scholarly journals Diurnally Asymmetric Trends of Temperature, Humidity, and Precipitation in Taiwan

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (21) ◽  
pp. 5635-5649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chein-Jung Shiu ◽  
Shaw Chen Liu ◽  
Jen-Ping Chen

Abstract In this work, 45 years (1961–2005) of hourly meteorological data in Taiwan, including temperature, humidity, and precipitation, have been analyzed with emphasis on their diurnal asymmetries. A long-term decreasing trend for relative humidity (RH) is found, and the trend is significantly greater in the nighttime than in the daytime, apparently resulting from a greater warming at night. The warming at night in three large urban centers is large enough to impact the average temperature trend in Taiwan significantly between 1910 and 2005. There is a decrease in the diurnal temperature range (DTR) that is largest in major urban areas, and it becomes smaller but does not disappear in smaller cities and offshore islands. The nighttime reduction in RH is likely the main cause of a significant reduction of fog events over Taiwan. The smaller but consistent reductions in DTR and RH in the three off-coast islands suggests that, in addition to local land use changes, a regional-scale process such as the indirect effect of anthropogenic aerosols may also contribute to these trends. A reduction in light precipitation (<4 mm h−1) and an increase in heavy precipitation (>10 mm h−1) are found over Taiwan and the offshore islands. The changes in precipitation are similar to the changes of other areas in Asia, but they are different from those of the United States, Europe, and the tropical oceans. The latter do not show any reduction in light precipitation.

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kristen Foster

Cities in America’s early republic developed on the edge of two worlds. The majority of these urban areas had been born in colonies that belonged to European powers, including England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. In this colonial world, cities hugged the Atlantic coast and served the interests of Europe’s mercantile empires. After the American Revolution, however, urban areas developed in line with the interests of the United States, expanding geographically, economically, politically, socially, and culturally. The cities of the early republic were central to the first debates about the fate of the fast-changing republic. On 23 September 1800, on the verge of wresting power from the first generation of Federalist politicians, the Republican Thomas Jefferson wrote to his old friend Dr. Benjamin Rush that he viewed “great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man.” Jefferson, ever the champion of the independent farmer, argued that cities “nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others with more health virtue & freedom would be my choice.” As president, Jefferson tried to expand his agrarian empire of liberty by purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, but he could not stay the growth of cities. After the War of 1812, Americans moved westward in unprecedented numbers and used trading hubs and cities to center and connect their own economic growth. The story of cities in America’s early republic thus unfolds in two parts: the first follows the American Revolution and is anchored by its participants’ belief that republican theories and individual virtue would tie the populace together; the second part is paced by the energy unleashed in the 19th century as liberalism and the boundless possibilities of market capitalism sent Americans across a continent, building, dispossessing, and re-envisioning what it meant to be American. This population remained predominantly rural over the course of the early republic, but the nation’s urban centers often anchored and drove change. While early histories focused more intently on urban development and city planning, recent studies have expanded into an eclectic mix of social history topics, including class development, political culture, immigration, religious development, urban slavery, gender relations, and sexuality. In the end, however, studies dedicated to specific cities have remained at the center of historical inquiry about urban development and life in America’s early republic. One yet unexplored avenue for study that might shift conceptualizations of urban spaces would be to examine dense indigenous population centers in the early republic. Looking at Tippecanoe or the southwestern pueblos, for instance, might alter the heavy association of the word urban with European cultures alone and open new conceptualizations of indigenous America and Euro-America.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Mueller ◽  
Subhomoy Ghosh ◽  
Anna Karion ◽  
Sharon Gourdji ◽  
Israel Lopez-Coto ◽  
...  

