Diminishing Opportunities for Sustainability of Coastal Cities in the Anthropocene: A Review

The world is urbanizing most rapidly in tropical to sub-temperate areas and in coastal zones. Climate change along with other global change forcings will diminish the opportunities for sustainability of cities, especially in coastal areas in low-income countries. Climate forcings include global temperature and heatwave increases that are expanding the equatorial tropical belt, sea-level rise, an increase in the frequency of the most intense tropical cyclones, both increases and decreases in freshwater inputs to coastal zones, and increasingly severe extreme precipitation events, droughts, freshwater shortages, heat waves, and wildfires. Current climate impacts are already strongly influencing natural and human systems. Because of proximity to several key warming variables such as sea-level rise and increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, coastal cities are a leading indicator of what may occur worldwide. Climate change alone will diminish the sustainability and resilience of coastal cities, especially in the tropical-subtropical belt, but combined with other global changes, this suite of forcings represents an existential threat, especially for coastal cities. Urbanization has coincided with orders of magnitude increases in per capita GDP, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn has led to unprecedented demand for natural resources and degradation of natural systems and more expensive infrastructure to sustain the flows of these resources. Most resources to fuel cities are extracted from ex-urban areas far away from their point of final use. The urban transition over the last 200 years is a hallmark of the Anthropocene coinciding with large surges in use of energy, principally fossil fuels, population, consumption and economic growth, and environmental impacts such as natural system degradation and climate change. Fossil energy enabled and underwrote Anthropocene origins and fueled the dramatic expansion of modern urban systems. It will be difficult for renewable energy and other non-fossil energy sources to ramp up fast enough to fuel further urban growth and maintenance and reverse climate change all the while minimizing further environmental degradation. Given these trajectories, the future sustainability of cities and urbanization trends, especially in threatened areas like coastal zones in low-income countries in the tropical to sub-tropical belt, will likely diminish. Adaptation to climate change may be limited and challenging to implement, especially for low-income countries

Climate change and classic Maya water management

Abstract: The critical importance of water is undeniable. It is particularly vital in semitropical regions with noticeable wet and dry seasons, such as the southern Maya lowlands. Not enough rain results in decreasing water supply and quality, failed crops, and famine. Too much water results in flooding, destruction, poor water quality, and famine. We show not only how Classic Maya (ca. A.D. 250-950) society dealt with the annual seasonal extremes, but also how kings and farmers responded differently in the face of a series of droughts in the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 800-950). Maya farmers are still around today; kings, however, disappeared over 1,000 years ago. There is a lesson here on how people and water managers responded to long-term climate change, something our own society faces at present. The basis for royal power rested in what kings provided their subjects materially-that is, water during annual drought via massive artificial reservoirs, and spiritually-that is, public ceremonies, games, festivals, feasts, and other integrative activities. In the face of rulers losing their powers due to drought, people left. Without their labor, support and services, the foundation of royal power crumbled; it was too inflexible and little suited to adapting to change

Bajo Sediments and The Hydraulic System Of Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico

Maya Lowlands climate researchers have set aside earlier beliefs that Maya civilization flourished in an unchanging environment. Analyses of river discharge, weather patterns, lake-bottom sediments, and settlement patterns reveal a highly variable climate, considerable diversity in local geology and soils, and a wide range of cultural adaptations tailored to distinctive subregional settings. Significant knowledge gaps remain. Among the unanswered questions is how cities in the elevated interior were maintained without natural, permanent bodies of water even during equitable climatic conditions, much less through the episodes of severe drought that have become apparent in studies of past climates. The research reported in this article lays the groundwork for climate studies in the southwestern Yucatan Peninsula

A Framework for the Middle-Late Holocene Transition: Astronomical and Geophysical Conditions

The Middle-Late Holocene transition around 2,500 B.C. is one of the defining episodes of regional landscape changes in the Southeastern United States area and throughout the world. Coeval cultural and climatic changes are recognized locally and worldwide. Analyzing local cultural change records while incognizant of the shifts in global scale context can lead to misunderstandings of the reasons for changes. Studies of the global climate processes suggest that climate differences between the Middle and Late Holocene could emanate from astronomical and geophysical influences. The influences include variations in the earth's rotational tilt, solar emissions, global-scale volcanism, and atmospheric chemistry. How do these quantities affect watershed-sized landscapes? Resolving this question requires a landscape-oriented analysis of global climate forces. A "looking-up" perspective on global climate is proposed that is compatible with the needs of archaeological analysis, and which supplements the "looking down" emphasis of climatology. The looking-up perspective takes advantage of the variability and long term cyclicity of global climate. Regional climate impacts of global change are modeled using modern climate processes to test for sensitivity of regional hydrology to global change, especially seasonality of precipitation. Landscape impact hypotheses are suggested in anticipation of further study

Copperhead Hollow (38CT58): Middle Holocene Upland Conditions on the Piedmont-Coastal Plain Margin.

