CCAFS Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy

The CCAFS Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) Strategy is an update of the CCAFS 2012 Gender Strategy. The new strategy addresses gender as well as social inclusion for different social groups while bearing in mind that women are central to agriculture in developing countries. The CCAFS approach to GSI allies with the CGIAR objectives to create opportunities for women, young people and marginalized groups and to promote equitable access to resources, information and power in the agri-food system for men and women in order to close the gender gap by 2030

Statistical properties of near‐surface flow in the California coastal transition zone

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1029/91JC01072During the summers of 1987 and 1988, 77 near-surface satellite-tracked drifters were deployed in or near cold filaments near Point Arena, California (39°N), and tracked for up to 6 months as part of the Coastal Transition Zone (CTZ) program. The drifters had large drogues centered at 15 m, and the resulting drifter trajectory data set has been analyzed in terms of its Eulerian and Lagrangian statistics. The CTZ drifter results show that the California Current can be characterized in summer and fall as a meandering coherent jet which on average flows southward to at least 30°N, the southern end of the study domain. From 39°N south to about 33°N, the typical core velocities are of O(50 cm s−1) and the current meanders have alongshore wavelengths of O (300 km) and onshore-offshore amplitude of O(100–200 km). The lateral movement of this jet leads to large eddy kinetic energies and large eddy diffusivities, especially north of 36°N. The initial onshore-offshore component of diffusivity is always greater than the alongshore component in the study domain, but at the southern end, the eddy diffusivity is more isotropic, with scalar single particle diffusivity (Kxx + Kyy) of O(8 × 107 cm2 s−1). The eddy diffusivity increases with increasing eddy energy. Finally, a simple volume budget for the 1988 filament observed near 37°N off Point Arena suggests that subduction can occur in a filament at an average rate of O (10 m d−1) some 200 km offshore, thus allowing the cold water initially in the filament core to sink below the warmer ambient water by the time the surface velocity core has turned back onshore. This process explains why satellite temperature and color imagery tend to “see” only flow proceeding offshore

How countries plan to address agricultural adaptation and mitigation

Agriculture is well represented in Parties’ adaptation and mitigation strategies as communicated in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). There is much attention to conventional agricultural practices that can be climate-smart (e.g. livestock and crop management), but less to the enabling services that can facilitate uptake (e.g. climate information services, insurance, and credit). Considerable finance is needed for agricultural adaptation and mitigation by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) – in the order of USD 3 billion annually for adaptation and 2 billion annually for mitigation. Parties need better information in order to refine their finance needs. Non-Annex 1 Parties raise issues of climate justice, social inequality and food security in their INDCs

SEASOAR observations during a COARE surveys cruise, W9211B, 12 December 1992 to 16 January 1993

An international Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) was conducted in the warm-pool region of the western equatorial Pacific Ocean over a four-month period from November 1992 through February 1993 (Webster and Lukas, 1992). Most of the oceanographic and meteorological observations were concentrated in the Intensive Flux Array (IFA) centered at 1'45'S, 156000'E. As part of this experiment, the R/V Wecoma conducted three survey cruises; each cruise included measurements of the temperature, salinity and velocity distribution in the upper 300 m of the ocean, and continuous meteorological measurements of wind, air temperature, humidity, etc. Most of these measurements were along a butterfly pattern that was sampled repeatedly during the three COARE Surveys cruises, W9211A and W9211B, and W9211 C

Estrogen inhibits GH signaling by suppressing GH-induced JAK2 phosphorylation, an effect mediated by SOCS-2

Oral estrogen administration attenuates the metabolic action of growth hormone (GH) in humans. To investigate the mechanism involved, we studied the effects of estrogen on GH signaling through Janus kinase (JAK)2 and the signal transducers and activators of transcription (STATs) in HEK293 cells stably expressing the GH receptor (293GHR), HuH7 (hepatoma) and T-47D (breast cancer) cells. 293GHR cells were transiently transfected with an estrogen receptor-α expression plasmid and luciferase reporters with binding elements for STAT3 and STAT5 or the β-casein promoter. GH stimulated the reporter activities by four- to sixfold. Cotreatment with 17β-estradiol (E2) resulted in a dose-dependent reduction in the response of all three reporters to GH to a maximum of 49-66% of control at 100 nM (P < 0.05). No reduction was seen when E2 was added 1-2 h after GH treatment. Similar inhibitory effects were observed in HuH7 and T-47D cells. E2 suppressed GH-induced JAK2 phosphorylation, an effect attenuated by actinomycin D, suggesting a requirement for gene expression. Next, we investigated the role of the suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS) in E2 inhibition. E2 increased the mRNA abundance of SOCS-2 but not SOCS-1 and SOCS-3 in HEK293 cells. The inhibitory effect of E2 was absent in cells lacking SOCS-2 but not in those lacking SOCS-1 and SOCS-3. In conclusion, estrogen inhibits GH signaling, an action mediated by SOCS-2. This paper provides evidence for regulatory interaction between a sex steroid and the GH/JAK/STAT pathway, in which SOCS-2 plays a central mechanistic role

Mainstreaming gender and social differentiation into CCAFS research activities in West Africa: lessons learned and perspectives

This Info Note aims to present a summary of results from gender-related activities at the CSVs in West Africa. The gender mainstreaming included the capacity building of implementation team, the empowerment of women with gender sensitive activities and the understanding of gender perception on climate change and adaptation strategies

Perspective article: Actions to reconfigure food systems

There is broad agreement that current food systems are not on a sustainable trajectory that will enable us to reach the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, particularly in the face of anthropogenic climate change. Guided by a consideration of some food system reconfigurations in the past, we outline an agenda of work around four action areas: rerouting old systems into new trajectories; reducing risks; minimising the environmental footprint of food systems; and realigning the enablers of change needed to make new food systems function. Here we highlight food systems levers that, along with activities within these four action areas, may shift food systems towards more sustainable, inclusive, healthy and climate-resilient futures. These actions, summarised here, are presented in extended form in a report of an international initiative involving hundreds of stakeholders for reconfiguring food systems

Sea surface temperature changes in the southern California borderlands during the last glacial-interglacial cycle

A variety of evidence suggests that average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) during the last glacial maximum in the California Borderlands region were significantly colder than during the Holocene. Planktonic foraminiferal δ18O evidence and average SST estimates derived by the modern analog technique indicate that temperatures were 6°-10°C cooler during the last glacial relative to the present. The glacial plankton assemblage is dominated by the planktonic foraminifer Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sinistral coiling) and the coccolith Coccolithus pelagicus, both of which are currently restricted to subpolar regions of the North Pacific. The glacial-interglacial average SST change determined in this study is considerably larger than the 2°C change estimated by Climate: Long-Range Investigation, Mapping, and Prediction (CLIMAP) [1981]. We propose that a strengthened California Current flow was associated with the advance of subpolar surface waters into the Borderlands region during the last glacial