<p>In the past decade, there has been a scientific focus on improving the accuracy and precision of methane (CH4) emission estimates in the United States, with much effort targeting oil and natural gas producing basins. Yet, regional CH4 emissions and their attribution to specific sources continue to have significant associated uncertainties. Recent urban work using aircraft observations have suggested that CH4 emissions are not well characterized in major cities along the U.S. East Coast; discrepancies have been attributed to an under-estimation of fugitive emissions from the distribution of natural gas. However, much of regional and urban research has involved the use of aircraft campaigns that can only provide a spatio-temporal snapshot of the CH4 emission landscape. As such, the annual representation and the seasonal variability of emissions remain largely unknown. To further investigate CH4 emissions, we present preliminary CH4 emissions estimates in the Northeastern US as part of NIST’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) testbed project using a regional inversion framework. This area encompasses over 20% of the US and contains many of the dominant CH4 emissions sources important at both regional and local scales.  The atmospheric inversion can estimate sub-monthly 0.1-degree emissions using observations from a regional network of up to 37 in-situ towers; some towers are in non-urban areas while others are in cities or suburban areas. The inversion uses different emission products to help provide a prior constraint within the inversion including anthropogenic emissions from both the EDGAR v42 for the year 2008 and the US EPA for the year 2012, and natural wetland CH4 emissions from the WetCHARTs ensemble mean for the year 2010. Results include the comparison of synthetic model simulated CH4 concentrations (i.e., convolutions of the emission products with WRF-STILT footprints + background) to mole-fractions measured at the regional in-situ sites. The comparison provides an indication as to how well our prior understanding of emissions and incoming air flow matches the atmospheric signatures due to the underlying CH4 sources.  We also present a preliminary set of CH4 fluxes for a selected number of urban centers and discuss challenges estimating highly-resolved methane emissions using high-frequency in-situ observations for a regional domain (e.g. few constraints, skewness in underlying fluxes, representing incoming background, etc.). Overall, this work provides the basis for a year-long inversion that will yields regional CH4 emissions over the Northeast US with a focus on Eastern urban areas.</p>


Author(s):  
Chad Berry

An overview of Euro-American internal migration in the United States between 1940 and 1980 explores the overall population movement away from rural areas to cities and suburban areas. Although focused on white Americans and their migrations, there are similarities to the Great Migration of African Americans, who continued to move out of the South during the mid-20th century. In the early period, the industrial areas in the North and West attracted most of the migrants. Mobilization for World War II loosened rural dwellers who were long kept in place by low wages, political disfranchisement, and low educational attainment. The war also attracted significant numbers of women to urban centers in the North and West. After the war, migration increased, enticing white Americans to become not just less rural but also increasingly suburban. The growth of suburbs throughout the country was prompted by racial segregation in housing that made many suburban areas white and earmarked many urban areas for people of color. The result was incredible growth in suburbia: from 22 million living in those areas in 1940 to triple that in 1970. Later in the period, as the Steelbelt rusted, the rise of the West as a migration magnet was spurred by development strategies, federal investment in infrastructure, and military bases. Sunbelt areas were making investments that stood ready to recruit industries and of course people, especially from Rustbelt areas in the North. By the dawn of the 21st century, half of the American population resided in suburbs.


Author(s):  
Marta Cieślak

This chapter cites that Europeans who migrated to the United States had the goal of securing industrial jobs in the rapidly growing Northeastern and Midwestern urban centers between 1871 and 1910. It talks about the sheer magnitude of the transatlantic wave that triggered a debate over who was a desirable and, more importantly, who was an undesirable immigrant. It also refers to the large number of immigrants that came from East Central and Southern Europe. The chapter mentions how several citizens perceived the European immigrants that settled in urban areas to be a threat to American cities and, by extension, to the American nation. It discusses the European settlement and its relationship to poverty spreading in urban industrial centers that became a key point in the intense debate over the new immigrants.