Excavation during July and August 1992 at 38G758 east of Jefferson, South Carolina, revealed an active Middle Holocene sand dune with buried Morrow Mountain and Guilford components on the lee side. 77e site is located on the upland margin overlooking a tributary of the Lynches River. Although it is possible that the artifact stratigraphy represents lowering as described by Michie (1990), three lines of internal evidence suggest that the components are partially in place. The lines of evidence are artifact size analysis, distribution of components relative to sand dune topography, and coherence of features. 77w Middle Holocene climatic contest of the site is inferred from global scale climate variables which suggest that desiccated uplands are a reasonable hypothesis. A Guilford feature, a cluster of large fire-cracked rock, was found to contain small fragments of bone which dated t? 5,350f60 B.?. 77e site was covered which dated t? 5,350 ±60 B.?. 77e site was covered with longleaf pines during the subsequent 1,000 years. Site 38L15 southeast of Columbia appears to be a similar dune site with buried middle Holocene components

Influences of Various Forcing Variables on Global Energy Balance During the Period of Intensive Instrumental Observation (1953-1987) and Their Implications for Paleoclimate

Consistent, accurate, and numerous measures of global scale atmospheric variables have been collected since about 1958. A time series of 30 years duration was assembled to investigate contributing factors to the global energy balance. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), CO2 changes, and variation in solar energy output account for a quarter or more each of the variability in global energy balance. Upper atmospheric aerosols contribute, but less significantly and in a more complex way. The analysis suggests a hypothesis that has hearing on global climatic stability. Global climate fortuitously passed through a shift from a warmer NH to a warmer SH during the study period. The ENSO appears to act as a hemispheric energy balancing mechanism. There were significant changes in global atmospheric function when the hemispheric energy balance shifted in favor of the Southern Hemisphere about 1966. When applied to past climates, hemispheric dominance of global climate and related patterns of periodic stability could explain the rise and fall of some complex hierarchical social systems

Introduction: A Perspective from the Humanities—Science Boundary.

The articles in this special issue range across such influences on climate as solar emissions, orbital precession, atmosphere, oceans, and precipitation, and generally approach, each in some context, human implications of these phenomena. The common underlying theme of all of the papers is the effect the phenomena have on radiation balance as measured by global average temperature. This introductory paper undertakes a formulation of radiation balance theory that makes it serviceable to students of regional science. The objective is to go beyond inference of cause and effect by correlation to causal accounts of cause and effect through regional climatic and cultural processes. This is accomplished primarily by revisualization of the energy system with regions as dependent spatiotemporal entities, and temporally through a protocol for regional episode definition

Impact: The Effect of Climatic Change on Prehistoric and Modern Cultures in Texas (First Progress Report)

The pages of this report contain an assortment of materials which reflect the status of climatic change studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio. The effort is interdisciplinary, drawing on'the talents of persons trained in geography, prehistory, anthropology, and mathematics and other fields. The goals of the project include (1) efforts to understand how prehistoric and modern economies respond to significant climatic changes and (2) the application of such understanding to our own time and nation. Long-term climatic change as an important factor in the everyday life of 20th century people is a relatively recent issue. With notable exceptions, attitudes toward climate during the last century have been fostered by increasingly warmer and more comfortable winters, longer growing seasons and consequently higher agricultural productivity. Only in the last decade have the energy crisis and increasingly severe winters combined to create a general public awareness of the instability of global climate. Public awareness has risen to the point that there is a best-selling book on the topic, entitled CZimates of Hunger by Bryson and Thomas. One can hardly open a newspaper today without seeing an article on the impact of climates. By contrast, prehistorians are often brought face-to-face with evidence of cataclysmic climatic shifts. The climatic concerns expressed in the following pages originated out of prehistoric archaeology where climatic change is often a direct mechanism affecting cultural change. For instance, an article Wenland and Bryson published in the journal Quaternary Research demonstrates that most of the prehistoric cultures identified by archaeologists started and ended during recognized periods of radical climatic change. Although our research interests started with prehistory, we very soon widened the scope to include problems of modern climatic change. The reason was that ideas which explain prehistoric relationships between climate and culture are, at least in part, most easily tested by examining weather data carefully collected by the weather services of various nations over the last few years. The realization that the past could be studied through the present, and vice-versa, eventually led to expanded research into historic and modern records for climatic patterns. Also, our sense of the usefulness of these efforts has grown. In the context of a growing demand for practical applications from all fields of research, we feel that our research will lead to a better understanding of the climatic forces affecting our own times, and to direct assistance to those responsible for planning our future national needs

Global Temperature Stability by Rule Induction: An Interdisciplinary Bridge

Rules incorporating influences on global temperature, an estimate of radiation balance, were induced from astronomical, geophysical, and anthropogenic variables. During periods of intermediate global temperatures (generally like the present century), the influences assume canceling roles; influences cancel the effects of extreme states potentially imposed by other influences because they are, in aggregate, most likely to be assuming opposite values. This imparts an overall stability to the global temperature. To achieve cold or hot global temperature, influences assume reinforcing roles. CO2 is an active influence on global temperature. By virtue of its constancy in the atmosphere, it can be expected to sponsor frequent hot years in combination with the other influences as they cycle through their periods. If measures were implemented to maintain warm or cool global temperatures, it could retain the status quo of present global agricultural regions. They are probably more productive than hot world regions would be because of narrow storm tracks

The Hitzfelder Bone Collection

The purpose of this study is to assess and re-examine the Hitzfelder Cave skeletal collection. In addition, a brief summary of the previous excavations of the cave is included. It is hoped that the osteological study presented will be of assistance in comparative studies with other osteological information from burials within the area