scholarly journals Observing, Measuring, and Assessing the Consequences of Snow Drought

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Warm Season ◽  
Western United States ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Freshwater Availability

Abstract Warmer and shorter winters from climate change will reduce snowpacks in most seasonally snow-covered regions of the world, with consequences for freshwater availability in spring and summer when people and ecosystems demand water most. Recent record low snowpacks, such as those in the winters of 2013/14 and 2014/15 in the Western United States, have led to a surge in research on ‘snow droughts,’ which are pointed to as harbingers of global warming that pose significant societal hazards. Yet despite the importance of understanding snow droughts to best prepare for their attendant impacts, the concept remains amorphous, with no agreed-upon definition of what they are, how best to measure them, and how such snow droughts connect to warm-season impacts. These knowledge gaps limit our understanding of the risks posed by snow droughts in the present and future, and thus our preparedness for their differential impacts on freshwater resources. To address these issues, we compile a hemispheric ensemble of in situ, satellite, and reanalysis snowpack datasets. We use this ensemble to evaluate the scientific challenges and uncertainties arising from differences in defining and measuring snow droughts, and identify opportunities to leverage this information to better understand the significance of snow droughts. We show that a clearer quantification of what constitutes a snow drought, including its uncertainties, improves our ability to anticipate costly and disruptive warm-season droughts, which is vital for informing risk management and adaptation to changing snow regimes.

scholarly journals NATO in The Very Cold War: Why the US Needs Nato in the Arctic

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Sharon Sebastian Effendy ◽  
Bernadeth Franchika ◽  
Vanessa Anthea Kusuma
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Hegemonic Stability

Global warming and climate change resulting in the melting of sea ice within the Arctic have subsequently opened the possibility to explore and exploit the region. Previously seen as simply a region full of ice, the Arctic is believed to possess abundant natural resources, with an estimated 13% of undiscovered oil, 30% of natural gas resources in the world, as well as the opening of a new sea route which will be able to serve as a shortcut for countries to exchange goods - attracting states to pay closer attention to the region, be it militarily, politically, or economically, the United States being one of them. The increase in presence and power among Arctic and non-Arctic countries, especially Russia and China, has inarguably created a state of security dilemma among all parties involved, which is why if the US would like to seek a larger presence within the region, it becomes important for the country to involve NATO as one of its key partners, despite issues concerning the country and the organization. For the purpose of this paper, the aforementioned argument will further be supported using concepts of security dilemma, hegemonic stability theory, and the balance of threat.

Impact of global warming on snow in ski areas: A case study using a regional climate simulation over the interior western United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Philipp Lackner ◽  
Bart Geerts ◽  
Yonggang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Climate Simulation ◽  
Regional Climate Simulation ◽  
Low Latitudes ◽  
Ski Areas

AbstractA high-resolution (4 km) regional climate simulation conducted with the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model is used to investigate potential impacts of global warming on skiing conditions in the interior western United States (IWUS). Recent past and near-future climate conditions are compared. The past climate period is from November 1981 to October 2011. The future climate applies to a 30-year period centered on 2050. A pseudo global warming approach is used, with the driver re-analysis dataset perturbed by the CMIP5 ensemble mean model guidance. Using the 30-year retrospective simulation, a vertical adjustment technique is used to determine meteorological parameters in the complex terrain where ski areas are located. For snow water equivalent (SWE), Snow Telemetry sites close to ski areas are used to validate the technique and apply a correction to SWE in ski areas. The vulnerability to climate change is assessed for 71 ski areas in the IWUS considering SWE, artificially produced snow, temperature, and rain. 20 of the ski areas will tend to have fewer than 100 days per season with sufficient natural and artificial snow for skiing. These ski areas are located at either low elevations or low latitudes making these areas the most vulnerable to climate change. Throughout the snow season, natural SWE decreases significantly at the low elevations and low latitudes. At higher elevations changes in SWE are predicted to not be significant in the mid-season. In mid-February, SWE decreases by 11.8% at the top elevations of ski areas while it decreases by 25.8% at the base elevations.

scholarly journals Effects of climate change on environmental sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 01005
Author(s):  
Manuela Tvaronavičienė
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Carbon Footprint ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Industrial Pollution ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
The World

Adaptation strategies to the climate change include measures that can be taken to take account of the new climatic conditions. This paper aims at assessing the effects of climate change on environmental sustainability. This sustainability constitutes a major problem in many countries and regions around the world that experience industrial pollution, degradation of land as well as natural disasters caused by the global warming. The paper shows that adaptation strategies are often parallel strategies that can be integrated simultaneously with the management of natural resources. They can make resources more efficient and resilient to climate change. The paper shows that reducing the carbon footprint by more than 50 percent by 2030 and eliminating it by 2050 might be a viable solution how to tackle the climate change and support the environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals on the prevention of lighting

1969 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 514-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. D. Stow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Agricultural Crops ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Lightning Discharges ◽  
Cloud To Ground Lightning ◽  
Recreational Resources

The destructive nature of cloud-to-ground lightning strokes is well known. Loss of life and damage to buildings and other man-made structures may to a large extent be prevented by the judicial use of lightning conductors and screens but no comparable protection may be offered to expanses of agricultural crops or forests. According to Fuquay (1967) lightning is the greatest single cause of forest fires in the western United States: during the period 1946–1962, 140,000 such fires occurred causing severe losses of timber, wildlife, watershed, and recreational resources. Comparable losses occur regularly in other parts of the world. The only solution is the suppression or modification of cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. Methods of suppression are described, some of which may turn out to be practical ways of achieving this aim.