Author(s):  
Dyah Ayu Lupitasari ◽  
Winny Astuti ◽  
Galing Yudana

<em>The development of modern market especially regional modern market is growing rapidly. The regional modern market is not only growing in urban areas but up to a small town like Kudus City. Regional modern market which is growing in Kudus City is Kudus Extension Mall. This modern market is the first and largest modern market in the Kudus City. The modern market is able to serve the region at the regional scale consisting of Kudus Regency society and also surrounding districts like Demak, Jepara, Pati to Rembang. In 2011 Kudus Extension Mall was growing rapidly indicated by the expansion and changes the name from Plasa Kudus to Kudus Extension Mall. The modern market developments affecting the condition of land use in its surrounding area. Based on these issues, the formulation of the problem in this research is how the influence brought by the development of modern markets Kudus Extension Mall in affecting land use changes in its surrounding areas. The aim of this research is to determine the influence of the Kudus Extension Mall developments to changes in land use in its surrounding areas. The method used to determine the level of influence the development of the Kudus Extension Mall to changes in land use in the surrounding areas is quantitative descriptive. These results indicate that the development of Kudus Extension Mall able to encourage changes in land use that has similar activities that are commercial and supporting activities such as residential and public service facilities. The emergence of these activities leads to changes in land use in the form of extensive changes in land use functions and intensity of land use.</em>


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonya Ahamed ◽  
Joshua Sperling ◽  
Gillian Galford ◽  
Jennie C. Stephens ◽  
Douglas Arent

Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (also termed as the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges for urban areas, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. This case study provides an integrated assessment of the FEW nexus at the city and regional scale in ten contiguous counties encompassing the rapidly growing Denver region in the United States. Spatial patterns in FEW consumption, production, trans-boundary flows, embodied FEW inputs, and impacts on FEW systems were assessed using an urban systems framework for the trans-boundary food-energy-water nexus. The Denver region is an instructive case study of the FEW nexus for multiple reasons: it is rapidly growing, is semi-arid, faces a large projected water shortfall, and is a major fossil fuel and agricultural producer. The rapid uptake of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) combined with horizontal drilling in populated areas poses ongoing risks to regional water quality. Through this case study, fracking is identified as a major topic for FEW nexus inquiry, with intensifying impacts on water quantity and quality that reflect nationwide trends. Key data gaps are also identified, including energy for water use and food preparation. This case study is relevant to water and sustainability planners, energy regulators, communities impacted by hydraulic fracturing, and consumers of energy and food produced in the Denver region. It is applicable beyond Denver to dry areas with growing populations, agricultural activity, and the potential for shale development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bibek Paudel ◽  
Theodore Chu ◽  
Meng Chen ◽  
Vanitha Sampath ◽  
Mary Prunicki ◽  
...  

AbstractPollen and molds are environmental allergens that are affected by climate change. As pollen and molds exhibit geographical variations, we sought to understand the impact of climate change (temperature, carbon dioxide (CO2), precipitation, smoke exposure) on common pollen and molds in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the largest urban areas in the United States. When using time-series regression models between 2002 and 2019, the annual average number of weeks with pollen concentrations higher than zero increased over time. For tree pollens, the average increase in this duration was 0.47 weeks and 0.51 weeks for mold spores. Associations between mold, pollen and meteorological data (e.g., precipitation, temperature, atmospheric CO2, and area covered by wildfire smoke) were analyzed using the autoregressive integrated moving average model. We found that peak concentrations of weed and tree pollens were positively associated with temperature (p < 0.05 at lag 0–1, 0–4, and 0–12 weeks) and precipitation (p < 0.05 at lag 0–4, 0–12, and 0–24 weeks) changes, respectively. We did not find clear associations between pollen concentrations and CO2 levels or wildfire smoke exposure. This study’s findings suggest that spore and pollen activities are related to changes in observed climate change variables.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kali Zhou ◽  
Trevor A Pickering ◽  
Christina S Gainey ◽  
Myles Cockburn ◽  
Mariana C Stern ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of few cancers with rising incidence and mortality in the United States. Little is known about disease presentation and outcomes across the rural-urban continuum. Methods Using the population-based SEER registry, we identified adults with incident hepatocellular carcinoma between 2000–2016. Urban, suburban and rural residence at time of cancer diagnosis were categorized by the Census Bureau’s percent of the population living in non-urban areas. We examined association between place of residence and overall survival. Secondary outcomes were late tumor stage and receipt of therapy. Results Of 83,368 cases, 75.8%, 20.4%, and 3.8% lived in urban, suburban, and rural communities, respectively. Median survival was 7 months (IQR 2–24). All stage and stage-specific survival differed by place of residence, except for distant stage. In adjusted models, rural and suburban residents had a respective 1.09-fold (95% CI = 1.04–1.14, p &lt; .001) and 1.08-fold (95% CI = 1.05–1.10, p &lt; .001) increased hazard of overall mortality as compared to urban residents. Furthermore, rural and suburban residents had 18% (OR = 1.18, 95% CI 1.10–1.27, p &lt; .001) and 5% (OR = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.02–1.09, p = .003) higher odds of diagnosis at late stage and were 12% (OR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.80–0.94, p &lt; .001) and 8% (OR = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.88–0.95, p &lt; .001) less likely to receive treatment, respectively, compared to urban residents. Conclusions Residence in a suburban and rural community at time of diagnosis was independently associated with worse indicators across the cancer continuum for liver cancer. Further research is needed to elucidate the primary drivers of these rural-urban disparities.


