scholarly journals WWLLN Hot and Cold-Spots of Lightning Activity and Their Relation to Climate in an Extended Central America Region 2012–2020

Atmosphere ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Jorge A. Amador ◽  
Dayanna Arce-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Hot Spots ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Vertical Wind Shear ◽  
Lightning Activity ◽  
Vertical Shear ◽  
Boreal Summer ◽  
Summer Drought ◽  
Cold Spots ◽  
The Caribbean

Lightning activity has been recognized to have, historically, social and environmental consequences around the globe. This work analyzes the space-time distribution of lightning-densities (D) in an extended Central America region (ECA). World Wide Lightning Location Network data was analyzed to link D with dominant climate patterns over the ECA for 2012–2020. D associated with cold surges entering the tropics dominate during boreal winter. The highest D (hot-spots) was found to agree well with previously known sites, such as the “Catatumbo” in Venezuela; however, D was lower here due to different detection efficiencies. Previously reported hot-spots showed strong continental signals in CA; however, in this work, they were over the oceans near to coastlines, especially in the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP). Most cold-spots, implying a minimum of vulnerability to human impacts and to some industries, were situated in the Caribbean Sea side of Central America. The Mid-Summer-Drought and the Caribbean-Low-Level-Jet (CLLJ) markedly reduced the D during July-August. The CLLJ in the central CS and across the Yucatan and the southern Gulf of Mexico acts as a lid inhibiting convection due to its strong vertical shear during the boreal summer. The CLLJ vertical wind-shear and its extension to the Gulf of Papagayo also diminished convection and considerably decreased the D over a region extending westward into the ETP for at least 400–450 km. A simple physical mechanism to account for the coupling between the CLLJ, the MSD, and lightning activity is proposed for the latter region.

Local Histories/Global Designs

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter D. Mignolo
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Central America ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
South Central ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Border Thinking ◽  
East West

This book is an extended argument about the “coloniality” of power. In a shrinking world where sharp dichotomies, such as East/West and developing/developed, blur and shift, this book points to the inadequacy of current practices in the social sciences and area studies. It explores the crucial notion of “colonial difference” in the study of the modern colonial world and traces the emergence of an epistemic shift, which the book calls “border thinking.” Further, the book expands the horizons of those debates already under way in postcolonial studies of Asia and Africa by dwelling on the genealogy of thoughts of South/Central America, the Caribbean, and Latino/as in the United States. The book's concept of “border gnosis,” or sensing and knowing by dwelling in imperial/colonial borderlands, counters the tendency of occidentalist perspectives to manage, and thus limit, understanding. A new preface discusses this book as a dialogue with Hegel's Philosophy of History.

scholarly journals Family Practices and Temporality at Breakfast: Hot Spots, Convenience and Care

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852110155
Author(s):  
Daniela Pirani ◽  
Vicki Harman ◽  
Benedetta Cappellini
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spots ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Family Meals ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Family Time ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
Family Practices ◽  
Cold Spots

Drawing on 34 semi-structured interviews, this study investigates the temporality of family practices taking place in the hot spot. It does so by looking at how breakfast is inserted in the economy of family time in Italy. Our data show that breakfast, contrary to other meals, allows the adoption of more individualised and asynchronous practices, hinged on the consumption of convenience products. These time-saving strategies are normalised as part of doing family. Although the existing literature suggests that convenience and care are in opposition, and consumers of convenience products can experience anxiety and a lack of personal integrity, such features were not a dominant feature of our participants’ accounts. These findings suggest that the dichotomies of hot/cold spots and care/convenience are not always experienced in opposition when embedded within family practices. Hence, this study furthers understandings of family meals, temporality and the distinction between hot and cold spots.

A panorama of computing in central America and the Caribbean

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 84-89
Author(s):  
Gerardo Torres Zelaya
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
The Caribbean

Sovereign risk spill-overs in the banking sectors of Central America and the Caribbean

2021 ◽  
pp. 101379
Author(s):  
Dorian M. Noel ◽  
Prosper F. Bangwayo-Skeete ◽  
Michael Brei ◽  
Justin Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Sovereign Risk ◽  
The Caribbean

An ecological shift in a remote coral atoll of Belize over 25 years

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY R. McCLANAHAN ◽  
NYAWIRA A. MUTHIGA
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Acropora Cervicornis ◽  
Hard Coral ◽  
Population Densities ◽  
Herbivorous Fishes ◽  
Patch Reefs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Algal Abundance ◽  
The Caribbean

Many coral reefs in the Caribbean, and elsewhere, have undergone changes from hard coral to fleshy algal dominance over the past two decades which has often been interpreted as a localized response to eutrophication and fishing. Here, data on the abundance of hard corals and algae from lagoonal patch reefs distributed throughout a large (260 km2) remote reef atoll located approximately 30 km offshore from the sparsely-populated coast of Belize, Central America, are compared with a study of these patch reefs conducted 25 years previously. Data and observations indicate that these patch reefs have undergone a major change in their ecology associated with a 75% reduction in total hard coral, a 99% loss in the cover of Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata, and a 315% increase in algae, which are mostly erect brown algae species in the genera Lobophora, Dictyota, Turbinaria and Sargassum. Such changes have been reported from other Caribbean reefs during the 1980s, but not on such a remote reef and the present changes may be attributed primarily to both a disease that began killing Acropora in this region in the mid 1980s and a reduction in herbivory. The low level of herbivory may be attributable to the disease-induced loss of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum in 1983, or fishing of herbivorous fishes, but both explanations are speculative. The present density of fisherfolk is low, and their efforts are not targetted at herbivorous fishes, and population densities of D. antillarum 14 years after the mortality are <1 individual per 1000 m2, but there is no comparative data from before the die off. There is, however, no indication that these major changes occurred on the fore reef, because A. palmata is abundant and erect algal abundance is low. We suggest that reported changes in other Caribbean reefs are not necessarily or exclusively influenced by local human factors such as localized intense eutrophication or fishing.

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