The perfect drought? Constraints limiting Kalahari agro-pastoral communities from coping and adapting

Rural Kalahari agro-pastoral communities of Southern Africa have been exposed to drought shocks throughout history and have adapted their livelihoods accordingly. Yet, drought continues to disrupt or threaten to disrupt their production systems. With semi arid Botswana as a case study, this paper hence sought to unearth the factors limiting agro-pastoral communities from adequately coping and adapting to drought. Low rainfall, which is also highly variable, coupled with relatively low soil fertility status make subsistence livestock keeping and crop cultivation risky. This marginal agricultural potential of the land is further compounded by other constraints. Some of the major constraints included persistence of droughts, limited diversification options outside agriculture, inadequate and poor quality drinking water (high salinity) for livestock, crop damage by wild animals as well as the current land tenure system which curtails the traditional response of livestock mobility during drought. All these factors may act solely or in combination to render rural communities vulnerable during droughts. It is therefore recommended that effective interventions be tailored to local conditions to enhance resilience among Kalahari’s rural population.Key words: Adaptation, Botswana, coping, drought, variability, vulnerability

A high-dispersion molecular gas component in nearby galaxies

We present a comprehensive study of the velocity dispersion of the atomic (H I) and molecular (H2) gas components in the disks (R R 25) of a sample of 12 nearby spiral galaxies with moderate inclinations. Our analysis is based on sensitive high-resolution data from the THINGS (atomic gas) and HERACLES (molecular gas) surveys. To obtain reliable measurements of the velocity dispersion, we stack regions several kiloparsecs in size, after accounting for intrinsic velocity shifts due to galactic rotation and large-scale motions. We stack using various parameters: the galactocentric distance, star formation rate surface density, H I surface density, H2 surface density, and total gas surface density. We fit single Gaussian components to the stacked spectra and measure median velocity dispersions for H I of 11.9 ± 3.1 km s–1 and for CO of 12.0 ± 3.9 km s–1. The CO velocity dispersions are thus, surprisingly, very similar to the corresponding ones of H I, with an average ratio of σH I /σCO= 1.0 ± 0.2 irrespective of the stacking parameter. The measured CO velocity dispersions are significantly higher (factor of ~2) than the traditional picture of a cold molecular gas disk associated with star formation. The high dispersion implies an additional thick molecular gas disk (possibly as thick as the H I disk). Our finding is in agreement with recent sensitive measurements in individual edge-on and face-on galaxies and points toward the general existence of a thick disk of molecular gas, in addition to the well-known thin disk in nearby spiral galaxies

Valuing Ecosystem Services in Semi-arid Rangelands through Stochastic Simulation

Ecosystem services and economic returns from semi-arid rangelands are threatened by land degradation. Policies to improve ecosystem service delivery often fail to consider uncertainty in economic returns gained through different land uses and management practices. We apply an analytical framework using stochastic simulation to estimate the range of potential monetary outcomes of rangeland ecosystem services under different land uses, including consideration of the uncertainty and variability of model parameters. We assess monetary and non-monetary dimensions, including those ecosystem services with uncertain and missing information, for communal rangelands, commercial ranches, game farms and Wildlife Management Areas in southern Kgalagadi District, Botswana. Public land uses (communal grazing areas and protected conservation land in Wildlife Management Areas) provide higher economic value than private land uses (commercial ranches and game farms), despite private land uses being more profitable in their returns from meat production. Communal rangelands and protected areas are important for a broader range of ecosystem services (cultural/spiritual services, recreation, firewood, construction material and wild food), which play a key role in sustaining the livelihoods of the largest share of society. The full range of ecosystem services should therefore be considered in economic assessments, while policies targeting sustainable land management should value and support their provision and utilisation. By forecasting the range of plausible ecosystem values of different rangeland land uses in monetary terms, our analysis provides policymakers with a tool to assess outcomes of land use and management decisions and policies

Culture as a mediator of climate change adaptation: Neither static nor unidirectional

