Local level climate justice? Adaptation finance and vulnerability reduction

Climate change creates a double inequality through the inverse distribution of risk and responsibility. Developed states are responsible, but are forecast to confront only moderate adverse effects; least developed states are not culpable and yet experience significant threats to livelihoods, assets and security. Adaptation finance addresses inequity by developed states facilitating/funding behaviour adjustments necessary for exposed communities to lessen climate risk. This article investigates the ground-level effectiveness of adaptation finance in climate vulnerable villages across Malawi, while controlling for disparities in vulnerability. Malawi and selected districts are both climate vulnerable and significant recipients of adaptation finance. This concludes a larger top–down multi-scalar analysis of climate justice, which applies the distribution and effectiveness of adaptation finance as a proxy. The study avails of participatory assessments to compare actions of villages receiving adaptation finance with those engaging in autonomous and informal adaptations. Adaptation finance villages: (a) address more climate related risks; and (b) enhance agency, security and sustainably lessen climate vulnerability. Conversely, informal practice villages attend to a lower proportion of climate risks and often develop short-term strategies with less enduring vulnerability reduction. Vulnerable communities receiving adaptation finance do change behaviours to reduce climate risk and thus secure local level climate justice.     

In-Street Wind Direction Variability in the Vicinity of a Busy Intersection in Central London

We present results from fast-response wind measurements within and above a busy intersection between two street canyons (Marylebone Road and Gloucester Place) in Westminster, London taken as part of the DAPPLE (Dispersion of Air Pollution and Penetration into the Local Environment; www.dapple.org.uk ) 2007 field campaign. The data reported here were collected using ultrasonic anemometers on the roof-top of a building adjacent to the intersection and at two heights on a pair of lamp-posts on opposite sides of the intersection. Site characteristics, data analysis and the variation of intersection flow with the above-roof wind direction (θ _ref ) are discussed. Evidence of both flow channelling and recirculation was identified within the canyon, only a few metres from the intersection for along-street and across-street roof-top winds respectively. Results also indicate that for oblique roof-top flows, the intersection flow is a complex combination of bifurcated channelled flows, recirculation and corner vortices. Asymmetries in local building geometry around the intersection and small changes in the background wind direction (changes in 15- min mean θ _ref of 5°–10°) were also observed to have profound influences on the behaviour of intersection flow patterns. Consequently, short time-scale variability in the background flow direction can lead to highly scattered in-street mean flow angles masking the true multi-modal features of the flow and thus further complicating modelling challenges.     

Who will win the green race? In search of environmental competitiveness and innovation

As the world considers greener forms of economic growth, countries and sectors are beginning to position themselves for the emerging green economy. This paper combines patent data with international trade and output data in order to investigate who the winners of this “green race” might be. The analysis covers 110 manufacturing sectors in eight countries (China, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, UK and the US) using date for the period 2005–2007. We identify three success factors for green competitiveness at the sector level: the speed at which sectors convert to green products and processes (measured by green innovation), their ability to gain and maintain market share (measured by existing comparative advantages) and a favourable starting point (measured by current output). We find that the green race is likely to alter the present competitiveness landscape. Many incumbent country-sectors with strong comparative advantages today lag behind in terms of green conversion, suggesting that they could lose their competitive edge. Japan, and to a lesser extent Germany, appear best placed to benefit from the green economy, while other European countries (Italy in particular) could fall behind. However, the green economy is much broader than the few flagship sectors on which the debate tends to focus, and each country has its niches of green competitiveness.     

Least-squares harmonic estimation of the tropopause parameters using GPS radio occultation measurements

In order to investigate temporal variations of the tropopause parameters, Least-Squares Harmonic Estimation (LS-HE) is applied to the time series of the tropopause temperatures and heights derived from Global Positioning System Radio Occultation (GPS RO) atmospheric profiles of CHAMP, GRACE and COSMIC missions from January 2006 until May 2010 in different regions of Iran. By applying the univariate LS-HE to the completely unevenly spaced time series of the tropopause temperatures and heights, annual and diurnal components are detected together with their higher harmonics. The multivariate LS-HE estimates the main periodic signals, particularly diurnal and semidiurnal cycles, more clearly than the univariate LS-HE. Mixing in the values of the tropopause height and temperature is seen to occur in winter at lower latitudes (around 30°) as a result of subtropical jet, and in summer at higher latitudes (36°–42°) as an effect of subtropical high. A bimodal pattern is observed in the frequency histograms of the tropopause heights, in which the primary modes for the southern and northern parts of Iran correspond to subtropical and extratropical heights, respectively.     

