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Comisión Europea ; Oficina de las Naciones Unidas para la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres (UN/ISDR) - Comisión Europea, 2012
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Available online: http://www.eird.org/wikiesp/images/Formato_Com%C3%BAn_para_la_Presentaci%C3%B3n_ [...]
Comisión Europea ; Oficina de las Naciones Unidas para la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres
Published by: Comisión Europea ; 2012Language(s): Spanish
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Natural hazards ; Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS) ; Region III - South America ; Region IV - North America, Central America and the Caribbean
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Vínculos entre las dinámicas demográficas, los procesos de urbanización y los riesgos de desastres: una visión regional de América Latina
Fernandez Rogelio; Sanahuj Haris; United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT); et al. - UN/ISDR, 2012
Vínculos entre las dinámicas demográficas, los procesos de urbanización y los riesgos de desastres: una visión regional de América Latina
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Available online: http://www.preventionweb.net/files/31104_doc18918contenido.pdf
Rogelio Fernandez ; Haris Sanahuj ; United Nations Human Settlements Programme ; Oficina de las Naciones Unidas para la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres ; United Nations Population Fund
Published by: UN/ISDR ; 2012Language(s): Spanish; Other Languages: English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Climate ; Climate change ; Disaster Risk Management (DRM) ; Hazard risk assessment or analysis ; Vulnerability ; Region III - South America ; Region IV - North America, Central America and the Caribbean
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Analysis of number size distributions of tropical free tropospheric aerosol particles observed at Pico Espejo (4765 m a.s.l.), Venezuela
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), Vol. 11. N° 7. Schmeissner T.; Krejci R.; Ström J.; et al. - Copernicus GmbH, 2011The first long-term measurements of aerosol number and size distributions in South-American tropical free troposphere (FT) were performed from March 2007 until March 2009. The measurements took place at the high altitude Atmospheric Research Station Alexander von Humboldt. The station is located on top of the Sierra Nevada mountain ridge at 4765 m a.s.l. nearby the city of Mérida, Venezuela. Aerosol size distribution and number concentration data was obtained with a custom-built Differential Mobility Particle Sizer (DMPS) system and a Condensational Particle Counter (CPC). The analysis of the ...
[article]Analysis of number size distributions of tropical free tropospheric aerosol particles observed at Pico Espejo (4765 m a.s.l.), Venezuela
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Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-3319-2011
T. Schmeissner ; R. Krejci ; J. Ström ; W. Birmili ; A. Wiedensohler ; G. Hochschild ; J. Gross ; P. Hoffmann ; S. Calderon
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) > Vol. 11. N° 7 [04/01/2011] . - p.3319-3332The first long-term measurements of aerosol number and size distributions in South-American tropical free troposphere (FT) were performed from March 2007 until March 2009. The measurements took place at the high altitude Atmospheric Research Station Alexander von Humboldt. The station is located on top of the Sierra Nevada mountain ridge at 4765 m a.s.l. nearby the city of Mérida, Venezuela. Aerosol size distribution and number concentration data was obtained with a custom-built Differential Mobility Particle Sizer (DMPS) system and a Condensational Particle Counter (CPC). The analysis of the annual and diurnal variability of the tropical FT aerosol focused mainly on possible links to the atmospheric general circulation in the tropics. Considerable annual and diurnal cycles of the particle number concentration were observed. Highest total particle number concentrations were measured during the dry season (January–March, 519 ± 613 cm−3), lowest during the wet season (July–September, 318 ± 194 cm−3). The more humid FT (relative humidity (RH) range 50–95 %) contained generally higher aerosol particle number concentrations (573 ± 768 cm−3 during dry season, 320 ± 195 cm−3 during wet season) than the dry FT (RH < 50 %, 454 ± 332 cm−3 during dry season, 275 ± 172 cm−3 during wet season), indicating the importance of convection for aerosol distributions in the tropical FT. The diurnal cycle in the variability of the particle number concentration was mainly driven by local orography.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Aerosols ; Observations ; Troposphere ; Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
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Microphysical and radiative effects of aerosols on warm clouds during the Amazon biomass burning season as observed by MODIS: impacts of water vapor and land cover
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), Vol. 11. N° 7. Ten Hoeve J.E.; Remer L.A.; Jacobson M.Z. - Copernicus GmbH, 2011Aerosol, cloud, water vapor, and temperature profile data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are utilized to examine the impact of aerosols on clouds during the Amazonian biomass burning season in Rondônia, Brazil. It is found that increasing background column water vapor (CWV) throughout this transition season between the Amazon dry and wet seasons likely exerts a strong effect on cloud properties. As a result, proper analysis of aerosol-cloud relationships requires that data be stratified by CWV to account better for the influence of background meteorological vari ...
