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The young investigator's guide to Ancient aliens : based on the hit television series
\"Based on the popular History Channel show, this book takes a look at history while asking the question: What if there were aliens involved?\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Human presence diminishes the importance of climate in driving fire activity across the United States
Growing human and ecological costs due to increasing wildfire are an urgent concern in policy and management, particularly given projections of worsening fire conditions under climate change. Thus, understanding the relationship between climatic variation and fire activity is a critically important scientific question. Different factors limit fire behavior in different places and times, but most fire-climate analyses are conducted across broad spatial extents that mask geographical variation. This could result in overly broad or inappropriate management and policy decisions that neglect to account for regionally specific or other important factors driving fire activity. We developed statistical models relating seasonal temperature and precipitation variables to historical annual fire activity for 37 different regions across the continental United States and asked whether and how fire-climate relationships vary geographically, and why climate is more important in some regions than in others. Climatic variation played a significant role in explaining annual fire activity in some regions, but the relative importance of seasonal temperature or precipitation, in addition to the overall importance of climate, varied substantially depending on geographical context. Human presence was the primary reason that climate explained less fire activity in some regions than in others. That is, where human presence was more prominent, climate was less important. This means that humans may not only influence fire regimes but their presence can actually override, or swamp out, the effect of climate. Thus, geographical context as well as human influence should be considered alongside climate in national wildfire policy and management.
Journal Article
Alien encounters in history
Provides a history of reports of alien encounters from ancient times to the present day and introduces some of the theories and beliefs put forward to explain these events.
Book
Assessing Global Reservoir‐Based Hydrological Droughts by Fusing Storage and Evaporation
Although reservoirs serve as a lifeline for drought mitigation and adaptation, reservoir‐based droughts (RBD) have received limited attention. Especially RBD that incorporate reservoir evaporation have remained overlooked. Here, we develop an Integrated Reservoir Drought Index (IRDI) using a Frank copula by combining the effects of reservoir storage and evaporation rate for 164 global reservoirs. Results show that Africa, South America, and Australia have experienced relatively longer RBD, whereas Asia and Africa have experienced more intense RBD. Furthermore, when significant (p‐value < 0.05) trends in inflow and IRDI have shown opposite signs at a given reservoir, it is implied that human influence was the dominant driver of the long‐term changes in RBD. We found that RBD was driven by climate in 71% of the 38 reservoirs examined and by human activities in the remaining 29% of reservoirs. Our study provides reservoir specific drought outlook that has significant environmental and sustainability implications. Plain Language Summary Reservoirs are the prime source of water during droughts. However, water supply from reservoirs depends on how much water reservoirs have. Reservoirs lose significant amounts of water through evaporation. Hence, understanding reservoir droughts by incorporating evaporation information—will help water managers to better regulate water resources and optimize reservoir operations. With the ongoing trends of an increasing population and a changing climate, reservoirs will undergo more frequent and intense droughts in the future. Here, we developed an integrated reservoir drought index (IRDI) based on reservoir storage and evaporation that can help to identify, detect, and characterize droughts more efficiently. We found that reservoirs in Africa, South America, and Australia experienced relatively longer droughts, whereas reservoirs in Asia and Africa experienced more intense droughts. While comparing trends of IRDI and inflow coming into the reservoirs, 29% of the 38 reservoirs examined showed opposite trends. This highlights the fact that how reservoirs are operated or managed can also influence drought characteristics within them. Key Points Evaporation information should be included in reservoir‐based drought frameworks The Integrated Reservoir Drought Index (IRDI) helps to identify, detect, and characterize drought characteristics efficiently Reservoir‐based droughts were driven by climate in 71% of the 38 reservoirs analyzed, and by humans in the remaining 29% of the reservoirs
Journal Article
Detection and Attribution of Human‐Perceived Warming Over China
While previous studies have largely focused on anthropogenic warming characterized by surface air temperature, little is known about the behaviors of human‐perceived temperature (HPT), which describe the “feels‐like” equivalent temperature by considering the joint effects of temperature, humidity and/or wind speed. Here we adopted an optimal fingerprinting method to compare seasonal mean HPTs in China with those from simulations conducted with multiple climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. We found clear anthropogenic signals in the observational records of changes in both summer and winter HPTs over the period 1971–2020. Moreover, the anthropogenic greenhouse gas influence was robustly detected, with clear separation from natural and anthropogenic aerosol forcings. The anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing plays the dominant role (>90%) of human‐perceived warming. Urbanization effects contribute slightly and moderately to the estimated trends in summer and winter HPTs, respectively, in addition to the effects of external forcing. Plain Language Summary Human influences have been identified in the observed warming quantified by surface air temperature (SAT), but SAT alone is inadequate as a metric for human thermal comfort. Here we focus on human‐perceived temperature (HPT), which describes the “feels‐like” equivalent temperature by considering the joint effects of temperature, humidity, and/or wind speed. We isolate anthropogenic impacts on the observed increase in summer and winter HPTs in China during 1971–2020 by comparing observations with state‐of‐the‐art climate models. Results show that the influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas is detected, with clear separation from other external forcings such as solar and volcanic activities and anthropogenic aerosols. The human‐induced greenhouse gas increases are also found to explain most (>90%) of the observed human‐perceived warming. Along with the effects of large‐scale anthropogenic forcing, urbanization effects also have a slight to moderate influence on the estimated trends in summer and winter HPTs. Our work is an early attempt to provide quantitative evidence for the physiological impacts of anthropogenic global warming and local urbanization on human beings. Key Points The warming is quantified by human‐perceived temperature that considers the joint effects of temperature, humidity and/or wind speed Human influence could be robustly detected in both summer and winter human‐perceived warming The observed increase in human‐perceived temperature is mostly attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases
