Psychological Difficulties Mediate and Self-Efficacy Moderates the Relationship Between Family Cumulative Risk and Hope Among Chinese Children From Low-Income Families

This longitudinal study investigated the role of psychological difficulties and self-efficacy in the relationship between family cumulative risk and hope among children from low-income families. The participants were 392 Chinese children from low-income families; the study extended for 2 years, and participants completed data that were collected with the following questionnaires: the Family Cumulative Risk Index, Children's Hope Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire-Difficulties subscale, and General Self-efficacy Scale. The results demonstrated that psychological difficulties played a mediating role in the relationship between family cumulative risk and hope; specifically, family cumulative risk predicted hope of children via psychological difficulties. Self-efficacy moderated the relationship between psychological difficulties and hope. This moderation supported “a drop in the ocean effect”; the protective effect of high self-efficacy worked only when psychological difficulties were at low levels. When psychological difficulties were at high levels, the buffering effect of self-efficacy on family cumulative risk was gradually weakened and eventually lost.

The Inland Maintenance and Reintensification of Tropical Storm Bill (2015) Part 1: Contributions of the Brown Ocean Effect

Landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) often decay rapidly due to a decrease in moisture and energy fluxes over land when compared to the ocean surface. Occasionally, however, these cyclones maintain intensity or reintensify over land. Post-landfall maintenance and intensification of TCs over land may be a result of fluxes of moisture and energy derived from anomalously wet soils. These soils act similarly to a warm sea surface, in a phenomenon coined the “Brown Ocean Effect.” Tropical Storm (TS) Bill (2015) made landfall over a region previously moistened by anomalously heavy rainfall and displayed periods of reintensification and maintenance over land. This study evaluates the role of the Brown Ocean Effect on the observed maintenance and intensification of TS Bill using a combination of existing and novel approaches, including the evaluation of precursor conditions at varying temporal scales and making use of composite backward trajectories. Comparisons were made to landfalling TCs with similar paths that did not undergo TC maintenance and/or intensification (TCMI) as well as to TS Erin (2007), a known TCMI case. We show that the antecedent environment prior to TS Bill was similar to other known TCMI cases, but drastically different from the non-TCMI cases analyzed in this study. Furthermore, we show that contributions of evapotranspiration to the overall water vapor budget were non-negligible prior to TCMI cases and that evapotranspiration along storm inflow was significantly (p<0.05) greater for TCMI cases than non-TCMI cases suggesting a potential upstream contribution from the land surface.

Influence of Land Cover and Soil Moisture based Brown Ocean Effect on an Extreme Rainfall Event from a Louisiana Gulf Coast Tropical System

Extreme flooding over southern Louisiana in mid-August of 2016 resulted from an unusual tropical low that formed and intensified over land. We used numerical experiments to highlight the role of the ‘Brown Ocean’ effect (where saturated soils function similar to a warm ocean surface) on intensification and it’s modulation by land cover change. A numerical modeling experiment that successfully captured the flood event (control) was modified to alter moisture availability by converting wetlands to open water, wet croplands, and dry croplands. Storm evolution in the control experiment with wet antecedent soils most resembles tropical lows that form and intensify over oceans. Irrespective of soil moisture conditions, conversion of wetlands to croplands reduced storm intensity, and also, non-saturated soils reduced rain by 20% and caused shorter durations of high intensity wind conditions. Developing agricultural croplands and more so restoring wetlands and not converting them into open water can impede intensification of tropical systems that affect the area.