Though there is increasing recognition of the cultural dimensions that shape climate change adaptation, our experience from working with actors engaged in adaptation policy and practice suggests that the role of culture still tends to be conceived in overly narrow and fixed terms. This is exemplified in portrayals of conservative cultural norms as stifling positive change. A growing body of research across the world indicates that the reality is seldom as simple as this – culture works in complex and variable ways, and, most importantly, is inherently dynamic. Drawing especially from research work on vulnerability and adaptation conducted in semi-arid regions, we illustrate this argument by briefly exploring three themes - multiple knowledge systems for farming in Botswana, the dynamics of pastoralist values and livelihoods in Kenya, and the interplay of caste and livelihood choices in India. Understanding how different facets of culture such as these operate in context helps move away from viewing culture statically as a barrier or enabler, and toward a more plural and dynamic appreciation of the role of culture in adaptation. This includes recognising the potential for factors that may be construed as barriers to become enablers. Critical, balanced engagement with cultural dimensions in both research and practice, understanding and working with these dynamic social structures, is essential if adaptation is to create meaningful and lasting change for those who need it most

Ocular Shock Front in the Colliding Galaxy IC 2163

The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in The Astrophysical Journal, 831:161 (13pp), 2016 November 4, doi:10.3847/0004-637X/831/2/161 © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.ALMA observations in the CO 1 - 0 line of the interacting galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 at 2" x 1.5" resolution reveal how the encounter drives gas to pile up in narrow, ~ 1 kpc wide, "eyelids" in IC 2163. IC 2163 and NGC 2207 are involved in a grazing encounter, which has led to development in IC 2163 of an eye-shaped (ocular) structure at mid-radius and two tidal arms. The CO data show that there are large velocity gradients across the width of each eyelid, with a mixture of radial and azimuthal streaming of gas at the outer edge of the eyelid relative to its inner edge. The sense of the radial streaming in the eyelids is consistent with the idea that gas from the outer part of IC 2163 flows inward until its radial streaming slows down abruptly and the gas piles up in the eyelids. The radial compression at the eyelids causes an increase in the gas column density by direct radial impact and also leads to a high rate of shear. We find a strong correlation between the molecular column densities and the magnitude of dv/dR across the width of the eyelid at fixed values of azimuth. Substantial portions of the eyelids have high velocity dispersion in CO, indicative of elevated turbulence there.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

an overview of the MHONGOOSE survey: Observing nearby galaxies with MeerKAT

© Copyright owned by the author(s). MHONGOOSE is a deep survey of the neutral hydrogen distribution in a representative sample of 30 nearby disk and dwarf galaxies with H I masses from ∼ 106 to ∼ 1011 M, and luminosities from MR ∼ 12 to MR ∼ −22. The sample is selected to uniformly cover the available range in log(MHI). Our extremely deep observations, down to H I column density limits of well below 1018 cm−2 — or a few hundred times fainter than the typical H I disks in galaxies — will directly detect the effects of cold accretion from the intergalactic medium and the links with the cosmic web. These observations will be the first ever to probe the very low-column density neutral gas in galaxies at these high resolutions. Combination with data at other wavelengths, most of it already available, will enable accurate modeling of the properties and evolution of the mass components in these galaxies and link these with the effects of environment, dark matter distribution, and other fundamental properties such as halo mass and angular momentum. MHONGOOSE can already start addressing some of the SKA-1 science goals and will provide a comprehensive inventory of the processes driving the transformation and evolution of galaxies in the nearby universe at high resolution and over 5 orders of magnitude in column density. It will be a Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey that will be unsurpassed until the advent of the SKA, and can serve as a highly visible, lasting statement of MeerKAT’s capabilities

