06
Apr 21

Penn Staters at virtual AAG | The Miller Lecture | Activism and Academia series

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

author and book cover
Laurence C. Smith is the author of the book, “Rivers of Power: How an Ancient Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World.” In his lecture on Friday, he will explore the relationship between rivers and civilization.

GOOD NEWS

April 8, 2021 at 6 p.m. EDT, The GIS Coalition is holding a virtual map-a-thon. Visit this link for more information.

April 13, 2021 at noon EDT, the second talk in the Activism and Academia series, with Nazshonnii Brown-Almaweri on “Rematriation with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.” Visit this link for more information and to register for this webinar.

April 13 at 6:30 p.m. EDT, Centre Region COG will hold a a virtual forum on “Understanding and Preparing for Climate Impacts in the Centre Region.” Visit this link for more information and to register for the forum.

April 22, 2021, The Esri-MUG is holding a one-day virtual meeting on. Visit this link to register for this meeting.

COFFEE HOUR

The Miller Lecture
Rivers of Power,  with Laurence C. Smith

This talk will explore some of the many ways that humans have used rivers over time, and how we continue to do so today. Since our earliest cities established along the Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, Nile, and Yellow Rivers, anthropogenic use of rivers has changed over time and varied by region.  Yet their critical importance has persisted because they provide five fundamental benefits: access, natural capital, territory, well-being, and a means of projecting power. The manifestations of these benefits have changed, but societal demands for them have not.

NEWS

AAG virtual meeting this week

The American Association of Geographers (AAG) will convene its Annual Meeting as a virtual conference again this year April 7-11, offering nearly 1,000 sessions and panels, including talks by noted climate activist Naomi Klein, NASA astronaut and former NOAA administration Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan, and geographer Rebekah Jones (see special events). A special track of more than 30 sessions will focus on COVID-19 and its consequences. To access the annual meeting platform and program, visit this link.

More than 47 Penn Staters will be presenting papers or posters, chairing panels, or leading other sessions. For a spreadsheet of Penn Staters at the meeting with days, times and rooms for their sessions, visit this link.

SWIG and GSDoGs sponsor Activism and Academia series

Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG) and Graduate Students in the Department of Geography (GSDoGs) welcome students, faculty, and community organizers to attend “Activism and Academia,” a virtual lunchtime series on Tuesdays at noon that is open to the public. This series will feature local and national work at the intersection of activism and scholarship for the purpose of enlightening the audience on how to use their expertise to contribute to a more just and equitable world. Led by guests that will speak toward a diverse selection of topics from indigenous solidarity to mutual aid, this series serves to enhance the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the level of the Department of Geography, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and the University and to bridge the gap between theory and praxis regarding activism and academia. Registration is required.

What’s the hype about 5.8%? I’m worried about the other 94.2%

Erica Smithwick

A recent analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that annual carbon emissions declined by 5.8% in 2020 because of the COVID-19 global pandemic. From a historical perspective, a 5.8% reduction is huge—nothing like it has occurred in our lifetimes. But from a COVID-19 perspective, how can it be so small? During most of the year, we experienced a global economic and health crisis that led to more than 2.6 million deaths and crippled the aviation, transportation, and tourism sectors all over the world. What about the other 94.2%?

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

The Effect of Virtual Agent Gender and Embodiment on the Experiences and Performance of Students in Virtual Field Trips

Sajjadi, J. Zhao, J. Wallgrün, T. Furman, P. LaFemina, A. Fatemi, Z. Zidik, A. Klippel
2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE)
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9368457
In this paper, we explore how the embodiment and gender of a virtual instructor can affect social presence, spatial presence, perceived learning effectiveness, and performance of students in virtual field trips. A pilot study with 22 students was conducted in the spring of 2020 in a geoscience course at The Pennsylvania State University. Our results show that both gender and embodiment of a virtual instructor can affect the social and learning experiences of students. A female virtual instructor elicited higher levels of social presence, spatial presence, and perceived learning effectiveness compared to a male virtual instructor; and an embodied virtual instructor elicited a higher feeling of spatial presence compared to a disembodied virtual instructor.


23
Mar 21

Vaishnava awarded | Alum writes fiction | SWIG at AAG

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

author and book “Amid Rage” is geography alumnus Joel Burcat’s second novel, an environmental legal thriller about strip mining set in Pennsylvania. His main character is Mike Jacobs, assistant counsel with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

GOOD NEWS

Despite virtual THON, campaign challenges, EMS shatters fundraising goal. Dancers Chris Long and Talia Potochny are geography students.

March 23, 7 p.m., Schlow Library will virtually host Author Deirdre Mask to discuss her award-winning book, “The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power.” The Q&A will be moderated by Lorraine Dowler. 

The College of Arts and Architecture’s Center for Pedagogy in Arts and Design will present a Women in Leadership Seminar featuring Hari M. Osofsky, dean of Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs, from 1-2 p.m. on Monday, March 29, via Zoom. The event is open to all Penn State faculty, staff and graduate students, and registration is required.

Researchers whose work addresses natural and cultural resource management topics can learn about partnering opportunities with federal agencies at the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Program Workshop. The workshop will take place from 2:30 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 30, via Zoom. The event is free, and  registration is required.

Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Office of Human Resources, Office of Educational Equity, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and Sustainability Institute invite you to attend the annual Colloquium on the Environment this year featuring renowned scholar and activist Robert Bullard, considered the “father of the environmental justice movement.” Bullard will be delivering a keynote talk on “The Quest for Environmental and Climate Justice in the U.S.” The event is open to all, and registration is required.   

Saumya Vaishnava received the Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award.

COFFEE HOUR

No Coffee Hour this week, but more talks are scheduled for the semester.

If you missed any talks, you can view the recordings at our Coffee Hour channel.

NEWS

Penn State geography degree, law career are bedrock for alum’s thriller fiction

For Joel Burcat, retired environmental lawyer turned novelist, the first step on his career path was a physical geography course.

“I grew up in Philadelphia and attended Penn State without having declared a major,” Burcat said. “At the end of my sophomore year, I was required to declare a major. I was taking a class in physical geography with Professor Robert Larkin. He suggested that a degree in geography would be a good basis for a career in environmental law. That sounded interesting, something I’d enjoy doing and I decided to pursue it.”

