scholarly journals Which are the highest peaks in the US Arctic? Fodar settles the debate

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1245-1257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Nolan ◽  
Kit DesLauriers

Abstract. Though an outstanding achievement for their time, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps of the eastern Alaskan Arctic nonetheless contain significant errors, and in this paper we address one of them. Specifically, USGS maps of different scale made in the late 1950s alternate between Mt. Chamberlin and Mt. Isto as the tallest peak in the US Arctic. Given that many of the peaks here are close in height and covered with glaciers, recent climate change may also have changed their height and their order. We resolved these questions using fodar, a new airborne photogrammetric technique that utilizes structure-from-motion (SfM) software and requires no ground control, and validated it using GPS measurements on the peaks as well as airborne lidar. Here we show that Mt. Chamberlin is currently the third tallest peak and that the order and elevations of the five tallest mountains in the US Arctic are Mt. Isto (2735.6 m), Mt. Hubley (2717.6 m), Mt. Chamberlin (2712.3 m), Mt. Michelson (2698.1 m), and an unnamed peak (2694.9 m); these heights are relative to the NAVD88 GEOID12A vertical datum. We find that it is indeed plausible that this ranking has changed over time and may continue to change as summit glaciers continue to shrink, though Mt. Isto will remain the highest under current climate trends. Mt. Isto is also over 100 m taller than the highest peak in Arctic Canada, making it the highest peak in the North American Arctic. Fodar elevations compared to within a few centimeters of our ground-based GPS measurements of the peaks made a few days later and our complete validation assessment indicates a measurement uncertainty of better than ±20 cm (95 % RMSE). By analyzing time series of fodar maps, we were able to detect topographic change on the centimeter level on these steep slopes, indicating that fodar can be used to measure mountain snow packs for water resource availability or avalanche danger, glacier volume change, and slope subsidence, as well as many other applications of benefit to society. Compared to lidar, the current state-of-the-art airborne topographic mapping, we found this SfM technique as accurate, more useful scientifically, and significantly less expensive, suggesting that fodar is a disruptive innovation that will enjoy widespread usage in the future.

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 6871-6907 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Nolan ◽  
K. DesLauriers

Abstract. While creation of the United States Geological Survey's topographic maps of the eastern Alaska Arctic were an outstanding accomplishment for their time, they nonetheless contained significant errors when made in the late 1950s. One notable discrepancy relates to the tallest peak in the US Arctic: USGS maps of different scale alternate between Mt Chamberlin and Mt Isto. Given that many of the peaks here are close in height and covered with glaciers, recent climate change may also have changed their height and their order. We resolved these questions using fodar, a new airborne photogrammetric technique that utilizes Structure-from-Motion (SfM) software and requires no ground control, and validated it using GPS measurements on the peaks and using airborne lidar. Here we show that Mt Chamberlin is currently the 3rd tallest peak and that the order and elevations of the five tallest mountains in the US Arctic are Mt Isto (2735.6 m), Mt. Hubley (2717.6 m), Mt. Chamberlin (2712.3 m), Mt. Michelson (2698.1 m), and an unnamed peak (2694.9 m); these orthometric heights relative to the NAVD88 vertical datum, established with use of GEOID12B. We find that it is indeed plausible that this ranking has changed over time and may continue to change as summit glaciers continue to shrink, though Mt Isto will remain the highest under current climate trends. Mt Isto is also over 100 m higher than the highest peak in the Canadian Arctic, making it the highest peak in the North American Arctic. Fodar elevations compared to within a few centimeters of our ground-based GPS measurements of the peaks made a few days later and our complete validation assessment indicates a measurement uncertainty of better than ±20 cm (95 % RMSE). By analyzing time-series of fodar maps, we were able to detect topographic change on the centimeter-level on these steep slopes, indicating that fodar can be used to measure mountain snow packs for water resource availability or avalanche danger, to measure glacier volume change and slope subsidence, and many other applications of benefit to society. Compared to lidar, the current state-of-the-art in airborne topographic mapping, we found this SfM technique as accurate, more scientifically useful, and significantly less expensive, suggesting that fodar is a disruptive innovation that will enjoy widespread usage in the future.


Author(s):  
Earl H. Fry

This article examines the ebb and flow of the Quebec government’s economic and commercial relations with the United States in the period 1994–2017. The topic demonstrates the impact of three major forces on Quebec’s economic and commercial ties with the US: (1) the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which became operational in 1994 and was fully implemented over a 15-year period; (2) the onerous security policies put in place by the US government in the decade following the horrific events of 11 September 2001; and (3) changing economic circumstances in the United States ranging from robust growth to the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The article also indicates that the Quebec government continues to sponsor a wide range of activities in the United States, often more elaborate and extensive than comparable activities pursued by many nation-states with representation in the US. 1 1 Stéphane Paquin, ‘Quebec-U.S. Relations: The Big Picture’, American Review of Canadian Studies 46, no. 2 (2016): 149–61.


