An examination of midwestern US cities’ preparedness for climate change and extreme hazards

Disasters continue to have a dramatic impact on lives, livelihoods and environments communities depend on. In response to these losses, the global community has developed various theories, assessment methodologies and policies aimed at reducing global losses. A contemporary outcome of these interventions is to build the disaster resilience. However, despite the disaster resilience-building endeavours espoused by policies, theories and methodologies, very little progress is being made in reducing disaster losses. This paper argues that a possible reason behind the limitations of current resilience-building policies and methodologies could be that most of these policies are based a mechanistic scientific paradigm that places an emphasis on system components that are perceived to build resilience and not the function of systems as a whole. This often leads to resilience-building initiatives that are based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. This paper argues for the use of a complex adaptive systems approach to building resilience. This approach argues that contextual factors within different social systems will have a nonlinear affect on disaster resilience-building efforts. Therefore, it is crucial to move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches to more flexible approaches to building resilience. These hypotheses are tested by means of a correlation statistical analysis of agricultural communities in Southern Africa. Results of this analysis indicate that unique resilience profiles are evident in almost all of the communities studied. This indicates that resilience is not the same for everybody, and that resilience-building endeavours should be flexible enough to be adapted for different contexts.     

Warmer early instrumental measurements versus colder reconstructed temperatures: shooting at a moving target

Comparison of tree-ring-based warm-season temperature reconstructions and their instrumental target data reveals substantial divergence between (warmer) early instrumental measurements and (colder) proxy estimates. Here we detail this systematic misfit for the Northern Hemisphere before 1900 and the European Alps before 1850. Five hypotheses related to both proxy and target uncertainties are presented towards explaining this phenomenon. These include: (1) tree-ring detrending methods, (2) biological persistence in the proxy time-series, (3) uncertainties and instabilities in the growth response to given climatic parameters, (4) reduced instrumental station availability back in time, and (5) instrumental data homogeneity. We suggest that uncertainties in the choice of instrumental targets at the hemispheric scale, and instrumental data inhomogeneities at the Alpine and possibly also the hemispheric-scale are the most important factors in explaining this offset. Assessment of homogeneity at larger scales remains challenging. Attention is drawn to possible warm biases in early thermometer shelters and the relevance of proxy/target discrepancies for understanding and quantifying the amplitude of both recent anthropogenic and past natural forced climate fluctuations.     

The axial angular momentum balance of a global ocean general circulation model

In this study we examine the axial angular momentum balance of a non-eddy-resolving global ocean general circulation model, from the perspective of the geographical and seasonal variability of angular momentum and from the perspective of the torques acting on the ocean through its surfaces. Our purpose is to provide an estimate of the magnitude of the seasonal storage of angular momentum in the ocean and hence the oceanic excitation of variability in length of day, and to elucidate the role of the ocean in transferring angular momentum between the atmosphere and the Earth's crust. We provide an assessment of the reliability of the model results by examining the sensitivity of the angular momentum and torque distributions to several model parameters.Although the Southern Ocean region containing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) makes the largest contribution to both the annual mean oceanic angular momentum and its seasonal variability, inclusion of the rest of the world ocean reduces both of these quantities to about two-thirds of the value of the Southern Ocean alone. The annual, global mean angular momentum is found to be insensitive to most model choices except for the isopycnal diffusivity. The seasonal variability, on the other hand, is insensitive to the isopycnal diffusivity, but sensitive to the smoothness of the representation of topography and moderately sensitive to horizontal and vertical friction parameterizations. The torque balance at all latitudes, including within the Antarctic circumpolar belt, is between wind stress and bottom pressure torques. Horizontal friction torques are small but non-negligible. Bottom friction and storage of angular momentum are negligible in angular momentum budgets on seasonal time scales. Two commonly used wind stress climatologies, one based on historical marine meteorological observations and the other based on operational weather analyses, differ in the sign of the globally integrated wind stress torque.     

Interhemispheric synchrony of Late-glacial climatic instability as recorded in proglacial Lake Mascardi,Argentina

Several high-resolution continental records have been reported recently in sites in South America, but the extent to which climatic variations were synchronous between the northern and southern hemispheres during the Late-glacial–Holocene transition, and the causes of the climatic changes, remain open questions. Previous investigations indicated that, east of the Andes, the middle and high latitudes of South America warmed uniformly and rapidly from 13 000 ¹⁴C yr BP, with no indication of subsequent climate fluctuations, equivalent, for example, to the Younger Dryas cooling. Here we present a multiproxy continuous record, radiocarbon dated by accelerated mass spectroscopy, from proglacial Lake Mascardi in Argentina. The results show that unstable climatic conditions, comparable to those described from records obtained in the Northern Hemisphere, dominated the Late-glacial–Holocene transition in Argentina at this latitude. Furthermore, a significant advance of the Tronador ice-cap, which feeds Lake Mascardi, occurred during the Younger Dryas Chronozone. This instability suggests a step-wise climatic history reflecting a global, rather than regional, forcing mechanism. The Lake Mascardi record, therefore, provides strong support for the hypothesis that ocean–atmosphere interaction, rather than global ocean circulation alone, governed interhemispheric climate teleconnections during the last deglaciation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial dependency of cholera prevalence on potential cholera reservoirs in an urban area,Kumasi, Ghana

