Glacier-climate interactions: a synoptic approach

The reliance on freshwater released by mountain glaciers and ice caps demands that the effects of climate change on these thermally-sensitive systems are evaluated thoroughly. Coupling climate variability to processes of mass and energy exchange at the glacier scale is challenged, however, by a lack of climate data at an appropriately fine spatial resolution. The thesis addresses this challenge through attempting to reconcile this scale mismatch: glacier boundary-layer observations of meteorology and ablation at Vestari Hagafellsjökull, Iceland, and Storglaciären, Sweden, are related to synoptic-scale meteorological variability recorded in gridded, reanalysis data. Specific attention is directed toward synoptic controls on: i) near-surface air temperature lapse rates; ii) stationarity of temperature-index melt model parameters; and iii) glacier-surface ablation. A synoptic weather-typing procedure, which groups days of similar reanalysis meteorology into weather categories , forms the basis of the analytical approach adopted to achieve these aims. Lapse rates at Vestari Hagafellsjökull were found to be shallowest during weather categories characterised by warm, cloud-free weather that encouraged katabatic drainage; steep lapse rates were encountered in weather categories associated with strong synoptic winds. Quantitatively, 26% to 38% of the daily lapse-rate variability could be explained by weather-category and regression-based models utilizing the reanalysis data: a level of skill sufficient to effect appreciable improvements in the accuracy of air temperatures extrapolated vertically over Vestari Hagafellsjökull. Weather categories also highlighted the dynamic nature of the temperature-ablation relationship. Notably, the sensitivity of ablation to changes in air temperature was observed to be non-stationary between weather categories, highlighting vulnerabilities of temperature-index models. An innovative solution to this limitation is suggested: the relationship between temperature and ablation can be varied as a function of weather-category membership. This flexibility leads to an overall improvement in the simulation of daily ablation compared to traditional temperature-index formulations (up to a 14% improvement in the amount of variance explained), without the need for additional meteorological data recorded in-situ. It is concluded that weather categories are highly appropriate for evaluating synoptic controls on glacier meteorology and surface energetics; significant improvements in the parameterization of boundary-layer meteorology and ablation rates are realised through their application

Cytochrome oxidase subunit VI of Trypanosoma brucei is imported without a cleaved presequence and is developmentally regulated at both RNA and protein levels

Mitochondrial respiration in the African trypanosome undergoes dramatic developmental stage regulation. This requires co-ordinated control of components encoded by both the nuclear genome and the kinetoplast, the unusual mitochondrial genome of these parasites. As a model for understanding the co-ordination of these genomes, we have examined the regulation and mitochondrial import of a nuclear-encoded component of the cytochrome oxidase complex, cytochrome oxidase subunit VI (COXVI). By generating transgenic trypanosomes expressing intact or mutant forms of this protein, we demonstrate that COXVI is not imported using a conventional cleaved presequence and show that sequences at the N-terminus of the protein are necessary for correct mitochondrial sorting. Analyses of endogenous and transgenic COXVI mRNA and protein expression in parasites undergoing developmental stage differentiation demonstrates a temporal order of control involving regulation in the abundance of, first, mRNA and then protein. This represents the first dissection of the regulation and import of a nuclear-encoded protein into the cytochrome oxidase complex in these organisms, which were among the earliest eukaryotes to possess a mitochondrion

The 'dirty dozen' of freshwater science: detecting then reconciling hydrological data biases and errors

Sound water policy and management rests on sound hydrometeorological and ecological data. Conversely, unrepresentative, poorly collected, or erroneously archived data introduce uncertainty regarding the magnitude, rate, and direction of environmental change, in addition to undermining confidence in decision-making processes. Unfortunately, data biases and errors can enter the information flow at various stages, starting with site selection, instrumentation, sampling/measurement procedures, postprocessing and ending with archiving systems. Techniques such as visual inspection of raw data, graphical representation, and comparison between sites, outlier, and trend detection, and referral to metadata can all help uncover spurious data. Tell-tale signs of ambiguous and/or anomalous data are highlighted using 12 carefully chosen cases drawn mainly from hydrology (‘the dirty dozen’). These include evidence of changes in site or local conditions (due to land management, river regulation, or urbanization); modifications to instrumentation or inconsistent observer behavior; mismatched or misrepresentative sampling in space and time; treatment of missing values, postprocessing and data storage errors. Also for raising awareness of pitfalls, recommendations are provided for uncovering lapses in data quality after the information has been gathered. It is noted that error detection and attribution are more problematic for very large data sets, where observation networks are automated, or when various information sources have been combined. In these cases, more holistic indicators of data integrity are needed that reflect the overall information life-cycle and application(s) of the hydrological data

A 250 year drought catalogue for the island of Ireland (1765-2015)

