scholarly journals An Analysis of the Potential for the Formation of ‘Nodes of Persisting Complexity’

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8161
Author(s):  
Nick King ◽  
Aled Jones
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Scale Effects ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Sociopolitical Complexity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Starting Conditions ◽  
Geographical Locations

Human civilisation has undergone a continuous trajectory of rising sociopolitical complexity since its inception; a trend which has undergone a dramatic recent acceleration. This phenomenon has resulted in increasingly severe perturbation of the Earth System, manifesting recently as global-scale effects such as climate change. These effects create an increased risk of a global ‘de-complexification’ (collapse) event in which complexity could undergo widespread reversal. ‘Nodes of persisting complexity’ are geographical locations which may experience lesser effects from ‘de-complexification’ due to having ‘favourable starting conditions’ that may allow the retention of a degree of complexity. A shortlist of nations (New Zealand, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland) were identified and qualitatively analysed in detail to ascertain their potential to form ‘nodes of persisting complexity’ (New Zealand is identified as having the greatest potential). The analysis outputs are applied to identify insights for enhancing resilience to ‘de-complexification’.

Plastics in the Earth system

Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 373 (6550) ◽  
pp. 51-55
Author(s):  
Aron Stubbins ◽  
Kara Lavender Law ◽  
Samuel E. Muñoz ◽  
Thomas S. Bianchi ◽  
Lixin Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Organic Carbon ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Earth System Science ◽  
System Science ◽  
Global Problem ◽  
The Earth

Plastic contamination of the environment is a global problem whose magnitude justifies the consideration of plastics as emergent geomaterials with chemistries not previously seen in Earth’s history. At the elemental level, plastics are predominantly carbon. The comparison of plastic stocks and fluxes to those of carbon reveals that the quantities of plastics present in some ecosystems rival the quantity of natural organic carbon and suggests that geochemists should now consider plastics in their analyses. Acknowledging plastics as geomaterials and adopting geochemical insights and methods can expedite our understanding of plastics in the Earth system. Plastics also can be used as global-scale tracers to advance Earth system science.

5. Anthropocene

2016 ◽  
pp. 74-90
Author(s):  
Tim Lenton
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Key Events

Could the Earth system be on the brink of another revolutionary change, thanks to human activities? We humans are very recent products of evolution, yet already we are transforming the planet at a global scale. The recognition that humans are now a key component of the Earth system was encapsulated in the Bretherton diagram. More recently, the term ‘Anthropocene’ has been coined to describe a new geological epoch in which human activities are transforming the Earth system at a global scale. ‘Anthropocene’ introduces how human evolution was shaped by changes in the Earth system and how we have gone on to transform the Earth system—tracing the key events on a timeline.

scholarly journals Lifecycle of light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols in the atmosphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dantong Liu ◽  
Cenlin He ◽  
Joshua P. Schwarz ◽  
Xuan Wang
Keyword(s):  
Optical Properties ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Water Solubility ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Carbonaceous Aerosols ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Improved Model

Abstract Light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols (LACs), including black carbon and light-absorbing organic carbon (brown carbon, BrC), have an important role in the Earth system via heating the atmosphere, dimming the surface, modifying the dynamics, reducing snow/ice albedo, and exerting positive radiative forcing. The lifecycle of LACs, from emission to atmospheric evolution further to deposition, is key to their overall climate impacts and uncertainties in determining their hygroscopic and optical properties, atmospheric burden, interactions with clouds, and deposition on the snowpack. At present, direct observations constraining some key processes during the lifecycle of LACs (e.g., interactions between LACs and hydrometeors) are rather limited. Large inconsistencies between directly measured LAC properties and those used for model evaluations also exist. Modern models are starting to incorporate detailed aerosol microphysics to evaluate transformation rates of water solubility, chemical composition, optical properties, and phases of LACs, which have shown improved model performance. However, process-level understanding and modeling are still poor particularly for BrC, and yet to be sufficiently assessed due to lack of global-scale direct measurements. Appropriate treatments of size- and composition-resolved processes that influence both LAC microphysics and aerosol–cloud interactions are expected to advance the quantification of aerosol light absorption and climate impacts in the Earth system. This review summarizes recent advances and up-to-date knowledge on key processes during the lifecycle of LACs, highlighting the essential issues where measurements and modeling need improvement.

scholarly journals Impair-then-Repair: A Brief History & Global-Scale Hypothesis Regarding Human-Water Interactions in the Anthropocene

Daedalus ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 144 (3) ◽  
pp. 94-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles J. Vörösmarty ◽  
Michel Meybeck ◽  
Christopher L. Pastore
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Management Schemes ◽  
Rich Countries

Water is an essential building block of the Earth system and a nonsubstitutable resource upon which humankind must depend. But a growing body of evidence shows that freshwater faces a pandemic array of challenges. Today we can observe a globally significant but collectively unorganized approach to addressing them. Under modern water management schemes, impairment accumulates with increasing wealth but is then remedied by costly, after-the-fact technological investments. This strategy of treating symptoms rather than underlying causes is practiced widely across rich countries but leaves poor nations and many of the world's freshwater life-forms at risk. The seeds of this modern “impair-then-repair” mentality for water management were planted long ago, yet the wisdom of our “water traditions” may be ill-suited to an increasingly crowded planet. Focusing on rivers, which collectively satisfy the bulk of the world's freshwater needs, this essay explores the past, present, and possible future of human-water interactions. We conclude by presenting the impair-then-repair paradigm as a testable, global-scale hypothesis with the aim of stimulating not only systematic study of the impairment process but also the search for innovative solutions. Such an endeavor must unite and cobalance perspectives from the natural sciences and the humanities.