Author(s):  
D. V. Dorofeev

The research is devoted to the study of the origin of the historiography of the topic of the genesis of the US foreign policy. The key thesis of the work challenges the established position in the scientific literature about the fundamental role of the work of T. Lyman, Jr. «The diplomacy of the United States: being an account of the foreign relations of the country, from the first treaty with France, in 1778, to the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, with Great Britain», published in 1826. The article puts forward an alternative hypothesis: the emergence of the historiography of the genesis of the foreign policy of the United States occurred before the beginning of the second quarter of the XIX century – during the colonial period and the first fifty years of the North American state. A study of the works of thirty-five authors who worked during the 1610s and 1820s showed that amater historians expressed a common opinion about North America’s belonging to the Eurocentric system of international relations; they were sure that both the colonists and the founding fathers perceived international processes on the basis of raison d’être. The conceptualization of the intellectual heritage of non-professional historians allowed us to distinguish three interpretations of the origin of the United States foreign policy: «Autochthonous» – focused on purely North American reasons; «Atlantic» – postulated the borrowing of European practice of international relations by means of the system of relations that developed in the Atlantic in the XVII–XVIII centuries; «Imperial» – stated the adaptation of the British experience. The obtained data refute the provisions of scientific thought of the XX–XXI centuries and create new guidelines for further study of the topic.


The ‘New World’ on the North American continent was founded in the 1600s on colonists’ willingness to take substantial risks. The notion of relieving at least some of the burdens of inevitable failure, in order to encourage productive risk-taking, has been part of the fabric of US law almost from the very beginning. After discovering that jailing debtors did very little to encourage fulfilment of debts, and it in fact depressed the economic productivity on which the colonies’ survival depended, several of the colonies experimented with limited insolvency and bankruptcy laws in the mid-1700s. After the Revolution, the issue of providing uniform and nationwide bankruptcy relief was enshrined in the US Constitution as part of the very foundation of the new nation. While the new US Congress was granted only limited rights to regulate general economic matters (the most significant such rights being reserved to the state and local legislative bodies), Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the US Constitution explicitly vested the federal Congress with the power to regulate bankruptcy.


Neurology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (10) ◽  
pp. e1029-e1040 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitchell T. Wallin ◽  
William J. Culpepper ◽  
Jonathan D. Campbell ◽  
Lorene M. Nelson ◽  
Annette Langer-Gould ◽  
...  

ObjectiveTo generate a national multiple sclerosis (MS) prevalence estimate for the United States by applying a validated algorithm to multiple administrative health claims (AHC) datasets.MethodsA validated algorithm was applied to private, military, and public AHC datasets to identify adult cases of MS between 2008 and 2010. In each dataset, we determined the 3-year cumulative prevalence overall and stratified by age, sex, and census region. We applied insurance-specific and stratum-specific estimates to the 2010 US Census data and pooled the findings to calculate the 2010 prevalence of MS in the United States cumulated over 3 years. We also estimated the 2010 prevalence cumulated over 10 years using 2 models and extrapolated our estimate to 2017.ResultsThe estimated 2010 prevalence of MS in the US adult population cumulated over 10 years was 309.2 per 100,000 (95% confidence interval [CI] 308.1–310.1), representing 727,344 cases. During the same time period, the MS prevalence was 450.1 per 100,000 (95% CI 448.1–451.6) for women and 159.7 (95% CI 158.7–160.6) for men (female:male ratio 2.8). The estimated 2010 prevalence of MS was highest in the 55- to 64-year age group. A US north-south decreasing prevalence gradient was identified. The estimated MS prevalence is also presented for 2017.ConclusionThe estimated US national MS prevalence for 2010 is the highest reported to date and provides evidence that the north-south gradient persists. Our rigorous algorithm-based approach to estimating prevalence is efficient and has the potential to be used for other chronic neurologic conditions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-728
Author(s):  
Astha KC ◽  
Melissa K. Schaefer ◽  
Nimalie D. Stone ◽  
Joseph Perz

AbstractBackground:The US Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns (CBP) series provides a unique opportunity to describe the healthcare sector using a single, national data source.Methods:We analyzed CBP data on business establishments in the healthcare industry for 2000–2016 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Setting and facility types were defined using the North American Industry Classification System.Results:In 2016, CBP enumerated 707,634 US healthcare establishments (a 34% increase from 2000); 86.5% were outpatient facilities and services followed by long-term care facilities (12.5%) and acute-care facilities (1.0%). Between 2000 and 2016, traditional facilities such as general medical surgical and surgical hospitals (−0.4%) and skilled nursing facilities (+0.1%) decreased or remained flat, while other long-term care and outpatient providers grew rapidly.Conclusion:This analysis highlights the steady growth and increased specialization of the US healthcare sector, particularly in long-term care and outpatient settings.


