Human-caused climate change in United States national parks and solutions for the future

Human-caused climate change has exposed the US national park area to more severe increases in heat and aridity than the country as a whole and caused widespread impacts on ecosystems and resources. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from cars, power plants, and other human sources would reduce future risks. Since 1895, annual average temperature of the area of the 419 national parks has increased at a rate of 1.0 ± 0.2ºC (1.8 ± 0.4ºF) per century, double the rate of the US as a whole, while precipitation has declined significantly on 12% of national park area, compared with 3% of the US. This occurs because extensive areas of national parks are located in extreme environments. Scientific research in national parks has detected numerous changes that analyses have attributed primarily to human-caused climate change. These include a doubling of the area burned by wildfire across the western US, including Yosemite National Park, melting of glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park, a doubling of tree mortality across the western US, including Sequoia National Park, a loss of bird species from Death Valley National Park, a shift of trees onto tundra in Noatak National Preserve, sea level rise of 42 cm (17 in.) near the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and other impacts. Without emissions reductions, climate change could increase temperatures across the national parks, up to 9ºC (16ºF) by 2100 in parks in Alaska. This could melt all glaciers from Glacier National Park, raise sea level enough to inundate half of Everglades National Park, dissolve coral reefs in Virgin Islands National Park through ocean acidification, and damage many other natural and cultural resources. Adaptation measures, including conservation of refugia in Joshua Tree National Park and raising heat-resistant local corals in Biscayne National Park, can strengthen ecosystem integrity. Yet, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is the only solution that prevents the pollution that causes climate change. Energy conservation and efficiency improvements, renewable energy, public transit, and other actions could lower projected heating by two-thirds, reducing risks to our national parks

Investment and Screening under Asymmetric Endogenous Information

This paper provides an analysis of screening contracts in a complete but imperfect information environment as opposed tothe usual incomplete information (Bayesian) environment. An agent faces a hold-up situation while making a cost-reducing specific investment that is not observed by the principal. To prevent the hold-up, the agent randomizes his investment strategy and the principal offers a screening contract. The informational rents provided by the equilibrium contract finance the investment. Because uncertainty is endogenous, the equilibrium contract depends only on tastes, technology and on the strategic opportunities of both players.

Certification as a Rationale for Voluntary Agreements

I model the participation of firms in a voluntary agreement as a costly certification process whereby a firm informs the Regulator of its pollution intensity. Without this knowledge, the Regulator imposes the same tax on all firms in a heterogeneous industry, unduly hurting the clean ones with the lowest intensity. Certification allows clean firms to get a tax rebate. It also entails an informational externality as the dispersion of types decreases within the pool of non-participating firms, following an unraveling process. Because participation is a firm’s private decision, there is such a thing as a bad voluntary agreement.Certification, voluntary agreements, Pigovian taxes, pollution, Environmental Economics and Policy, L51, Q53, Q58,

Heavy MSSM Higgs production at the LHC and decays to WW,ZZ at higher orders

In this paper we discuss the production of a heavy scalar MSSM Higgs boson H and its subsequent decays into pairs of electroweak gauge bosons WW and ZZ. We perform a scan over the relevant MSSM parameters, using constraints from direct Higgs searches and several low-energy observables. We then compare the possible size of the pp -> H -> WW,ZZ cross sections with corresponding Standard Model cross sections. We also include the full MSSM vertex corrections to the H -> WW,ZZ decay and combine them with the Higgs propagator corrections, paying special attention to the IR-divergent contributions. We find that the vertex corrections can be as large as -30% in MSSM parameter space regions which are currently probed by Higgs searches at the LHC. Once the sensitivity of these searches reaches two percent of the SM signal strength the vertex corrections can be numerically as important as the leading order and Higgs self-energy corrections and have to be considered when setting limits on MSSM parameters

Role of Inspiration in Increasing Situational Motivation in Male Team Athletes

Motivation and inspiration are often used superficially and synonymously in media coverage of sport. Sportscasters and reporters speculate about athlete motivation cite inspirational locker room speeches from coaches as a motivational source. Research in and out of sport psychology has developed and verified theories to describe mechanisms of motivation change (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Vallerand, 1997), but there is little research on the role of inspiration (Thrash & Elliot; 2003, 2004). The current study aimed to determine if inspiration can be manipulated, and if so, how increased inspiration impacts situational motivation of athletes. A two-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed that inspiration increased for collegiate football players randomly assigned to observe a simulated pep-talk but not for their counterparts assigned to a control group. Situational autonomous motivation did not exhibit a similar response. Multiple regression analysis revealed that change in inspiration was not predictive of change in situational motivation. The results support the contention that inspiration and situational motivation are distinct constructs. Future research in sport should attend to examining consequences of inspiration change in athletes to clarify the role of inspiration contrasted against motivation in sport

Applications of Elastic Modeling, Thermobarometry, and Thermal History Modeling to (Ultra)high-Pressure Metamorphic Rocks

