‘Telling a different tale’: literary, historical and meteorological readings of a Norfolk heatwave     

Mike Hulme 《Climatic change》2012,113(1):5-21

Articulated initially by physical scientists, the idea of anthropogenic global climate change has been subject to increasingly diverse examinations in recent years. The idea has been appropriated by economists, worked with by engineers and, more recently, scrutinised by social scientists and humanities scholars. Underlying these examinations are different, yet rarely exposed, presumptions about what kind of ??thing?? climate is: a physical abstraction, a statistical construct, an imaginative idea. If the ontological status of climate is rarely made explicit it becomes difficult to know whether the different epistemologies used to reveal climates ?? and their changing properties ?? are appropriate. This study offers one way in which the different worlds inhabited by the idea of climate may be revealed. It does so by examining a heatwave: a powerful meteorological phenomenon one would think and one which scientific accounts of climate change tell us will become more frequent in the future. The heatwave in question occurred in July 1900 in the county of Norfolk, England. This heatwave inhabits three very different worlds: the imaginative world of L P Hartley in his novel The Go Between; the historical world of late Victorian Norfolk; and the digital world of the climate sciences. The traces of the heatwave left in these different worlds are varied and access to them is uneven. Constructing an adequate interpretation of this singular climatic event and its meaning is challenging. The study suggests that grasping the idea of climate may be harder than we think. Climates may be ineffable. Yet the approach to the study of climate illustrated here opens up new ways of thinking about the meaning and significance of climate change.  相似文献   

A three-tiered approach to participatory vulnerability assessment in the Solomon Islands   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Ioan Fazey  Mike Kesby  Anna Evely  Ian Latham  Daniel Wagatora  Jude-Edward Hagasua  Mark S. Reed  Mike Christie 《Global Environmental Change》2010,20(4):713-728

Greater recognition of the seriousness of global environmental change has led to an increase in research that assesses the vulnerability of households, communities and regions to changing environmental or economic conditions. So far, however, there has been relatively little attention given to how assessments can be conducted in ways that help build capacity for local communities to understand and find their own solutions to their problems. This paper reports on an approach that was designed and used to work with a local grass roots organization in the Solomon Islands to promote inclusivity and participation in decision-making and to build the capacity of the organization to reduce the vulnerability of communities to drivers of change. The process involved working collaboratively with the organization and training its members to conduct vulnerability assessments with communities using participatory and deliberative methods. To make best use of the learning opportunities provided by the research process, specific periods for formal reflection were incorporated for the three key stakeholders involved: the primary researchers; research assistants; and community members. Overall, the approach: (1) promoted learning about the current situation in Kahua and encouraged deeper analysis of problems; (2) built capacity for communities to manage the challenges they were facing; and (3) fostered local ownership and responsibility for problems and set precedents for future participation in decision-making. While the local organization and the communities it serves still face significant challenges, the research approach set the scene for greater local participation and effort to maintain and enhance livelihoods and wellbeing. The outcomes highlight the need for greater emphasis on embedding participatory approaches in vulnerability assessments for communities to benefit fully from the process.  相似文献   

Predicted changes in fire weather suggest increases in lightning fire initiation and future area burned in the mixedwood boreal forest   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Meg A. Krawchuk  Steve G. Cumming  Mike D. Flannigan 《Climatic change》2009,92(1-2):83-97

Forecasting future fire activity as a function of climate change is a step towards understanding the future state of the western mixedwood boreal ecosystem. We developed five annual weather indices based on the Daily Severity Rating (DSR) of the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System and estimated their relationship with annual, empirical counts of lightning fire initiation for 588 landscapes in the mixedwood boreal forest in central-eastern Alberta, Canada from data collected between 1983 and 2001 using zero-inflated negative binomial regression models. Two indices contributed to a parsimonious model of initiation; these were Seasonal Severity Rating (SSR), and DSR-sequence count. We used parameter estimates from this model to predict lightning fire initiation under weather conditions predicted in 1 × CO₂ (1975–1985), 2 × CO₂ (2040–2049) and 3 × CO₂ (2080–2089) conditions simulated by the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM). We combined predicted initiation rates for these conditions with existing empirical estimates of the number of fire initiations that grow to be large fires (fire escapes) and the fire size distribution for the region, to predict the annual area burned by lightning-caused fires in each of the three climate conditions. We illustrated a 1.5-fold and 1.8-fold increase of lightning fire initiation by 2040–2049 and 2080–2089 relative to 1975–1985 conditions due to changes in fire weather predicted by the CRCM; these increases were calculated independent of changes in lightning activity. Our simulations suggested that weather-mediated increases in initiation frequency could correspond to a substantial increase in future area burned with 1.9-fold and 2.6-fold increases in area burned in 2040–2049 and 2080–2089 relative to 1975–1985 conditions, respectively. We did not include any biotic effects in these estimates, though future patterns of initiation and fire growth will be regulated not only by weather, but also by vegetation and fire management.  相似文献   