THE CONVERSATION
Only a handful of US foundations quickly pitched in as the COVID-19 pandemic got underway, early data indicates

Emily Rosenman and Rachel Bok

Many U.S. foundations, which disbursed roughly US$76 billion in 2019, say they are giving more money away in the United States because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the health, economic and other crises it’s creating.

As geographers who study the connections between money and power, we’re tracking this trend. It’s hard, because foundations do not have to disclose many details about what they do or how they make decisions. Often, foundations share very little information with the public about which organizations they are supporting.

Penn State SWIG panel at AAG highlighted

The theme of this year’s Building Inclusive Communities and Diverse Departments, Supporting Women in Geography 8th Annual Panel is addressing “the challenges of inclusivity and diversity in departments and non-academic institutions [by] considering the cross-cutting aspects of race, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, disability, and other overlapping subjectivities.” Co-sponsored by Feminist Geographies Specialty Group, Queer and Trans Geographies Specialty Group, Black Geographies Specialty Group, Careers and Professional Development, and part of the Black Geographies Specialty Group curated track, the panel is organized by Penn State’s Supporting Women in Geography organization, a graduate student-run advocacy group which aims to support women and other underrepresented groups within the discipline of geography.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Tactile cartography in the digital age: A review and research agenda

Cole, H.
Progress in Human Geography
https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132521995877
Spatial media for people who are blind or visually impaired (B/VI) have evolved considerably in the years following Chris Perkins’ review of tactile map research, especially due to the proliferation of Internet access, mobile computing, and GPS technology. Reviewing intervening research, I identify prevailing themes in cartographic data management, media production, map design, and map use. I then propose a research agenda that identifies four high-priority topics for investigation: research conducted by people who are B/VI, maps created by people who are B/VI, low-tech tactile mapping, and social dynamics of tactile map use and production.

Landscape-Scale Forest Reorganization Following Insect Invasion and Harvest Under Future Climate Change Scenarios

Olson, S.K., Smithwick, E.A.H., Lucash, M.S. et al.
Ecosystems
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-021-00616-w
Emerald ash borer (EAB; Agrilus planipennis Farimaire) has been found in 35 US states and five Canadian provinces. This invasive beetle is causing widespread mortality to ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), which are an important timber product and ornamental tree, as well as a cultural resource for some Tribes. The damage will likely continue despite efforts to impede its spread. Further, widespread and rapid ash mortality as a result of EAB is expected to alter forest composition and structure, especially when coupled with the regional effects of climate change in post-ash forests. Thus, we forecasted the long-term effects of EAB-induced ash mortality and preemptive ash harvest (a forest management mitigation strategy) on forested land across a 2-million-hectare region in northern Wisconsin. We used a spatially explicit and spatially interactive forest simulation model, LANDIS-II, to estimate future species dominance and biodiversity assuming continued widespread ash mortality. We ran forest disturbance and succession simulations under historic climate conditions and three downscaled CMIP5 climate change projections representing the upper bound of expected changes in precipitation and temperature. Our results suggest that although ash loss from EAB or harvest resulted in altered biodiversity patterns in some stands, climate change will be the major driver of changes in biodiversity by the end of century, causing increases in the dominance of southern species and homogenization of species composition across the landscape.

Local Variation in Cannabis Use Patterns among Young Adults in the San Francisco Bay Area

Louisa M. Holmes, Johannes Thrul, Natalie K. Warren, Pamela M. Ling
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sste.2021.100418
This study evaluated whether neighborhood-level disorder, social cohesion, and perceived safety, were associated with days of cannabis use in the prior month in a representative sample of young adults in Alameda and San Francisco Counties in California (N=1272). We used multiscale geographically weighted regression, modeled by county, to measure associations between cannabis use days and neighborhood attributes, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and self-rated health. Positive associations were found between number of cannabis use days and neighborhood disorder, and greater perceived safety. Higher levels of social cohesion predicted fewer cannabis use days. Racial/ethnic, sex and, socioeconomic compositions of participants residing in areas with significant neighborhood-level associations varied substantially, suggesting that risk factors for young adult cannabis use may be highly localized. Public health efforts in cannabis education and intervention should be tailored to fit the culture and composition of local neighborhoods.


16
Mar 21

Coffee Hour with Tatiana Gumucio | Urban research | Summer interns sought

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city
Because cities are such complex human-created systems, the Institutes of Energy and the Environment created a new research theme, Urban Systems, which will address the essential and urgent needs for sustainable, healthy and affordable solutions for urban areas. Image: Unsplash stock, Jonathan Riley.

GOOD NEWS

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) is seeking summer interns for various transportation planning projects including traffic counting, GIS, data collection, database development, collect field data such as videos for the Regional Traffic Signal Program,  bicycle count data and related activities.  Access to a vehicle for in-region travel and a valid driver’s license will be required. Email letter of interest and résumé in confidence to hr@spcregion.org

March 23, 7 p.m., Schlow Library will virtually host Author Deirdre Mask to discuss her award-winning book, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power. The Q&A will be moderated by Lorraine Dowler.

Wednesday, March 24, and Thursday, March 25, in the afternoon, the 2021 Water Forum will take place virtually. The event is free and open to the Penn State community. Registration is required.

Susan Kotikot received an Early Career Award from the National Geographic Society.

COFFEE HOUR

Tatiana Gumucio
Assessing triggers of weather-induced disasters to inform weather risk management design in Somalia

Weather hazards are one of the leading direct causes of humanitarian disasters and are an indirect factor in many more, exasperating vulnerability caused by conflict, disease or other stressors. However, a focus on weather hazards alone is often insufficient for understanding the dynamics that contribute to a disaster situation, especially given that the same weather conditions will have a very different impact on those with different geographies, livelihoods or demographics. A holistic understanding of the socio-environments in which communities exist and manage their livelihoods is necessary to accurately assess vulnerability to weather hazards. The seminar presents initial results from a study on “Livelihood-based index design” led by Penn State and funded and supported by global insurance company AXA-XL.

NEWS

Addressing the energy, environmental complexities of urban areas

Cities can be paradoxes when it comes to energy and the environment. For example, in a city, people live in a dense infrastructure of housing and businesses. In this scenario, one possible positive opportunity is the reduction of transportation and the pollution and energy use that come with it. However, not everyone can live and/or work in the city, so commuters near urban areas can have higher transportation energy and air pollution footprints from driving vehicles that enter and exit the city daily.