This work created a 250‐year historic drought catalogue by applying the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) to the Island of Ireland precipitation network (1850–2015) and a reconstructed precipitation series from 1765. Documentary sources from newspaper archives spanning the last 250 years, together with other historical sources are used to (1) add confidence to the quantitative detection of drought episodes and (2) gain insight to the socio‐economic impacts of historic droughts. The results show that Ireland is drought prone but recent decades are unrepresentative of the longer‐term drought climatology. A large decline in 30‐year accumulated SPI‐12 values is evident from around the 1990s onwards. During the years 1850–2015 seven major drought rich periods were identified with an island‐wide fingerprint in 1854–1860, 1884–1896, 1904–1912, 1921–1923, 1932–1935, 1952–1954 and 1969–1977. These events exhibit substantial diversity in terms of drought development, severity and spatial occurrence. Two exceptionally long events are found in the record: the continuous drought of 1854–1860 and the drought of 1800–1809 (in fact a series of three droughts with brief interludes). Over the last 250 years, droughts have resulted in agricultural hardship, water resource crises and failures and preceded some of the major famines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This work shows that newspaper archives can be used to trace the progression of drought events and impacts and we thus advocate their wider use in corroborating quantitative assessments. The resulting catalogue challenges prevailing perceptions about drought in Ireland while strengthening the evidence base for future drought and water resource planning across the island

Experimental considerations of acute heat stress assays to quantify coral thermal tolerance

Understanding the distribution and abundance of heat tolerant corals across seascapes is imperative for predicting responses to climate change and to support novel management actions. Thermal tolerance is variable in corals and intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of tolerance are not well understood. Traditional experimental evaluations of coral heat and bleaching tolerance typically involve ramp-and-hold experiments run across days to weeks within aquarium facilities with limits to colony replication. Field-based acute heat stress assays have emerged as an alternative experimental approach to rapidly quantify heat tolerance in many samples yet the role of key methodological considerations on the stress response measured remains unresolved. Here, we quantify the effects of coral fragment size, sampling time point, and physiological measures on the acute heat stress response in adult corals. The effect of fragment size differed between species (Acropora tenuis and Pocillopora damicornis). Most physiological parameters measured here declined over time (tissue colour, chlorophyll-a and protein content) from the onset of heating, with the exception of maximum photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm) which was surprisingly stable over this time scale. Based on our experiments, we identified photosynthetic efficiency, tissue colour change, and host-specific assays such as catalase activity as key physiological measures for rapid quantification of thermal tolerance. We recommend that future applications of acute heat stress assays include larger fragments (> 9 cm2) where possible and sample between 10 and 24 h after the end of heat stress. A validated high-throughput experimental approach combined with cost-effective genomic and physiological measurements underpins the development of markers and maps of heat tolerance across seascapes and ocean warming scenarios

Multi-century trends to wetter winters and drier summers in the England and Wales precipitation series explained by observational and sampling bias in early records

Globally, few precipitation records extend to the 18th century. The England Wales Precipitation (EWP) series is a notable exception with continuous monthly records from 1766. EWP has found widespread use across diverse fields of research including trend detection, evaluation of climate model simulations, as a proxy for mid-latitude atmospheric circulation, a predictor in long-term European gridded precipitation data sets, the assessment of drought and extremes, tree-ring reconstructions and as a benchmark for other regional series. A key finding from EWP has been the multi-centennial trends towards wetter winters and drier summers. We statistically reconstruct seasonal EWP using independent, quality-assured temperature, pressure and circulation indices. Using a sleet and snow series for the UK derived by Profs. Gordon Manley and Elizabeth Shaw to examine winter reconstructions, we show that precipitation totals for pre-1870 winters are likely biased low due to gauge under-catch of snowfall and a higher incidence of snowfall during this period. When these factors are accounted for in our reconstructions, the observed trend to wetter winters in EWP is no longer evident. For summer, we find that pre-1820 precipitation totals are too high, likely due to decreasing network density and less certain data at key stations. A significant trend to drier summers is not robustly present in our reconstructions of the EWP series. While our findings are more certain for winter than summer, we highlight (a) that extreme caution should be exercised when using EWP to make inferences about multi-centennial trends, and; (b) that assessments of 18th and 19th Century winter precipitation should be aware of potential snow biases in early records. Our findings underline the importance of continual re-appraisal of established long-term climate data sets as new evidence becomes available. It is also likely that the identified biases in winter EWP have distorted many other long-term European precipitation series

The Clinical Utility of the Adolescent and Young Adult Psycho-Oncology Screening Tool (AYA-POST): Perspectives of AYA Cancer Patients and Healthcare Professionals

