Recent warming in Greenland in a long-term instrumental (1881-2012) climatic context: I. Evaluation of surface air temperature records

We present an updated analysis of monthly means of daily mean, minimum and maximum surface air temperature (SAT) data from Greenland coastal weather stations and from a long-running site on the Greenland ice sheet, and analyse these data for evidence of climate change, especially focusing on the last 20 years but using the whole periods of available records (some since 1873). We demonstrate very strong recent warming along the west coast of Greenland, especially during winter (locally >10 °C since 1991), and rather weaker warming on the east Greenland coast, which is influenced by different oceanographic/sea-ice and meteorological synoptic forcing conditions to the rest of Greenland. Coastal Greenland seasonal mean SAT trends were generally 2-6 °C, strongest in winter (5.7 °C) and least in summer and autumn (both 2.2 °C), during 1981-2011/12. Since 2001 Greenland mean coastal SAT increased significantly by 2.9 °C in winter and 0.8 °C in summer but decreased insignificantly by 1.1 °C in autumn and 0.2 °C in spring, during a period when there was little net change (� ± 0.1 °C) in northern hemisphere temperatures. SAT means for the latest 2001-11/12 decade were significantly in excess of those for peak decadal periods during the Early Twentieth Century Warm Period only in summer and winter, and not significantly greater in spring and autumn. Summer SAT increases in southern Greenland for the last 20 years were generally greater for maximum than minimum temperatures. By contrast, in winter, the recent warming was greater for minimum than maximum temperatures. The greatest SAT changes in all seasons are seen on Greenland's west coast. SAT changes on the ice sheet and a key marginal glacier closely followed nearby coastal temperatures over the last 20 years. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd

Capacity-building barriers to S3 implementation: an empirical framework for catch-up regions

In this paper, we investigate the implementation challenge of Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) in catch-up regional environments, through the lens of capacity building. We analyse capacity building at two levels: micro-level (individual organisations) and meso-level (regional inter-organisational networks). We use empirical evidence from 50 interviews conducted in the period 2015–2017 from two Greek regions dramatically hit by the economic crisis (Crete and Central Macedonia). We argue that in the Cretan and Central Macedonian context, the difficulty of implementing S3 is directly linked with firms’ lack of adsorptive capability to exploit university-generated knowledge, university knowledge that is too abstract for firm’s to easily acquire, as well as to the capability of regional actors to build inter-organisational networking that fits their strategic needs

Будівельна лихоманка на Київських схилах

Forty marine-terminating glaciers have been surveyed daily since 2000 using cloud-free MODIS visible imagery (Box and Decker 2011; http://bprc. osu.edu/MODIS/). The net area change of the 40 glaciers during the period of observation has been -1775 km2, with the 18 northernmost (>72°N) glaciers alone contributing to half of the net area change. In 2012, the northernmost glaciers lost a collective area of 255 km2, or 86% of the total net area change of the 40 glaciers surveyed. The six glaciers with the largest net area loss in 2012 were Petermann (-141 km2), 79 glacier (-27 km2), Zachariae (-26 km2), Steenstrup (-19 km2), Steensby (-16 km2, the greatest retreat since observations began), and Jakobshavn (-13 km2). While the total area change was negative in 2012, the area of four of the forty glaciers did increase relative to the end of the 2011 melt season. The anomalous advance of these four glaciers is not easily explained, as the mechanisms controlling the behavior of individual glaciers are uncertain due to their often unique geographic!settings

Egalitarian justice and expected value

According to all-luck egalitarianism, the differential distributive effects of both brute luck, which defines the outcome of risks which are not deliberately taken, and option luck, which defines the outcome of deliberate gambles, are unjust. Exactly how to correct the effects of option luck is, however, a complex issue. This article argues that (a) option luck should be neutralized not just by correcting luck among gamblers, but among the community as a whole, because it would be unfair for gamblers as a group to be disadvantaged relative to non-gamblers by bad option luck; (b) individuals should receive the warranted expected results of their gambles, except insofar as individuals blamelessly lacked the ability to ascertain which expectations were warranted; and (c) where societal resources are insufficient to deliver expected results to gamblers, gamblers should receive a lesser distributive share which is in proportion to the expected results. Where all-luck egalitarianism is understood in this way, it allows risk-takers to impose externalities on non-risk-takers, which seems counterintuitive. This may, however, be an advantage as it provides a luck egalitarian rationale for assisting ‘negligent victims’

