The kaleidoscope ocean

2005 ◽  
Vol 363 (1837) ◽  
pp. 2873-2890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Martin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Spatial Variability ◽  
Plant Material ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Phytoplankton Production ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Short History ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

Oceanic plant life is dominated by the microscopic phytoplankton. Regardless of the scale at which they are observed, they display striking heterogeneity in their distribution. At their most dramatic they paint colourful swathes across whole seas. A short history of observations of phytoplankton ‘patchiness’ is presented, illustrated with some of the many ideas put forward to explain it. Focus is then turned to the mesoscale, covering scales of roughly 1–500 km. It is argued that the spatial variability seen in phytoplankton at these scales gives important information on the biogeochemistry of the ocean. In particular, interplay between the physical circulation and biological processes results in constantly shifting patterns that are strongly related to changes induced in phytoplankton production. It is thought that this physical influence may play a major role in controlling the rate at which new plant material (primary production) is generated in much of the world's oceans. Major questions yet to be addressed are also discussed including the difficulty of quantifying processes on the very limit of what we can model or observe and how these processes may change in response to and exert a feedback on future climate change.

scholarly journals A short history of climate change

2020 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 00002
Author(s):  
Dirk Notz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
Short History ◽  
Unique Challenge ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Natural Climate ◽  
First Time

The flux of energy through the climate system determines the living conditions of our planet. In this contribution, I outline the main processes regulating this flux of energy, how these processes have changed throughout Earth history, and how today they are changing by human activities, in particular by activities related to energy production. The changes in the climate state of our planet, which have been ongoing ever since the formation of the Earth some 5 billion years ago, have shaped the world we live in today. Yet, today’s climate change is special in two overarching ways. First, it is the first time that a major climate change is globally affecting a civilisation that is perfectly adapted to thousands of years of stable climate conditions. Second, today’s climate change is occurring at a rate much faster than preceding natural climate changes. In combination, these two factors make today’s climate change a unique challenge to humankind, with direct consequences of future energy production as outlined in the other contributions to this volume.

scholarly journals Alaskan soil carbon stocks: spatial variability and dependence on environmental factors

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 5695-5718 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Mishra ◽  
W. J. Riley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Spatial Variability ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Active Layer ◽  
High Latitude ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Soil Wetness ◽  
Soc Stocks

Abstract. The direction and magnitude of soil organic carbon (SOC) changes in response to climate change depend on the spatial and vertical distributions of SOC. We estimated spatially-resolved SOC stocks from surface to C horizon, distinguishing active-layer and permafrost-layer stocks, based on geospatial analysis of 472 soil profiles and spatially referenced environmental variables for Alaska. Total Alaska state-wide SOC stock was estimated to be 77 Pg, with 61% in the active-layer, 27% in permafrost, and 12% in non-permafrost soils. Prediction accuracy was highest for the active-layer as demonstrated by highest ratio of performance to deviation (1.5). Large spatial variability was predicted, with whole-profile, active-layer, and permafrost-layer stocks ranging from 1–296 kg C m−2, 2–166 kg m−2, and 0–232 kg m−2, respectively. Temperature and soil wetness were found to be primary controllers of whole-profile, active-layer, and permafrost-layer SOC stocks. Secondary controllers, in order of importance, were: land cover type, topographic attributes, and bedrock geology. The observed importance of soil wetness rather than precipitation on SOC stocks implies that the poor representation of high-latitude soil wetness in Earth System Models may lead to large uncertainty in predicted SOC stocks under future climate change scenarios. Under strict caveats described in the text and assuming temperature changes from the A1B Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenario, our geospatial model indicates that the equilibrium average 2100 Alaska active-layer depth could deepen by 11 cm, resulting in a thawing of 13 Pg C currently in permafrost. The equilibrium SOC loss associated with this warming would be highest under continuous permafrost (31%), followed by discontinuous (28%), isolated (24.3%), and sporadic (23.6%) permafrost areas. Our high resolution mapping of soil carbon stock reveals the potential vulnerability of high-latitude soil carbon and can be used as a basis for future studies of anthropogenic and climatic perturbations.

Media Hot and Cold

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Starosielski
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Media ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
First Century ◽  
Air Conditioners ◽  
History Of ◽  
Infrared Cameras ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Control

In Media Hot and Cold Nicole Starosielski examines the cultural dimensions of temperature to theorize the ways heat and cold can be used as a means of communication, subjugation, and control. Diving into the history of thermal media, from infrared cameras to thermostats to torture sweatboxes, Starosielski explores the many meanings and messages of temperature. During the twentieth century, heat and cold were broadcast through mass thermal media. Today, digital thermal media such as bodily air conditioners offer personalized forms of thermal communication and comfort. Although these new media promise to help mitigate the uneven effects of climate change, Starosielski shows how they can operate as a form of biopower by determining who has the ability to control their own thermal environment. In this way, thermal media can enact thermal violence in ways that reinforce racialized, colonial, gendered, and sexualized hierarchies. By outlining how the control of temperature reveals power relations, Starosielski offers a framework to better understand the dramatic transformations of hot and cold media in the twenty-first century.