“The exciting part about urban research is that it is necessarily integrative,” said Erica Smithwick, associate director of IEE. “It is impossible to study complex urban systems without taking an interdisciplinary lens. For example, studying water availability, air quality, energy efficiency or food systems benefits from integration across disciplines.”


09
Mar 21

Using ICESAT2 to predict calving | Miller Lecture set | New OGE profs

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

ice shelf
Satellite imagery of the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica. The blue lines represent the movement of the ice as it flows from the continent to the edge of the ice shelf, where it calves, or breaks off into the ocean. Satellite data can now help researchers determine where these calving events will occur. Image: Shujie Wang

GOOD NEWS

The Palmer Museum of Art is holding a virtual exhibition of created works from graduate and undergraduate students of all fields. Submission deadline is March 15 via http://tinyurl.com/546e9xrb

Summer Internship opportunities with National Geographic Society. Application deadline is March 19.

Tuesday, March 30, 2:30 – 4 p.m. EDT, The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Program at Penn State will hold a workshop. Researchers interested in applying their expertise in the biological, physical, social, cultural and engineering disciplines to address natural and cultural resource management issues can learn about partnering opportunities with federal agencies at lower overhead rates. For more information contact Erica Smithwick (eus17@psu.edu) or Lara Fowler (lbf10@psu.edu). To register for the workshop, which will be held via Zoom, visit https://bit.ly/CESU-2021.

Thursday, April 1, 7 p.m., EDT, Robert Bullard will present the virtual keynote talk at Penn State’s 2021 Colloquium on the Environment, “The Quest for Environmental and Climate Justice in the U.S.” Use this link to register.

Brandi Gaertner and Marcela Suárez have both enthusiastically agreed to join the department as new Assistant Teaching Professors in geography’s Online Geospatial Education (OGE) programs. Their appointments begin July 1, 2021.

Alumnus Sid Pandey was recently selected by Geospatial Media as one of their 50 Rising Stars in Geospatial for 2021. 

Jamie Peeler was named a NatureNet Science Fellow with The Nature Conservancy. She will develop spatial action maps for mitigating carbon loss to fire during a postdoc with The Nature Conservancy and University of Montana.

COFFEE HOUR

No Coffee Hour this week, but there are three more talks scheduled for the semester.

  • March 19 Tatiana Gumucio, “Assessing triggers of weather-induced disasters to inform weather risk management design in Somalia”
  • April 9 The Miller Lecture with Larry Smith (special time 11:30 a.m.)
  • April 23 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Connection (UROC) Showcase

If you missed any talks, you can view the recordings at our Coffee Hour channel.

NEWS

NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite reveals shape, depth of Antarctic ice shelf fractures

When a block of ice the size of Houston, Texas, broke off from East Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf in 2019, scientists had anticipated the calving event, but not exactly where it would happen. Now, satellite data can help scientists measure the depth and shape of ice shelf fractures to better predict when and where calving events will occur, according to researchers.

Ice shelves make up nearly 75% of Antarctica’s coastline and buttress — or hold back — the larger glaciers on land, said Shujie Wang, assistant professor of geography at Penn State. If the ice shelves were to collapse and Antarctica’s glaciers fell or melted into the ocean, sea levels would rise by up to 200 feet.

Published in Remote Sensing of Environment.


02
Mar 21

Coffee Hour with Song Gao | New LionVu | How maps can fight racism

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Lionvu dashboardThe new Penn State Cancer Institute LionVu dashboard. Through the user interface, users can toggle two side-by-side maps of Pennsylvania and the 28 county Catchment Area. Documentation, charts, video, and user a feedback form are prominent on the site. Image: Nate Geyer. Read the full story.

GOOD NEWS

The Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information is offering virtual information sessions on geospatial data and software topics, as well as virtual office hours for students and one-on-one research consultations in March and April.

The League of American Bicyclists has honored Penn State with a gold-level Bicycle Friendly University award in recognition of the institution’s achievements in promoting and enabling safe, accessible bicycling on campus.

March 9 and 10, 2021, noon, EST, The Ecology Institute will hold a Pitch Slam to select Flower Grant awardees. Visit this link for more information and to register.

March 10, 2021, 11:00 a.m–3:00 p.m. EST, Penn State’s Impact Fair will be held virtually. Visit this link for more information and to register.

The GIS Coalition held elections for new officers and the results are Ryan Armani, president; Noah Rogers, vice president; Olivia Neil, treasurer; and Emily Shiels, secretary.

COFFEE HOUR

Song Gao, Director of Geospatial Data Science Lab, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Mapping Human Mobility Changes and Geospatial Modeling of COVID-19 Spread

To contain the COVID-19 spread, one of the non-pharmaceutical interventions is physical (social) distancing. An interactive web-based mapping platform, which provides up-to-date mobility and close contact information using large-scale anonymized mobile phone location data in the US, was developed and maintained by the GeoDS Lab at UW-Madison.

NEWS

Capstone project improves disease mapping tool for Penn State Cancer Institute

Recent Master of Geographic Information Systems graduate Nate Geyer has always been interested in epidemiology and geography. As a research support assistant in the Department of Public Health Sciences in the College of Medicine, he was able to put those interests together by creating a new version of the LionVu cancer mapping tool.

“What appealed to me was my sense of creating something new and using my skills to improve public health research,” Geyer said. He programmed the new version and implemented a questionnaire to assess its usability. Then for his capstone project, Geyer analyzed the data and published an article in October 2020 issue of the International Journal of Geo-Information.

from THE CONVERSATION
How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America

By Derek Alderman and Joshua Inwood

How can maps fight racism and inequality?

The work of the Black Panther Party, a 1960s- and 1970s-era Black political group featured in a new movie and a documentary, helps illustrate how cartography – the practice of making and using maps – can illuminate injustice.

As these films show, the Black Panthers focused on African American empowerment and community survival, running a diverse array of programming that ranged from free school breakfasts to armed self-defense.

From News@ODU
Jessica Whitehead Named Joan P. Brock Endowed Executive Director for Old Dominion University’s Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (ICAR)

Whitehead earned her Ph.D. in geography in 2009.

Old Dominion University announced that Jessica Whitehead has been named the Joan P. Brock Endowed Executive Director of the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (ICAR).

Whitehead joins ODU from the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR), where she served as its first chief resilience officer. Her new appointment marks another chapter in ODU’s decade-long leadership in coastal resilience research, education and outreach.