2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY PAYNE

United States–Caribbean relations over the period of the last thirty or forty years have rarely—if ever—been analysed in a thoroughly satisfying way. It is a strange omission in the international relations literature given the proximity of the United States to the Caribbean, and vice versa. But the fact is that most accounts of the relationship have fallen prey to a powerful, but ultimately misleading, mythology by which small, poor, weak, dependent entities in the Caribbean have either created trouble for, or alternatively been confronted by, the ‘colossus to the north’ that is the United States in whose ‘backyard’ they unfortunately have to reside. Virtually all analysts of the US–Caribbean relationship have thus drawn a picture marked at heart by the notion of an inherently unequal struggle between forces of a different order and scale. Within this broad metaphor the only major difference of interpretation has reflected the competing theories of power in the international system developed by the realist and structuralist schools.


1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond King

President Jimmy Carter twice attempted to enact major reforms of the US welfare system. Using archival material from the Carter Presidential Library, this article argues that one major reason for the failure of both initiatives was the persistence of regional divisions between representatives from the north and south in the Congress. This factor is as germane to the welfare failure as poor presidential-congressional relations and changes to the committee seniority system in the Congress. American welfare programmes were institutionalized in such a way that, from the 1930s, building a coalition across sectional interests (as represented by members of the Congress) was nearly impossible: gains to one region constituted losses to the other. The consequence of the way Carter pursued and failed to achieve welfare reform was to enhance the priorities, particularly ‘working for welfare’, exploited by Reagan in the final year of his administration when the Family Support Act was enacted.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 1989-2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Y. Kim ◽  
R. Talbot ◽  
H. Mao ◽  
D. Blake ◽  
S. Vay ◽  
...  

Abstract. A case of continental outflow from the United States (US) was examined using airborne measurements from NASA DC-8 flight 13 during the Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment – North America (INTEX-NA). Mixing ratios of methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) at 8–11 km altitude over the North Atlantic were elevated to 1843 ppbv and 134 ppbv respectively, while those of carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbonyl sulfide (COS) were reduced to 372.4 ppmv and 411 pptv respectively. In this region, urban and industrial influences were evidenced by elevated mixing ratios and good linear relationships between urban and industrial tracers compared to North Atlantic background air. Moreover, low mixing ratios and a good correlation between COS and CO2 showed a fingerprint of terrestrial uptake and minimal dilution during rapid transport over a 1–2 day time period. Analysis of synoptic conditions, backward trajectories, and photochemical aging estimates based on C3H8/C2H6 strongly suggested that elevated anthropogenic tracers in the upper troposphere of the flight region were the result of transport via convection and warm conveyor belt (WCB) uplifting of boundary layer air over the southeastern US. This mechanism is supported by the similar slope values of linear correlations between long-lived (months) anthropogenic tracers (e.g., C2Cl4 and CHCl3) from the flight region and the planetary boundary layer in the southeastern US. In addition, the aircraft measurements suggest that outflow from the US augmented the entire tropospheric column at mid-latitudes over the North Atlantic. Overall, the flight 13 data demonstrate a pervasive impact of US anthropogenic emissions on the troposphere over the North Atlantic.


EDIS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Hartwig Hochmair ◽  
Adam Benjamin

Topographic maps provide both a detailed and accurate representation of cultural and natural features on the ground and a quantitative representation of relief, usually using contour lines. They can be used to address spatial questions in disciplines related to natural resources, hydrology, forestry, agriculture, or ecology. In 1879, the United States Geological Survey began to map the topography of the United States, producing new map versions of each area at semi-regular time intervals. US Topo maps are the current generation of USGS topographic maps. Unlike traditional topographic maps, the US Topo product is automatically generated from national map databases with topographic maps and produced every three years for all 48 of the contiguous United States, Hawaii, and the United States territories. They are published as freely available geospatial PDF documents that facilitate coordinate readings and spatial measurements (e.g. distance, area) through built-in georeferencing technology. This 7-page fact sheet written by Hartwig H. Hochmair and Adam R. Benjamin and published by the UF/IFAS School of Forest Resources and Conservation focuses on US Topo quadrangle download procedures and layer structure. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr432


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