the Bosten Lake and the meteorological factors. Here, the annual average evaporation had the highest correlation with the areal dynamics of Bosten Lake followed by air temperature, precipitation, sunshine hours, and relative humidity, while the annual average wind speed had the weakest correlation.

scholarly journals Impacts of Climate Change on Lake Fluctuations in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiankun Yang ◽  
Xixi Lu ◽  
Edward Park ◽  
Paolo Tarolli
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Amu Darya ◽  
Outburst Floods ◽  
Glacial Lake Outburst Floods ◽  
Hindu Kush ◽  
Changing Patterns

Lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan (HKHT) regions are crucial indicators for the combined impacts of regional climate change and resultant glacier retreat. However, they lack long-term systematic monitoring and thus their responses to recent climatic change still remain only partially understood. This study investigated lake extent fluctuations in the HKHT regions over the past 40 years using Landsat (MSS/TM/ETM+/OLI) images obtained from the 1970s to 2014. Influenced by different regional atmospheric circulation systems, our results show that lake changing patterns are distinct from region to region, with the most intensive lake shrinking observed in northeastern HKHT (HKHT Interior, Tarim, Yellow, Yangtze), while the most extensive expansion was observed in the western and southwestern HKHT (Amu Darya, Ganges Indus and Brahmaputra), largely caused by the proliferation of small lakes in high-altitude regions during 1970s–1995. In the past 20 years, extensive lake expansions (~39.6% in area and ~119.1% in quantity) were observed in all HKHT regions. Climate change, especially precipitation change, is the major driving force to the changing dynamics of the lake fluctuations; however, effects from the glacier melting were also significant, which contributed approximately 31.9–40.5%, 16.5–39.3%, 12.8–29.0%, and 3.3–6.1% of runoff to lakes in the headwaters of the Tarim, Amu Darya, Indus, and Ganges, respectively. We consider that the findings in this paper could have both immediate and long-term implications for dealing with water-related hazards, controlling glacial lake outburst floods, and securing water resources in the HKHT regions, which contain the headwater sources for some of the largest rivers in Asia that sustain 1.3 billion people.

scholarly journals Nonlinearity and Fractal Properties of Climate Change during the Past 500 Years in Northwestern China

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiquan Wan ◽  
Qunqun Liu ◽  
Jianxin Zou ◽  
Wenping He
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nonlinear Process ◽  
Northwestern China ◽  
Fluctuation Analysis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Fractal Properties ◽  
Change Characteristics ◽  
Range Correlation ◽  
Detrended Fluctuation

By using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), the present paper analyzed the nonlinearity and fractal properties of tree-ring records from two types of trees in northwestern China, and then we disclosed climate change characteristics during the past 500 years in this area. The results indicate that climate change in northwestern China displayed a long-range correlation (LRC), which can exist over time span of 100 years or longer. This conclusion provides a theoretical basis for long-term climate predictions. Combining the DFA results obtained from daily temperatures records at the Xi’an meteorological observation station, which is near the southern peak of the Huashan Mountains, self-similarities widely existed in climate change on monthly, seasonal, annual, and decadal timescales during the past 500 years in northwestern China, and this change was a typical nonlinear process.

Human resilience and resettlement among the Islands of Four Mountains, Aleutians, Alaska

2019 ◽  
Vol 91 (03) ◽  
pp. 917-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia L. Hatfield ◽  
Kirsten Nicolaysen ◽  
Dixie L. West ◽  
Olga A. Krylovich ◽  
Kale M. Bruner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Volcanic Eruption ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Aleutian Islands ◽  
Human Settlements ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Ecodynamics ◽  
The Face

AbstractCombined archaeological, ecological, and geologic research on Chuginadak and Carlisle Islands in the Islands of Four Mountains (IFM) probed questions about the sustainability of human settlements over the past 4000 years in the face of geologic, ecological, and social hazards. We use a human ecodynamics approach to frame the investigation and present original archaeological evidence from this poorly known region of the remote Aleutian Islands. Several village sites occupied during the last four millennia are clustered in locations that were not damaged by earthquake-induced tsunamis; however, new geologic evidence indicates that at least one volcanic eruption forced humans to abandon one or more prehistoric village sites. Combined archaeological, ecological, and geologic analyses demonstrate resilient Unangax̂ occupations of the IFM through long-term climate change as well as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions with occasional community vulnerability to volcanic eruptions.

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