23
Feb 21

Pushing boundaries | THON students | Taylor talks on fire

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

EMSDancers

Congratulations the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Student Council Benefiting THON, ranking 8th out of all general organizations and raising $39, 721.82 out of the overall total $10,638,078.62. Pictured above, the EMS dancers, Christopher Long, Kayla McCauley, Talia Potochny, and Isabella Urbina, danced for 46 hours from their homes on Zoom. THON executive board members included: executive director, Kayla McCauley; family relations directors, Amanda Byrd and Mandy Sullivan; donor and alumni relations director, Megan Penrod; fundraising outreach, Josie Hoover; alternative fundraising, Ryan Kovacs. Geography students’ names in bold.

GOOD NEWS

Wednesday, February 24, 11:15a.m. Alan Taylor will give a talk on, “Climate and human influences on fire in California forests,” for the spring 2021 Earth System Science Center Brown Bag Series.

Saturday, February 27, at 11 a.m. the Penn State Sustainability Institute’s Environmental Justice Project team, Nebraska Hernandez, Peter Buck, and Nyla Holland, will give a talk on, “Frontiers of Science: Mapping a Just and Sustainable Future for Pennsylvania.” Hernandez is a senior majoring in geography and an officer in the Minorities in Earth and Mineral Sciences student organization. He also serves on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board.

The American Association of Geographers annual meeting 2021 (April 7–11) preliminary program is live.

Call for Abstracts: The Esri-MUG is planning to hold a one-day virtual meeting on April 22, 2021, which will include a plenary with updates from Esri and user presentations. The presentations can be either a 10-minute lightening talk or a 15-20-minutes traditional talk. To submit a presentation for consideration,  send an abstract of your topic and your desired length (10 minutes or 15-20 minutes) to Sandra Woiak at Sandra.Woiak@fairfaxcounty.gov  by March 5. Be sure to include your full contact information. Presenters will be notified of acceptance.

Megan Baumann successfully defended her dissertation on February 1, 2021.

COFFEE HOUR

Next Coffee Hour is March 5 with Song Gao on Mapping Human Mobility Changes and Geospatial Modeling of COVID-19 Spread.

If you missed or want to review a previous Coffee Hour talk, video recordings are available on the Department of Geography Coffee Hour Channel on the Penn State mediaspace.

NEWS

Student’s comfort zone is quietly pushing her boundaries

State College native Hope Bodenschatz is looking forward to graduating from Penn State this spring with three bachelor’s degrees and one master’s degree, then starting a position as a research assistant for the director of the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

“Some of my favorite classes in high school were social studies, history and government,” Bodenschatz said, “but before I got to Penn State, I didn’t understand that these interests, plus my desire to study public policy, were all encapsulated in geography.”

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Agrobiodiversity’s caring material practices as a symbolic frame for environmental governance in Colombia’s southern Tolima

Mega Dwyer Baumann
Geoforum
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.002
Agrobiodiversity scholarship broadly examines plant-human interactions in agricultural landscapes and often concerns the governance of seed resources. This article pivots attention away from agrobiodiversity as a set of governable genetic resources to examine how the relational aspects of agrobiodiversity come to symbolize a future vision of environmental governance. Tolima residents are between two significant socio-environmental events: the 2016 Peace Accord ending decades of violent conflict and the development of an irrigation megaproject. This context creates space in which to imagine future governance relations. Drawing insights from political ecology-informed environmental governance and feminist care ethics, I show how caring material practices around native seeds translate into a vision for governance. The symbolic frame of agrobiodiversity promotes an alternative ordering of human-environment relations than that of export-oriented production, which has recently increased in southern Tolima. Methods included 42 interviews, 60 household surveys, and participant observation throughout 12 months. Findings illustrate that the caring material practices of agrobiodiversity particularly in seed exchanges, home gardens, and kitchens become a symbolic frame for environmental governance in which access to land, food, and community cohesion are ensured and protected. This research makes two contributions to the literature of agrobiodiversity. First, drawing on feminist care ethics, I argue that the caring material practices of agrobiodiversity create ‘care-full’ human-environment connections, especially important in the post-conflict context. Second, findings suggest that agrobiodiversity is not simply a set of plant materials to be governed, but also can have a strong symbolic function as a frame for environmental governance.

‘Next generation’ climate change litigation in Australia

Peel, J., Osofsky, H. M., & Foerster, A.
In J. Lin, & D. A. Kysar (Eds.), Climate Change Litigation in the Asia Pacific
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108777810
Since the conclusion and entry into force of the Paris Agreement and the high-profile Urgenda case, possibilities for exploring new avenues of strategic climate change litigation in Australia have received considerable attention. To date, most Australian cases have involved administrative challenges to projects under environmental laws to have climate change impacts taken into account. While this ‘first generation’ of cases has achieved significant results, there is increasing interest in taking forward a ‘next generation’ of cases that have a broader focus on holding governments and corporations directly accountable for the climate change implications of their actions. This chapter explores the contours of next-generation climate change litigation in Australia, including the drivers for these lawsuits and the potential legal avenues by which they might be brought. Rather than abandoning first-generation challenges — which have targeted Australia’s principal sources of greenhouse gas emissions such as coal-fired power stations and coal mines — we argue that the most fruitful strategy for future climate change litigation in Australia is one that continues to advance lower risk cases building from existing litigation, while simultaneously attempting novel approaches.


16
Feb 21

Coffee Hour with Karen Seto | THON dancers | Appraising slave-built infrastructure

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

125 word mark for EMS

This week’s Coffee Hour is the department’s honorary lecture as part of the yearlong celebration of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences 125th anniversary. Learn more about the 125th anniversary.

GOOD NEWS

Undergraduate students Talia Potochny and Chris Long are EMS THON dancers for Virtual THON Weekend 2021,  6 p.m. February 19 until 4 p.m. February 21.

Alumnus Joel Burcat, who earned his bachelor of science degree in geography in 1976 and went on to become a multi-time winner of Pennsylvania’s “Best Lawyer” designation for Environmental Litigation—has written his second novel in the Mike Jacobs series after Drink to Every Beast, titled Amid Rage (Headline Books; February 2, 2021). Set in a small Pennsylvania community, this environmental legal thriller shows the courtroom battle—and ensuing drama—between a ruthless mine operator and those that oppose him.