Journal Article
Wilderness areas maintain mammal assemblage in subtropical mountain forests
Most forests are impacted by humans and are at the center of numerous species extinctions. Wilderness areas (i.e., areas with little or no human influence) are essential to limit biodiversity loss and are expected to have the most intact natural communities. The southern Yungas are neotropical mountain forests affected by unsustainable human activities that may pose a risk for many species. We used camera trap data, multispecies occupancy models, and regional human footprint index to assess the occupancy of medium- and large-sized mammal assemblage in wilderness areas and the effect of human influence variables in the southern Yungas forests of Salta and Jujuy provinces, Argentina. The occupancy probability of the mammal assemblage, red-brocket deer (Mazama rufa), tapeti (Sylvilagus paraguensis), crab-eating fox (Cerdocyon thous), white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), and tayra (Eira barbara) was higher in wilderness areas than in areas with human influence. When one human influence variable of the human footprint index was analyzed at a time, greater distance from hamlets (i.e., small, isolated human houses) resulted in higher occupancy probability of the mammal assemblage, jaguar (Panthera onca), crab-eating fox, and lowland tapir. Distance to transformed areas had no significant effect on occupancy probability of the mammal assemblage, a positive effect on lowland tapir, and a negative effect on grey-brocket deer (Subulo gouazoubira). Distance to roads did not affect the occupancy probability of the mammal assemblage or species. Wilderness areas in the southern Yungas contribute substantially to the conservation of medium- and large-sized mammal assemblage and should be prioritized in conservation strategies.
Journal Article
The Middle East and the making of the modern world
This book is a socio-spatial history of the Middle East, and uses that case to reflect more broadly on the making of the modern world. Pivoting around Bilād al-Shām (Greater Syria) - alternatingly zooming in on cities and nation-states and zooming out to neighboring countries, imperial and transnational links, and overseas diasporas - it asks: Why, how, and in which stages did well-rooted cities and regions mold a dynamic modern world economy and powerful modern states, and how were they remolded in return? Covering culture, the economy, and administration from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century in five chapters, each prefaced by one person's illustrative story, the book identifies three key developments in the late Ottoman period. Cities were transformed but remained powerful; interurban ties grew stronger; and Bilād al-Shām became more integrated. These developments did not end in 1918 but, as is shown next, deeply shaped post-Ottoman times. While quartered, Bilād al-Shām became an umbrella region for Palestine, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon, and forced French and British rulers to coordinate policies. And while cities lionized their weight in transnational circuits as well as reimagined themselves as national places to assert their rank in new nation-states, the latter were from the start multi-urban and transnationalized spaces. Building on the Middle Eastern case, the book argues that the modern world cannot be truly grasped by studying globalization or state formation or urbanization, as many histories do. Rather, the modern world's most fundamental socio-spatial feature is what can be called transpatialization: the intertwinement of cities, regions, states, and global circuits in faster changing and more mutually transformative ways than before in history.-- Provided by publisher
Book
Comparing species distribution models constructed with different subsets of environmental predictors
Aim To assess the usefulness of combining climate predictors with additional types of environmental predictors in species distribution models for range-restricted species, using common correlative species distribution modelling approaches. Location Florida, USA Methods We used five different algorithms to create distribution models for 14 vertebrate species, using seven different predictor sets: two with bioclimate predictors only, and five 'combination' models using bioclimate predictors plus 'additional' predictors from groups representing: human influence, land cover, extreme weather or noise (spatially random data).We use a linear mixed-model approach to analyse the effects of predictor set and algorithm on model accuracy, variable importance scores and spatial predictions. Results Regardless of modelling algorithm, no one predictor set produced significantly more accurate models than all others, though models including human influence predictors were the only ones with significantly higher accuracy than climate-only models. Climate predictors had consistently higher variable importance scores than additional predictors in combination models, though there was variation related to predictor type and algorithm. While spatial predictions varied moderately between predictor sets, discrepancies were significantly greater between modelling algorithms than between predictor sets. Furthermore, there were no differences in the level of agreement between binary 'presence–absence' maps and independent species range maps related to the predictor set used. Main conclusions Our results indicate that additional predictors have relatively minor effects on the accuracy of climate-based species distribution models and minor to moderate effects on spatial predictions. We suggest that implementing species distribution models with only climate predictors may provide an effective and efficient approach for initial assessments of environmental suitability.
Journal Article