Governing floods and riots: insurance, risk, and racism in the postwar United States

"In the late 1960s, the United States Federal Government resorted to publically funded insurance systems to deal with two quite different problems: floods and riots. Both programs were administered by the same agency, both relied heavily on the spatial mapping of risk, and both were haunted by problems of moral hazard. Curiously, and most importantly, however, riots as well as floods were viewed as 'environmental hazards' by the insurance industry and the government agencies involved. The underlying assumption was that social problems could be treated as quasi-natural hazards, i.e. as a homogeneous and unpredictable force that could be contained by actuarial means. Yet uprisings, civil commotions, and riots are not 'acts of god' that are located outside of society (and neither are floods). This article discloses the origins of both programs, it describes their communalities and differences, and it reveals the views of those who were subject to racist steering practices." (author's abstract)"In den späten 1960er Jahren begegnete die US-amerikanische Bundesregierung zwei recht unterschiedlichen Problemen - Überschwemmungen und Riots - durch die Schaffung von öffentlich finanzierten Versicherungssystemen. Beide Programme wurden von derselben Behörde verwaltet, beide Programme waren gekennzeichnet durch die Kartierung von Risiken, und beide Programme litten unter dem Problem des 'moral hazard'. Die interessanteste Gemeinsamkeit bestand jedoch darin, dass sowohl Überschwemmungen wie auch riots von den Versicherungsgesellschaften und staatlichen Institutionen als 'Umweltrisiken' behandelt wurden. Die implizite Annahme war dabei, dass soziale Probleme als quasi-natürliche Gefahren, d.h. als eine homogene und unberechenbare Gewalt betrachtet werden konnten, die man aber durch die Anwendung von Versicherungstechniken wieder in den Griff bekam. Aufstände, Unruhen, Revolten, etc., sind jedoch nicht das Ergebnis 'höherer Gewalt' (ebenso wenig wie Überschwemmungen) und damit auch nicht außerhalb der Gesellschaft zu verorten. Dieser Artikel erklärt die historischen Ursprünge beider Programme, er beschreibt deren Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede, und er gibt die Sichtweisen derjenigen wieder, die sich rassistischen Regulierungspraktiken ausgesetzt sahen." (Autorenreferat

Long term trends of mesopheric ice layers: A model study

Trends derived from the Leibniz-Institute Middle Atmosphere Model (LIMA) and the MIMAS ice particle model (Mesospheric Ice Microphysics And tranSport model) are presented for a period of 138 years (1871–2008) and for middle, high, and arctic latitudes, namely 58°N, 69°N, and 78°N, respectively. We focus on the analysis of mesospheric ice layers (NLC, noctilucent clouds) in the main summer season (July) and on yearly mean values. Model runs with and without an increase of carbon dioxide and water vapor (from methane oxidation) concentrations are performed. Trends are most prominent after ~1960 when the increase of both CO2 and H2O accelerates. It is important to distinguish between tendencies on geometric altitudes and on given pressure levels converted to altitudes (‘pressure altitudes’). Negative trends of (geometric) NLC altitudes are primarily due to cooling below NLC altitudes caused by CO2 increase. Increases of ice particle radii and NLC brightness with time are mainly caused by an enhancement of water vapor. Several ice layer and background parameter trends are similar at high and arctic latitudes but are substantially different at middle latitudes. This concerns, for example, occurrence rates, ice water content (IWC), and number of ice particles in a column. Considering the time period after 1960, geometric altitudes of NLC decrease by approximately 260 m per decade, and brightness increases by roughly 50% (1960–2008), independent of latitude. NLC altitudes decrease by approximately 15–20 m per increase of CO2 by 1 ppmv. The number of ice particles in a column and also at the altitude of maximum backscatter is nearly constant with time. At all latitudes, yearly mean NLC appear at altitudes where temperatures are close to 145±1 K. Ice particles are present nearly all the time at high and arctic latitudes, but are much less common at middle latitudes. Ice water content and maximum backscatter (βmax) are highly correlated, where the slope depends on latitude. This allows to combine data sets from satellites and lidars. Furthermore, IWC and the concentration of water vapor at βmax are also strongly correlated. Nearly all trends depend on a lower limit applied for βmax, e.g., IWC and occurrence rates. Results from LIMA/MIMAS are in very good agreement with observations

Solar Response and Long‐Term Trend of Midlatitude Mesopause Region Temperature Based on 28 Years (1990–2017) of Na Lidar Observations