Core-collapse supernova subtypes in luminous infrared galaxies

Acknowledgements. We thank the anonymous referee for useful comments. We thank Marco Fiaschi for carrying out some of the Asiago observations. EK is supported by the Turku Collegium of Science, Medicine and Technology. EK also acknowledge support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC; ST/P000312/1). ECK acknowledges support from the G.R.E.A.T. research environment and support from The Wenner-Gren Foundations. MF is supported by a Royal Society – Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellowship. EC, LT, AP, and MT are partially supported by the PRIN-INAF 2017 with the project “Towards the SKA and CTA era: discovery, localization, and physics of transient objects”. HK was funded by the Academy of Finland projects 324504 and 328898. TWC acknowledges the EU Funding under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 842471. LG was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). MG is supported by the Polish NCN MAESTRO grant 2014/14/A/ST9/00121. KM acknowledges support from EU H2020 ERC grant no. 758638. TMB was funded by the CONICYT PFCHA / DOCTORADOBECAS CHILE/2017-72180113. MN is supported by a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellowship. Based on observations collected at the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere under ESO programmes 67.D-0438, 60.A-9475, 199.D-0143, and 1103.D-0328. Some of the observations reported in this paper were obtained with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) under programme 2018-1-DDT-003 (PI: Kankare). Polish participation in SALT is funded by grant No. MNiSW DIR/WK/2016/07. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated by the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The data presented here were obtained in part with ALFOSC, which is provided by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA) under a joint agreement with the University of Copenhagen and NOTSA. This work is partly based on the NUTS2 programme carried out at the NOT. NUTS2 is funded in part by the Instrument Center for Danish Astrophysics (IDA). The Liverpool Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This paper is also based on observations collected at the Copernico 1.82 m and Schmidt 67/92 Telescopes operated by INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova at Asiago, Italy. Based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva (Argentina), and Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brazil). Observations were carried out under programme GS-2017A-C-1. This project used data obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was constructed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the DOE and NSF (USA), MISE (Spain), STFC (UK), HEFCE (UK), NCSA (UIUC), KICP (U. Chicago), CCAPP (Ohio State), MIFPA (Texas A&M University), CNPQ, FAPERJ, FINEP (Brazil), MINECO (Spain), DFG (Germany) and the collaborating institutions in the Dark Energy Survey, which are Argonne Lab, UC Santa Cruz, University of Cambridge, CIEMAT-Madrid, University of Chicago, University College London, DES-Brazil Consortium, University of Edinburgh, ETH Zürich, Fermilab, University of Illinois, ICE (IEEC-CSIC), IFAE Barcelona, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, LMU München and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, University of Michigan, NOAO, University of Nottingham, Ohio State University, OzDES Membership Consortium, University of Pennsylvania, University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Lab, Stanford University, University of Sussex, and Texas A&M University. Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin 48-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1440341 and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Los Alamos National Laboratories, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. Based on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO Prop. ID 2017A-0260; and PI: Soares-Santos), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen’s University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Some of the data presented in this paper were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. This work is based in part on archival data obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. This research has made use of NED which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We have made use of the Weizmann Interactive Supernova Data Repository (Yaron & Gal-Yam 2012, https://wiserep.weizmann.ac.il).1 iraf is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.The fraction of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) occurring in the central regions of galaxies is not well constrained