Trends in Farm Sector Output and Exports

Over time, the size of the farm sector has fallen relative to other sectors in the economy. However, the sector still has an important influence on the nation's pattern of economic growth and its exports. Over the last couple of decades the composition of farm production has moved towards crops and away from livestock. This has had an impact on how drought affects overall farm output, as crop production tends to fall sharply and then recover quickly when the drought breaks, while livestock production is relatively more resilient in the short term but is slower to recover.farm output; exports; drought; structural change

Weather and climate

Atmospheric weather and climate interact with the ocean on short and long timescales, respectively. They affect the circulation, temperature and salinity of the ocean and consequently have an effect on marine ecosystems. Central England Temperature (CET) has increased by approximately 1 °C since the beginning of the 20th century, as have annual mean air temperatures over Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The warmest year in CET since records began in 1659 was in 2006. The phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) can affect the weather and climate of the UK and varies on periods of days to years. Over the past five years, the NAO has been in a positive phase, which leads to stronger winter westerly winds. The average number of storms in October to March recorded at UK stations has increased significantly over the past 50 years. However, the magnitude of storminess had similar values at the start and end of the 20th century. There remains a tendency towards wetter winters in north and west Scotland. Two out of the five wettest UK summers since records began in 1766 occurred in 2007 and 2008. Global surface temperature (assessed using a combination of changes in air temperatures over land and sea surface temperatures) has increased by about 0.75 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century. All ten warmest years (globally) since records began in 1850 have occurred in the 12-year period 1997–2008. Over the 21st century: all areas of the UK are predicted to get warmer, and the warming is predicted to be greater in summer than in winter; there is predicted to be little change in the amount of precipitation that falls annually, but it is likely that more will fall in the winter, with drier summers, for much of the U.K

Special issue: academic book of the future

This special issue of Convergence brings together innovative theoretical and methodological frameworks that explore themes around the academic book of the future in Arts and Humanities disciplines

WoundsWest education: taking the evidence on wounds to the clinician

The WoundsWest (WW) education programme is an innovative and ambitious subproject of the WW project in Western Australia (WA). It involves the interdisciplinary development of online wound management education modules, which are designed to assist health professionals and health services to reduce preventable wounds and adverse wound management outcomes. The aims, objectives and processes that underpin this development are outlined in this paper, which is illustrated with examples from the WW online education programme

Homogenization of daily temperature and humidity series in the UK

Building on previous experience with continental and global data sets, we use a quantile-matching approach to homogenize temperature and humidity series measured by a network of 220 stations in the United Kingdom (UK). The data set spans 160 years at daily resolution, although data coverage varies greatly in time, space, and across variables. We use the homogenized data to analyse trends of the mean values as well as the lowest and highest quantiles of the distribution over the last 100 and 50 years. For the latter period, we find large regional differences, particularly between the southeastern and the northern part of the UK. The southeast has seen a faster warming, particularly for maximum temperatures in spring and summer, and a reduction of relative humidity; the northern mainland has become more humid and only slightly warmer. These differences become more evident for the highest quantiles and reflect a well-known pattern of climate change affecting the extra-tropics. Among the studied variables, the increases of wet bulb temperature and specific humidity are the most spatially homogeneous and are statistically significant for most stations in all seasons except winter

Studying the consumption and health outcomes of fiscal interventions (taxes and subsidies) on food and beverages in countries of different income classifications; a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Governments use fiscal interventions (FIs) on food and beverages to encourage healthy food behaviour and positive health outcomes. The objective of this review was to study the behavioural and health outcomes of implemented food and beverage FIs in the form of taxes and subsidies in countries of different income classifications. METHODS: The present systematic review was conducted in accordance with Cochrane protocols. The search was carried out on academic and grey literature in English, for studies conducted in different countries on implemented FIs on food and non-alcoholic beverages and health outcomes, with a special focus on the income of those countries. RESULTS: Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria and 14 were from peer- reviewed journals. Thirteen studies came from high-income (HI) countries, four from upper middle-income (UMI) countries and only one came from a lower middle-income (LMI) country. There were no studies from lower-income (LI) countries. Of these 18 studies; nine focused on taxes, all of which were from HI countries. Evidence suggests that FIs on foods can influence consumption of taxed and subsidized foods and consequently have the potential to improve health. CONCLUSION: Although this review supports previous findings that FIs can have an impact on healthy food consumption, it also highlights the lack of evidence available from UMI, LMI and LI countries on such interventions. Therefore, evidence from HI countries may not be directly applicable to middle-income and LI countries. Similar research conducted in middle and low income countries will be beneficial in advocating policy makers on the effectiveness of FIs in countering the growing issues of non-communicable diseases in these countries

