Browsing by Subject "climate change"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 103
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    Adaptation to Climate Change: A Prospective Collaboration in Flood Control
    (Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, 2011) Sounny-Slitine, M. Anwar; Alexander, Jennifer; Twomey, Kelly; O'Rourke, Julia; Ward, Paul; Hershaw, Eva; Moorhead, Scott
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    Addressing water availability and climate change issues in the Cordillera Blanca, Peru through technical analysis and community building strategies
    (Center for Research in Water Resources, University of Texas at Austin, 2010-12) Read, Laura K.; McKinney, Daene C.
    Accelerated tropical glacial melt on the order of 15-18 meters per year since the 1980’s in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca region is alarming rural communities and urban authorities, causing them to seek technical support for risk management and adaptation actions. Melting glaciers coupled with changing seasonal rainfall patterns has left many rural communities in the upper Rio Santa basin lacking sufficient fresh water supply to support livestock, irrigation and human consumption. In response to these concerns, a Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) model was created by the Stockholm Environmental Institute for simulating glacial melt and flow in the Santa River. Through input parameters of climate, glacial runoff, water use, crop acreage, soil type and groundwater interactions, WEAP has the flexibility to model scenarios for different operation schemes. These schemes allow users to determine the most effective ways to regulate their resources and explore adaptation actions (e.g. altering farming practices and building reservoirs) for future planning. This project improved the existing model by including observed water demand data for irrigation, and evaluating the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) dataset to serve as a potential source for filling gaps in the historic climate record. These improvements added robustness to the model and correlated well with historic stream flow at La Balsa (R2 = 0.78 , Nash = 0.68). Two scenarios were explored where (1) a 50% reduction in potato crop was replaced with maize for each sub-basin, and (2) a 10% reduction in precipitation was applied over the upper basin. Results show that the WEAP model is sensitive to changes in crop type and rainfall at the sub-basin scale, an encouraging finding for future exploration. This investigation enables communities to base future decisions on technical evidence and provides a basis for educating citizens on the importance of evaluating their available resources under climate change projections.
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    The Administration Goes It Alone on Energy Policy
    (The Center for Global Energy, International Arbitration, and Environmental Law, 2014-02-25) Spence, David
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    Andean Land Use And Biodiversity: Humanized Landscapes In A Time Of Change
    (2009) Young, Kenneth R.; Young, Kenneth R.
    Some landscapes Cannot be understood without reference., to the kinds. degrees, kinds, degrees, and history of human-caused modifications to the Earth's surface. The tropical latitudes of the Andes represent one such place, with agricultural land-use systems appearing in the Early Holocene. Current land use includes both intensive and extensive grazing and crop- or tree-based agricultural systems found across virtually the, entire range of possible elevations and humidity regimes. Biodiversity found in or adjacent to such humanized landscapes will have been altered in abundance. composition, and distribution in relation to the resiliency of the native Species to harvest, hold cover modifications, and other deliberate or inadvertent human land uses. In addition, the geometries of land cover, resulting flout difference among the shapes, sizes, connectivities, and physical structures of the patches, corridors, and matrices that compose landscape mosaics, will constrain biodiversity, often in predictable ways. This article proposes a conceptual model that alter ins that the Continued persistence of native species may depend as much oil the shifting Of Andean landscape mosaics as on species characteristics, themselves. Furthermore, mountains such as the Andes display long gradients of environmental Conditions that after in relation to latitude, soil moisture, aspect, and elevation. Global environmental change will shift these, especially temperature and humidity regimes along elevational gradients, causing Changes outside the historical range of variation for some species. Both land-use systems and Conservation efforts will need to respond spatially to these shifts in the future, at both landscape and regional scales.
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    Arctic Atmosphere, Frozen Relations
    (2018-11-09) Skerl, Nikola
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    Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature
    (PLOS One, 2013-12-03) Hansen, James; Kharecha, Pushker; Sato, Makiko; Masson-Delmotte, Valerie; Ackerman, Frank; Beerling, David J.; Hearty, Paul J.; Hoegh-Guldberg, Ove; Hsu, Shi-Ling; Parmesan, Camille; Rockstrom, Johan; Rohling, Eelco; Sachs, Jeffrey; Smith, Pete; Steffen, Konrad; Van Susteren, Lise; von Schuckmann, Karina; Zachos, James C.
    We assess climate impacts of global warming using ongoing observations and paleoclimate data. We use Earth’s measured energy imbalance, paleoclimate data, and simple representations of the global carbon cycle and temperature to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts on today’s young people, future generations, and nature. A cumulative industrial-era limit of ~500 GtC fossil fuel emissions and 100 GtC storage in the biosphere and soil would keep climate close to the Holocene range to which humanity and other species are adapted. Cumulative emissions of ~1000 GtC, sometimes associated with 2°C global warming, would spur “slow” feedbacks and eventual warming of 3–4°C with disastrous consequences. Rapid emissions reduction is required to restore Earth’s energy balance and avoid ocean heat uptake that would practically guarantee irreversible effects. Continuation of high fossil fuel emissions, given current knowledge of the consequences, would be an act of extraordinary witting intergenerational injustice. Responsible policymaking requires a rising price on carbon emissions that would preclude emissions from most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels and phase down emissions from conventional fossil fuels.
