A Systematic Review of the Efficacy of Motivational Interviewing on Occupational Performance

This systematic review aims to review the efficacy of MI to address such performance goals falling within the occupational therapy scope of practice

The Threat of Multiâ Year Drought in Western Amazonia

Recent â onceâ inâ aâ centuryâ Amazonian droughts highlight the impacts of drought and climate change on this region’s vegetation, carbon storage, water cycling, biodiversity, land use, and economy. The latest climate model simulations suggest this region will experience worsening future drought. However, the instrumental record is too short to quantify the range of background drought variability, or to evaluate extended drought risk in climate models. To overcome these limitations, we generated a new, highly resolved lake record of hydroclimatic variability within the western Amazon Basin. We find that Amazonia has regularly experienced multiâ year droughts over the last millennium. Our results indicate that current climate model simulations likely underestimate the background risk of multiâ year Amazonian drought. These findings illustrate that the future sustainability of the Amazonian forest and its many services may require management strategies that consider the likelihood of multiâ year droughts superimposed on a continued warming trend.Plain Language SummaryThe Amazon basin recently experienced multiple â onceâ inâ aâ centuryâ droughts that impacted the region’s water cycle, economy, vegetation, and carbon storage. However, the instrumental record in this region tends to be too short to determine if these droughts are abnormal in a longâ term context. Paleoclimate data can extend drought records that help water and land managers plan for these events in the face of climate change. To provide additional information about preâ instrumental drought, here we present results from a new paleoclimate lake record based on sediments we recovered from Lake Limón in the Peruvian Amazon. We find that concentrations of elements in the Lake Limón sediment cores are likely recording past changes in rainfall variability. We use this elemental variability to generate a new, millennialâ length record of drought for the western Amazon. We show that this region has experienced multiâ year droughts at least twice a century over the last â ¼1,400 years. The frequency and severity of these paleoclimateâ inferred droughts may exceed most climate model and instrumentalâ era drought risk estimates. Our findings illustrate that the future sustainability of the Amazonian forest and its many ecosystem services may require management strategies that consider the likelihood of multiâ year droughts in addition to continued warming.Key PointsWe present results from a highâ resolution paleoclimate record of hydroclimatic variability in western AmazoniaOur paleoclimate record suggests western Amazonia has regularly experienced multiâ year drought over the last millenniumEarth system model simulations may underestimate the background risk of multiâ year western Amazonian droughtPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146272/1/wrcr23386_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146272/2/wrcr23386.pd

Forty years of paleoecology in the Galapagos

The Galapagos Islands provided one of the first lowland paleoecological records from the Neotropics. Since the first cores were raised from the islands in 1966, there has been a substantial increase in knowledge of past systems, and development of the science of paleoclimatology. The study of fossil pollen, diatoms, corals and compound-specific isotopes on the Galapagos has contributed to the maturation of this discipline. As research has moved from questions about ice-age conditions and mean states of the Holocene to past frequency of El Niño Southern Oscillation, the resolution of fossil records has shifted from millennial to sub-decadal. Understanding the vulnerability of the Galapagos to climate change will be enhanced by knowledge of past climate change and responses in the islands

Arctic system on trajectory to new state

The Arctic system is moving toward a new state that falls outside the envelope of glacial-interglacial fluctuations that prevailed during recent Earth history. This future Arctic is likely to have dramatically less permanent ice than exists at present. At the present rate of change, a summer ice-free Arctic Ocean within a century is a real possibility, a state not witnessed for at least a million years. The change appears to be driven largely by feedback-enhanced global climate warming, and there seem to be few, if any processes or feedbacks within the Arctic system that are capable of altering the trajectory toward this “super interglacial” state

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

CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e and fire influence tropical ecosystem stability in response to climate change

