Uncertainty in the relationship between climate forcing and hydrological response in UK catchments

This paper assesses the relationship between amount of climate forcing – as indexed by global mean temperature change – and hydrological response in a sample of UK catchments. It constructs climate scenarios representing different changes in global mean temperature from an ensemble of 21 climate models assessed in the IPCC AR4. The results show a considerable range in impact between the 21 climate models, with – for example - change in summer runoff at a 2oC increase in global mean temperature varying between -40% and +20%. There is evidence of clustering in the results, particularly in projected changes in summer runoff and indicators of low flows, implying that the ensemble mean is not an appropriate generalised indicator of impact, and that the standard deviation of responses does not adequately characterise uncertainty. The uncertainty in hydrological impact is therefore best characterised by considering the shape of the distribution of responses across multiple climate scenarios. For some climate model patterns, and some catchments, there is also evidence that linear climate change forcings produce non-linear hydrological impacts. For most variables and catchments, the effects of climate change are apparent above the effects of natural multi-decadal variability with an increase in global mean temperature above 1oC, but there are differences between catchments. Based on the scenarios represented in the ensemble, the effect of climate change in northern upland catchments will be seen soonest in indicators of high flows, but in southern catchments effects will be apparent soonest in measures of summer and low flows. The uncertainty in response between different climate model patterns is considerably greater than the range due to uncertainty in hydrological model parameterisation

Barriers to Smoking Cessation in Patients Enrolled in Suboxone Treatment Programs

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States, accounting for more than 480,000 deaths every year. The prevalence of tobacco use among substance abuse treatment program enrollees is substantially higher than that of the general population, with recent estimates ranging between 75-97%. The aim of this project was to identify specific barriers to smoking cessation in patients enrolled in suboxone treatment programs in Franklin County, VT. The most commonly cited barriers among survey responders were related to fear of the effects of tobacco withdrawl, while the most important barrier was related to fear of increased desire to use drugs following smoking cessation.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1493/thumbnail.jp

Adapting to climate change: an evolving research programme

Since its launch in 1977, the scientific issues addressed by papers published in Climatic Change have changed considerably. Nuclear winter came and went, and papers have come from an increasingly diverse range of disciplines. Most obvious, of course, has been the emergence to overwhelming dominance of papers concerned with the processes and consequences associated with the climate changes driven by increasing human emissions of greenhouse gases. Within this theme too, it is possible to track the evolution of different topics over the last thirty years. In the pages of Climatic Change, as within the climate change research community, increased attention has been given to adaptation to a changing climate. Here, I examine the scale and characteristics of adaptation research in Climatic Change, draw some general conclusions from the research published in Climatic Change, and suggest from this some future research directions

A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity

This paper presents a global scale assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity. Patterns of climate change from 21 Global Climate Models (GCMs) under four SRES scenarios are applied to a global hydrological model to estimate water resources across 1339 watersheds. The Water Crowding Index (WCI) and the Water Stress Index (WSI) are used to calculate exposure to increases and decreases in global water scarcity due to climate change. 1.6 (WCI) and 2.4 (WSI) billion people are estimated to be currently living within watersheds exposed to water scarcity. Using the WCI, by 2050 under the A1B scenario, 0.5 to 3.1 billion people are exposed to an increase in water scarcity due to climate change (range across 21 GCMs). This represents a higher upper-estimate than previous assessments because scenarios are constructed from a wider range of GCMs. A substantial proportion of the uncertainty in the global-scale effect of climate change on water scarcity is due to uncertainty in the estimates for South Asia and East Asia. Sensitivity to the WCI and WSI thresholds that define water scarcity can be comparable to the sensitivity to climate change pattern. More of the world will see an increase in exposure to water scarcity than a decrease due to climate change but this is not consistent across all climate change patterns. Additionally, investigation of the effects of a set of prescribed global mean temperature change scenarios show rapid increases in water scarcity due to climate change across many regions of the globe, up to 2°C, followed by stabilisation to 4°C

The risk of drought

This section of the report summarises the effect of different levels of climate change on risk of drought

California\u27s MICRA: The Need for Legislative Reform

This Comment examines the effects of the tort reform provisions of the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (MICRA). The author argues that MICRA divests medical malpractice victims of the traditional protections governing personal injury litigation, while granting broad immunity to negligent health care providers. The author examines the discriminatory effects created by MICRA and argues that its sweeping tort reforms undermine California\u27s policy of fault-based liability. The author concludes by calling on the California legislature to amend MICRA and provides several suggestions for revision

The universality of human rights in UK extradition law.

The question of the universality of human rights has arisen in the context of United Kingdom and European Court of Human Rights extradition jurisprudence. It is a consequence of the law requiring that all extraditions must be compatible with human rights. Originating in the European Court of Human Rights, and now found in the Extradition Act 2003, this obligation is firmly entrenched in UK extradition law and practice. Difficulties have resulted following the particular interpretation of the nature and scope of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950. That article prohibits torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment. It has been held to be an absolute prohibition. Courts have grappled with whether absoluteness means universality. That is, whether the nature and scope of the prohibition as applied within the territory of the Council of Europe applies similarly to conditions and policies in requesting states. If so, extradition may be stymied on account of differences in criminal justice policies. Sentencing practices and prison conditions are the two facets of practice of particular relevance. This article considers the context and jurisprudence around extradition and the universality of human rights. It concludes that universal human rights and effective transnational criminal cooperation may never be fully accommodated

The risk of river flooding

This section of the report outlines the effect of different levels of climate change on exposure to river flood risk, at national and watershed scales