We present midlatitude solar response and linear trend from Colorado State University/Utah State University Na lidar nocturnal temperature observations between 1990 and 2017. Along with the nightly mean temperatures (_Ngt), we also use the corresponding 2‐hr means centered at midnight (_2MN), resulting in vertical trend profiles similar in shapes as those previously published. The 28‐year trend from _Ngt (_2MN) data set starts from a small warming at 85 km, to cooling at 87 (88) km, reaching a maximum of 1.85 ± 0.53 (1.09 ± 0.74) at 92 (93) km and turns positive again at 102 (100) km. The 6‐month winter trend is much cooler than the 4‐month summer trend with comparable solar response varying around 5 ± 1 K/100 SFU throughout the profile (85–105 km) with higher summer values. We explore the observed summer/winter trend difference in terms of observed gravity wave heat flux heating rate at a nearby station and the long‐term trend of gravity wave variance at a midlatitude. Between 89 and 100 km, the lidar trends are within the error bars of the Leibniz Middle Atmosphere (LIMA) summer trends (1979–2013), which are nearly identical to the lidar‐Ngt trend. We address the need of long data set for reliable analysis on trend, the extent of trend uncertainty due to possible tidal bias, the effect of a Pinatubo/episodic function, and the impact of stratospheric ozone recovery

Histories of the Unprecedented: Climate Change, Environmental Transformations, and Displacement in the United States

While the speed of current climatic changes is unprecedented, their ramifications are not. Floods and droughts, sea-level rise, advancing glaciers, and desertification do have a history, and the same is true for the social causes and aftermaths of such extreme natural events. Therefore, history provides a fertile field for the analysis of how societies have dealt with severe environmental changes, and the analysis of past extreme natural events yields interesting lessons for the current debate on ‘environmental migration’, even if they were not caused by climatic changes. This article examines historical case studies of a phenomenon that is arguably one of the greatest challenges of the future: migration and displacement triggered by environmental deterioration and destruction. While a wide range of studies focuses on the present and future of ‘environmental migration’, little research has been devoted to the long-term causes and effects of environmentally induced displacement. In other words: what is lacking is historical depth. Only by looking at the longue durée of environmental migration and displacement can we detect patterns of vulnerability and resilience, adequately describe the course and paths of displacement and fully acknowledge the aftermath of disaster diasporas

“Down Beside where the Waters Flow": Reclaiming Rivers for American Studies (Introduction)

Over the past three decades, rivers have become a fascinating and popular subject of scholarly interest, not only in the field of environmental history, where river histories have developed into a distinct subgenre, but also in the emerging field of environmental humanities. In this scholarship, rivers have often been reconceptualized as socio-natural sites where human and non-human actors interact with the natural world, generating complex legacies, path dependencies, and feedback loops. Furthermore, rivers have been described as hybrid “organic machines,” whose energy has been utilized by humans in many different ways, including the harvesting of both hydropower and salmon. Indeed, as several environmental historians have noted, in many regions of the world, watercourses have been transformed by technology to such an extent that they increasingly resemble enviro-technical assemblages rather than natural waterways. Rivers have also been discussed through the lens of “eco-biography,” a term coined by Mark Cioc in his influential monograph on the Rhine River, a book informed by “the notion that a river is a biological entity—that it has a ‘life’ and ‘a personality’ and therefore a ‘biography’.” Quite surprisingly, despite this “river turn” (to use Evenden's phrase), rivers have played a marginal role in recent American Studies scholarship. To address this gap, this issue of RIAS brings together scholars from different disciplines, countries, and continents to analyze a wide variety of river experiences, histories, and representations across the American hemisphere and beyond. Hence the title of this volume, Rivers of the Americas, should be seen as both an allusion to the Rivers of America book series (a popular series of sixty-five volumes, each on a particular US river, published between 1937 and 1974) and as a reminder of the still untapped potential of hemispheric, transnational, and comparative modes of critical engagement with rivers in American Studies

Local time dependence of polar mesospheric clouds: A model study

The Mesospheric Ice Microphysics And tranSport model (MIMAS) is used to study local time (LT) variations of polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) in the Northern Hemisphere during the period from 1979 to 2013. We investigate the tidal behavior of brightness, altitude, and occurrence frequency and find a good agreement between model and lidar observations. At the peak of the PMC layer the mean ice radius varies from 35 to 45nm and the mean number density varies from 80 to 150cm−3 throughout the day. We also analyze PMCs in terms of ice water content (IWC) and show that only amplitudes of local time variations in IWC are sensitive to threshold conditions, whereas phases are conserved. In particular, relative local time variations decrease with larger thresholds. Local time variations also depend on latitude. In particular, absolute local time variations increase towards the pole. Furthermore, a phase shift exists towards the pole which is independent of the threshold value. In particular, the IWC maximum moves backward in time from 08:00LT at midlatitudes to 02:00LT at high latitudes. The persistent features of strong local time modulations in ice parameters are caused by local time structures in background temperature and water vapor. For a single year local time variations of temperature at 69°N are in a range of ±3K near 83km altitude. At sublimation altitudes the water vapor variation is about ±3.5ppmv, leading to a change in the saturation ratio by a factor of about 2 throughout the day