An investigation into the impact of using various techniques to estimate Arctic surface air temperature anomalies

Time series of global and regional mean Surface Air Temperature (SAT) anomalies are a common metric used to estimate recent climate change. Various techniques can be used to create these time series from meteorological station data. The degree of difference arising from using five different techniques, based on existing temperature anomaly dataset techniques, to estimate Arctic SAT anomalies over land and sea ice were investigated using reanalysis data as a testbed. Techniques which interpolated anomalies were found to result in smaller errors than non-interpolating techniques relative to the reanalysis reference. Kriging techniques provided the smallest errors in estimates of Arctic anomalies and Simple Kriging was often the best kriging method in this study, especially over sea ice. A linear interpolation technique had, on average, Root Mean Square Errors (RMSEs) up to 0.55 K larger than the two kriging techniques tested. Non-interpolating techniques provided the least representative anomaly estimates. Nonetheless, they serve as useful checks for confirming whether estimates from interpolating techniques are reasonable. The interaction of meteorological station coverage with estimation techniques between 1850 and 2011 was simulated using an ensemble dataset comprising repeated individual years (1979-2011). All techniques were found to have larger RMSEs for earlier station coverages. This supports calls for increased data sharing and data rescue, especially in sparsely observed regions such as the Arctic

Assessing the social validity of a brief dietary survey for Sri Lankan adults with a focus on gender:a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: As the World Health Organization urges countries to strengthen their noncommunicable disease monitoring and surveillance activities, setting-specific innovations are emerging. Diet – a key, modifiable risk factor for chronic diseases – is particularly challenging to capture reliably. By socially validating self-report dietary survey tools, we may be able to increase the accuracy and representativeness of data for improved population health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that impact Sri Lankan Brief Dietary Survey (a newly developed tool) and 24-h Dietary Recall participation, engagement, and social validity among Sri Lankan adults. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 93 participants (61 women and 32 men) in three Sri Lankan districts (Colombo, Kalutara, and Trincomalee). Interview data were analysed thematically and are presented as non-hierarchical thematic networks. RESULTS: Participants identified a number of factors that influenced their survey participation and engagement. These included the time of day interviews occur, recall ease, level of commitment required, perceived survey value, emotional response to surveys, and interviewer positionality. Many of these factors were gendered, however, both female and male participants expressed a preference for engaging with socially valid research that they felt justified their personal investment in data collection. When explicitly asked to share ideas about how to improve the surveys, many participants opted not to provide suggestions as they felt they lacked the appropriate expertise. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings have implications for the accuracy and equity of dietary surveillance activities, and ultimately the appropriateness and effectiveness of programmes and policies informed by these data. Only through understanding how and why the target population engages with dietary research can we develop socially valid methods that assess and address the dietary risks of individuals and groups that are underrepresented by current conventions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40795-021-00481-9

Communicating uncertainties in sea surface temperature

A project on sea surface temperature is generating new climate data records from satellite observations. The data are independent of in situ observations and are harmonious across satellite sensors to maximize stability and have realistic, context-sensitive uncertainty estimates at all spatial and temporal scales. The project, part of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (SST CCI), now seeks to establish a useful method for communicating uncertainty in sea surface temperatures. This goal was the impetus for a workshop held in November 2014 in Exeter in the United Kingdom, summarised in this article