The silence of self-knowledge

Gareth Evans famously affirmed an explanatory connection between answering the question whether p and knowing whether one believes that p. This is commonly interpreted in terms of the idea that judging that p constitutes an adequate basis for the belief that one believes that p. This paper formulates and defends an alternative, more modest interpretation, which develops from the suggestion that one can know that one believes that p in judging that p

What's the point of knowing how?

Why is it useful to talk and think about knowledge-how? Using Edward Craig’s discussion of the function of the concepts of knowledge and knowledge-how as a jumping off point, this paper argues that considering this question can offer us new angles on the debate about knowledge-how. We consider two candidate functions for the concept of knowledge-how: pooling capacities, and mutual reliance. Craig makes the case for pooling capacities, which connects knowledge-how to our need to pool practical capacities. I argue that the evidence is much more equivocal. My suggested diagnosis is that the concept of knowledge-how plays both functions, meaning that the concept of knowledge-how is inconsistent, and that the debate about knowledge-how is at least partly a metalinguistic negotiation. In closing, I suggest a way to revise the philosophical concept of knowledge how

Variability in the area, energy and time costs of wintering waders responding to disturbance

Birds’ responses to human disturbance are interesting due to their similarities to anti-predator behaviour, and understanding this behaviour has practical applications for conservation management by informing measures such as buffer zones to protect priority species. To understand better the costs of disturbance and whether it will impact on population size, studies should quantify time-related responses as well as the more commonly reported flight initiation distance (FID). Using waders wintering on an estuarine area, we experimentally disturbed foraging birds on the Wash Embayment, UK, by walking towards them and recording their responses (FID, alert time, time spent in flight, time taken to resume feeding, and total feeding time lost). We present data for 10 species of conservation concern: Curlew Numenius arquata, Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus, Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica, Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola, Redshank Tringa totanus, Knot Calidris canutus, Turnstone Arenaria interpres, Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula, Sanderling Calidris alba and Dunlin Calidris alpina. Larger species responded more strongly, response magnitude was greater under milder environmental conditions, and responses varied over both small and large spatial scales. The energetic costs of individual responses, however, were low relative to daily requirements and disturbance events were unlikely to be frequent enough to seriously limit foraging time. We suggest, therefore, that wintering wader populations on the Wash are not currently significantly negatively impacted by human disturbance during the intertidal foraging period. This is also likely to be the case at other estuarine sites with comparable access levels, visitor patterns, invertebrate food availability and environmental conditions

Amplified surface temperature response of cold, deep lakes to inter-annual air temperature variability

Summer lake surface water temperatures (LSWTs) have previously been shown to respond more rapidly to climatic warming compared to local summer surface air temperatures (SATs). In a global- scale analysis, we explore the factors underpinning the observation of an amplified response of summer LSWT to SAT variability using 20 years of satellite-derived temperatures from 144 lakes. We demonstrate that the degree of amplification in inter-annual summer LSWT is variable, and is greater for cold lakes (e.g. high latitude and high altitude), which are characterised by a short warming season, and deep lakes, that exhibit long correlation timescales of temperature anomalies due to increased thermal inertia. Such lakes are more likely to display responses in excess of local inter-annual summer SAT variability. Climatic modification of LSWT has numerous consequences for water quality and lake ecosystems, so quantifying this amplified response at a global scale is important

A review of climate change and the implementation of marine biodiversity legislation in the United Kingdom

1. Marine legislation, the key means by which the conservation of marine biodiversity is achieved, has been developing since the 1960s. In recent decades, an increasing focus on ‘holistic’ policy development is evident, compared with earlier ‘piecemeal’ sectoral approaches. Important marine legislative tools being used in the United Kingdom, and internationally, include the designation of marine protected areas and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) with its aim of meeting ‘Good Environmental Status’ (GES) for European seas by 2020. 2. There is growing evidence of climate change impacts on marine biodiversity, which may compromise the effectiveness of any legislation intended to promote sustainable marine resource management. 3. A review of key marine biodiversity legislation relevant to the UK shows climate change was not considered in the drafting of much early legislation. Despite the huge increase in knowledge of climate change impacts in recent decades, legislation is still limited in how it takes these impacts into account. There is scope, however, to account for climate change in implementing much of the legislation through (a) existing references to environmental variability; (b) review cycles; and (c) secondary legislation and complementary policy development. 4. For legislation relating to marine protected areas (e.g. the EC Habitats and Birds Directives), climate change has generally not been considered in the site-designation process, or for ongoing management, with the exception of the Marine (Scotland) Act. Given that changing environmental conditions (e.g. rising temperatures and ocean acidification) directly affect the habitats and species that sites are designated for, how this legislation is used to protect marine biodiversity in a changing climate requires further consideration. 5. Accounting for climate change impacts on marine biodiversity in the development and implementation of legislation is vital to enable timely, adaptive management responses. Marine modelling can play an important role in informing management decisions

