Climate change scepticism and public support for mitigation: Evidence from an Australian choice experiment

Public scepticism surrounding climate change is an obstacle for implementing climate change mitigation measures in many countries. However, very little is known about: (1) the nature and sources of climate change scepticism; and (2) its influence on preferences for climate change mitigation policies. In this paper, we investigate these two issues using evidence and analysis from an Australian public survey and choice experiment. The study has three key findings. First, the intensity of scepticism varies depending on its type; we observed little scepticism over the cause, trend and impact of climate change and widespread scepticism over the effectiveness of mitigation measures and global co-operation. Second, cause and mitigation scepticism play significant roles in determining public support for climate change abatement. Respondents who believed in human-induced climate change were significantly more supportive of mitigation. Likewise, respondents who believed that mitigation would be successful in slowing down climate change were significantly more likely to be supportive. Third, the general public tend to give the benefit of the doubt to supporting mitigation. Those who expressed higher uncertainty about climate outcomes were more supportive of mitigation than others with similar expectations but lower uncertainty.     

The role of culture and traditional knowledge in climate change adaptation: Insights from East Kimberley,Australia

Indigenous peoples offer alternative knowledge about climate variability and change based on their own locally developed knowledges and practices of resource use. In this article we discuss the role of traditional ecological knowledge in monitoring and adapting to changing environmental conditions. Our case study documents a project to record the seasonal knowledge of the Miriwoong people in northern Australia. The study demonstrates how indigenous groups’ accumulate detailed baseline information about their environment to guide their resource use and management, and develop worldviews and cultural values associated with this knowledge. We highlight how traditional ecological knowledge plays a critical role in mediating indigenous individuals and communities’ understandings of environmental changes in the East Kimberley region of north-west Australia, and how these beliefs may influence future decision-making about how to go about adapting to climate change at a local level.     

Long‐term spruce budworm outbreak dynamics reconstructed from subfossil trees

We reconstructed the long‐term spruce budworm (SBW) (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) outbreak dynamics in the boreal forest of Quebec (Canada) using a dendrochronological approach with subfossil trees. Although the majority of the excavated wood belonging to the genus Picea could potentially reveal the past activity of spruce budworms in the tree rings, very few were cross‐dated due to a lack of marker rings. All cross‐dated trees were found within a particular zone of the peat bogs and the floating chronology was radiocarbon dated to ca. 5.1 cal ka BP. The results presented in this study suggest that the dynamics of SBW outbreaks in the studied area fluctuated during the last millennia and that severe outbreaks as observed during the 20th century seldom occurred in that part of the boreal forest since the end of the last glaciation. These results are in agreement with observations from other parts of eastern North America. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of late Quaternary sedimentation on vegetation in an Amazonian lowland megafan

The largest areas of white‐sand vegetation in northern Amazonia are confined to Late Pleistocene–Holocene megafan depositional systems, which suggest a relationship between the two. The aim of this work is to determine: (i) the relative role of sedimentary history and recent ecological processes to explaining the mosaic of white‐sand forest patches, grasslands and shrublands in a wetland area of northern Amazonia; and (ii) the long‐term successional trajectory that led to the establishment of the white‐sand forest patches. Facies analysis was used to reconstruct the megafan paleoenvironment; δ¹³C, total organic carbon and carbon/nitrogen from sedimentary organic matter to reconstruct the past vegetation; and floristic inventories to characterize the modern vegetation. The results revealed that the Viruá megafan consists of various sandy sub‐environments, including aeolian sand dunes and sheets developed mostly in the Holocene after the megafan turned inactive as a depositional site. Dune margins and tops are colonized by white‐sand trees mixed with a few generalist rain‐forest species, whereas adjacent lower‐lying areas, which are affected by seasonal flooding, are covered by graminoid plants and/or shrubs. The latter initiated their development over the megafan surface in different times of the Holocene due to hydrological gradients imposed by the topography of the various megafan depositional environments, while the white‐sand forest became dominant only on sand dunes over the last few centuries. We suggest that the late Quaternary sedimentary history was crucial in creating morphologies that now determine topographic gradients responsible for different vegetation physiognomies over the Amazonian lowlands. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of ground motion intensity on the effectiveness of tuned mass dampers

The effectiveness of Tuned Mass Dampers (TMD) on buildings subjected to moderate and high-intensity motions is analysed. First, the response of a 22-storey four-bay reinforced concrete non-linear frame with a TMD is studied for motions with different intensities. Several values of the relevant parameters are assumed in the analyses. Then, equivalent single-degree-of-freedom systems with TMDs and without them are defined and analysed under the action of ground motions with intensities associated with different return intervals at the site where the structures are located. Vulnerability curves for the systems are obtained based on the probabilities of reaching two different performance limit states. The expected annual rate of exceedance of each limit state is calculated. The results show that the effectiveness of TMDs is higher for systems with small non-linearity produced by small and moderate earthquakes, than for systems with high non-linear behaviour, generally associated with high-intensity motions. Some recommendations about the applicability of TMD are given. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