[article]Microphysical and radiative effects of aerosols on warm clouds during the Amazon biomass burning season as observed by MODIS: impacts of water vapor and land cover
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Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-3021-2011
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) > Vol. 11. N° 7 [04/01/2011] . - p.3021-3036Aerosol, cloud, water vapor, and temperature profile data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are utilized to examine the impact of aerosols on clouds during the Amazonian biomass burning season in Rondônia, Brazil. It is found that increasing background column water vapor (CWV) throughout this transition season between the Amazon dry and wet seasons likely exerts a strong effect on cloud properties. As a result, proper analysis of aerosol-cloud relationships requires that data be stratified by CWV to account better for the influence of background meteorological variation. Many previous studies of aerosol-cloud interactions over Amazonia have ignored the systematic changes to meteorological factors during the transition season, leading to possible misinterpretation of their results. Cloud fraction (CF) is shown to increase or remain constant with aerosol optical depth (AOD), depending on the value of CWV, whereas the relationship between cloud optical depth (COD) and AOD is quite different. COD increases with AOD until AOD ~ 0.3, which is assumed to be due to the first indirect (microphysical) effect. At higher values of AOD, COD is found to decrease with increasing AOD, which may be due to: (1) the inhibition of cloud development by absorbing aerosols (radiative effect/semi-direct effect) and/or (2) a possible retrieval artifact in which the measured reflectance in the visible is less than expected from a cloud top either from the darkening of clouds through the addition of carbonaceous biomass burning aerosols within or above clouds or subpixel dark surface contamination in the measured cloud reflectance. If (1) is a contributing mechanism, as we suspect, then an empirically-derived increasing function between cloud drop number and aerosol concentration, assumed in a majority of global climate models, is inaccurate since these models do not include treatment of aerosol absorption in and around clouds. The relationship between aerosols and both CWV and clouds over varying land surface types is also analyzed. The study finds that the difference in CWV between forested and deforested land is not correlated with aerosol loading, supporting the assumption that temporal variation of CWV is primarily a function of the larger-scale meteorology. However, a difference in the response of CF to increasing AOD is observed between forested and deforested land. This suggests that dissimilarities between other meteorological factors, such as atmospheric stability, may have an impact on aerosol-cloud correlations between different land cover types.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Aerosols ; Amazon ; Biomass ; Warm cloud ; Observations ; Water vapour ; Region III - South America
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Understanding the transport of Patagonian dust and its influence on marine biological activity in the South Atlantic Ocean
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), Vol. 11. N° 3. Johnson M.S.; Meskhidze N.; Kiliyanpilakkil V.P.; et al. - Copernicus GmbH, 2011The supply of bioavailable iron to the high-nitrate low-chlorophyll (HNLC) waters of the Southern Ocean through atmospheric pathways could stimulate phytoplankton blooms and have major implications for the global carbon cycle. In this study, model results and remotely-sensed data are analyzed to examine the horizontal and vertical transport pathways of Patagonian dust and quantify the effect of iron-laden mineral dust deposition on marine biological productivity in the surface waters of the South Atlantic Ocean (SAO). Model simulations for the atmospheric transport and deposition of mineral du ...