Interactions between climate, fire and CO2 are believed to play a crucial role in controlling the distributions of tropical woodlands and savannas, but our understanding of these processes is limited by the paucity of data from undisturbed tropical ecosystems. Here we use a 28,000-year integrated record of vegetation, climate and fire from West Africa to examine the role of these interactions on tropical ecosystem stability. We find that increased aridity between 28–15 kyr B.P. led to the widespread expansion of tropical grasslands, but that frequent fires and low CO2 played a crucial role in stabilizing these ecosystems, even as humidity changed. This resulted in an unstable ecosystem state, which transitioned abruptly from grassland to woodlands as gradual changes in CO2 and fire shifted the balance in favor of woody plants. Since then, high atmospheric CO2 has stabilized tropical forests by promoting woody plant growth, despite increased aridity. Our results indicate that the interactions between climate, CO2 and fire can make tropical ecosystems more resilient to change, but that these systems are dynamically unstable and potentially susceptible to abrupt shifts between woodland and grassland dominated states in the future

A stronger role for long-term moisture change than for CO₂ in determining tropical woody vegetation change

Anthropogenically elevated CO2 (eCO2) concentrations have been suggested to increase woody cover within tropical ecosystems through fertilization. The effect of eCO2 is built into Earth system models, although testing the relationship over long periods remains challenging. Here, we explore the relative importance of six drivers of vegetation change in western Africa over the past ~500,000 years (moisture availability, fire activity, mammalian herbivore density, temperature, temperature seasonality, CO2) by coupling past environmental change data from Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana) with global data. We found that moisture availability and fire activity were the most important factors in determining woody cover, whereas the effect of CO2 was small. Our findings suggest that the role of eCO2 effects on tropical vegetation in predictive models must be reconsidered

Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe

We discuss potential transitions of six climatic subsystems with large-scale impact on Europe, sometimes denoted as tipping elements. These are the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, Arctic sea ice, Alpine glaciers and northern hemisphere stratospheric ozone. Each system is represented by co-authors actively publishing in the corresponding field. For each subsystem we summarize the mechanism of a potential transition in a warmer climate along with its impact on Europe and assess the likelihood for such a transition based on published scientific literature. As a summary, the ‘tipping’ potential for each system is provided as a function of global mean temperature increase which required some subjective interpretation of scientific facts by the authors and should be considered as a snapshot of our current understanding. <br/

Childhood deaths from external causes in Estonia, 2001–2005

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 2000, the overall rate of injury deaths in children aged 0–14 was 28.7 per 100000 in Estonia, which is more than 5 times higher than the corresponding rate in neighbouring Finland. This paper describes childhood injury mortality in Estonia by cause and age groups, and validates registration of these deaths in the Statistical Office of Estonia against the autopsy data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data on causes of all child deaths in Estonia in 2001–2005 were abstracted from the autopsy protocols at the Estonian Bureau of Forensic Medicine. Average annual mortality rates per 100,000 were calculated. Coverage (proportion of the reported injury deaths from the total number of injury deaths) and accuracy (proportion of correctly classified injury deaths) of the registration of causes of death in Statistical Office of Estonia were assessed by comparing the Statistical Office of Estonia data with the data from Estonian Bureau of Forensic Medicine.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Average annual mortality from external causes in 0–14 years-old children in Estonia was 19.1 per 100,000. Asphyxia and transport accidents were the major killers followed by poisoning and suicides. Relative contribution of these causes varied greatly between age groups. Intent of death was unknown for more than 10% of injury deaths. Coverage and accuracy of registration of injury deaths by Statistical Office of Estonia were 91.5% and 95.3%, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Childhood mortality from injuries in Estonia is among the highest in the EU. The number of injury deaths in Statistical Office of Estonia is slightly underestimated mostly due to misclassification for deaths from diseases. Accuracy of the Statistical Office of Estonia data was high with some underestimation of intentional deaths. Moreover, high proportion of death with unknown intent suggests underestimation of intentional deaths.</p> <p>Reduction of injury deaths should be given a high priority in Estonia. More information on circumstances around death is needed to enable establishing the intent of death.</p