Extreme heat, flooding, and other hazards related papers:

 heat thermometerfloodwildireocean acidification
 
  • Large and inequitable flood risks in Los Angeles, California (2023)
    Flood risks in the United States have historically been underestimated, particularly with respect to human well-being and within low-wealth and marginalized communities. Here, we characterize a fuller range of risks in Los Angeles, California, using a quantitative framework that intersects flood hazards from rainfall, streamflow and storm tides with measures of exposure and vulnerability including ethnicity, race and socioeconomic disadvantage.

  • From flood control to flood adaptation (2022)
    Much flood risk management to date has aimed to maximize economic benefits, reduce the likelihood of flood disasters, and facilitate recovery where needed. It has assumed a stationary climate and focused on extremes and financial losses. But this paradigm of flood control is increasingly at odds with the full set of challenges and requirements for flood risk management.

  • Trends in wildfire-related bills in California, 2001-2020 (2022)
    California has recently experienced severe and destructive wildfire seasons, prompting new policy proposals from the California State Legislature. Here, we examine proposed state wildfire-related legislation from the ten two-year legislative sessions between 2001–2002 and 2019–2020 to track trends and factors influencing wildfire-related legislative priorities.

  • Heat exposure and resilience planning in Atlanta, Georgia (2022)
    Here, we analyze the magnitude, distribution, and predictors of heat exposure across the City of Atlanta, within the boundaries of Fulton County. Additionally, we evaluate the extent to which identified heat exposure is addressed in Atlanta climate resilience governance.

  • Roles and experiences of non-governmental organisations in wildfire response and recovery (2021) 
    Drawing on interviews with NGO representatives involved in three Northern California wildfires in 2017 and 2018, this study identifies challenges and opportunities for NGOs supporting wildfire relief and recovery. Across fires and NGOs, NGO management and wellbeing, coordination and disaster experiences emerge as common barriers and enablers of relief and recovery.

  • Climate change adaptation to extreme heat: a global systematic review of implemented action (2021)
    Here, we combine data from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative with a heat-specific systematic review to analyze the global extent and diversity of documented heat adaptation actions (n = 301 peer-reviewed articles). Data from 98 countries suggest that documented heat adaptations fundamentally differ by geographic region and national income.

  • Climate-informed hydrologic modeling and policy typology to guide managed aquifer recharge (2021)
    Here, we develop a climate-informed and policy-relevant framework to quantify WAFR (water available for recharge), its uncertainty, and associated policy actions. Our WAFR analysis can inform effective investment decisions to adapt to future climate-fueled drought and flood risk over depleted aquifers, in California and beyond.

  • Effects of extreme weather events on child mood and behavior (2021)
    While the majority of studies are focused on the effects resulting from one specific type of disaster (hurricanes), we have synthesized the literature across the various types of EWEs [extreme weather events]. We describe psychological symptoms and behavior, the potential for long‐term effects, and potential protective factors and risk factors.

  • Risk screening methods for extreme heat: implications for equity-oriented adaptation (2020)
    Here, we use an equity-oriented adaptation program from the state of California as a case study to evaluate the implications of the currently used environmental justice index for the identification of socially vulnerable communities with climate change adaptation needs.

  • Factors influencing adoption and rejection of fire hazard severity zone maps in California (2020)
    Here, sociopolitical motivations and barriers for participation are evaluated in a state-recommended, though not legally required, local wildfire preparedness program in California (Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones). Through this regional case study, we examine how and why communities do or do not participate in wildfire preparedness programs when given the choice.

  • Landscape scale variation in the hydrologic niche of California coast redwood (2020)
    We present a fine scale analysis of the roles of topographic gradients in moisture availability, soil water storage and fog frequency in the spatial pattern of habitat suitability for coast redwood     Sequoia sempervirens, at 10 m resolution across 34 800 ha and three landscapes spanning approximately one‐third of redwood's latitudinal range.

  • Barriers and enablers for prescribed burns for wildfire management in California (2020)
    We evaluate sociopolitical barriers and opportunities for greater deployment of prescribed burns in California, an area recurrently affected by catastrophic fires.

  • High-tide flooding disrupts local economic activity (2019)
    Empirical analysis of the disruption caused by high-tide floods, also called nuisance or sunny-day floods, is challenging due to the short duration of these floods and their impacts. Through a novel approach, we estimate the effects of high-tide flooding on local economic activity.

  • Reduced sea ice protection period increases storm exposure in Kivalina, Alaska (2018)
    In Kivalina, an Alaskan Inupiaq Inuit community, decreasing seasonal sea ice extent and a lengthening of the open-water season may be resulting in fall storms that (1) generate higher, longer, and more destructive waves and (2) cause damage later in the year, resulting in increased flooding and erosion. We assess trends in the duration of nearshore sea ice and their relationship with storm occurrence over the period 1979–2015 in Kivalina.

  • Long-term, high frequency in situ measurements of intertidal mussel bed temperatures using biomimetic sensors (2016)
    At a proximal level, the physiological impacts of global climate change on ectothermic organisms are manifest as changes in body temperatures. Especially for plants and animals exposed to direct solar radiation, body temperatures can be substantially different from air temperatures. We deployed biomimetic sensors that approximate the thermal characteristics of intertidal mussels at 71 sites worldwide, from 1998-present.