Unstable climates: Exploring the statistical and social constructions of ‘normal’ climate     

Mike Hulme  Suraje Dessai  Irene Lorenzoni  Donald R. Nelson 《Geoforum》2009,40(2):197-206

The idea of climate has both statistical and social foundations. Both of these dimensions of climate change over time: climate, as defined by meteorological statistics, changes for both natural and anthropogenic reasons; and our expectations of future climate also change, as cultures, societies and knowledge evolves. This paper explores the interactions between these different expressions of climate change by focusing on the idea of ‘normal’ climates defined by statistics. We show how this idea came into being in meteorological circles and then review how this idea of climatic normality gets entangled with cultural and psychological processes. Using data from historical and predicted climates in the UK, we illustrate the significance of choosing different baseline ‘normals’ for retrospective and prospective interpretations of climate change. Since the choice of these statistical ‘normals’ reflects cultural, political and psychological preferences and practices as much as scientific ones, we argue that expectations of the climatic future are influenced by social as well as statistical norms. Seeing climate as co-constructed between the psycho-cultural constraints of society and the physical constraints of the material world offers a different way of thinking about the instabilities of climate and the ways we adapt to them.  相似文献   

Stardust impact analogs: Resolving pre‐ and postimpact mineralogy in Stardust Al foils     

Penelope J. WOZNIAKIEWICZ  Hope A. ISHII  Anton T. KEARSLEY  Mark J. BURCHELL  John P. BRADLEY  Mark C. PRICE  Nick TESLICH  Martin R. LEE  Mike J. COLE 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2012,47(4):708-728

Abstract– The grains returned by NASA’s Stardust mission from comet 81P/Wild 2 represent a valuable sample set that is significantly advancing our understanding of small solar system bodies. However, the grains were captured via impact at ～6.1 km s^?1 and have experienced pressures and temperatures that caused alteration. To ensure correct interpretations of comet 81P/Wild 2 mineralogy, and therefore preaccretional or parent body processes, an understanding of the effects of capture is required. Using a two‐stage light‐gas gun, we recreated Stardust encounter conditions and generated a series of impact analogs for a range of minerals of cometary relevance into flight spare Al foils. Through analyses of both preimpact projectiles and postimpact analogs by transmission electron microscopy, we explore the impact processes occurring during capture and distinguish between those materials inherent to the impactor and those that are the product of capture. We review existing and present additional data on olivine, diopside, pyrrhotite, and pentlandite. We find that surviving crystalline material is observed in most single grain impactor residues. However, none is found in that of a relatively monodisperse aggregate. A variety of impact‐generated components are observed in all samples. Al incorporation into melt‐derived phases allows differentiation between melt and shock‐induced phases. In single grain impactor residues, impact‐generated phases largely retain original (nonvolatile) major element ratios. We conclude that both surviving and impact‐generated phases in residues of single grain impactors provide valuable information regarding the mineralogy of the impacting grain whilst further studies are required to fully understand aggregate impacts and the role of subgrain interactions during impact.  相似文献   

Value of Information Introduced by a Resource Model Updating Framework     

Yüksel  Cansın  Minnecker  Corinna  Shishvan  Masoud Soleymani  Benndorf  Jörg  Buxton  Mike 《Mathematical Geosciences》2019,51(7):925-943

A primary concern of the mining industry is to meet production targets, which are required and defined by customers. Deviations from these targets, in terms of quality and quantity, highly affect the economical aspect. Recently, an efficient resource model updating framework concept has been proposed aiming for the improvement of raw material quality control and process efficiency in any type of mining operation. The concept integrates online sensor measurements, obtained during production, into the resource model. In this way, due to the spatial variability, quality attributes of the blocks that will be produced in the next days or weeks are being updated based on real-time measurements. The concept has been applied in a lignite field with the aim of identifying local impurities in a lignite seam and to improve the prediction of coal quality attributes in neighbouring blocks. This paper investigates the added value of using the resource model updating framework by using the value of information analysis. The expected benefit of additional information (integration of the online sensor measurements into the resource model) is compared to a case where there is no additional information integrated into the process. These benefits are evaluated based on the economic impact determined by applying the resource model updating framework in mine planning.