Radiative forcing in the 21st century due to ozone changes in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere

Radiative forcing due to changes in ozone is expected for the 21st century. An assessment on changes in the tropospheric oxidative state through a model intercomparison ("OxComp'') was conducted for the IPCC Third Assessment Report (IPCC-TAR). OxComp estimated tropospheric changes in ozone and other oxidants during the 21st century based on the "SRES'' A2p emission scenario. In this study we analyze the results of 11 chemical transport models (CTMs) that participated in OxComp and use them as input for detailed radiative forcing calculations. We also address future ozone recovery in the lower stratosphere and its impact on radiative forcing by applying two models that calculate both tropospheric and stratospheric changes. The results of OxComp suggest an increase in global-mean tropospheric ozone between 11.4 and 20.5 DU for the 21st century, representing the model uncertainty range for the A2p scenario. As the A2p scenario constitutes the worst case proposed in IPCC-TAR we consider these results as an upper estimate. The radiative transfer model yields a positive radiative forcing ranging from 0.40 to 0.78 W m(-2) on a global and annual average. The lower stratosphere contributes an additional 7.5-9.3 DU to the calculated increase in the ozone column, increasing radiative forcing by 0.15-0.17 W m(-2). The modeled radiative forcing depends on the height distribution and geographical pattern of predicted ozone changes and shows a distinct seasonal variation. Despite the large variations between the 11 participating models, the calculated range for normalized radiative forcing is within 25%, indicating the ability to scale radiative forcing to global-mean ozone column change

Illocutionary harm

A number of philosophers have become interested in the ways that individuals are subject to harm as the performers of illocutionary acts. This paper offers an account of the underlying structure of such harms: I argue that speakers are the subjects of illocutionary harm when there is interference in the entitlement structure of their linguistic activities. This interference comes in two forms: denial and incapacitation. In cases of denial, a speaker is prevented from achieving the outcomes to which they are entitled by their speech. In cases of incapacitation, a speaker’s standing to expect certain outcomes is itself undermined. I also discuss how individual speakers are subject to interference along two dimensions: as exercisers of certain non-linguistic capacities, and as producers of meaningful speech

Assessment of temperature, trace species, and ozone in chemistry-climate model simulations of the recent past

Simulations of the stratosphere from thirteen coupled chemistry-climate models (CCMs) are evaluated to provide guidance for the interpretation of ozone predictions made by the same CCMs. The focus of the evaluation is on how well the fields and processes that are important for determining the ozone distribution are represented in the simulations of the recent past. The core period of the evaluation is from 1980 to 1999 but long-term trends are compared for an extended period (1960–2004). Comparisons of polar high-latitude temperatures show that most CCMs have only small biases in the Northern Hemisphere in winter and spring, but still have cold biases in the Southern Hemisphere spring below 10 hPa. Most CCMs display the correct stratospheric response of polar temperatures to wave forcing in the Northern, but not in the Southern Hemisphere. Global long-term stratospheric temperature trends are in reasonable agreement with satellite and radiosonde observations. Comparisons of simulations of methane, mean age of air, and propagation of the annual cycle in water vapor show a wide spread in the results, indicating differences in transport. However, for around half the models there is reasonable agreement with observations. In these models the mean age of air and the water vapor tape recorder signal are generally better than reported in previous model intercomparisons. Comparisons of the water vapor and inorganic chlorine (Cly) fields also show a large intermodel spread. Differences in tropical water vapor mixing ratios in the lower stratosphere are primarily related to biases in the simulated tropical tropopause temperatures and not transport. The spread in Cly, which is largest in the polar lower stratosphere, appears to be primarily related to transport differences. In general the amplitude and phase of the annual cycle in total ozone is well simulated apart from the southern high latitudes. Most CCMs show reasonable agreement with observed total ozone trends and variability on a global scale, but a greater spread in the ozone trends in polar regions in spring, especially in the Arctic. In conclusion, despite the wide range of skills in representing different processes assessed here, there is sufficient agreement between the majority of the CCMs and the observations that some confidence can be placed in their predictions

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far