March 2 at 9:00 a.m. (PDT), Monthly GIS Chat: Introducing the New ArcGIS Field Maps: The All-in-One App.

March 3 at 3 p.m. (EST) Geospatial Session: Working with Geospatial Data, GIS, and Mapping Projects, Presented by Tara Anthony, tll38@psu.edu, Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information, Penn State University Libraries. Register for Zoom session.

The deadline is March 10, 2021 for Department of Geography academic enrichment, Easterling Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant, and E. Willard Miller Award submissions. Luke Trusel is chair of the awards committee.

COFFEE HOUR

Karen Seto
Contemporary Urbanization: Problem or Panacea for the Planet?

This honorary lecture is part of the yearlong celebration of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences 125th anniversary. Learn more about the 125th anniversary.

Urbanization is one of the biggest megatrends transforming societies and Earth’s biosphere. This talk will examine some key urbanization trends and their implications for sustainability, including impacts on climate change, diets, and croplands.

NEWS

In THE CONVERSATION by Joshua Inwood and Anna Brand
Slave-built infrastructure still creates wealth in US, suggesting reparations should cover past harms and current value of slavery

American cities from Atlanta to New York City still use buildings, roads, ports and rail lines built by enslaved people.

The fact that centuries-old relics of slavery still support the economy of the United States suggests that reparations for slavery would need to go beyond government payments to the ancestors of enslaved people to account for profit-generating, slave-built infrastructure.

13 faculty named 2021 distinguished professors at Penn State
Erica Smithwick is among the 13

Penn State’s Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs has named 13 distinguished professors for 2021.

University Libraries announces virtual sessions on maps, geospatial data

This spring, Penn State University Libraries will offer virtual information sessions on geospatial data and software topics. These sessions are designed to introduce resources, software and expertise offered by the University Libraries that are related to maps and geospatial data. Penn State faculty, staff and students from across disciplines are encouraged to attend.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Entanglements of agrobiodiversity-food amid cascading migration, coca conflicts, and water development (Bolivia, 1990–2013)

Karl S.Zimmerer, Hector Luís Rojas Vaca, María Teresa Hosse Sahonero
Geoforum
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.028
This study examines agrobiodiversity production and consumption among indigenous people and smallholders engaged with cascading migration, coca, and water resource changes. Addressing the questions if and how agrobiodiversity is viable amid intensifying extra-local influences, it combines the theorization of a pathway that has emerged via infrastructure entanglements and the extended case study of local utilization practices. The theoretical orientation integrates key elements of political ecology and social-ecological systems. We undertook surveys, interviews, and ethnographic participant observation in 10 communities and villages of Cochabamba, Bolivia, between 1990 and 2013. Results show how agrobiodiversity was utilized at moderate-high levels in the land and water systems, foods, and other uses of indigenous peasants and smallholder farmers in the 1990–2013 period even as certain minor crops were significantly reduced. Moreover, the results reveal how agrobiodiversity and agrobiodiverse foods have functioned in production and consumption amid the infrastructure entanglements of migration, roads, and irrigation. Embeddedness as both quotidian resource capacities and contingent sociocultural symbols was hinged to agrarian change in these accelerated entanglements. Mobilities of both meaning and people in recent infrastructure entanglement is characteristic of the unfolding utilization of agrobiodiversity and agrobiodiverse foods. Social power in the complex contours of accelerated entanglement have furnished meanings ranging from the resistance politics of indigenous people and smallholders to the purposeful agendas of more powerful groups. The conclusion highlights how dynamic agrobiodiversity utilization has emerged via the pathway of indigenous people and smallholders who are engaged in cascading, extra-local entanglements.

Zones of Accumulation Make Spaces of Dispossession

Trauger, A., & Fluri, J.
ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies
https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1989
Human geographers, scholars in other disciplines and the wider public use outdated spatial vocabulary to reference inequality and divergent geographic histories. Most spatial heuristics in wide use (1st world, North/South, etc.) essentialize progress, homogenize entire nations, obscure inequality at multiple scales and deny the processes of creating difference via imperialism, colonialism and capitalism. In this paper we elaborate on a new spatial vocabulary using geographic theory to identify zones of accumulation and spaces of dispossession. We then address what theories inform this naming convention, what it means and critically reflect on some of its weaknesses, such as its binary nature and relative lack of geographic specificity. We conclude by encouraging wider adoption of these spatial heuristics because they take their logic from geographical theory, actual existing inequality on multiple scales and present-day processes of capitalism.


02
Feb 21

Coffee Hour with Jacqueline Vadjunec | February deadlines | Geography careers info

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Michael Widener

Michael Widener appreciates the mug he received as a thank-you for his Coffee Hour lecture on, “The Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation (FASTT) Study,” the first talk of the spring 2021 semester. The Coffee Hour schedule and information on talks can be found https://www.geog.psu.edu/calendar.  Recorded talks are added to the department’s Kaltura channel.

GOOD NEWS

February 3 at 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., “Climate Justice as the Intersection of Climate Science, Environmental Justice, and Social Justice,” webinar, presented by Gregory Jenkins.

Nominations are being accepted for the Rock Ethics Institute’s 2021 Stand Up Awards. The deadline for nominations is February 5, 2021. Additional information about the Stand Up Awards, including profiles of previous honorees, can be found at StandUpPSU.com.

February 7 at 11:59 p.m.,  Spring 2021 Applications to the EMSAGE program are due. EMSAGE Q&A sessions Spring 2021, drop by to ask questions on the program or application process:

The Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE) announced its 2020–21 Seed Grant Program. The deadline to submit proposals is 5 p.m. on February 12, 2021.

March 2 at 9:00 a.m. (PDT), Monthly GIS Chat: Introducing the New ArcGIS Field Maps: The All-in-One App.

The deadline for Department of Geography academic enrichment, Easterling Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant, and E. Willard Miller Award submissions is March 10, 2021. Luke Trusel is chair of the awards committee.

COFFEE HOUR

Jacqueline Vadjunec, Oklahoma State University
Research in the Time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered geographers and others in related fields both opportunities and constraints. This talk will explore both the positive and negative consequences of the current pandemic from a geographical research perspective. Opportunities include the potential importance of geographic and spatial research to addressing unique issues witnessed in the pandemic, as seen by the important research funded by COVID-19 RAPID awards at the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) and Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) programs. It is clear that geographers and spatial scientists have a strong and important contribution to make in the fields of medical geography, spatial cognition, risk perception, and disaster management among others. At the same time, COVID-19 has created distinct challenges for those doing field-based research due to university travel bans, IRB mandates, research ethics considerations, and complex logistics. Here, I explore these issues, while giving potential best in practice solutions on staying connected to our research communities and each other in the time of COVID-19.

