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Matters of environmental politics to inform geoethics
(Elsevier, 2024) Romero, Javier; Chalaye, Pierrick; Sanchez, Emerson; Dobbins, Elizabeth
Until recently, political research and practice had been dominated by an anthropocentric ethos of environmental politics. The definition, framing, and boundary-setting of environmental problems are often the result of a top-down planetary management approach, which assumes unlimited growth and prioritizes reductive, status quo approaches and solutions. A contrasting position is a nonanthropocentric ethos of politics where all lives are considered, and “nature” is more central. In this chapter, we argue that each ethos creates a different vision for Geoethics, an emerging scientific and philosophical discipline that promotes the ethical and social role of geoscientists and society. A careful consideration of a nonanthropocentric ethos could be coordinated around a minimum ethical requirement at the crossroads of different perspectives to build a concrete ethos (e.g., ecological life-support). The establishment of such an ethos relies on two normative and procedural tools that guarantee a pluralist approach: deliberation and democracy.
Interannual pteropod variability in sediment traps deployed above and below the aragonite saturation horizon in the Sub-Antarctic Southern Ocean
(2011) Roberts, Donna; Howard, William R.; Moy, Andrew D.; Roberts, Jason L.; Trull, Thomas W.; Bray, Stephen G.; Hopcroft, Russell R.
Anthropogenic inputs of CO2 are altering ocean chemistry and may alter the role of marine calcifiers in ocean ecosystems. Laboratory research and ocean models suggest calcifiers in polar waters are especially at risk, particularly pteropods: pelagic aragonite-shelled molluscs. However, baseline data for natural populations of pteropods are limited, especially for polar and sub-polar waters. In order to establish baseline data on diversity, preservation state and shell flux of in situ populations of Sub-Antarctic Southern Ocean pteropods, we deployed sediment traps above (1,000 m) and below (2,000 m) the aragonite saturation horizon (ASH) (currently at 1,200 m) from 1997 to 2006 at 47°S, 142°E. We identified seven pteropod taxa. We applied a shell opacity index to each shell collected and found 50% of shells collected above the ASH to be in pristine condition but only 3% of the shells collected below the ASH showed such a high degree of preservation. We estimated pteropod shell mass fluxes for the region (0. 17-4. 99 mg m-2 day-1), and we identified significant reductions in shell flux for Limacina helicina antarctica forma rangi and Clio recurva to the trap series above the ASH and for Limacina helicina antarctica forma rangi and Limacina helicina antarctica forma antarctica to the trap series below the ASH over the interval 1997-2006. Our data establish a temporal and vertical snapshot of the current Sub-Antarctic pelagic pteropod community and provide a baseline against which to monitor Southern Ocean pteropods responses, if any, to changing ocean conditions projected for the region in the coming decades.
The FORCIS database
(2023) Chaabane, Sonia; de Garidel-Thoron, Thibault; Giraud, Xavier; Schiebel, Ralf; Beaugrand, Gregory; Brummer, Geert Jan; Casajus, Nicolas; Greco, Mattia; Grigoratou, Maria; Howa, Hélène; Jonkers, Lukas; Kucera, Michal; Kuroyanagi, Azumi; Meilland, Julie; Monteiro, Fanny; Mortyn, Graham; Almogi-Labin, Ahuva; Asahi, Hirofumi; Avnaim-Katav, Simona; Bassinot, Franck; Davis, Catherine V.; Field, David B.; Hernández-Almeida, Iván; Herut, Barak; Hosie, Graham; Howard, Will; Jentzen, Anna; Johns, David G.; Keigwin, Lloyd; Kitchener, John; Kohfeld, Karen E.; Lessa, Douglas V.O.; Manno, Clara; Marchant, Margarita; Ofstad, Siri; Ortiz, Joseph D.; Post, Alexandra; Rigual-Hernandez, Andres; Rillo, Marina C.; Robinson, Karen; Sagawa, Takuya; Sierro, Francisco; Takahashi, Kunio T.; Torfstein, Adi; Venancio, Igor; Yamasaki, Makoto; Ziveri, Patrizia
Planktonic Foraminifera are unique paleo-environmental indicators through their excellent fossil record in ocean sediments. Their distribution and diversity are affected by different environmental factors including anthropogenically forced ocean and climate change. Until now, historical changes in their distribution have not been fully assessed at the global scale. Here we present the FORCIS (Foraminifera Response to Climatic Stress) database on foraminiferal species diversity and distribution in the global ocean from 1910 until 2018 including published and unpublished data. The FORCIS database includes data collected using plankton tows, continuous plankton recorder, sediment traps and plankton pump, and contains ~22,000, ~157,000, ~9,000, ~400 subsamples, respectively (one single plankton aliquot collected within a depth range, time interval, size fraction range, at a single location) from each category. Our database provides a perspective of the distribution patterns of planktonic Foraminifera in the global ocean on large spatial (regional to basin scale, and at the vertical scale), and temporal (seasonal to interdecadal) scales over the past century.
Using social representations theory to make sense of climate change
(2014) Moloney, Gail; Leviston, Zoe; Lynam, Timothy; Price, Jennifer; Stone-Jovicich, Samantha; Blair, Duncan
The mass media has ensured that the challenging and complex phenomenon of climate change now has the household familiarity of a brand name. But what is it that is understood by climate change, and by whom? What frame of reference is drawn upon to communicate meaningfully about climate change? Do particular subgroups within our society hold different understandings, or have the debate and the prolific dissemination of information about this issue coalesced around a core perception or image of what climate change is? To answer these questions, we conceptualized climate change within the theory of social representations as emergent socially constructed knowledge. We analyzed word association data collected in Australia from persons identifying as having a scientific, government, or general public background (N = 3300). All respondents were asked to write the first words that came to mind when they thought about climate change. Comparative analyses of the word associations reveal that respondents from different backgrounds define climate change in different ways. The results suggest that there is a common core set of concepts shared by the different groups, but there are also a great many differences in how climate change is framed and conceived by respondents. The results are discussed in relation to what they imply for responses to climate change by these social groups and in relation to interventions designed to encourage climate adaptation.
Multidecadal Trends of the Mixed Layer Depth and Their Relation to the Wind in Global Ocean Models Forced by an Atmospheric Reanalysis
(2025) Treguier, Anne Marie; de Boyer Montégut, Clément; Yeager, Steve; Chassignet, Eric P.; Iovino, Doroteaciro; Kiss, Andrew E.; Lin, Pengfei; Lique, Camille; Sidorenko, Dmitry
The surface mixed layer of the ocean plays a key role in ocean-atmosphere interactions. Despite the ocean surface warming in the past four decades, which increased the stratification, the mixed layer depth (MLD) has been found to increase, most notably in the Southern Ocean in summer. We use 12 models from the Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP) at different resolutions, forced by the atmospheric reanalysis JRA55-do, to assess their capability to represent the MLD trends over the period 1970–2018 and to investigate their origin. The MLD evolution in the OMIP models is extremely well correlated across models at interannual time scales, especially in summer. Correlations are lower in high resolution models because of the chaotic nature of the mesoscale variability. OMIP models reproduce consistently the deepening trend of the mixed layer in summer in the Southern Ocean and confirm its relation to the wind speed. The MLD deepening is weaker in the models than in observations, probably due to the fact that the wind speed trend is underestimated in the atmospheric reanalysis. We find however that the MLD deepening is not a simple one-dimensional response to the increase of the wind speed at a given location, but that the three-dimensional processes that control the stratification also play a part. This study gives confidence in the capacity of ocean models to project the response of the mixed layer to future changes in wind speed.