Pandora’s Blocks

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Jack Parkin
Keyword(s):  
Short History ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technical Functions ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Many

Chapter 1 opens the lid on Bitcoin so that all of its attributes, problems, and connotations come spilling out. At the same time, it pulls these disparate strands back into focus by outlining the many discrepancies examined in subsequent chapters. So while in some ways the chapter acts like a primer for cryptocurrencies, blockchains, and their political economies, the material laid out works to set up the book’s underlying argument: asymmetric concentrations of power inevitably form though processes of algorithmic decentralisation. In the process, a short history of Bitcoin introduces some of its key stakeholders as well as some of its core technical functions.

When did We Start to Change Things?

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
James Lovelock

As we wrote the first draft of this chapter (during early summer 2007), the potential dangers of ‘global warming’ had moved up the news agenda to a point where most major politicians were starting to take the problem seriously. Our opening quotation comes from a book published in early 2006, which seemed to coincide with the growth of this wider concern with global warming. Lovelock was not alone in trying to raise awareness of the problem; around the same time another book on climate change by the zoologist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery also attracted global attention to this issue, as did the lecture tours (and Oscar-winning film) of Al Gore—the former US presidential candidate and campaigner on the dangers of climate change. Indeed, in his role as a climate campaigner Gore won a share in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. It is possible that future historians will see the period 2005–2007 as the start of a crucial wider engagement with these problems. Things may not be as bad as James Lovelock suggests—in his book he deliberately emphasized the most worrying scenarios coming from computer models, and other evidence, in an attempt to draw attention to the critical nature of the problem. However, all these worst case scenarios were drawn from within the range of results that most climate scientists believed could plausibly happen—not extreme cases with little current evidence to support them. That one of the major environmental scientists of the second half of the twentieth century could write such prose as science—rather than science fiction—is clearly a case for concern about future climate change. It also raises another important question, relating to the history of human influence on our planet: when in our history did we start to have major environmental impacts on Earth as a whole? This is clearly an important issue from a historical perspective, but the answers may also have implications for some of our attempts to rectify the damage. Our discussion of this question comes with various caveats. Many of the arguments we consider in this chapter are still the subject of academic disagreement.

scholarly journals Moving Birds in Hawai'i: Assisted Colonisation in a Colonised Land

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-64
Author(s):  
Thom Van Dooren
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Native Hawaiian ◽  
Avian Species ◽  
Kanaka Maoli ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many

In September 2011, a delicate cargo of 24 Nihoa Millerbirds was carefully loaded by conservationists onto a ship for a three-day voyage to Laysan Island in the remote Northwest Hawaiian Islands. The goal of this effort was to establish a second population of this endangered species, an “insurance population” in the face of the mounting pressures of climate change and potential new biotic arrivals. But the millerbird, or ulūlu in Hawaiian, is just one of the many avian species to become the subject of this kind of “assisted colonisation.” In Hawai'i, and around the world, recent years have seen a broad range of efforts to safeguard species by finding them homes in new places. Thinking through the ulūlu project, this article explores the challenges and possibilities of assisted colonisation in this colonised land. What does it mean to move birds in the context of the long, and ongoing, history of dispossession of the Kānaka Maoli, the Native Hawaiian people? How are distinct but entangled process of colonisation, of unworlding, at work in the lives of both people and birds? Ultimately, this article explores how these diverse colonisations might be understood and told responsibly in an era of escalating loss and extinction.

scholarly journals The 2020 Violent Change in Government in Kyrgyzstan Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic: Three Distinct Stories in One

2021 ◽  
pp. 157-174
Author(s):  
Asel Doolotkeldieva
Keyword(s):  
Young Person ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
Important Process ◽  
Short History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

AbstractThe day after the election night, on October 5th of 2020, several thousand Kyrgyz citizens poured in the direction of the main square of the capital Bishkek to denounce fraudulent elections. An estimated 1,250 people were injured, and one young person died. This third violent change of government in Kyrgyzstan’s short history of independence can be best understood as a combination of three distinct stories coming together under an unprecedented external shock produced by the coronavirus. First, a genuine citizen mobilization was triggered by the pandemic-related economic decline and rigged elections. Second, the initial peaceful protest was hijacked, to the surprise of the many, by a populist leader capitalizing on long-existing societal polarization. Third, the spectacular unfolding of the intra-opposition struggle downplays an important process of oligarchization, underlying the shaky grounds of patronal presidentialism in pluralist systems.

A Short History of Designing for Communication on the Web

2011 ◽  
pp. 118-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon B. Heilesen
Keyword(s):  
Interface Design ◽  
Web Design ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Short History ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Web

Web design is important for how we communicate on the Internet, and it also has an in?uence on computer interface design in general. Taking a very literal view of the theme of “designing for communication”, this chapter examines the development of Web design as a prerequisite for understanding what it has become today, and it concludes by offering some re?ections on the future of Web design. In the ?rst part of the chapter, the history of Web design is outlined in terms of the complex interplay of various social, cultural, economic, technological, and communicative factors. This section concludes with the presentation of a framework for Web design that allows for—if not actually reconciles—the many existing approaches to the subject. In the second part of the chapter, it is suggested that Web design, as it has developed so far, may be facing major changes as the requirements of users and the technologies employed to meet them are changing.

A history of ENSO events since A.D. 1525: implications for future climate change

2008 ◽  
Vol 92 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 343-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joëlle L. Gergis ◽  
Anthony M. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Enso Events ◽  
History Of
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