NEWS

Time is running out for students to order required COVID-19 tests

As the Feb. 15 return to in-person instruction approaches, all Penn State students at all campus locations are reminded that they must have a negative COVID-19 test result from a University-provided test on file prior to, and within 72 hours of, their return to their campus community.

aag­.org

About Geography Careers Overview

This website aims to raise greater awareness of the burgeoning opportunities in geography. There are hundreds of occupations that require knowledge of and skills in geography, and the diversity of career opportunities available to geography graduates continues to grow every year.


26
Jan 21

Coffee Hour with Michael Widener on FASTT | Smithwick named Distinquished | Cervone elected

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Cindy's office

Head of the Department Cynthia Brewer shares this image of her remote teaching workspace, complete with green screen and ring light for Zooming. This set up shows best practices; natural light in front and a non-distracting background behind the speaker.

GOOD NEWS

January 27 at 1:25 p.m. EST: Value of Biodiversity webinar featuring Bronwen Powell. Part 2 of the Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Decade of Action Symposium

February 1 at 5:30 p.m. EST: Geography undergraduate clubs join virtual meeting. For more information visit: https://sites.psu.edu/geogundergrad/undergraduate-clubs/

Nominations are being accepted for the Rock Ethics Institute’s 2021 Stand Up Awards. This award honors Penn State undergraduate students who have demonstrated courage, fortitude, and ethical leadership by taking a stand for a person, cause, or belief. Stand Up Award winners receive a $1,000 prize and will be honored at the 2021 Stand Up Awards ceremony on April 22. The deadline for nominations is February 5, 2021. Additional information about the Stand Up Awards, including profiles of previous honorees, can be found at StandUpPSU.com.

The Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE) announced its 2020–21 Seed Grant Program. The funding is intended to foster basic and applied interdisciplinary energy and environmental research that leverages faculty expertise across the University. The deadline to submit proposals is 5 p.m. on February 12, 2021.

The deadline for Department of Geography academic enrichment, Easterling Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant, and E. Willard Miller Award submissions is March 10, 2021. Luke Trusel is chair of the awards committee.

Who’s in charge here? Check out the Department Leadership webpage.

Erica Smithwick has been awarded the title of Distinguished Professor.

Joshua Inwood was quoted in the article, “Don’t Move On Just Yet: Could a truth and reconciliation commission help the country heal?” in The Atlantic.

First-year undergraduate student Rylie Adams was awarded placement in the NASA PA Space Grant Research Internship Program with Alexander Klippel as her mentor. Learn more about the program: https://sites.psu.edu/wisermurefurp/

Alumna Emily Klipp, who earned a postbaccalaurate certificate in GIS in 2010, was promoted to associate in Dewberry’s geospatial and technology services group.

COFFEE HOUR

Michael Widener, University of Toronto
The Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation Study: A New Approach to Food Environment Research and Preliminary Findings

In this talk, the Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation (FASTT) Study, a project that integrates concepts of time geography with theories from food and health geographies, will be introduced. In March 2019, time-use diaries, GPS trajectory data, and dietary questionnaires were collected from partnered-parents in households from two Toronto neighbourhoods; one urban and one suburban. These data are used to explore questions about time pressure and dietary behaviour, the division of food labour, and the role of the built environment in food shopping. Findings from two papers currently underway— one on coupled exposure to food retail and the other on how food-related time use patterns link to differing geographies—will be presented, and implications for future work discussed.

NEWS

Apply for UROC spring projects

The Department of Geography’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Connection (UROC) program allows undergraduate students to gain valuable research experience and technical skills through collaboration on projects within the department and supervised by faculty and/or graduate students, as well as 1-3 credit hours to apply towards graduation (GEOG 494).  Information on current and past projects is available at https://sites.psu.edu/uroc/

Cervone elected to lead AGU natural hazards section

Guido Cervone, associate director of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, professor of geography, meteorology and atmospheric science and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI) associate, was elected as president-elect of the Natural Hazards Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and begins a two-year term as president-elect on Jan. 1, 2021, and a two-year term as president on January 1, 2023.

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps newly available online through University Libraries

As of Jan. 1, materials published or copyrighted in 1925 became part of the public domain and are now freely available for use. Among the most anticipated collections of such materials in the Penn State University Libraries are the Pennsylvania Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of 1925, a collection of maps of 69 towns consisting of 1,600 individual map sheets, most notably four volumes each of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Drip irrigation as a socio-technical configuration: policy design and technological choice in Western India

Karan Misquitta & Trevor Birkenholtz
Water International
https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2020.1858696
Through a case study of farmers in India we examine the relationship between drip irrigation subsidy policies, farmer adoption and technological choice. We examine changes in the subsidy design and the implications that these have for farmers. We show how the negotiation of multiple interests influences the kind of technology promoted and the design of the subsidy programme. This creates barriers to adoption, particularly for relatively resource-poor farmers. For these famers, the relative advantages of low-cost alternative technologies appear to be significant.

Precipitation alters the CO2 effect on water‐use efficiency of temperate forests

Belmecheri, S., Maxwell, R.S., Taylor, A.H., Davis, K.J., Guerrieri, R., Moore, D.J.P. and Rayback, S.A.
Global Change Biology
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15491
Increasing water‐use efficiency (WUE), the ratio of carbon gain to water loss, is a key mechanism that enhances carbon uptake by terrestrial vegetation under rising atmospheric CO2 (ca). Existing theory and empirical evidence suggest a proportional WUE increase in response to rising ca as plants maintain a relatively constant ratio between the leaf intercellular (ci) and ambient (ca) partial CO2 pressure (ci/ca). This has been hypothesized as the main driver of the strengthening of the terrestrial carbon sink over the recent decades. However, proportionality may not characterize CO2 effects on WUE on longer time‐scales and the role of climate in modulating these effects is uncertain. Here, we evaluate long‐term WUE responses to ca and climate from 1901 to 2012 CE by reconstructing intrinsic WUE (iWUE, the ratio of photosynthesis to stomatal conductance) using carbon isotopes in tree rings across temperate forests in the northeastern USA. We show that iWUE increased steadily from 1901 to 1975 CE but remained constant thereafter despite continuously rising ca. This finding is consistent with a passive physiological response to ca and coincides with a shift to significantly wetter conditions across the region. Tree physiology was driven by summer moisture at multi‐decadal time‐scales and did not maintain a constant ci/ca in response to rising ca indicating that a point was reached where rising CO2 had a diminishing effect on tree iWUE. Our results challenge the mechanism, magnitude, and persistence of CO2‘s effect on iWUE with significant implications for projections of terrestrial productivity under a changing climate.