Smart Cities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 1058-1086
Author(s):  
Franklin Oliveira ◽  
Daniel G. Costa ◽  
Luciana Lima ◽  
Ivanovitch Silva

The fast transformation of the urban centers, pushed by the impacts of climatic changes and the dramatic events of the COVID-19 Pandemic, will profoundly influence our daily mobility. This resulted scenario is expected to favor adopting cleaner and flexible modal solutions centered on bicycles and scooters, especially as last-mile options. However, as the use of bicycles has rapidly increased, cyclists have been subject to adverse conditions that may affect their health and safety when cycling in urban areas. Therefore, whereas cities should implement mechanisms to monitor and evaluate adverse conditions in cycling paths, cyclists should have some effective mechanism to visualize the indirect quality of cycling paths, eventually supporting choosing more appropriate routes. Therefore, this article proposes a comprehensive multi-parameter system based on multiple independent subsystems, covering all phases of data collecting, formatting, transmission, and processing related to the monitoring, evaluating, and visualizing the quality of cycling paths in the perspective of adverse conditions that affect cyclist. The formal interactions of all modules are carefully described, as well as implementation and deployment details. Additionally, a case study is considered for a large city in Brazil, demonstrating how the proposed system can be adopted in a real scenario.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 2411-2428
Author(s):  
Robin K. Weatherl ◽  
Maria J. Henao Salgado ◽  
Maximilian Ramgraber ◽  
Christian Moeck ◽  
Mario Schirmer

AbstractLand-use changes often have significant impact on the water cycle, including changing groundwater/surface-water interactions, modifying groundwater recharge zones, and increasing risk of contamination. Surface runoff in particular is significantly impacted by land cover. As surface runoff can act as a carrier for contaminants found at the surface, it is important to characterize runoff dynamics in anthropogenic environments. In this study, the relationship between surface runoff and groundwater recharge in urban areas is explored using a top-down water balance approach. Two empirical models were used to estimate runoff: (1) an updated, advanced method based on curve number, followed by (2) bivariate hydrograph separation. Modifications were added to each method in an attempt to better capture continuous soil-moisture processes and explicitly account for runoff from impervious surfaces. Differences between the resulting runoff estimates shed light on the complexity of the rainfall–runoff relationship, and highlight the importance of understanding soil-moisture dynamics and their control on hydro(geo)logical responses. These results were then used as input in a water balance to calculate groundwater recharge. Two approaches were used to assess the accuracy of these groundwater balance estimates: (1) comparison to calculations of groundwater recharge using the calibrated conceptual HBV Light model, and (2) comparison to groundwater recharge estimates from physically similar catchments in Switzerland that are found in the literature. In all cases, recharge is estimated at approximately 40–45% of annual precipitation. These conditions were found to closely echo those results from Swiss catchments of similar characteristics.


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