  • Understanding, characterizing, and communicating responses to ocean acidification: challenges and uncertainties (2015)
    As recognition of ocean acidification grows, scientists’ ability to communicate the certainties and  uncertainties of our knowledge on OA is crucial for interaction with decision makers. In this regard, there are a number of valuable practices that can be drawn from other fields, especially the global climate change community. A generally accepted set of best practices that scientists follow in their discussions of uncertainty would be helpful for the community engaged in ocean acidification.

  • Flood risk and climate change: global and regional perspectives (2013)
    A holistic perspective on changing rainfall-driven flood risk is provided for the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This article assesses the literature included in the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” (SREX) and new literature published since, and includes an assessment of changes in flood risk in seven of the regions considered in the recent IPCC SREX report—Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, Oceania and Polar regions.

  • Ocean acidification and its impacts: an expert survey (2013)
    Here we report the results of the first expert survey in the field of ocean acidification. Fifty-three experts, who had previously participated in an IPCC workshop, were asked to assess 22 declarative statements about ocean acidification and its consequences.

  • Failure by fatigue in the field: a model of fatigue breakage for the macroalga Mazzaella, with validation (2011)
    Recent laboratory testing has established that some seaweeds fail by fatigue, accumulating damage over a series of force impositions. Failure by fatigue may thus account, in part, for the discrepancy between prior breakage predictions, based on individual not repeated wave forces, and reality. Nonetheless, the degree to which fatigue breaks seaweeds on waveswept shores remains unknown. Here, we developed a model of fatigue breakage due to wave-induced forces for the macroalga Mazzaella flaccida.

  • Preference versus performance: body temperature of the intertidal snail Chlorostoma funebralis (2011)
    Evolutionary theory predicts that, in variable environments, it is advantageous for ectothermic organisms to prefer a body temperature slightly below the physiological optimum. This theory works well for many terrestrial organisms but has not been tested for animals inhabiting the hypervariable physical environment of intertidal shores. In laboratory experiments, we allowed the intertidal snail     Chlorostoma funebralis to position itself on a temperature gradient, then measured its thermal preference and determined an index of how its performance varied with temperature.

  • Organismal climatology: analyzing environmental variability at scales relevant to physiological stress (2010)
    We quantitatively examine a nine-year time series of temperature records relevant to the body temperatures of intertidal mussels as measured using biomimetic sensors. Specifically, we explore how a ‘climatology’ of body temperatures, as opposed to long-term records of habitat-level parameters such as air and water temperatures, can be used to extrapolate meaningful spatial and temporal patterns of physiological stress.

  • All climate change is local: understanding and predicting the effects of climate change from an organism’s point of view (2010)
    Here, we describe how knowledge of physiology can help to inform management decisions. Because physiological tolerance to environmental factors varies between species, there will likely be “winners” and “losers” in the face of climate change. We explore how a failure to consider the details of an organism’s physiology and ecology can hamper efforts to respond proactively to climate change and, conversely, how an understanding of how nonhuman organisms interact with their environment can help to provide a framework for anticipating and preparing for future changes in natural and managed ecosystems.

  • Thermal stress and morphological adaptations in limpets (2009)
    On thermally stressful rocky shores, small, slow-moving ectotherms such as limpets exhibit morphological characteristics such as high-spired and heavily ridged shells which may reduce the likelihood of reaching stressful or lethal body temperatures. The effects of shell height and shell surface area on predicted limpet body temperatures were tested with a previously developed heat budget model.

  • Mechanical and biological consequences of repetitive loading: crack initiation and fatigue failure in the red macroalga Mazzaella (2009)
    On rocky shores, wave-swept macroalgae experience dramatic and repeated wave-induced hydrodynamic forces. However, previous studies of macroalgal mechanics have shown that individual waves are not forceful enough to account for observed rates of breakage. Instead, fatigue may contribute to algal breakage, with damage accumulating over time in conditions of repeated loading. Here I examine the entire process of fatigue, from crack initiation to eventual specimen fracture, in the common red alga Mazzaella.

  • Techniques for predicting the lifetimes of waveswept macroalgae: a primer on fracture mechanics and crack growth (2007)
    Biomechanical analyses of intertidal and shallow subtidal seaweeds have elucidated ways in which these organisms avoid breakage in the presence of exceptional hydrodynamic forces imposed by pounding surf. Here, we present methods from the engineering field of fracture mechanics that can be used to assess consequences of repeated force imposition for seaweeds.

  • Death by small forces: a fracture and fatigue analysis of wave-swept macroalgae (2007)
    Wave-swept macroalgae are subjected to large hydrodynamic forces as each wave breaks on shore, loads that are repeated thousands of times per day. Previous studies have shown that macroalgae can easily withstand isolated impositions of maximal field forces. Nonetheless, macroalgae break frequently. Here we investigate the possibility that repeated loading by sub-lethal forces can eventually cause fracture by fatigue.

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