19
Jan 21

Spring Coffee Hour | EMSAGE Laureates | High attention score for Huang’s article

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

VIFF screen capture

Jaiwei Huang’s article, “Walking through the forests of the future: using data-driven virtual reality to visualize forests under climate change,” was recognized for receiving an Altmetric score of 120, placing it in the top 5 percent of all research outputs scored by Altmetric. https://tandf.altmetric.com/details/94104372. The image above is a still of the video walkthrough of their 3D simulation model.

GOOD NEWS

Alan MacEachren has announced his retirement at the end of June 2021. By that time, He will have been a faculty member for 42 years (starting with 4 at VA Tech, follow by 2 at Colorado-Boulder, then 36 here at Penn State).

Lorraine Dowler has been appointed as the department’s first Associate Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (AHDEI). She begins this new role in January 2021.

Wednesday, January 20, 1:25 pm, Karl Zimmerer will speak on, “What drives value? Integrating food, land use, and livelihood models with sociocultural analysis of biodiversity,” in section, week 1 of the “Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Decade of Action” spring virtual symposium. For more information: https://spark.adobe.com/page/m3u8xAk8Pp488/#section-1-value-of-biodiversity

Friday, January 22, 12:15–1:30, C-SoDA Colloquium with Periloux Peay,”From Protest to Police Reform: How #BlackLivesMatter Fueled State-Level Policing Policy Adoption and Diffusion.”  Zoom link:  https://psu.zoom.us/j/93835347840.

AAG 2021 Posters: Deadline January 29

Bradley Hinger, Gillian Prater-Lee, and Jacklyn Weier have been elected as the new grad reps within the Department of Geography. They join Chanel Lange-Maney and Hannah Caudill, and serve from SP21 to FA21.

Ruchi Patel and Connor Chapman are the new EMS Graduate Council representatives for the Department of Geography. They begin their term in January 2021 and serve for the 2021 calendar year.

Alumnus Sid Pandey, who earned his bachelor’s degree in geography in 2014, has been promoted to senior associate at Dewberry.

Alumnus Megan Ruffe, a Schreyer Scholar who graduated in 2013, earning degrees in film production and geography, has been working at Florentine Films for eight years. She is currently working on a series about the American Revolution, producing & editing for Ken Burns’s archive website project, UNUM, and launching a web series called “UNUM Shorts.” You can see a short teaser for the series here. [In case you missed it, we published a profile of Ruffe in October 2020]

COFFEE HOUR

Spring 2021 Coffee Hour

Coffee Hour resumes on January 29, 2021 with Michael Widener, University of Toronto, speaking on “The Food Activities, Socioeconomics, Time-use, and Transportation Study: A New Approach to Food Environment Research and Preliminary Findings.”

Additional scheduled speakers include:

Coffee Hour lectures are 4–5 p.m. on Fridays on Zoom.  For more information and the Zoom link, see each talk’s event page on the department website. Details are added throughout the semester.

NEWS

Four students named EMSAGE Laureates for scholarship, service and global experiences

Four students in the Department of Geography were named as College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Academy for Global Experience, or EMSAGE Laureates for fall 2020. Amanda Byrd, Talia Potochny, Harman Singh and Sophie Tessier were recognized by Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Yvette Richardson at a virtual ceremony in November.

Online educator establishes scholarship for distance learners

It didn’t take a global pandemic for David DiBiase to understand the value or impact of distance learning. As one of the pioneers of online instruction at Penn State, he watched for three decades as programs offered through the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute broadly expanded access to education.

GEOSPATIAL WORLD
Why maps point North on top?

Even though historically maps have pointed to other directions, why maps point North on top is largely because of the huge influence of European culture.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

Can we turn the tide? Confronting gender inequality in climate policy, Gender & Development

Sophia Huyer, Mariola Acosta, Tatiana Gumucio & Jasmin Irisha Jim Ilham
Gender & Development
https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2020.1836817
Emerging global crises such as climate change, massive migrations, pandemics, and environmental degradation are posing serious risks to humanity, threatening ecosystems and rural livelihoods across the globe. The poor, and especially the most marginalised among the poor, are disproportionately affected. Climate change in particular is expected to exacerbate pre-existing social inequalities, including gender inequalities. Therefore, innovative and equitable climate adaptation and mitigation strategies will be needed. This article reviews the progress so far in integrating a gender perspective into climate change policy discussions and agreements at global and national levels.

Spatial patterns of tree cover change at a dry forest margin are driven by initial conditions, water balance and wildfire

Harris, L.B., Taylor, A.H.
Landscape Ecology
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01178-3
Context: Increases in tree cover at dry forest margins are a global phenomenon. Yet, how pre-existing tree cover interacts with terrain and water balance to influence tree cover change is not well-understood, nor whether subsequent disturbances restore prior tree cover patterns or create novel patterns.

Objectives: To assess how terrain, water balance and pre-existing patterns of tree cover influenced late twentieth century tree cover change, and how subsequent wildfires altered tree cover patterns.

Methods: We analyzed tree canopy cover at four sites at the forest-steppe ecotone on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, California, U.S.A., using aerial photographs from 1953/1955, 1999/2002 and 2016. Influences on tree cover change were assessed using statistical modeling, and tree cover in 1953/1955 was compared with post-wildfire tree cover in 2016.

Results: From 1953 to 2002, area with > 25% canopy cover increased by 1.5 to 5-fold and treeless area decreased by 17–111%. Mesic areas and areas of sparse tree cover close to existing forest tended to gain more canopy cover. Subsequent wildfires caused a mix of net tree cover loss, little change and gain relative to 1953/1955, but at all sites areas with > 25% cover and < 10% cover in 1953/55 experienced net losses and gains respectively by 2016.

