Tsunami Risk Reduction for the United States: A Framework for Action

This document describes proposals for making communities better prepared and more resilient to catastrophic natural disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2006. Methods described include warning systems, data sharing, and land use decisions

NEOWISE Observations of Near-Earth Objects: Preliminary Results

With the NEOWISE portion of the \emph{Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} (WISE) project, we have carried out a highly uniform survey of the near-Earth object (NEO) population at thermal infrared wavelengths ranging from 3 to 22 $\mu$m, allowing us to refine estimates of their numbers, sizes, and albedos. The NEOWISE survey detected NEOs the same way whether they were previously known or not, subject to the availability of ground-based follow-up observations, resulting in the discovery of more than 130 new NEOs. The survey's uniformity in sensitivity, observing cadence, and image quality have permitted extrapolation of the 428 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) detected by NEOWISE during the fully cryogenic portion of the WISE mission to the larger population. We find that there are 981$\pm$19 NEAs larger than 1 km and 20,500$\pm$3000 NEAs larger than 100 m. We show that the Spaceguard goal of detecting 90% of all 1 km NEAs has been met, and that the cumulative size distribution is best represented by a broken power law with a slope of 1.32$\pm$0.14 below 1.5 km. This power law slope produces $\sim13,200\pm$1,900 NEAs with $D>$140 m. Although previous studies predict another break in the cumulative size distribution below $D\sim$50-100 m, resulting in an increase in the number of NEOs in this size range and smaller, we did not detect enough objects to comment on this increase. The overall number for the NEA population between 100-1000 m are lower than previous estimates. The numbers of near-Earth comets will be the subject of future work.Comment: Accepted to Ap

Maximum likelihood estimation of covariance parameters for Bayesian atmospheric trace gas surface flux inversions

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94664/1/jgrd12182.pd

A geostatistical approach to surface flux estimation of atmospheric trace gases

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94944/1/jgrd11176.pd

Co-designing transformation research : lessons learned from research on deliberate practices for transformation

Co-production of new knowledge can enhance open and integrative research processes across the social and natural sciences and across research/science, practice and policy interrelationships. Thus, co-production is important in the conduct of research about and for transformations to sustainability. While co-design is an integral part of co-production, it often receives limited attention in the conduct of co-produced research. This paper reports on lessons learned from an early stage of the co-design process to develop research on deliberate practices for transformative change. Key lessons learned are the need to: (1) ensure co-design processes are themselves carefully designed; (2) encourage emergence of new ways of thinking about problem formulation through co-design; (3) carefully balance risks for the participants involved while also enhancing opportunities for intellectual risk taking; (4) facilitate personal transformations in co-design as a way to stimulate and encourage further creativity; and (5) for funders to carefully and constructively align criteria or incentives through which a project or future proposal will be judged to the goals of the co-design, including for instrumental outcomes and objectives for creativity and imagination. Given that co-design necessarily involves a reflective practice to iteratively guide emergence of new thinking about the practices of change, co-design can itself be considered an important deliberate practice for transforming the conduct of research and the contribution of that research to social transformations

Exploring the potential of Google Earth as a communication and engagement tool in collaborative Natural Flood Management planning

This paper considers the development and evaluation of a Google Earth “virtual globe” tour for communicating spatial data and engaging stakeholders in the early stages of a natural flood management (NFM) planning scenario, using a rural UK river catchment that suffered significant flooding in 2007. With a range of diverse stakeholder interests to consider, early engagement and the development of trust before decision‐making are essential for the long‐term success of such catchment‐wide projects. A local catchment group was consulted to identify key information requirements, and from this a “virtual globe” tour was created. The process involved specialist skills and expert leadership, but the end result was accessible to a range of audiences. User evaluation indicated that it was easy to navigate and can be used to stimulate interest and engage stakeholders. Participants trusted the content and valued the interactivity of the tour. It was helpful for communicating and educating participants about the catchment, the issues it faces, and the potential to incorporate NFM, particularly for those with little or no prior knowledge. More abstract information was harder to convey and there were limitations in the availability of suitable data for some variables and the in quality of satellite imagery. This exploratory research found that a Google Earth “virtual globe” tour can be a valuable tool in the initial stages of an NFM project, but there are also opportunities to use this technique in the more advanced stages of the planning process. The approach could be used as part of a wider toolkit for communication and engagement and has potential as a decision support tool in other environmental management scenarios with requirements for public participation, enabling the views of a range of participants to be captured through online distribution and to generate discussion in workshop setting

The Impact of Domestic Energy Efficiency Retrofit Schemes on Householder Attitudes and Behaviours

Retrofitting existing housing stock to improve energy efficiency is often required to meet climate mitigation, public health and fuel poverty targets. Increasing uptake and effectiveness of retrofit schemes requires understanding of their impacts on householder attitudes and behaviours. This paper reports results of a survey of 500 Kirklees householders in the UK, where the Kirklees Warm Zone scheme took place. This was a local government led city-scale domestic retrofit programme that installed energy efficiency measures at no charge in over 50,000 houses. The results highlight key design features of the scheme, socio-economic and attitudinal factors that affected take-up of energy efficiency measures and impacts on behaviour and energy use after adoption. The results emphasise the role that positive feedback plays in reinforcing pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours of participants and in addressing concerns of non-participants. Our findings have implications for the design and operation of future domestic energy efficiency retrofit schemes