scholarly journals Indonesian Policy in Ratifying The 2015 Paris Agreement

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Haekal - Siraj
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Analysis Techniques ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The World

 The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all participating countries to reduce emisson level. Indonesia as Non-Annex I accepted the norms of the 2015 Paris Agreement by ratifying this agreement. Meanwhile, Indonesia's emissions level continues to increase due to the rate of deforestation and forest degradation in Indonesia which ranks highest in the world. This study aims to analyze Indonesian policy in ratifying the agreement by using the Constructivism Perspective in explaining the International Regime and the Concept of Norm Influence by Finnemore and Sikkink. The study uses qualitative methods with explanatory designs. Data collection techniques are sourced from secondary sources as well as data analysis techniques carried out by reduction, presentation, and drawing conclusions as well as verification. This study found that the United States as a hegemonic state acting as the norm entrepreneurs by granting climate change financial assistance of $500 million through the GCF for Indonesia as a developing country was a condition affecting Indonesia in ratifying the agreement. Keywords: Indonesia, ratify, 2015 Paris Agreement, norm, climate change.

scholarly journals Conservation of Plants and Trees in the Light of Prophetic Teachings

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-84
Author(s):  
Sumaira Nawaz ◽  
Dr. Shah Moeen ud Din Hashmi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Environmental Behaviors ◽  
Environment Friendly ◽  
Human Behaviors ◽  
The World ◽  
Ecological Problems

Article endeavors to analyze the prophetic guiding principles regarding human behaviors related to plants and trees being an important component of our environment. The discussion mainly deals with the key environmental issues emphasizing plantation and its significance for balancing the equilibrium of the environment. Additionally, it thrashes out that humans are urged to seedling the plantation even the world is to be ended in Islam. The present study is delimited to the present ecological crises faced by society and a great challenge to the globe. The current ecological problems i.e global warming and climate change are interpreted just to analyze the environmental behaviors in Hadith literature. However, a profundity descriptive study has been conducted in the most influential way to examine the prophetic rules for human behaviors related to trees and plants being environment friendly. Furthermore, the existing practices of humans related to such an environmental sphere also been aptly figure out to highlight all possible ways in the light of prophetic guidance to deal with prevailing environmental issues. Inconsistency between religious teachings and human behaviors need the keen interest of religious scholars and social scientists to carefully harmonize both for maintaining the ecological balance in nature.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-202
Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Climate History ◽  
Accurate Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Better Than

My own interest in the topics of this book dates back a good many years. In fact, it predates the emergence of the modern field of climate history, or the identification of global warming as an incipient menace. In saying that, I am claiming no status as a prodigy, still less a prophet. Rather, in my teenage years, I read a great deal of speculative fiction, science fiction, in which themes of climate change and cataclysm have long percolated, at least since the latter years of the nineteenth century. We can debate how accurate the scientific analyses or predictions were in many of these works—in many cases, the level of accurate knowledge was minimal—but those works had the inordinate advantage of thinking through the human and cultural consequences of catastrophe, commonly speculating about religious dimensions. Obviously, some works succeeded better than others in that regard, but the essential project was critically important. If we are foretelling that the world will be assailed by lethal menaces, then we cannot fail to go on to imagine what the political or cultural consequences would or should be....

Global Warming

Antarctica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Day
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Polar Bears ◽  
The World

How vulnerable to climate change are Antarctica’s fauna? Antarctica’s fauna are very vulnerable to climate change. All we have to do is look at the penguins. With the recent dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic, the world has focused on whether polar bears are...

Separated at Birth?

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unexpected Death ◽  
The World ◽  
Exit Option ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Fathers And Sons

To Return To The Bulk of our material in this book, what absolute differences separate the United States from Europe? The United States is a nation where proportionately more people are murdered each year, more are jailed, and more own guns than anywhere in Europe. The death penalty is still law. Religious belief is more fervent and widespread. A smaller percentage of citizens vote. Collective bargaining covers relatively fewer workers, and the state’s tax take is lower. Inequality is somewhat more pronounced. That is about it. In almost every other respect, differences are ones of degree, rather than kind. Oft en, they do not exist, or if they do, no more so than the same disparities hold true within Western Europe itself. At the very least, this suggests that farreaching claims to radical differences across the Atlantic have been overstated. Even on violence—a salient difference that leaps unprompted from the evidence, both statistical and anecdotal—the contrast depends on how it is framed. Without question, murder rates are dramatically different across the Atlantic. And, of course, murder is the most shocking form of sudden, unexpected death, unsettling communities, leaving survivors bereaved and mourning. But consider a wider definition of unanticipated, immediate, and profoundly disrupting death. Suicide is oft en thought of as the exit option for old, sick men anticipating the inevitable, and therefore not something that changes the world around them. But, in fact, the distribution of suicide over the lifespan is broadly uniform. In Iceland, Ireland, the UK, and the United States, more young men (below forty-five) than old do themselves in. In Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway, the figures are almost equal. Elsewhere, the older have a slight edge. But overall, the ratio between young and old suicides approximates 1:1. Broadly speaking, and sticking with the sex that most oft en kills itself, men do away with themselves as oft en when they are younger and possibly still husbands, fathers, and sons as they do when they are older and when their actions are perhaps fraught with less consequence for others. Suicide is as unsettling, and oft en even more so, for survivors as murder.

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