Conclusions: Accounting for initial tree cover and its configuration are crucial to assessing water balance and terrain effects on tree cover change. Our work highlights how wildfires can generate novel patterns of tree cover relative to historical baselines, especially following decades of fire exclusion.

Characterization of ice shelf fracture features using ICESat-2 – A case study over the Amery Ice Shelf

Shujie Wang, Patrick Alexander, Qiusheng Wu, Marco Tedesco, Song Shue
Remote Sensing of Environment
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.112266
Fractures are important structural features that affect the stress condition and stability of ice shelves. Previous studies have mainly focused on the measurement of fractures in the horizontal dimension. However, the vertical morphology of fractures could also be potentially important in determining their evolution and role in ice shelf stability. In this regard, the dense and high-resolution surface elevation measurements collected by the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) provide an excellent opportunity for studying fractures in the vertical dimension over a regional scale. Here we developed an object-oriented algorithm to automatically detect and characterize fracture features (including rifts, surface fractures, and the surface expressions of basal fractures) from ICESat-2 data. We successfully applied the algorithm to ICESat-2 L3A Land Ice Height (ATL06) data over the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, and retrieved the vertical structural information of two major fracture fields. The detected fracture features match well with the visible fracture lines in Landsat-8 satellite imagery, and the edges of fracture features are well-captured from the ATL06 data. We analyzed the fracture patterns in terms of surface depth, width, vertical shape, length, and orientation. We found that the fracture feature depth is a key factor determining the formation of new fractures and the spatial pattern of depth is closely related to rift formation. We anticipate that further application of the object-oriented method over other ice shelves will produce important insights regarding fracture formation and ice shelf vulnerability by combining ICESat-2-derived vertical information with the horizontal structure retrieved from satellite imagery.

Cultural Plant Geography Introducer: Karl S. Zimmerer

Zimmerer K.S.
In: WinklerPrins A.M., Mathewson K. (eds) Forest, Field, and Fallow. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42480-0_3
Cultural plant geography has undergirded the research career of William M. Denevan. Rooted in human-environment geography, Denevan’s contributions provided landmark advances. He first utilized cultural plant geography in research on the region-scale anthropogenic influences and human use of tropical pine forests in Central America. Denevan subsequently directed this approach to research on the landscapes and adaptive strategies of the tropical lowland agriculture of indigenous groups. Subsequently it was central to his comprehensive analysis of Amazonian and Andean landscapes, global-scale synthesis, and interpretation such as the anti-Pristine Myth project, and the current interdisciplinary subfields of historical ecology, social forests, and agrobiodiversity.

Antarctica dominates uncertainty in projected land ice contribution to sea level rise this century

Edwards, T. L., … Trusel, L. … et al
Nature
https://publications.pik-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_25040
The land ice contribution to global mean sea level rise has not yet been predicted with ice sheet and glacier models for the latest set of socio-economic scenarios, nor with coordinated exploration of uncertainties arising from the various computer models involved. Two recent international projects generated a large suite of projections using 100 multiple models, but mostly used previous generation scenarios and climate models, and could not fully explore known uncertainties. Here we estimate probability distributions for these projections under the new scenarios using statistical emulation of the ice sheet and glacier models, and find that limiting global warming to 1.5°C since preindustrial would halve the land ice contribution to sea level rise this century, relative to 105 predictions for current climate pledges under the Paris Agreement: the median 4 decreases from 25 to 13 cm sea level equivalent (SLE) by 2100, with glaciers responsible for half the sea level contribution. The Antarctic contribution does not show a clear response to emissions scenario, due to competing processes of increasing ice loss and snowfall accumulation in a warming climate. However, under risk-averse (pessimistic) assumptions, Antarctic ice loss could be five times higher, increasing 110 the median land ice contribution to 42 cm SLE under current policies and pledges, with the upper end (95th percentile) exceeding half a metre even under 1.5°C warming. This would severely limit the possibility of mitigating future coastal flooding. Until climate policies and the Antarctic response are further constrained, adaptation must therefore plan for a factor 115 of three uncertainty in the land ice contribution to global mean sea level rise.

From spatial to platial – the role and future of immersive technologies in the spatial sciences

Alexander Klippel
Journal of Spatial Information Science
https://doi.org/10.5311/JOSIS.2020.21.722
Immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality have been part of the technology mindset in computer and geospatial sciences since early on. The promise of delivering realistic experiences to the human senses that are not bound by physical reality has inspired generations of scientists and entrepreneurs alike. However, the vision for immersive experiences has been in stark contrast to the technology that has yet to properly support that vision; the community has battled nuisances such as cybersickness, tethers, and display quality for the last few decades. With the “final wave” of immersive technologies, we are now able to fulfill a long-held promise and freely envision how immersive technologies change spatial sciences by creating embodied experiences for geospatial applications. These experiences are not restricted by time or place, nor are they limited to the physical world. This contribution envisions a future for spatial sciences that is enabled by immersive technologies discussing their potential and challenges.

Evaluating a remote wetland functional assessment along an alteration gradient in coastal plain depressional wetlands

P.J. Backhaus, S. Lee, M. Nassry, G. McCarty, M. Lang and R.P. Brooks
Journal of Soil and Water
https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2020.00094
As anthropogenic disturbance continues to degrade wetland condition in many geographic areas, it is imperative to inventory wetland functions to monitor potential loss of associated ecosystem services. Field-based functional assessments are resource intensive, prohibiting their widespread application at landscape scales. This obstacle can be avoided by basing functional assessments on publicly available remote sensed data. This pilot study examined the use of Watershed-based Preliminary Assessment of Wetland Function (W-PAWF) in the assessment of wetland restoration sites. W-PAWF was used to assess 15 depressional wetlands in the US Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. These sites spanned a human alteration gradient (i.e., natural wetlands, restored wetlands, and prior-converted croplands) to determine the sensitivity of the assessment method to variation in the assemblage and performance of wetland functions. Field-based rapid assessment methods were used to verify the W-PAWF assessment and detect potential functional gaps of importance to wetland restoration. Results indicate that W-PAWF can differentiate varying levels of restoration condition, but refinement will be necessary to assess functional restoration goals related to biogeochemistry and water quality. An evaluation of the field-based methods and an alternate remote functional assessment system suggest the potential for these functional characteristics to be incorporated in future iterations of the W-PAWF.


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