  相似文献   

Muscovite dehydration melting: Reaction mechanisms,microstructures, and implications for anatexis     

Brendan Dyck  David J. Waters  Marc R. St-Onge  Mike P. Searle 《Journal of Metamorphic Geology》2020,38(1):29-52

Dehydration melting of muscovite in metasedimentary sequences is the initially dominant mechanism of granitic melt generation in orogenic hinterlands. In dry (vapour-absent) crust, muscovite reacts with quartz to produce K-feldspar, sillimanite, and monzogranitic melt. When water vapour is present in excess, sillimanite and melt are the primary products of muscovite breakdown, and any K-feldspar produced is due to melt crystallization. Here we document the reaction mechanisms that control nucleation and growth of K-feldspar, sillimanite, and silicate melt in the metamorphic core of the Himalaya, and outline the microstructural criteria used to distinguish peritectic K-feldspar from K-feldspar grains formed during melt crystallization. We have characterized four stages of microstructural evolution in selected psammitic and pelitic samples from the Langtang and Everest regions: (a) K-feldspar nucleates epitaxially on plagioclase while intergrowths of fibrolitic sillimanite and the remaining hydrous melt components replace muscovite. (b) In quartzofeldspathic domains, K-feldspar replaces plagioclase by K⁺–Na⁺ cation exchange, while melt and intergrowths of sillimanite+quartz form in the aluminous domains. (c) At 7–8 vol.% melt generation, the system evolves from a closed to open system and all phases coarsen by up to two orders of magnitude, resulting in large K-feldspar porphyroblasts. (d) Preferential crystallization of residual melt on K-feldspar porphyroblasts and coarsened quartz forms an augen gneiss texture with a monzogranitic-tonalitic matrix that contains intergrowths of sillimanite+tourmaline+muscovite+apatite. Initial poikiloblasts of peritectic K-feldspar trap fine-grained inclusions of quartz and biotite by replacement growth of matrix plagioclase. During subsequent coarsening, peritectic K-feldspar grains overgrow and trap fabric-aligned biotite, resulting in a core to rim coarsening of inclusion size. These microstructural criteria enable a mass balance of peritectic K-feldspar and sillimanite to constrain the amount of free H₂O present during muscovite dehydration. The resulting modal proportion of K-feldspar in the Himalayan metamorphic core requires vapour-absent conditions during muscovite dehydration melting and leucogranite formation, indicating that the generation of large volumes of granitic melts in orogenic belts is not necessarily contingent on an external source of fluids.  相似文献   

Taming a “chaotic concept”: gentrification and segmented consumption in Brooklyn, 2002–2012     

Mike Owen Benediktsson  Brian Lamberta  Erika Larsen 《Urban geography》2016,37(4):590-610

Public debate and prior scholarship tend to emphasize the link between gentrification and high-end chain retail, underscoring the importance of taste cultures tied to social class in making sense of gentrification’s impact on neighborhood identity. In this study, we present evidence from 10 years of change in the businesses of Brooklyn, New York City, a period of extensive gentrification across a wide variety of neighborhood and census-tract level contexts. Adopting census tracts clustered in neighborhoods as the units of analysis, we model the effects of institutional and demographic change on two separate outcomes: chain retail density and homogeneity in the types of goods and services available. We argue that changes in consumer culture embedded in broader processes of gentrification are neither “chaotic” nor “unitary” but are “segmented” according to local spatial and demographic context, taking two discrete forms: institutionally facilitated corporatization; lifestyle-driven homogenization.  相似文献   

Shortage in the midst of plenty: Labour strategies in four Central and Eastern European cities     

Mike Ingham  Zoltán Dövényi 《GeoJournal》1999,49(1):25-33

Labour shortage was an integral feature of the communist system of economic management and one that seemed most unlikely to persist in the face of systemic transformation. A casual examination of the unemployment rates that have emerged throughout most of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the course of the past decade might suggest that this early assumption was correct. However, within the region the aggregate rate of joblessness, as well as the behaviour of national output, mask the fact that certain, major urban centres appear to have weathered well the storms caused by exposure to western markets and stringent fiscal and monetary policies. In these centres transformation has meant, to a greater or lesser degree, industrial modernisation and this begs the question of whether the human capital portfolios of the inherited labour force match up to the requirements of the new environment. This paper examines the meaning of the concept of labour shortage and presents the findings from a survey of employers in four leading cities of three major CEE economies designed to elicit if, and how, manpower requirements are being met in the present climate. The results indicate that, somewhat paradoxically, labour shortage persists in the more flexible markets of the post-communist era and that firms do not expect the situation to change radically in the near future. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Monitoring qualitative spatiotemporal change for geosensor networks     

Mike Worboys  Matt Duckham 《International journal of geographical information science》2013,27(10):1087-1108

Recent technological advances in geosensor networks demand new models of distributed computation with dynamic spatial information. This paper presents a computational model of spatial change in dynamic regions (such as may be derived from discretizations of continuous fields) founded on embeddings of graphs in orientable surfaces. Continuous change, connectedness and regularity of dynamic regions are defined and local transition rules are used to constrain region evolution and enable more efficient inference of a region's state. The model provides a framework for the detection of global high‐level events based on local low‐level ‘snapshot’ spatiotemporal data. The approach has particular relevance to environmental monitoring with geosensor networks, where technological constraints make the detection of global behaviour from local conditions highly advantageous.  相似文献