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Since first proposed, the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines have been extensively covered by the media, shaping readers' perceptions of the pipelines, as well as perceptions of the places and peoples impacted by them. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the media coverage, their Plains descriptions, and expressions of place attachment. Through the media's use of "place talk," it presents a hybrid Plains: placeless, yet with a strongly place-attached population who are "tied to the land." As conflicts over environmental and energy projects become increasingly contentious, place and place attachment are important for understanding the conflicts and potentially mobilizing resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive effort to analyze the relationship between Evangelical Protestant identity and religiosity along with socioeconomic characteristics, political predisposition, and extreme weather events on the one hand, and opinions toward global warming on the other. Using survey data from the Pew Research Center from 2006–2013 and the 2016 American National Election Study merged with extreme weather data from the Center for Disease and Control from 2005–2016, several major findings stand out. First, Evangelical Protestants are less likely to believe in the existence and seriousness of global warming than others. Second, those who are more religious are less likely to view global warming as human caused and a serious problem than their less-religious counterparts. Lastly, the effects of extreme weather represented by heavy precipitation and extreme heat on one's perceptions of global warming's existence, cause, and seriousness are largely absent. We suspect that the public awareness of extreme weather events being linked with climate change has been heightened in recent years. More studies using data after 2016 are warranted to examine how extreme weather determines public perceptions of global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation is a key concept in long‐term human adjustments to climate change. Despite the centrality of human decisions and actions in adaptation, much of the climate change literature is thin on humanities and social science which are the primary approaches for understanding human activity. This situation is particularly pronounced in Louisiana's discussions about its disappearing coast line where research has concentrated in understanding biophysical processes and solutions prioritize short‐term adaptations. This paper reviews the relationship of adaptation and long‐term transitions in the global change discussion and traces how disjointed adaptations in coastal Louisiana have contributed to a perilous environmental situation there. It proposes a shift from discrete adaptations to efforts that incorporate interrelated biophysical and human adaptations that can sustain long‐term transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, scholars engage policy makers around fundamental, complex questions on environmental change in interdisciplinary settings. Researchers attempting to develop robust contributions to knowledge that can support policymaker understandings in this context face significant inferential challenges in dealing with the spatial dimension of their phenomenon of interest. In this paper, we extend an understanding of well-defined methodological challenges familiar to applied spatial scientists by explicitly articulating the Decision-Making/Accountability, Spatial Incongruence Problem, or DASIP. Three case studies illustrate how spatial incongruences matter to researchers who work on complex, interdisciplinary problems, while seeking to understand decision-making or policy-related phenomenon: urban heat-island mitigation research in Arizona, water transfer conflicts in Kansas, and hydraulic-fracturing debates in Texas. With such examples, we aim to evoke a deeper understanding of this problem in applied research and also inspire thinking about how scholars might innovate methods for creating knowledge about environmental change that supports spatially accountable decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most significant climate change impacts on arctic urban landscapes is the warming and degradation of permafrost, which negatively affects the structural integrity of infrastructure. We estimate potential changes in stability of Russian urban infrastructure built on permafrost in response to the projected climatic changes provided by six preselected General Circulation Models (GCMs) participated in the most recent Climate Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5). The analysis was conducted for the entire extent of the Russian permafrost-affected area. According to our analysis a significant (at least 25%) climate-induced reduction in the urban infrastructure stability throughout the Russian permafrost region should be expected by the mid-21st century. However, the high uncertainty, resulting from the GCM-produced climate projections, prohibits definitive conclusion about the rate and magnitude of potential climate impacts on permafrost infrastructure. Results presented in this paper can serve as guidelines for developing adequate adaptation and mitigation strategy for Russian northern cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the human dimensions of global climate change should consider the way at-risk populations confront uncertainty through cultural practices. This is a vital point for indigenous peoples around the world, but particularly for those in the Arctic region where the effects of climate change are most dramatic. The Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska are especially susceptible to climatic and associated environmental changes, because they rely on sea ice to hunt the bowhead whale. Employing a humanistic approach, this paper reveals Iñupiaq cultural resilience by exploring how collective uncertainty tied to the effects of climate change is manifested in Iñupiaq lives. These experiences show how the human dimensions of climate change, cultural resilience, and identity politics are integrated in the Arctic. By reinforcing their cultural relationship with the bowhead whale, these Iñupiat better cope with an unpredictable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the state of the Arctic cryosphere during the second half of the twentieth century and describes major findings of observational evidence since the 1950s. Although glaciers have been retreating steadily from their Little Ice Age maximum positions for decades, Arctic sea ice extent and thickness began to decline and loss of mass from the Greenland ice sheet accelerated only in the 1990s. Rapid changes in cryospheric components have occurred in this century, affecting snow cover, Arctic sea ice extent, the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet, and frozen ground temperatures. Projections for this century, based on model results from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, involve dramatic changes by 2100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the recent climatic variability and changes in snow line and ice front position in Collins Glacier, King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula. This region has recorded one of the largest temperature increases in the past fifty years and has been demonstrated to be highly sensitive to climate changes. To monitor recent changes (1983-2006), we determined the fluctuations of the terminus and snow line of the glacier via remote sensing data and field observation in the summer of 2013. We conclude that the Collins Glacier has responded slowly to regional climate changes (decades or even centuries), as glacial responses to climatic events do not depend solely on one environmental variable. The glacier presented more retreat and elevation of the snow line in the north sector. The retreat data are correlated with the mean monthly temperature and annual number of days of melting-degree variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]