东印度洋5种缘毛类纤毛虫(钟虫属和聚缩虫)水平分布初次报道

腹壁纤毛虫是一种附着在浮游动物上的原生生物,尤其是附着在桡足类和甲壳类上的。而缘毛虫是可以以自由或寄生的形式在世界各沿海地区和港湾处被发现。本研究首次对东印度洋表层至200 m深海域的缘毛类纤毛虫以及其水平分布展开了研究。根据纤毛虫的形态、纤毛结构和茎的形态等的特征,在2014年4月10日至5月13日东印度洋航次的浮游生物拖网样品中鉴定出了五种富腹纤毛虫,海洋钟形虫Vorticella oceanica、交替聚缩虫Zoothamnium alternans、阿拉聚缩虫Zoothamnium alrasheidi、远洋聚缩虫Zoothamnium pelagicum和海洋聚缩虫Zoothamnium marinum。并通过光显微镜和扫描显微镜拍摄的照片,说明了其形态、尺寸和特征。研究结果表明,海洋钟形虫和远洋聚缩虫的分布与硅藻（如,密聚角毛藻Chaetoceros coarctatus）和桡足类（如,短角长腹剑水蚤Oithona brevicornis）等寄主有关,也包括甲藻（如,三角角藻Ceraitum tripose）周围的一些个体。这些附着纤毛虫的分布在东印度洋海域东南区以海洋钟形虫、远洋聚缩虫和海洋聚缩虫为主,而在孟加拉湾北部则有大量的阿拉聚缩虫。这种分布的变化可能是与寄主的分布有关,如桡足类（短角长腹剑水蚤）和硅藻（密聚角毛藻）的分布影响。     

Reconstruction of Hurricane Katrina's wind fields for storm surge and wave hindcasting

As the most costly US natural disaster in history, Hurricane Katrina fostered the IPET forensic study to better understand the event. All available observations from several hundred space-, land-, sea-, and aircraft-based measurement platforms were gathered and processed to a common framework for height, exposure, and averaging time, to produce a series of wind field snapshots at 3 h intervals to depict the wind structure of Katrina when in the Gulf of Mexico. The stepped-frequency microwave radiometer was calibrated against GPS sondes to establish the upper range of the instrument and then used to determine the wind field in the storm's core region in concert with airborne Doppler radar winds adjusted to the surface from near the top of the PBL (500 m). The SFMR data were used to develop a method to estimate surface winds from 3 km level reconnaissance aircraft observations, taking into consideration the observed azimuthal variation of the reduction factor. The “SFMR method” was used to adjust reconnaissance flight-level measurements to the surface in the core region when SFMR and Doppler winds were not available. A variety of coastal and inland mesonet data were employed, including portable towers deployed by Texas Tech University, University of Louisiana at Monroe, and the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, as well as fixed mesonet stations from Louisiana State Universities Marine Consortium, University of Southern Mississippi, and Agricultural Networks from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and the Coastal Estuarine Network of Alabama and Mississippi. Also included were land- (WSR-88D VAD and GBVTD, ASOS, Metar, LLWAS, HANDAR), space- (QuikScat, GOES cloud drift winds, WindSat), and marine- (GPS sondes, Buoys, C-MAN, ships) platforms. The wind fields serve as an analysis of record and were used to provide forcing for wave and storm surge models to produce hindcasts of water levels in the vicinity of flood control structures.     

DMSP and DMS dynamics and microzooplankton grazing in the Labrador Sea: application of the dilution technique

We adapted the dilution technique to study microzooplankton grazing of algal dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) vs. Chl a, and to estimate the impact of microzooplankton grazing on dimethyl sulfide (DMS) production in the Labrador Sea. Phytoplankton numbers were dominated by autotrophic nanoflagellates in the Labrador basin, but diatoms and colonial Phaeocystis pouchetii contributed significantly to phytomass at several high chlorophyll stations and on the Newfoundland and Greenland shelfs. Throughout the region, growth of algal Chl a and DMSP was generally high (0.2–1 d⁻¹), but grazing rates were lower and more variable, characteristic of the early spring bloom period. Production and consumption of Chl a vs. DMSP followed no clear pattern, and sometimes diverged greatly, likely because of their differing distributions among algal prey taxa and size class. In several experiments where Phaeocystis was abundant, we observed DMS production proportional to grazing rate, and we found clear evidence of DMS production by this haptophyte following physical stress such as sparging or filtration. It is possible that grazing-activated DMSP cleavage by Phaeocystis contributes to grazer deterrence: protozoa and copepods apparently avoided healthy colonies (as judged by relative growth and grazing rates of Chl a and DMSP), and grazing of Phaeocystis was significant only at one station where cells were in poor condition. Although we hoped to examine selective grazing on or against DMSP-containing algal prey, the dilution technique cannot differentiate selective ingestion and varying digestion rates of Chl a and DMSP. We also found that the dilution method alone was poorly suited for assessing the impact of grazing on dissolved sulfur pools, because of rapid microbial consumption and the artifactual release of DMSP and DMS during filtration. Measuring and understanding the many processes affecting organosulfur cycling by the microbial food web in natural populations remain a technical challenge that will likely require a combination of techniques to address.     

Dependence of upper atmosphere photochemistry on the shape of the diurnal cycle of the photolysis rates

A photochemical model of the atmosphere constitutes a non–linear, non–autonomous dynamical system, enforced by the Earth’s rotation. Some studies have shown that the region of the mesopause tends towards non–linear responses such as period-doubling cascades and chaos. In these studies, simple approximations for the diurnal variations of the photolysis rates are assumed. The goal of this article is to investigate what happens if the more realistic, calculated photolysis rates are introduced. It is found that, if the usual approximations—sinusoidal and step fiunctions—are assumed, the responses of the system are similar: it converges to a 2–day periodic solution. If the more realistic, calculated diurnal cycle is introduced, a new 4–day subharmonic appear.