Coffee Hour with Carter Hunt | Talking maps on the radio | Albedo mods a no-go

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

"Vista Chinesa" Many faculty and students attended the 27th International Cartographic Conference, August 23–28, 2015, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Alan MacEachren shares this photo: the view back to the city from “Vista Chinesa,” (Chinese View) a site in Tijuca National Park in Rio de Janeiro, same site written up in the vol. XXXVIII, No. 3 National Geographic from 1920. Send your photos from travels and field word to geography@psu.edu.

GOOD NEWS

Send your good news to share to geography@psu.edu.

NEWS

September 18 Coffee Hour: Carter Hunt “Tourism, conservation, and development in the Osa Peninsula region of Costa Rica: Conflict, coexistence, or symbiosis?”
The Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica is situated in a unique geographic context that contributes to both spectacular biodiversity and a history of unsuccessful development interventions. As the region’s primary economic motor, tourism is intimately linked to efforts to conserve biodiversity and to provide sustainable development for the region’s residents. The research described here explores this relationship between tourism, conservation and development in the Osa region.

Students explore global sustainability challenges in EMS LEAP course
In one of her first experiences as a Penn State student, Callan Glover went caving in Jamaica to see the island’s underground aquifer system.

“We learned about Jamaica’s water system and how that relates to sustainability on the island. We got to see underground aquifers where water goes. It was a great first-hand experience,” said Glover, a first-year student majoring in geosciences.

Study finds geoengineering technique would not stop sea level rise
Albedo modification, an emerging technology with the potential to offset some aspects of climate change, shouldn’t be counted on as a short-term solution to stop rising global sea levels, according to a new study from Penn State geoscientists.

“In the short term, the first few decades to the first century after you start doing albedo modification, it’s not as effective in avoiding sea-level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet as you might think,” said Patrick Applegate (CPGIS ’14), a research associate in Penn State’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. “The rate of sea-level rise goes down, but sea-level rise from the ice sheet doesn’t stop.”

Scarpaci brings global sustainability experience to Penn State Berks
Students at Penn State Berks will soon be able to experience sustainability initiatives in South Africa and other countries without ever leaving campus. Betsy Scarpaci, assistant director of residence life at Penn State Berks, has been instrumental in bringing an interactive kiosk to campus where students will be able to experience global sustainability with other Penn State students traveling abroad. Penn State Berks is the only campus in the Penn State system to have such a kiosk.

RECENTLY (OR SOON TO BE) PUBLISHED

  • OpenStreetMap and Food Security: A Case Study in the City of Philadelphia
    By Sterling Quinn and Lakshman Yapa in The Professional Geographer
    DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2015.1065547
    OpenStreetMap (OSM) is an online public access database that allows for the collaborative collection of local geographic information. We employ this mapping technology to discuss a new social theory of poverty that moves away from income poverty to an economy that directly produces individuals’ basic needs. Focusing on urban farming in Philadelphia as an example, we use OSM to support the argument that money, land, labor, and capital do not limit food production in the city.
  • An analog ensemble for short-term probabilistic solar power forecast
    By Alessandrini, S., Delle Monache, L., Sperati, S., and Cervone, G in Applied Energy, DOI:10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.08.011, 157:95-110, 2015.
    A novel method for solar power probabilistic forecasting is proposed. The forecast accuracy does not depend on the nominal power. The impact of climatology on forecast accuracy is evaluated.
  • Fear, feminist geopolitics and the hot and banal
    By Jenna Christian, Lorraine Dowler, and Dana Cuomo in Political GeographyDOI:10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.06.003
    In this paper we bring together Billig’s notion of banal nationalism and recent feminist geopolitical examinations of fear in order to analyze two cases studies of fear among U.S. college students and U.S. soldiers experiencing sexual violence. Putting banal nationalism and feminist geopolitics into conversation, we argue, reveals both their compatibilities and important pathways for political geography and critical geopolitics to build on Billig’s work.

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