Subduction zones are tectonically active regions that produce seismicity and volcanism during plate convergence and ultimately recycle crustal material into the mantle. Since these regions dictate many global scale tectonic and geochemical processes (i.e. orogenesis, volatile flux into the mantle, etc.), it is important to understand the depth-temperature conditions of mineral reactions during the subduction-exhumation metamorphic cycle. (Ultra)high-pressure ((U)HP) metamorphic rocks, such as blueschists and eclogites, are formed during metamorphism of subducted crust and sediments along relatively cold geothermal gradients. (U)HP metamorphic rocks may be incorporated into the subduction zone accretionary wedge and exhumed, thereby providing a direct records of subduction zone conditions and processes. This PhD research is focused on the determination of pressure (P) – temperature (T) conditions of exhumed (U)HP subduction zone metamorphic rocks in order to better understand the metamorphic conditions of geologic processes within subduction zones. This dissertation contains three separate studies which combine multiple thermobarometric methods to better constrain the petrologic history of exhumed subduction zone metamorphic rocks. Elastic thermobarometry, trace element thermobarometers, and numerical modeling approaches were integrated to determine P–T(–t) histories of (U)HP metamorphic rocks. In the first chapter of this dissertation, multi-diffusion domain numerical modelling of white mica 40Ar/39Ar and thermobarometric data were used to forward model continuous P–T–t paths of blueschist block exhumation from the western Baja terrane of Mexico. Results from this chapter provide new insights into the application of white mica P–T–t numerical modeling to constrain exhumation histories of (U)HP metamorphic rocks. In the second chapter, strain-based quartz-in-garnet elastic thermobarometric data was combined with Ti concentration measurements and a Ti-in-quartz solubility model to estimate P–T conditions of inclusion entrapment in garnet from a quartzofeldspathic gneiss from the (U)HP terrane of eastern Papua New Guinea. The quartz-in-garnet and Ti-in-quartz (QuiG-TiQ) method gives P–T constraints from a single mineral and does not introduce temperature estimates external of the host-inclusion system. Results from this chapter give new insights into the use of elastic thermobarometry to determine conditions of metamorphic mineral growth and inclusion entrapment. In the third chapter, the first characterization of mineralogical evidence for UHP metamorphism in the Appalachian orogen is presented. Multiple thermobarometric methods, including Zr-in-rutile trace element and quartz-in-garnet elastic thermobarometry, were combined with petrologic observations to characterize the prograde metamorphic conditions of garnet growth during subduction

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationResilience is distinguised by positive adaptation following adversity. All athletes inevitably experience adversity in sport, often in the guise of failure. Positive adaptation following failure is a highly desirable pattern of behavior in sport, yet little is known about the key markers of positive adaptation. Three theorized charactersitics of positive adaptation from the literature are low cortisol levels, positive emotional responses, and good performances. With these characteristics in mind, the purpose of this psychophysiological study was to investigate cortisol, emotional, and performance differences following failure in more and less resilient athletes. To identify high and low resilient athletes for study, 116 male and female collegiate lacrosse players were initially recruited to self-assess their resilience. The intial survey pool was split into three groups using a mean +/- one standard deviation split from the resilience measure. High resilient athletes scored at or above the 84.1th percentile (n= 18), low resilient qualities athletes scored at or below the 15.9th percentile (n= 18), and the control group (n= 17) scored at or around the mean. The task was a new lacrosse task where all participants except the control group were given failure feedback. All participants gave baseline, prefailure, and postfailure measures of positive and negative affect, pride and shame, and cortisol. Performance data on the task was collected on trial one and two of the task. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVAs to examine participants' responses to failure. There were no significant group by time interactions from prefailure to postfailure on cortisol, emotion, or performance. There were significant main effects for time, indicating that irregardless of resilience, all participants reacted similarly to failure. In addition, two exploratory analyses examined group differences from baseline to prefailure and a small subset of participants (n= 15), who received an additional condition where success feedback was given to examine group differences from presuccess to postsuccess. There was a significant group by time interaction for negative affect from baseline to prefailure. High resilient and control groups decreased in negative affect whereas the low resilient group increased. There were no significant findings regarding responses to success

Remote Sub-Wavelength Addressing of Quantum Emitters with Chirped Pulses

We propose to use chirped pulses propagating near a bandgap to remotely address quantum emitters with sub-wavelength resolution. We introduce a particular family of chirped pulses that dynamically self-focus during their evolution in a medium with a quadratic dispersion relation. We analytically describe how the focusing distance and width of the pulse can be tuned through its initial parameters. We show that the interaction of such pulses with a quantum emitter is highly sensitive to its position due to effective Landau-Zener processes induced by the pulse chirping. Our results propose pulse engineering as a powerful control and probing tool in the field of quantum emitters coupled to structured reservoirs.Comment: 5+3 pages, 3+2 figure