[article]Understanding the transport of Patagonian dust and its influence on marine biological activity in the South Atlantic Ocean
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Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-2487-2011
M.S. Johnson ; N. Meskhidze ; V.P. Kiliyanpilakkil ; S. Gassó
in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) > Vol. 11. N° 3 [03/01/2011] . - p.2487-2502The supply of bioavailable iron to the high-nitrate low-chlorophyll (HNLC) waters of the Southern Ocean through atmospheric pathways could stimulate phytoplankton blooms and have major implications for the global carbon cycle. In this study, model results and remotely-sensed data are analyzed to examine the horizontal and vertical transport pathways of Patagonian dust and quantify the effect of iron-laden mineral dust deposition on marine biological productivity in the surface waters of the South Atlantic Ocean (SAO). Model simulations for the atmospheric transport and deposition of mineral dust and bioavailable iron are carried out for two large dust outbreaks originated at the source regions of northern Patagonia during the austral summer of 2009. Model-simulated horizontal and vertical transport pathways of Patagonian dust plumes are in reasonable agreement with remotely-sensed data. Simulations indicate that the synoptic meteorological patterns of high and low pressure systems are largely accountable for dust transport trajectories over the SAO. According to model results and retrievals from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), synoptic flows caused by opposing pressure systems (a high pressure system located to the east or north-east of a low pressure system) elevate the South American dust plumes well above the marine boundary layer. Under such conditions, the bulk concentration of mineral dust can quickly be transported around the low pressure system in a clockwise manner, follow the southeasterly advection pathway, and reach the HNLC waters of the SAO and Antarctica in ~3–4 days after emission from the source regions of northern Patagonia. Two different mechanisms for dust-iron mobilization into a bioavailable form are considered in this study. A global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), implemented with an iron dissolution scheme, is employed to estimate the atmospheric fluxes of soluble iron, while a dust/biota assessment tool (Boyd et al., 2010) is applied to evaluate the amount of bioavailable iron formed through the slow and sustained leaching of dust in the ocean mixed layer. The effect of iron-laden mineral dust supply on surface ocean biomass is investigated by comparing predicted surface chlorophyll-a concentration ([Chl-a]) to remotely-sensed data. As the dust transport episodes examined here represent large summertime outflows of mineral dust from South American continental sources, this study suggests that (1) atmospheric fluxes of mineral dust from Patagonia are not likely to be the major source of bioavailable iron to ocean regions characterized by high primary productivity; (2) even if Patagonian dust plumes may not cause visible algae blooms, they could still influence background [Chl-a] in the South Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean.
Language(s): English
Format: Digital (Free)Tags: Argentina ; Atlantic Ocean ; Atmosphere ; Atmospheric circulation ; Thermohaline circulation ; Ocean-atmosphere interaction ; Oceans
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Sources of carbonaceous aerosol in the Amazon basin
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), Vol. 11. N° 3. Gilardoni S.; Vignati E.; Marmer E.; et al. - Copernicus GmbH, 2011The quantification of sources of carbonaceous aerosol is important to understand their atmospheric concentrations and regulating processes and to study possible effects on climate and air quality, in addition to develop mitigation strategies.
In the framework of the European Integrated Project on Aerosol Cloud Climate Interactions (EUCAARI) fine (Dp < 2.5 μm) and coarse (2.5 μm < Dp <10 μm) aerosol particles were sampled from February to June (wet season) and from August to September (dry season) 2008 in the central Amazon basin. The mass of fine particles averaged 2.4 μg m−3 duri ...
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Climate variablity in the southern hemisphere
Global Change magazine, Issue 76. IGBP, 2011Most studies that reconstruct the climatic conditions of the past
centuries to millennia tend to focus on the northern hemisphere.
But now an intriguing multicentennial record of temperature and
precipitation in southern South America is available. Raphael
Neukom and Jürg Luterbacher elaborate on its significance.
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World Weather Records, 1991-2000, volumes I-VI
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; U.S. Department of Commerce ; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - WMO, 2011World Weather Records (WWR) have been published since 1927, and include monthly mean values of pressure, temperature, precipitation, and where available, station metadata notes documenting observation practices and station configurations. Data were supplied by National Meteorological Services as members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
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Presentations - UNFCCC Workshop on Identification of Gaps and Challenges of Risk Management Approaches to the Adverse Effects of Climate Change
UNFCCC, 2011The SBI at its 33rd session requested the secretariat to organize, before its thirty-fifth session, a workshop to identify gaps and challenges in the implementation of risk management approaches to the adverse effects of climate change, building on the lessons learned and practical experience of international, regional and national organizations and the private sector.
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Real-time evaluation of Norway’s international climate and forest initiative: contributions to national REDD+ processes 2007-2010: country report: Guyana
As a high forest cover / low deforestation rate country, Guyana has been keen to engage in a pilot of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) to utilise payments for the environmental services. This paper aims to determine the relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of Norway’s support to Guyana in terms of REDD aspects, and draw preliminary lessons and recommendations.