Changes in Greenland’s peripheral glaciers linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation

Glaciers and ice caps peripheral to the main Greenland Ice Sheet contribute markedly to sea-level rise1,2,3. Their changes and variability, however, have been difficult to quantify on multi-decadal timescales due to an absence of long-term data4. Here, using historical aerial surveys, expedition photographs, spy satellite imagery and new remote-sensing products, we map glacier length fluctuations of approximately 350 peripheral glaciers and ice caps in East and West Greenland since 1890. Peripheral glaciers are found to have recently undergone a widespread and significant retreat at rates of 12.2 m per year and 16.6 m per year in East and West Greenland, respectively; these changes are exceeded in severity only by the early twentieth century post-Little-Ice-Age retreat. Regional changes in ice volume, as reflected by glacier length, are further shown to be related to changes in precipitation associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with a distinct east–west asymmetry; positive phases of the NAO increase accumulation, and thereby glacier growth, in the eastern periphery, whereas opposite effects are observed in the western periphery. Thus, with projected trends towards positive NAO in the future5,6, eastern peripheral glaciers may remain relatively stable, while western peripheral glaciers will continue to diminish

Scharp on inconsistent concepts and their engineered replacements, or: Can we mend these broken things?

Kevin Scharp’s influential work on the alethic paradoxes combines an extensively developed inconsistency theory with a substantial conceptual engineering project. I argue that Scharp’s inconsistency theory is in tension with his conceptual engineering project: the inconsistency theory includes an account of concepts that implies that the conceptual engineering project will fail. I recommend that Scharp revises his account of concepts, and show how doing so allows him to resolve the tension. The discussion is important for ongoing work on conceptual engineering. Firstly, it is important to get clear on whether Scharp’s conceptual engineering project is—or could be—successful. Secondly, the issues discussed herein may generalise to other conceptual engineering projects, such as explication and ameliorative projects. In particular, the discussion has implications for how conceptual engineers can think about concepts and their relation to how we use words

[Arctic] Greenland ice sheet [in “State of the Climate in 2012”]

Melting at the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet set new records for extent and melt index (i.e., the number of days on which melting occurred multiplied by the area where melting was detected) for the period 1979–2012, according to passive microwave observations (e.g., Tedesco 2007, 2009; Mote and Anderson 1995). Melt extent reached ~97% of the ice sheet surface during a rare, ice-sheet-wide event on 11–12 July (Fig. 5.13a; Nghiem et al. 2012). This was almost four times greater than the average melt extent for 1981–2010. The 2012 standardized melting index (SMI, defined as the melting index minus its average and divided by its standard deviation) was +2.4, almost twice the previous record of about +1.3 set in 2010

The open future, bivalence and assertion

It is highly intuitive that the future is open and the past is closed—whereas it is unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first. Recently, it has become increasingly popular to claim that the intuitive openness of the future implies that contingent statements about the future, such as ‘there will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ are non-bivalent (neither true nor false). In this paper, we argue that the non-bivalence of future contingents is at odds with our pre-theoretic intuitions about the openness of the future. These are revealed by our pragmatic judgments concerning the correctness and incorrectness of assertions of future contingents. We argue that the pragmatic data together with a plausible account of assertion shows that in many cases we take future contingents to be true (or to be false), though we take the future to be open in relevant respects. It follows that appeals to intuition to support the non-bivalence of future contingents is untenable. Intuition favours bivalence

A Pluralistic Theory of Wordhood

What are words and how should we individuate them? There are two main answers on the philosophical market. For some, words are bundles of structural-functional features defining a unique performance profile. For others, words are non-eternal continuants individuated by their causal-historical ancestry. These conceptions offer competing views of the nature of words, and it seems natural to assume that at most one of them can capture the essence of wordhood. This paper makes a case for pluralism about wordhood: the view that there is a plurality of acceptable conceptions of the nature of words, none of which is uniquely entitled to inform us as to what wordhood consists in