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Studies of public support for war highlight the importance of context. Most people do not simply support or oppose the use of force but instead assess its merits depending on various aspects of the situation. One such aspect is the extent of international backing – whether from individual states or supranational organizations – for military action. This backing may be active, notably through the contribution of troops, or more a passive matter of endorsement or authorization of action. In this article, a survey experiment embedded in a major internet survey of British foreign policy attitudes (N = 2,205) is used to explore how international backing affects public support for military action. Britain’s military potential and recent history make it an obvious case study here. Both active and endorsement backing prove to have separate and significant positive effects on support. Importantly, the absolute number of troops involved matters far less than the proportion of total troop numbers to be contributed. And the perceived strength of the enemy predicts support only when the British are to contribute a large proportion of total forces. Predispositional variables are used to investigate the sources of the experimental effects but with little success: the impact of international backing proves remarkably consistent across the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on public support for war shows that citizens are responsive to various aspects of strategic context. Less attention has been paid to the core characteristics of the target state. In this comparative study we report survey experiments manipulating two such characteristics, regime type and dominant faith, to test whether the “democratic peace” and the “clash of civilizations” theses are reflected in U.S. and British public opinion. The basic findings show small differences across the two cases: both publics were somewhat more inclined to use force against dictatorships than against democracies and against Islamic than against Christian countries. Respondent religion played no moderating role in Britain: Christians and nonbelievers were alike readier to attack Islamic states. However, in the United States, the dominant faith effect was driven entirely by Christians. Together, our results imply that public judgments are driven as much by images and identities as by strategic calculations of threat. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A climatology of nonfreezing drizzle is created using surface observations from 584 stations across the United States and Canada over the 15-yr period 1976–90. Drizzle falls 50–200 h a year in most locations in the eastern United States and Canada, whereas drizzle falls less than 50 h a year in the west, except for coastal Alaska and several western basins. The eastern and western halves of North America are separated by a strong gradient in drizzle frequency along roughly 100°W, as large as about an hour a year over 2 km. Forty percent of the stations have a drizzle maximum from November to January, whereas only 13% of stations have a drizzle maximum from June to August. Drizzle occurrence exhibits a seasonal migration from eastern Canada and the central portion of the Northwest Territories in summer, equatorward to most of the eastern United States and southeast Canada in early winter, to southeastern Texas and the eastern United States in late winter, and back north to eastern Canada in the spring. The diurnal hourly frequency of drizzle across the United States and Canada increases sharply from 0900 to 1200 UTC, followed by a steady decline from 1300 to 2300 UTC. Diurnal drizzle frequency is at a maximum in the early morning, in agreement with other studies. Drizzle occurs during a wide range of atmospheric conditions at the surface. Drizzle has occurred at sea level pressures below 960 hPa and above 1040 hPa. Most drizzle, however, occurs at higher than normal sea level pressure, with more than 64% occurring at a sea level pressure of 1015 hPa or higher. A third of all drizzle falls when the winds are from the northeast quadrant (360°–89°), suggesting that continental drizzle events tend to be found poleward of surface warm fronts and equatorward of cold-sector surface anticyclones. Two-thirds of all drizzle occurs with wind speeds of 2.0–6.9 m s-1, with 7.6% in calm wind and 5% at wind speeds ⩾ 10 m s-1. Most drizzle (61%) occurs with visibilities between 1.5 and 5.0 km, with only about 20% occurring at visibilities less than 1.5 km. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 9–11 November 1998 and 9–10 March 2002, two similar convective lines moved across the central and eastern United States. Both convective lines initiated over the southern plains along strong surface-based cold fronts in moderately unstable environments. Both lines were initially associated with cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning, as detected by the National Lightning Detection Network, and both events met the criteria to be classified as derechos, producing swaths of widespread damaging wind. After moving into areas of marginal, if any, instability over the upper Midwest, CG lightning production ceased or nearly ceased, although the damaging winds continued. The 9 March 2002 line experienced a second phase of frequent CG lightning farther east over the mid-Atlantic states. Analysis of these two events shows that the production of CG lightning was sensitive to the occurrence and vertical distribution of instability. Periods with frequent CG lightning were associated with sufficient instability within the lower mixed-phase region of the cloud (i.e., the temperature range approximately between -10° and -20°C), a lifting condensation level warmer than -10°C, and an equilibrium level colder than -20°C. Periods with little or no CG lightning possessed limited, if any, instability in the lower mixed-phase region. The current Storm Prediction Center guidelines for forecasting these convective lines are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe thunderstorms occurred across portions of the central United States on 18 March 1925. The deadly, long-track Tri-State tornado was the most publicized storm event of 18 March and remains the most significant single tornado in the nation's history. There has been only one formal paper regarding the Tri-State tornado and its meteorological setting. Several reports concerning the tornado and its setting had inaccurate surface analyses and incorrectly stated that the tornado had formed in cold air well west of a surface cyclone. Results are presented from a study of the event using all relevant Weather Bureau data that could be obtained. The storms of 18 March were associated with a rapidly moving, synoptic cyclone that was not unusually intense. New analyses indicate: a) the tornado was produced by a long-lived supercell that developed very near the center of the cyclone, possibly at the intersection of a warm front and a distinct dryline; b) the south-to-north temperature gradient ahead of the cyclone was very pronounced due to cooling produced by early morning storms and precipitation; c) the tornadic supercell tracked east-northeastward very rapidly [from ≈250 degrees at an average speed of ≈59 mph (≈26 m s-1)], moving farther away from the cyclone with time; and d) the storm remained very close to the surface warm front. It is likely that the tornadic supercell remained isolated from other storms throughout its life. There was no singular feature of the meteorological setting that would explain the extreme character of the Tri-State tornado; however, as the supercell and dryline moved rapidly eastward, the northward advance of the warm front kept the tornadic supercell within a very favorable storm environment for several hours. Apparently, this consistent time and space concatenation of the supercell, warm front, and dryline for more than three hours was extremely unusual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 22–23 February 1998 central Florida tornado outbreak was one of the deadliest and costliest in Florida’s history; a number of long-track tornadoes moved across the Florida peninsula after 0000 UTC 23 February 1998. In the 12–24 h prior to 0000 UTC 23 February, a vigorous upper-level synoptic system was tracking across the southeast United States, and a north–south-oriented convective band located ahead of the cold front was moving eastward across the Gulf of Mexico. Strong vertical wind shear was present in the lowest 1 km, due to a ∼25 m s-1 low-level jet at 925 hPa and south-southeasterly surface flow over the Florida peninsula. Further, CAPE values across the central Florida peninsula exceeded 2500 J kg-1. Upon making landfall on the Florida peninsula, the convective band rapidly intensified and developed into a line of tornadic supercells. This paper examines the relationship between a diabatically induced front across the central Florida peninsula and the rapid development of tornadic supercells in the convective band after 0000 UTC 23 February. Results suggest that persistent strong frontogenesis helped to maintain the front and enhanced ascent in the warm, moist unstable air to the south of the east–west-oriented front on the Florida peninsula, thus allowing the updrafts to rapidly intensify as they made landfall. Further, surface observations from three key locations along the surface front suggest that a mesolow moved eastward along the front just prior to the time when supercells developed. It is hypothesized that the eastward-moving mesolow may have caused the winds in the warm air to the south of the surface front to back to southeasterly and create a favorable low-level wind profile in which supercells could rapidly develop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]