at present. This is partly because large-scale transient surveys operate at optical wavelengths, making it challenging to detect transient sources that occur in regions susceptible to high extinction factors. Here we present the discovery and follow-up observations of two CCSNe that occurred in the luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) NGC 3256. The first, SN 2018ec, was discovered using the ESO HAWK-I/GRAAL adaptive optics seeing enhancer, and was classified as a Type Ic with a host galaxy extinction of AV = 2.1−0.1+0.3 mag. The second, AT 2018cux, was discovered during the course of follow-up observations of SN 2018ec, and is consistent with a subluminous Type IIP classification with an AV = 2.1 ± 0.4 mag of host extinction. A third CCSN, PSN J10275082−4354034 in NGC 3256, was previously reported in 2014, and we recovered the source in late-time archival Hubble Space Telescope imaging. Based on template light curve fitting, we favour a Type IIn classification for it with modest host galaxy extinction of AV = 0.3−0.3+0.4 mag. We also extend our study with follow-up data of the recent Type IIb SN 2019lqo and Type Ib SN 2020fkb that occurred in the LIRG system Arp 299 with host extinctions of AV = 2.1−0.3+0.1 and AV = 0.4−0.2+0.1 mag, respectively. Motivated by the above, we inspected, for the first time, a sample of 29 CCSNe located within a projected distance of 2.5 kpc from the host galaxy nuclei in a sample of 16 LIRGs. We find, if star formation within these galaxies is modelled assuming a global starburst episode and normal IMF, that there is evidence of a correlation between the starburst age and the CCSN subtype. We infer that the two subgroups of 14 H-poor (Type IIb/Ib/Ic/Ibn) and 15 H-rich (Type II/IIn) CCSNe have different underlying progenitor age distributions, with the H-poor progenitors being younger at 3σ significance. However, we note that the currently available sample sizes of CCSNe and host LIRGs are small, and the statistical comparisons between subgroups do not take into account possible systematic or model errors related to the estimated starburst ages.DOCTORADOBECAS CHILE/2017-72180113Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt UniversityEU H2020 ERC 758638IFAE BarcelonaIPACInstituto de Astrofisica de CanariasKICPMIFPAMarie Skłodowska-Curie 839090,PGC2018-095317-B-C21Max Planck Institute for AstronomyMax Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial PhysicsNOAONational Central University of TaiwanNational Optical Astronomy ObservatoriesScience Foundation Ireland UniversityTurku Collegium of Science, Medicine and TechnologyWeizmann Institute for ScienceNational Science Foundation NSFU.S. Department of Energy USDOENational Aeronautics and Space Administration AST-1238877,NNX08AR22G NASAGordon and Betty Moore Foundation NAS5-26555 GBMFMerck Institute for Science Education MISEUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign UIUCStanford University SUArgonne National Laboratory ANLLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 2017A-0260 LBNLUniversity of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeOhio State University OSUCalifornia Institute of Technology CITUniversity of ChicagoUniversity of Michigan U-MUniversity of Washington UWJohns Hopkins University JHUTexas A and M University TAMUUniversity of Maryland UMDUniversity of Hawai'i UHLos Alamos National Laboratory LANLUniversity of PortsmouthSmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory SAONational Centre for Supercomputing Applications NCSAHorizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory SLACNational Research Council NRCSpace Telescope Science Institute STScICenter for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Ohio State University CCAPPWenner-Gren StiftelsernaScience and Technology Facilities Council ST/P000312/1 STFCRoyal SocietyRoyal Astronomical Society MNiSW DIR/WK/2016/07 RASUniversity College London UCLEuropean Commission 842471 ECUniversity of NottinghamUniversity of Sussex AST-1440341University of Edinburgh EDQueen's University Belfast QUBDurham UniversityDeutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFGSuomen Akatemia 324504,328898Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica CONICYTMinisterio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva MINCyTMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad MINECOMinistério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação MCTILiverpool John Moores University LJMUMax-Planck-Gesellschaft MPGNarodowe Centrum Nauki 2014/14/A/ST9/00121 NCNFundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro FAPERJFinanciadora de Estudos e Projetos FINEPEuropean Regional Development Fund ERDFEötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem ELT