ToF-SIMS and SEM study on the preferential oxidation of chalcopyrite

Chalcopyrite is known to be slow reacting mineral in hydrometallurgical systems and is considered one of the most inert sulphide minerals with respect to leaching. Such character of chalcopyrite seems to be linked to a formation of a passive layer on its surface. This work reports that freshly fractured chalcopyrite surfaces exhibit highly selective reactivity depending on the exposed fracture planes. ToF-SIMS was used to qualitatively characterize various fracture planes in freshly fractured chalcopyrite particles, prior to and after hydrometallurgical treatment. It was found that, prior to treatment, certain areas exhibited pronounced contamination from atmospheric hydrocarbons; whereas, others were highly unreactive and remarkably free from adventitious hydrocarbon contamination. The positive ion spectra recorded from these areas were found to be dominated by peaks from Fe- and Cu-elements and related compounds. The negative ion spectra for the reactive areas on the other hand showed a high content of oxidized (sulphur) species.The differences between the areas of low and high reactivity, as detected after leaching, were more subtle than prior to leaching; whereas, SEM analysis showed clear evidence for selective attack of ferric sulphate to specific planes. Furthermore, it was shown that, when chalcopyrite is in intimate contact with pyrite, it experiences an enhanced oxidation compared to when there is no electric contact with pyrite.Attempts were made to explain the preferential oxidation observed based on the different chemistry of the fracture surfaces.     

Vulnerabilities to flood hazards among rural households in India

Natural Hazards - Flooding constitutes the most predominant natural disaster in India. The degree and causes of vulnerability to flood risk vary by society, geographical region and over time. The...     

Rise of Buoyant Emissions from Low-Level Sources in the Presence of Upstream and Downstream Obstacles

Field and laboratory studies have been conducted to investigate the effect of surrounding buildings on the plume rise from low-level buoyant sources, such as distributed power generators. The field experiments were conducted in Palm Springs, California, USA in November 2010 and plume rise from a 9.3 m stack was measured. In addition to the field study, a laboratory study was conducted in a water channel to investigate the effects of surrounding buildings on plume rise under relatively high wind-speed conditions. Different building geometries and source conditions were tested. The experiments revealed that plume rise from low-level buoyant sources is highly affected by the complex flows induced by buildings stationed upstream and downstream of the source. The laboratory results were compared with predictions from a newly developed numerical plume-rise model. Using the flow measurements associated with each building configuration, the numerical model accurately predicted plume rise from low-level buoyant sources that are influenced by buildings. This numerical plume rise model can be used as a part of a computational fluid dynamics model.     

Belonging to the world: Cosmopolitanism in geographic contexts

The notion of cosmopolitanism is today gaining new relevance in attempts to understand how globalization in an increasingly interdependent world-society is affecting traditional identities, including that of the nation. We focus on a positive definition of cosmopolitanism as a sense of belonging to “the world as a whole”, expressed in responses to a question from the World Values Surveys (WVS) 1995-1997. In building a multilevel statistical model of the 21 national contexts of societal attitudes and values surrounding cosmopolitanism, we inject empirical analysis into what has, until now, been a largely rhetorical field of scholarship. Because the data are collected hierarchically, with individuals clustered into regions in turn grouped into countries, the model allows for the consideration of different concepts of cosmopolitanism across geographic contexts. A greater likelihood of cosmopolitan identification is found among individuals who are environmentalist, less patriotic, politically active, with higher levels of education, youthful, and a positive orientation to living among immigrants in places where relatively more immigrants reside. Respondents from countries in the former Soviet Union show a significantly higher sense of belonging to the world as a whole, a difference attributed to the lack of confidence in the post-Communist regimes of these states in the 1990s.     

Mauna Kea ground-layer characterization campaign

We present the results of an 18-month study to characterize the optical turbulence in the boundary layer and in the free atmosphere above the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This survey combined the Slope-Detection and Ranging (SLODAR) and Low-Layer SCIntillation Detection And Ranging (SCIDAR) (LOLAS) instruments into a single manually operated instrument capable of measuring the integrated seeing and the optical turbulence profile within the first kilometre with spatial and temporal resolutions of 40–80 m and 1 min (SLODAR) or 10–20 m and 5 min (LOLAS). The campaign began in the fall of 2006 and observed for roughly 50–60 h per month. The optical turbulence within the boundary layer is found to be confined within an extremely thin layer (≤80 m), and the optical turbulence arising within the region from 80 to 650 m is normally very weak. Exponential fits to the SLODAR profiles give an upper limit on the exponential scaleheight of between 25 and 40 m. The thickness of this layer shows a dependence on the turbulence strength near the ground, and under median conditions the scaleheight is <28 m. The LOLAS profiles show a multiplicity of layers very close to the ground but all within the first 40 m. The free-atmosphere seeing measured by the SLODAR is 0.42 arcsec (median) at 0.5 μm and is, importantly, significantly better than the typical delivered image quality at the larger telescopes on the mountain. This suggests that the current suite of telescopes on Mauna Kea is largely dominated by a very local seeing either from internal seeing, seeing induced by the flow in/around the enclosures, or from an atmospheric layer very close to the ground. The results from our campaign suggest that ground-layer adaptive optics can be very effective in correcting this turbulence and, in principle, can provide very large corrected fields of view on Mauna Kea.