Cholera has been a public health burden in Ghana since the early 1970s. Between 1999 and 2005, a total of 25,636 cases and 620 deaths were officially reported to the WHO. In one of the worst affected urban cities, fecal contamination of surface water is extremely high, and the disease is reported to be prevalent among inhabitants living in close proximity to surface water bodies. Surface runoff from dump sites is a major source of fecal and bacterial contamination of rivers and streams in the study area. This study aims to determine (a) the impacts of surface water contamination on cholera infection and (b) detect and map arbitrary shaped clusters of cholera. A Geographic Information System (GIS) based spatial analysis is used to delineate potential reservoirs of the cholera vibrios; possibly contaminated by surface runoff from open space refuse dumps. Statistical modeling using OLS model reveals a significant negative association between (a) cholera prevalence and proximity to all the potential cholera reservoirs (R² = 0.18, p < 0.001) and (b) cholera prevalence and proximity to upstream potential cholera reservoirs (R² = 0.25, p < 0.001). The inclusion of spatial autoregressive coefficients in the OLS model reveals the dependency of the spatial distribution of cholera prevalence on the spatial neighbors of the communities. A flexible scan statistic identifies a most likely cluster with a higher relative risk (RR = 2.04, p < 0.01) compared with the cluster detected by circular scan statistic (RR = 1.60, p < 0.01). We conclude that surface water pollution through runoff from waste dump sites play a significant role in cholera infection.     

Origin of blocky aragonite cement in Cenozoic glaciomarine sediments,McMurdo Sound,Antarctica

Inorganic aragonite occurs in a wide spectrum of depositional environments and its precipitation is controlled by complex physio-chemical factors. This study investigates diagenetic conditions that led to aragonite cement precipitation in Cenozoic glaciomarine deposits of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. A total of 42 sandstones that host intergranular cement were collected from the CIROS-1 core, located proximal to the terminus of Ferrar Glacier. Standard petrography, Raman spectroscopy and electron microprobe analysis reveal a prominent aragonite cement phase that occurs as a pore-filling blocky fabric throughout the core. Oxygen isotope compositions (δ¹⁸O = −30·0 to −8·6‰ Vienna Pee-Dee Belemnite) and clumped isotope temperatures (TΔ₄₇ = 13·1 to 31·5°C) determined from the aragonite cements provide precise constraints on isotopic compositions (δ¹⁸O_w) of the parent fluid, which mostly range from −10·8 to −7·2‰ Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water. The fluid δ¹⁸O_w values are consistent with those of pore water, previously identified as cryogenic brine in the nearby AND-2A core. Petrographic and geochemical data suggest that aragonite cement in the CIROS-1 core precipitated from a similar brine. The brine likely formed and infiltrated sediments in flooded glacial valleys along the western margin of McMurdo Sound during the middle Miocene Climatic Transition, and subsequently flowed basinward in the subsurface. Consequently, the brine forms as a longstanding subsurface fluid that has saturated Cenozoic sediments below southern McMurdo Sound since at least the middle Miocene. Aragonite cementation in the CIROS-1 core is interpreted to reflect its proximal position to sites of brine formation and greater likelihood of experiencing brines with sustained high carbonate saturation states and Mg/Ca ratios. This unusual occurrence expands the range of known natural occurrences of aragonite cement. Given the potential for cryogenic brine formation in glaciomarine settings, blocky aragonite, as the end member of the spectrum of aragonite cement morphology, may be more widespread in glaciomarine sediments than currently thought.     

Numerical investigation of an oceanic resonant regime induced by hurricane winds

The oceanic mixed layer (OML) response to an idealized hurricane with different propagation speeds is investigated using a two-layer reduced gravity ocean model. First, the model performances are examined with respect to available observations relative to Hurricane Frances (2004). Then, 11 idealized simulations are performed with a Holland (Mon Weather Rev 108(8):1212–1218, 1980) symmetric wind profile as surface forcing with storm propagation speeds ranging from 2 to 12 m s⁻¹. By varying this parameter, the phasing between atmospheric and oceanic scales is modified. Consequently, it leads to different momentum exchanges between the hurricane and the OML and to various oceanic responses. The present study determines how OML momentum and heat budgets depend on this parameter. The kinetic energy flux due to surface wind stress is found to strongly depend on the propagation speed and on the cross-track distance from the hurricane center. A resonant regime between surface winds and near-inertial currents is clearly identified. This regime maximizes locally the energy flux into the OML. For fast-moving hurricanes (>6 m s⁻¹), the ratio of kinetic energy converted into turbulence depends only on the wind stress energy input. For slow-moving hurricanes (<6 m s⁻¹), the upwelling induced by current divergence enhances this conversion by shallowing the OML depth. Regarding the thermodynamic response, two regimes are identified with respect to the propagation speed. For slow-moving hurricanes, the upwelling combined with a sharp temperature gradient at the OML base formed in the leading part of the storm maximizes the oceanic heat loss. For fast propagation speeds, the resonance mechanism sets up the cold wake on the right side of the hurricane track. These results suggest that the propagation speed is a parameter as important as the surface wind speed to accurately describe the oceanic response to a moving hurricane.