scholarly journals Slow-down of the greening trend in natural vegetation with further rise in atmospheric CO2

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Winkler ◽  
Ranga B. Myneni ◽  
Alexis Hannart ◽  
Victor Brovkin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Leaf Area ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Scale Effects ◽  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Area Index ◽  
Probabilistic Setting

<div> <div> <div> <p>Satellite data reveal widespread changes in vegetation cover of Earth’s land surfaces. Regions intensively attended to by humans are mostly greening due to land management. Natural vegetation, on the other hand, is exhibiting patterns of both greening and browning in all continents. Factors linked to anthropogenic carbon emissions, such as CO<sub>2 </sub>fertilization, climate change and consequent episodic disturbances (<em>e.g. </em>fires and droughts) are hypothesized to be key drivers of changes in natural vegetation. A rigorous regional attribution at biome-level that can be scaled into a global picture of what is behind the observed changes is currently lacking.</p> <p>Therefore, we analyze here the longest available satellite record of global leaf area index (LAI, 1981-2017) and identify several clusters of significant long-term changes at the biome scale. Using process-based model simulations (fully-coupled MPI-M Earth system model and 13 stand-alone land surface models), we disentangle the effects of rising CO<sub>2 </sub>on LAI in a probabilistic setting applying Causal Counterfactual Theory.</p> <p>Our analysis reveals a slowing down of greening and strengthening of browning trends, particularly in the last two decades (2000-2017). The decreases in LAI are primarily concentrated in regions of high LAI (<em>i.e. </em>tropical forests), whereas the increases are in low LAI regions (<em>i.e. </em>northern and arid lands). These opposing trends are reducing the LAI texture of natural vegetation at the global scale. The analysis prominently indicates the effects of climate change on many biomes – warming in northern ecosystems and rainfall anomalies in tropical biomes. Our results do not support previously published accounts of dominant global-scale effects of CO<sub>2 </sub>fertilization. Most models largely underestimate vegetation browning, especially in the tropical rainforests. The leaf area loss in these productive ecosystems could be an early indicator of a slow-down in the terrestrial carbon sink. Models need to better account for this effect to realize plausible Earth system projections of the 21<sup>st </sup>century.</p> </div> </div> </div>

scholarly journals Global analysis of river systems: from Earth system controls to Anthropocene syndromes

2003 ◽  
Vol 358 (1440) ◽  
pp. 1935-1955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Meybeck
Keyword(s):  
River Flow ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Aquatic Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Chemical Contamination ◽  
River Systems ◽  
Global Features ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Carbon Balances

Continental aquatic systems from rivers to the coastal zone are considered within two perspectives: (i) as a major link between the atmosphere, pedosphere, biosphere and oceans within the Earth system with its Holocene dynamics, and (ii) as water and aquatic biota resources progressively used and transformed by humans. Human pressures have now reached a state where the continental aquatic systems can no longer be considered as being controlled by only Earth system processes, thus defining a new era, the Anthropocene. Riverine changes, now observed at the global scale, are described through a first set of syndromes (flood regulation, fragmentation, sediment imbalance, neo–arheism, salinization, chemical contamination, acidification, eutrophication and microbial contamination) with their related causes and symptoms. These syndromes have direct influences on water uses, either positive or negative. They also modify some Earth system key functions such as sediment, water, nutrient and carbon balances, greenhouse gas emissions and aquatic biodiversity. Evolution of river syndromes over the past 2000 years is complex: it depends upon the stages of regional human development and on natural conditions, as illustrated here for the chemical contamination syndrome. River damming, eutrophication and generalized decrease of river flow due to irrigation are some of the other global features of river changes. Future management of river systems should also consider these long–term impacts on the Earth system.

Effectiveness of Programs for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaia Del Campo ◽  
Marisalva Fávero
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Prevention Programs ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sexual Abuse Prevention ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Methodological Considerations

Abstract. During the last decades, several studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of sexual abuse prevention programs implemented in different countries. In this article, we present a review of 70 studies (1981–2017) evaluating prevention programs, conducted mostly in the United States and Canada, although with a considerable presence also in other countries, such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The results of these studies, in general, are very promising and encourage us to continue this type of intervention, almost unanimously confirming its effectiveness. Prevention programs encourage children and adolescents to report the abuse experienced and they may help to reduce the trauma of sexual abuse if there are victims among the participants. We also found that some evaluations have not considered the possible negative effects of this type of programs in the event that they are applied inappropriately. Finally, we present some methodological considerations as critical analysis to this type of evaluations.

Geographical aspects of the diffusion of passive houses

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Kozma ◽  
E. Molnár ◽  
K. Czimre ◽  
J. Pénzes
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Renewable Energy Resources ◽  
Passive House ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Passive Houses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Geographical Locations ◽  
Over Time

Abstract In our days, energy issues belong to the most important problems facing the Earth and the solution may be expected partly from decreasing the amount of the energy used and partly from the increased utilisation of renewable energy resources. A substantial part of energy consumption is related to buildings and includes, inter alia, the use for cooling/heating, lighting and cooking purposes. In the view of the above, special attention has been paid to minimising the energy consumption of buildings since the late 1980s. Within the framework of that, the passive house was created, a building in which the thermal comfort can be achieved solely by postheating or postcooling of the fresh air mass without a need for recirculated air. The aim of the paper is to study the changes in the construction of passive houses over time. In addition, the differences between the geographical locations and the observable peculiarities with regard to the individual building types are also presented.

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