Objective: Routine psychosocial screening and assessment of people diagnosed with cancer are crucial to the timely detection of distress and provision of tailored supportive care; however, appropriate screening tools have been lacking for adolescents and young adults (AYAs), who have unique needs and experiences. One exception is the recently validated AYA Psycho-Oncology Screening Tool (AYA-POST) for use with young people aged 15–29 years, which comprises a distress thermometer and age-specific needs assessment. This study investigates the clinical utility of this measure, as well as the subsequent service responsiveness within the Australian Youth Cancer Services. Method: In total, 118 AYAs and 29 healthcare professionals: (HCPs) completed surveys about the clinical utility of the AYA-POST; a subset of 30 AYAs completed a 3-month follow-up survey assessing service responsiveness. Descriptive statistics (frequencies/means) were computed for all items, with chi-square analyses used to explore whether perceived clinical utility varied with AYA age, AYA sex, HCP discipline or HCP length of time using the AYA-POST. Results: Participants’ responses demonstrate high levels of satisfaction with the tool, evidencing its appropriateness, practicability and acceptability. Moreover, the AYA-POST was reported to facilitate communication about psychosocial needs and prompt referrals, indicating good service responsiveness. Ratings of clinical utility did not differ significantly between AYA and HCP groups.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the AYA-POST is an appropriate tool in the psychosocial screening of AYAs with cancer, facilitating the identification of distress and unique concerns in this population and valuable in triaging and tailoring care for young cancer patients.Pandora Patterson, Fiona E. J. McDonald, Kimberley R. Allison, Helen Bibby, Michael Osborn, Karen Matthews, Ursula M. Sansom-Daly, Kate Thompson, Meg Plaster, and Antoinette Anazod

The “dirty dozen” of freshwater science: Detecting then reconciling hydrological data biases and errors

Sound water policy and management rests on sound hydrometeorological and ecological data. Conversely, unrepresentative, poorly collected or erroneously archived data introduces uncertainty regarding the magnitude, rate and direction of environmental change, in addition to undermining confidence in decision-making processes. Unfortunately, data biases and errors can enter the information flow at various stages, starting with site selection, instrumentation, sampling/ measurement procedures, post-processing and ending with archiving systems. Techniques such as visual inspection of raw data, graphical representation and comparison between sites, outlier and trend detection, and referral to metadata can all help uncover spurious data. Tell-tale signs of ambiguous and/or anomalous data are highlighted using 12 carefully chosen cases drawn mainly from hydrology (‘the dirty dozen’). These include evidence of changes in site or local conditions (due to land management, river regulation or urbanisation); modifications to instrumentation or inconsistent observer behaviour; mismatched or misrepresentative sampling in space and time; treatment of missing values, post-processing and data storage errors. As well as raising awareness of pitfalls, recommendations are provided for uncovering lapses in data quality after the information has been gathered. It is noted that error detection and attribution are more problematic for very large data sets, where observation networks are automated, or when various information sources have been combined. In these cases, more holistic indicators of data integrity are needed that reflect the overall information life-cycle and application(s) of the hydrological data

The forgotten drought of 1765–1768: Reconstructing and re-evaluating historical droughts in the British and Irish Isles

Historical precipitation records are fundamental for the management of water resources, yet rainfall observations typically span 100–15 0 years at most, with considerable uncertainties surrounding earlier records. Here, we analyse some of the longest a vailabl e precipitation records globally, for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To assess the credibility of these records and extend them further back in time, we statistically reconstruct (using independent predictors) monthly precipitation series representing these regions for the period 1748–2000. By applying the Standardized Precipi- tation Index at 12-month accumulations (SPI-12) to the observed and our reconstructed series we re-evaluate historical meteorological droughts. We find strong agreement between observed and reconstructed drought chronol- ogies in post-1870 records, but divergence in e arlier series due to biases in early precipitation observations. Hence, the 1800s decade was less drought prone in our reconstructions relative to observations. Overall, the drought of 1834–1836 was the most intense SPI-12 event in our reconstruction for England and Wales. Newspaper accounts and documentary sources confirm the extent of impacts across England in particular. We also identify a major, “forgotten” drought in 1765–1768 that affected the British-Irish Isles. This was the most intense event in our reconstructions for Ireland and Scotland, and ranks first for accumulated deficits a cross all three regional series. Moreover, the 1765–1768 event was also the most extreme multi-year drought across all regional series when considering 36-month a ccumulations (SPI-36). Newspaper and other sources confirm the occurrence and major socio- economic impact of this drought, such as major rivers like the Shannon being fordable by foot. Our results provide new insights into historical droughts across the British Irish Isles. Given the importance of historical droughts for stress-testing the resilience of water resources, drought plans and supply sys- tems, the forgotten drought of 1765–1 768 offers perhaps the most extreme benchmark scenario in more than 250-years