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    Bathymetric survey of Imja Lake, Nepal in 2012
    (Center for Research in Water Resources, University of Texas at Austin, 2013-01) Somos-Valenzuela, Marcelo; McKinney, Daene C.; Byers, Alton C.; Rounce, David R.
    Imja Lake is one of the most studied lakes in the Himalaya as well as one of the most rapidly evolving glacial lakes in Nepal. Many researchers have studied the lake and the potential of a glacier lake outburst flood from the lake. One of the important factors in assessing the outburst flood risk is the volume that could be released in the flood and good bathymetric data is necessary to estimate that value. This work reports on the 2012 bathymetric survey of Imja Lake and the rate of expansion that has been observed in the lake over the last two decades, since 1992. The survey was somewhat hampered by the extensive iceberg coverage of the lake in September 2012, but a good estimate of the bottom bathymetry and the current volume was obtained. When compared to previous surveys, it is very clear that the lake bottom has continued to deepen as the ice beneath the lake has melted. The average depth has increased by 62% since 2002 and continues to increase at a rate of 1.8 m/yr. The maximum depth has increased 28% since 2002 and is increasing currently at a rate of 5.8 m/yr. Perhaps more important in terms of glacier lake outburst flood risk is the continued rapid areal expansion of the lake which has expanded 41% since 2002 and is growing at a rate of 0.02 km2/yr. This expansion has resulted in an additional 6 million m3 of water for an outburst flood event, and increasing the maximum possible flood volume to 36.3 million m3 a 73% increase from what was calculated using 2002 data.
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    Beyond the Weather Report
    (UT News, 2021-07-09) Huber, Mary
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    Carbon Dioxide Storage in Deltaic Saline Aquifers: Invasion Percolation and Compositional Simulation
    (2021) Tavassoli, Shayan; Krishnamurthy Prasanna; Beckham, Emily; Meckel, Tip A.; Sepehrnoori, Kamy
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    Changes in central Texas fossil herpetofauna
    (Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 2020-01) Kemp, Melissa; Ledesdma, David
    In the face of modern climate change and worldwide biodiversity loss, it is imperative that we work to better understand the impacts that environmental changes can have on extant populations over long timespans. The study of Quaternary fossils represents an important bridge to the past that grants us insight into how past biota responded to environmental fluctuations and how extant species may respond to future change. I use fossils from Hall’s Cave, located on the Edward’s Plateau in Kerr County, Texas, to reveal demographic and taxonomic variation in the herpetofauna during the late Quaternary. A reexamination of fossil herpetofauna from Hall’s Cave using apomorphic and diagnostic morphology resulted in a different list of herpetofauna taxa than had been previously reported. This result speaks to the merit of using these identification methodologies to provide strong support for fossil classifications and subsequent paleoecological interpretations. I determined the minimum and maximum number of individuals within 5-centimeter intervals for different reptile and amphibian taxa. The two abundance metrics exhibit similar trends through time with changes in abundances of frogs, snakes, and lizards occurring concurrently. Around 1,500-2,000 years ago, there are peaks in abundances of these taxa which coincide with wetter and cooler conditions as reconstructed from previous north-central Texas paleoclimate proxies. Herpetofauna abundances decrease after 1,500 and between 2,500-3,500 years ago, which correspond to warmer and drier time intervals according to published speleothem records. These preliminary results suggest that changes in herpetofaunal abundances from Hall’s Cave may be a consequence of past climatic change and provide a glimpse into changes in central Texas’ herpetofaunas during the late Quaternary.
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    Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Transitions and Thresholds Throughout Central America and Beyond
    (University of Texas at Austin, 2016) Aebersold, Luisa; Krause, Samantha M.
    Table of Contents : In Consideration of “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Transitions and Thresholds throughout Central America and Beyond” / by Luisa Aebersold, Samantha M. Krause, and Fred Valdez, Jr. (p.1-4) -- Health Indicators through Time: Maya Health in the Three Rivers Region, Belize / by Hannah Plumer (p.5-14) -- Climate Change and Chiefdom Ecodynamics in the Eastern Andean Cordillera of Colombia / by Michael P. Smyth, Timothy P. Beach, and Eric M. Weaver (p.15-32) -- The Blue Creek Rejollada Revisited: Transitional Imprints on Sedimentological Records / by Luisa Aebersold, Timothy P. Beach, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Tom Guderjan, and Fred Valdez, Jr. (p.33-48) -- Social Technology: The Production of Hyphenated and Hybrid Ceramics within Romanized Iberia / by Elizabeth M. de Marigny (p.49-60) -- Sixty Years of Remote Sensing in the Maya Lowlands: A Review of Techniques and Tools / by Samantha M. Krause, Thomas Guderjan, Timothy Beach, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach (p.61-80) -- To the Four Winds – Communal Identities and Destinies on New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier: The Piro and Tiwa Provinces of New Mexico, CA. 1540-1740 / by Michael P. Bletzer (p.81-100) -- Creating an Interdisciplinary Map of Social Change through GIS and Bioarchaeology / by Marc Wolf and Katherine Miller Wolf (p.101-112) -- Did Restructuring at the End of the Maya Classic Period Include the Beginnings of Private Land Tenure? / by Thomas Guderjan (p.113)
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