MIGHTEE-Hi: Evolution of Hi Scaling Relations of Star-forming Galaxies at z < 0.5*

We present the first measurements of H I galaxy scaling relations from a blind survey at z > 0.15. We perform spectral stacking of 9023 spectra of star-forming galaxies undetected in H I at 0.23 < z < 0.49, extracted from MIGHTEE-H I Early Science data cubes, acquired with the MeerKAT radio telescope. We stack galaxies in bins of galaxy properties (stellar mass M *, star formation rateSFR, and specific star formation rate sSFR, with sSFR ≡ M */SFR), obtaining ≳5σ detections in most cases, the strongest H I-stacking detections to date in this redshift range. With these detections, we are able to measure scaling relations in the probed redshift interval, finding evidence for a moderate evolution from the median redshift of our sample z med ~ 0.37 to z ~ 0. In particular, low-M * galaxies ( {\mathrm{log}}_{10}({M}_{* }/{M}_{\odot })\sim 9 )experienceastrongHIdepletion( 0.5dexinlog10(MHI/M⊙) ), while massive galaxies ( {\mathrm{log}}_{10}({M}_{* }/{M}_{\odot })\sim 11$ ) keep their H I mass nearly unchanged. When looking at the star formation activity, highly star-forming galaxies evolve significantly in M H I (f H I, where f H I ≡ M H I/M *) at fixed SFR (sSFR), while at the lowest probed SFR (sSFR) the scaling relations show no evolution. These findings suggest a scenario in which low-M * galaxies have experienced a strong H I depletion during the last ~5 Gyr, while massive galaxies have undergone a significant H I replenishment through some accretion mechanism, possibly minor mergers. Interestingly, our results are in good agreement with the predictions of the SIMBA simulation. We conclude that this work sets novel important observational constraints on galaxy scaling relations

An overview of the MHONGOOSE survey: Observing nearby galaxies with MeerKAT

MHONGOOSE is a deep survey of the neutral hydrogen distribution in a representative sample of 30 nearby disk and dwarf galaxies with HI masses from 10^6 to ~10^{11} M_sun, and luminosities from M_R ~ -12 to M_R ~ -22. The sample is selected to uniformly cover the available range in log(M_HI). Our extremely deep observations, down to HI column density limits of well below 10^{18} cm^{-2} - or a few hundred times fainter than the typical HI disks in galaxies - will directly detect the effects of cold accretion from the intergalactic medium and the links with the cosmic web. These observations will be the first ever to probe the very low-column density neutral gas in galaxies at these high resolutions. Combination with data at other wavelengths, most of it already available, will enable accurate modelling of the properties and evolution of the mass components in these galaxies and link these with the effects of environment, dark matter distribution, and other fundamental properties such as halo mass and angular momentum. MHONGOOSE can already start addressing some of the SKA-1 science goals and will provide a comprehensive inventory of the processes driving the transformation and evolution of galaxies in the nearby universe at high resolution and over 5 orders of magnitude in column density. It will be a Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey that will be unsurpassed until the advent of the SKA, and can serve as a highly visible, lasting statement of MeerKAT's capabilities

TESS Giants Transiting Giants. I.: A Noninflated Hot Jupiter Orbiting a Massive Subgiant

While the population of confirmed exoplanets continues to grow, the sample of confirmed transiting planets around evolved stars is still limited. We present the discovery and confirmation of a hot Jupiter orbiting TOI-2184 (TIC 176956893), a massive evolved subgiant (M ∗ = 1.53 ± 0.12 M o˙, R ∗ = 2.90 ± 0.14 R o˙) in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Southern Continuous Viewing Zone. The planet was flagged as a false positive by the TESS Quick-Look Pipeline due to periodic systematics introducing a spurious depth difference between even and odd transits. Using a new pipeline to remove background scattered light in TESS Full Frame Image data, we combine space-based TESS photometry, ground-based photometry, and ground-based radial velocity measurements to report a planet radius of R p = 1.017 ± 0.051 R J and mass of M p = 0.65 ± 0.16 M J . For a planet so close to its star, the mass and radius of TOI-2184b are unusually well matched to those of Jupiter. We find that the radius of TOI-2184b is smaller than theoretically predicted based on its mass and incident flux, providing a valuable new constraint on the timescale of post-main-sequence planet inflation. The discovery of TOI-2184b demonstrates the feasibility of detecting planets around faint (TESS magnitude > 12) post-main-sequence stars and suggests that many more similar systems are waiting to be detected in the TESS FFIs, whose confirmation may elucidate the final stages of planetary system evolution