Beverly E Law’s scientific contributions

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Publications (2)


BioScience - Cover - Volume 74, Issue 12, December 2024
BioScience - Cover - Volume 74, Issue 12, December 2024
  • Cover Page
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December 2024

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321 Reads

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Jillian W Gregg

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Cover: Devastation in Asheville, North Carolina, following the effects of Hurricane Helene, which caused billions of dollars of damage in the Southeast United States and other regions. In this issue’s “2024 State of the Climate Report,” an international team of scientists, led by Oregon State University’s William Ripple and Christopher Wolf, present alarming evidence that climate change is worsening at a dangerous pace. In the report, the authors update 35 annually published “planetary vital signs,” which provide ongoing timeseries of human climate-related activities and climate responses, and discuss the growing frequency of extreme weather events. Photograph: Bill McMannis, via Flickr (CC-BY 2.0).

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Figure 1. Unusual climate anomalies in 2023 and 2024. Ocean temperatures (a, b) are presently far outside their historical ranges. These anomalies reflect the combined effect of long-term climate change and short-term variability. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1. Each line corresponds to a different year, with darker gray representing later years. All of the variables shown are daily estimates.
Figure 2. Timeseries of climate-related human activities. The data obtained since the publication of Ripple and colleagues (2023a) are shown in red (dark gray in black and white). In panel (f), tree cover loss does not account for forest gain and includes loss due to any cause. For panel (h), hydroelectricity and nuclear energy are shown in supplemental figure S3. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.
Figure 3. Timeseries of climate-related responses. The data obtained before and after the publication of Ripple and colleagues (2023a) are shown in gray and red (dark gray in black and white), respectively. For area burned (m) and billion-dollar flood frequency (o) in the United States, the black horizontal lines show changepoint model estimates, which allow for abrupt shifts (see the supplement). For other variables with relatively high variability, local regression trendlines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Billion-dollar flood frequency (o) is influenced by exposure and vulnerability in addition to climate change. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in supplemental file S1.
Figure 4. Photograph series depicting the impacts of climate-related disasters. First row (left to right): Rescue of people stranded by floods in the city of Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil, 2024; Duda Fortes, Agência RBS), “Drought in Ethiopia due to rains unrealised” (Ethiopia, 2011; Oxfam East Africa; CC BY 2.0). Second row: Firefighters contain a bushfire burning around the town of Aberdare (Australia, 2013; Quarrie Photography, Jeff Walsh, Cass Hodge; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), The aftermath of Hurricane Matthew (Haiti, 2016; UN Photo/Logan Abassi; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Third row: Inspection of a storm-damaged roadway in California (United States, 2023; Andrew Avitt/USDA Forest Service), Remnants of a house on Leyte island that was destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan (The Philippines, 2013; Trocaire/Wikimedia; CC BY 2.0). All quotes are from the Climate Visuals project (https://climatevisuals.org). See supplemental file S1 for details and more pictures.
Figure 5. Climate change spotlight topics. Already, many serious climate impacts are occurring, including coral bleaching (a) and permafrost thaw contributing to orange rivers with reduced fish abundance and drinking water quality (b). Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of scientific publications related to solar radiation modification (c). A survey of hundreds of IPCC senior authors and review editors indicates that the majority expect catastrophic warming of at least 2.5 degrees Celsius this century (d). Extreme heat is expected to disproportionately affect people in less wealthy countries that have lower emissions (e). Climate change could eventually contribute to societal collapse—a possibility that is increasingly being considered by researchers (f). See supplemental file S1 for data sources and details. Photographs: (a) Acropora/Wikimedia Commons, (b) Ken Hill/National Park Service.
The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth

October 2024

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2,350 Reads

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29 Citations

BioScience

Our aim in the present article is to communicate directly to researchers, policymakers, and the public. As scientists and academics, we feel it is our moral duty and that of our institutions to alert humanity to the growing threats that we face as clearly as possible and to show leadership in addressing them. In this report, we analyze the latest trends in a wide array of planetary vital signs. We also review notable recent climate-related disasters, spotlight important climate-related topics, and discuss needed policy interventions. This report is part of our series of concise annual updates on the state of the climate.

Citations (1)


... In the current times of worsening climate change, more extreme environmental events, and increasing biodiversity loss, among other ecological challenges, humanity needs as many people as possible to understand and use ecological science, especially regarding its applications to environmental management and policy development (Ripple et al. 2024). Ensuring that future societies and workforces are better positioned to address social-ecological challenges, particularly those related to environmental injustices and inequalities, should be a central goal for ecology education (Johnson and Mappin 2005, Lewinsohn et al. 2015, Martusewicz et al. 2020, Kellogg 2023. ...

Reference:

Diversifying Ecology Education for Everyone Through More Inclusive, Interdisciplinary, and Accessible Teaching
The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth

BioScience