974 research outputs found

    Chesapeake Bay Land Subsidence and Sea Level Change : an evaluation of past and present trends and future outlook

    Get PDF
    Ten Chesapeake Bay water level stations presently have a combined total of 647 years of water level measurements with record lengths varying between 35 years (1975-2009) at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, VA, and 107 years (1903-2009) at Baltimore, MD. All ten stations, with the exception of Gloucester Point, VA, are active stations in the National Water Level Observation Network of water level stations maintained by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services. New technologies such as sea surface range measurements from earth-orbiting satellites now provide a global assessment of absolute sea level (ASL) trends relative to the center of a reference ellipsoid rather than fixed points on the earth’s surface to which relative sea level (RSL) measurements refer. New methodologies have also been applied to derive spatial averages of ASL trends over large regions with greater accuracy. Notwithstanding these advances, there is still no substitute for an accurate time series of water level measurements obtained locally, preferably one spanning several decades, when assessing RSL trends that will affect a specific community or township in the coming decades. RSL trends will determine local inundation risk whether due to vertical land movement (emergence or subsidence) or the ASL trend found as the sum of RSL trend and land movement when both are measured positive upward. In Chesapeake Bay, RSL trends are consistently positive (rising) while land movement is negative (subsiding). By choosing a common time span for the ten bay stations evaluated in this report, we are able to compare differences in RSL rise rates with approximately the same degree of confidence at each station. Uncertainty has been reduced by extracting the decadal signal present at all ten stations before using linear regression to obtain new RSL rise rates with smaller than usual confidence intervals, permitting both temporal and spatial comparisons to be made

    Multivariable statistical regression models of the areal extent of hypoxia over the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf

    Get PDF
    Observations of the areal extent of seasonal hypoxia over the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf from 1985 to 2010 are correlated with a variety of physical and biogeochemical forcing mechanisms. Significant correlation is found between hypoxic area and both nitrogen load (r(2) = 0.24) and east-west wind speed (r(2) = 0.16). There is also a significant increasing trend in the areal extent of hypoxia in time; a linearly increasing trend over the entire record (r(2) = 0.17), a step increase in area for the years 1994 and beyond (r(2) = 0.21), and a step increase for 1993 and beyond (r(2) = 0.29) were all found to be significantly correlated with area. The year 1988, often included in other studies, was found to be a statistical outlier, in that the statistical regression properties are strongly modified when this year is included. The exclusion of any other year does not have as great an effect as excluding 1988 from the record. The year 1989 is also excluded, as this year had no full shelf survey, for a total of 24 years of data for the record. Multivariable regression models using all possible combinations of the forcing variables considered were calculated. The best performing models included east-west wind, either a linear trend in time or step in time (1994 and beyond), and either nitrogen load or river discharge combined with nitrogen concentration. The range of adjusted correlation coefficients ranged from r(2) = 0.47 to 0.67. The best model (east-west wind, a step increase in time 1994 and beyond, river discharge, and nitrogen concentration) has a standard error of 3008 km(2)

    Sexual Risk, Substance Use and Undiagnosed Seropositivity among Men Who Have Sex with Men and Women in Miami, Florida

    Get PDF
    This paper utilizes the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance data in Miami for the men who have sex with men cycle (NHBS-MSM2) in 2008. We analyzed sexual risk, substance use and undiagnosed seropositivity in a diverse sample of men who have sex with men and women (MSMW) and compared them with MSM. Of 152 MSMW, 15.1% tested HIV positive with 73.9% previously undiagnosed. Almost half (44.1%) of the MSMW reported unprotected sex with male and female partners in the past year. More MSMW than MSM had undiagnosed HIV infection, exchanged sex for money or drugs, used crack and cocaine, been high during sex, and had not received HIV treatment if HIV positive. Undiagnosed HIV infection among MSMW was associated with Black race, older age, non-alcohol use and Ecstasy use. Our findings indicate that MSMW represent a unique population at risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV in Miami
    • …
    corecore