Global Landscapes: Teaching Globalization through Responsive Mobile Map Design

This article reports on the design and evaluation of Global Madison, a mobile map designed to support teaching and learning about globalization using Madison, Wisconsin, as a situated classroom. Our experience of place increasingly is mediated by mobile devices, opening new opportunities and challenges for research, industry, and education. Despite this rising popularity, few guidelines exist for creating and using mobile maps. Following tenets of user-centered design studies, we conducted two mixed-method evaluations of Global Madison to improve the tool and generate design insights that are potentially transferable to similar mobile mapping contexts: 244 students participated in an online survey after completing the tour and eighteen students were observed in the field. The evaluations generated new design considerations for mobile maps supporting situated learning, include: focus on critical issues that might leave students stranded, append location-based services with traditional mapping, enforce cognitive association between map and landscape, supply a consistent feed of information for new learners, encourage collaborative learning in the landscape, and promote student safety above all else.     

Evaluation of an urban land surface scheme over a tropical suburban neighborhood

A two-step statistical downscaling method has been reviewed and adapted to simulate twenty-first-century climate projections for the Gulf of Fonseca (Central America, Pacific Coast) using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) climate models. The downscaling methodology is adjusted after looking for good predictor fields for this area (where the geostrophic approximation fails and the real wind fields are the most applicable). The method’s performance for daily precipitation and maximum and minimum temperature is analysed and revealed suitable results for all variables. For instance, the method is able to simulate the characteristic cycle of the wet season for this area, which includes a mid-summer drought between two peaks. Future projections show a gradual temperature increase throughout the twenty-first century and a change in the features of the wet season (the first peak and mid-summer rainfall being reduced relative to the second peak, earlier onset of the wet season and a broader second peak).     

Recent ecological responses to climate variability and human impacts in the Nianbaoyeze Mountains (eastern Tibetan Plateau) inferred from pollen,diatom and tree-ring data

The Tibetan Plateau is a region that is highly sensitive to recent global warming, but the complexity and heterogeneity of its mountainous landscape can result in variable responses. In addition, the scarcity and brevity of regional instrumental and palaeoecological records still hamper our understanding of past and present patterns of environmental change. To investigate how the remote, high-alpine environments of the Nianbaoyeze Mountains, eastern Tibetan Plateau, are affected by climate change and human activity over the last ~600 years, we compared regional tree-ring studies with pollen and diatom remains archived in the dated sediments of Dongerwuka Lake (33.22°N, 101.12°E, 4,307 m a.s.l.). In agreement with previous studies from the eastern Tibetan Plateau, a strong coherence between our two juniper-based tree-ring chronologies from the Nianbaoyeze and the Anemaqin Mountains was observed, with pronounced cyclical variations in summer temperature reconstructions. A positive directional trend to warmer summer temperatures in the most recent decades, was, however, not observed in the tree-ring record. Likewise, our pollen and diatom spectra showed minimal change over the investigated time period. Although modest, the most notable change in the diatom relative abundances was a subtle decrease in the dominant planktonic Cyclotella ocellata and a concurrent increase in small, benthic fragilarioid taxa in the ~1820s, suggesting higher ecosystem variability. The pollen record subtly indicates three periods of increased cattle grazing activity (~1400–1480 AD, ~1630–1760 AD, after 1850 AD), but shows generally no significant vegetation changes during past ~600 years. The minimal changes observed in the tree-ring, diatom and pollen records are consistent with the presence of localised cooling centres that are evident in instrumental and tree-ring data within the southeastern and eastern Tibetan Plateau. Given the minor changes in regional temperature records, our complacent palaeoecological profiles suggest that climatically induced ecological thresholds have not yet been crossed in the Nianbaoyeze Mountains region.     

Velocity and temperature spectra and cospectra in an unstable suburban atmosphere

Boundary-layer flow over very rough surfaces is poorly understood so the applicability of standard micrometeorological theory is uncertain. This study presents observations of the turbulent fluctuations of meteorological parameters over a suburban area. Even though the height of measurement is considered to be close to the junction between the inertial and roughness sub-layers, the wind and temperature spectra and the momentum and sensible heat flux cospectra are in good agreement with reference data from smoother surfaces. Recommendations are made concerning site requirements, height of measurement and averaging times for the study of turbulence and turbulent fluxes over suburban terrain.     

Insights into Holocene relative sea-level changes in the southern North Sea using an improved microfauna-based transfer function

In light of global warming and rising relative sea level (RSL), detailed reconstructions of RSL histories and their controlling processes are essential in order to manage coastal-protection challenges. This study contributes to unravelling Holocene RSL change on the East Frisian North Sea coast in high resolution and with a new approach for the German Bight. For the first time, a transfer function (vertical error: 29.7 cm ? ~11% of the mean tidal range) for RSL change based on a combined training set of benthic foraminifers and ostracods from the back-barrier tidal basin of Spiekeroog is applied to the Holocene record of the back-barrier tidal basin of Norderney. The resulting RSL curve for the Norderney tidal basin is corrected for decompaction and shows a deceleration in RSL rise between 6000 and 5000 cal bp. The smallest possible error envelope (~1 m) results from the good suitability of salt-marsh layers between 5000 and 4000 cal bp. The RSL curve provides an approach towards the closure of the common data gap of peat-based curves for the southern North Sea related to a lack of basal peats in the youngest age range, and verifies regional differences in glacial isostatic adjustment.