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Climate: observations, projections and impacts
The Met.Office, 2011Understanding the potential impacts of climate change is essential for informing both adaptation strategies and actions to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.
But assessing the impacts is scientifically challenging and has, until now, been fragmented. To date, only a limited amount of information about past climate change and its future impacts has been available at national level, while approaches to the science itself have varied between countries.
In April 2011, we were asked by the United Kingdom's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to begi ...
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Food insecurity and public agricultural spending in Bolivia: Putting money where your mouth is?
This paper explores the reduction of food insecurity in Bolivia, adopting a supply side approach that analyzes the role of agricultural spending on vulnerability. Vulnerability to food insecurity is captured by a municipal level composite—developed locally within the framework of World Food Program food security analysis—that combines welfare outcomes, weather conditions and agricultural potential for all 327 municipalities in 2003, 2006 and 2007. Our econometric results indicate that levels of public agricultural spending are positively associated with high or very high vulnerability. The aut ...
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Energy Security in South America and Southern Africa: Synthesis Report
This briefing stems from a project that focused on electricity supply and the extent to which it’s traded within Southern Africa and South America. Within this the current and projected regional energy production mixes were established and since concerns over climate change are finding their way into many aspects of economic growth and development the project also explored the role that the regional ‘anchor states’ (South Africa and Brazil respectively) are likely to play in securing the future balance in light of climate change and related mitigation imperatives.
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The quest for energy security in Argentina
Electricity consumption in Argentina has grown at a rate well above the net GDP in the last years, whereas capacity increase has been slower than consumption increase. This report deals with the problem of energy security in Argentina, which implies many challenges for the country. The author illustrates that the problem emerged first in 2004 as a consequence of the particular modalities adopted by the macroeconomic structural and energy sector reforms of the 1990s, which are still in place today.
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Regional Association III (South America) - Fifteenth session : abridged final report with resolutions
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Assessing the role of economic instruments in a policy mix for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision : a review of some methodological challenges
In the context of the EU 2010 goal of halting biodiversity loss, researchers have been called upon to evaluate the role of economic instruments for cost-effective decision-making, as well as non-market methods to assess their benefits. This paper reviews a number of methodological challenges of evaluating and designing economic instruments aimed at biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision in an existing policy mix. The study draws on experiences from Brazil and Costa Rica.
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Energy security in South America: the role of Brazil
South America has vast energy resources, but countries in the region are unable to guarantee adequate energy security levels for their consumers. This paper argues that the potential economic benefits from the process of South America’s regional energy integration are high, though national regulations impose strong barriers to such a process.
The study deems regional energy cooperation is particularly essential for removing the insecurity of energy supplies facing the region.
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From forest to fork : how cattle, soy and sugar are destroying Brazil’s forests and damaging the climate. summary report
Brussels, January 25, 2011 – Growing demand for meat, animal feeds and agrofuels in Europe is contributing to the continued destruction of the Amazon and Cerrado habitats in Brazil, reveals a new report launched today by Friends of the Earth Europe.
The research comes at a time when Europe is debating the future of farming. [1] Friends of the Earth Europe is calling for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to reduce the EU’s dependence on imported soy animal feeds and meat.
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Asociación Regional III (América del Sur) - Decimoquinta reunión : Informe final abreviado con resoluciones
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Secure and Sustainable Living - The Findings of the International Conference on Secure and Sustainable Living : social and Economic Benefits of Weather, Climate and Water Services
This publication is expected to assist in augmentation of socio-economic policy issues related to the generation and use of weather, climate and water related information and services. It is derived from the outcome of the International Conference on 'Secure and Sustainable Living: Social and Economic Benefits of Weather, Climate and Water Services' that took place in Madrid, Spain from 19 to 22 March 2007.
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The Amazon Rain Forest and Climate Change
This module discusses global climate change that is occurring largely because of greenhouse gases emitted by human activities, and in particular the impact that tropical deforestation plays in the climate system. It also covers signs of climate change, the current thinking on future changes, and international agreements that are attempting to minimize the effects of climate change. The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme) is also discussed.
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Climate change mitigation strategies in fast-growing countries: the benefits of early action
Focusing on the climate problem, it is now clear that developing countries, especially fast-growing regions such as those in the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), will have a major impact on future emission dynamics and will play a major role in climate negotiations.
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