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At least 1,099 records · Page 61Linked to original sources
PubMed1998

Climate and vegetation history of the midcontinent from 75 to 25 ka: A speleothem record from crevice cave, missouri, USA

Four Missouri stalagmites yield consistent overlapping records of oxygen and carbon isotopic changes and provide a climate and vegetation history with submillennial resolution from 75 to 25 thousand years ago (ka). The thorium-230-dated records reveal that between 75 and 55 ka, the midcontinental climate oscillated on millennial time scales between cold and warm, and vegetation alternated among forest, savanna, and prairie. Temperatures were highest and prairie vegetation peaked between 59 and 55 ka. Climate cooled and forest replaced grassland at 55 ka, when global ice sheets began to build during the early part of Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

A mid-european decadal isotope-climate record from 15,500 to 5000 years B.P

Oxygen-isotope ratios of precipitation (delta18OP) inferred from deep-lake ostracods from the Ammersee (southern Germany) provide a climate record with decadal resolution. The record in detail shows many of the rapid climate shifts seen in central Greenland ice cores between 15,000 and 5000 years before the present (B.P.). Negative excursions in the estimated delta18OP from both of these records likely reflect short weakenings of the thermohaline circulation caused by episodic discharges of continental freshwater into the North Atlantic. Deviating millennial-scale trends, however, indicate that climate gradients between Europe and Greenland changed systematically, reflecting a gradual rearrangement of North Atlantic circulation during deglaciation.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

Abrupt climate change at the end of the last glacial period inferred from trapped air in polar Ice

The last glacial period was terminated by an abrupt warming event in the North Atlantic approximately 15,000 years before the present, and warming events of similar age have been reported from low latitudes. Understanding the mechanism of this termination requires that the precise relative timing of abrupt climate warming in the tropics versus the North Atlantic be known. Nitrogen and argon isotopes in trapped air in Greenland ice show that the Greenland Summit warmed 9 +/- 3 degrees C over a period of several decades, beginning 14,672 years ago. Atmospheric methane concentrations rose abruptly over a approximately 50-year period and began their increase 20 to 30 years after the onset of the abrupt Greenland warming. These data suggest that tropical climate became warmer or wetter (or both) approximately 20 to 80 years after the onset of Greenland warming, supporting a North Atlantic rather than a tropical trigger for the climate event.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2000

El Nino-like climate teleconnections in new england during the late pleistocene

A glacial varve chronology from New England spanning the 4000-year period from 17,500 to 13,500 calendar years before the present was analyzed for evidence of climate variability during the late Pleistocene. The chronology shows a distinct interannual (3 to 5 years) band of enhanced variability suggestive of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections into North America during the late Pleistocene, when the Laurentide ice sheet was near its maximum extent and climatic boundary conditions were different than those of today. This interannual variability largely disappears by the young end of the 4000-year chronology, with only the highest frequency components (roughly 3-year period) persisting. This record provides evidence of ENSO-like climate variability during near-peak glacial conditions.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Global cooling after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo: a test of climate feedback by water vapor.

The sensitivity of Earth's climate to an external radiative forcing depends critically on the response of water vapor. We use the global cooling and drying of the atmosphere that was observed after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo to test model predictions of the climate feedback from water vapor. Here, we first highlight the success of the model in reproducing the observed drying after the volcanic eruption. Then, by comparing model simulations with and without water vapor feedback, we demonstrate the importance of the atmospheric drying in amplifying the temperature change and show that, without the strong positive feedback from water vapor, the model is unable to reproduce the observed cooling. These results provide quantitative evidence of the reliability of water vapor feedback in current climate models, which is crucial to their use for global warming projections.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

Assessment of indoor climate in an apartment by use of a fungal index.

Indoor climate was assessed in an apartment in Isehara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, by use of a fungal index. The index represents the environmental (climate) capacity to allow fungal growth; it is determined by measuring the growth rate of a biosensor fungus, Eurotium herbariorum J-183. Differences in climate among various parts of the apartment (microclimate) and its changes could be clarified by using the index. The index in the entire apartment was high in summer, low in winter, and intermediate in spring and autumn. According to the part of the apartment, the index was high in water-associated areas and cool areas. This high fungal index in cool areas was caused by the air at the same absolute humidity showing an increase in the relative humidity with a decrease in temperature. Fungal contamination rapidly progressed in areas with a high fungal index in this apartment. A correlation was observed between the fungal index and fungal contamination. Therefore, areas susceptible to fungal contamination can be estimated by use of the fungal index.

Air Microbiology↗
PubMed2003

Team structure, team climate and the quality of care in primary care: an observational study.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether practice structure (for example, list size, number of staff) predicts team processes and whether practice structure and team process in turn predict team outcomes DESIGN: Observational study using postal questionnaires and medical note audit. Team process was assessed through a measure of "climate" which examines shared perceptions of organisational policies, practices, and procedures. SETTING: Primary care. SUBJECTS: Members of the primary health care team from 42 practices. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Objective measures of quality of chronic disease management, patients' evaluations of practices, teams' self-reported ratings of effectiveness, and innovation. RESULTS: Team climate was better in singlehanded practices than in partnerships. Practices with longer booking intervals provided superior chronic disease management. Higher team climate scores were associated with superior clinical care in diabetes, more positive patient evaluations of practice and self-reported innovation and effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: Although the conclusions are preliminary because of the limited sample size, the study suggests that there are important relationships between team structure, process, and outcome that may be of relevance to quality improvement initiatives in primary care. Possible causal mechanisms that might underlie these associations remain to be determined.

Angina Pectoris↗
PubMed2005

Safety Climate Survey: reliability of results from a multicenter ICU survey.

BACKGROUND: It is important to understand the clinical properties of instruments used to measure patient safety before they are used in the setting of an intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: The Safety Climate Survey (SCSu), an instrument endorsed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Safety Culture Scale (SCSc), and the Safety Climate Mean (SCM), a subset of seven items from the SCSu, were administered in four Canadian university affiliated ICUs. All staff including nurses, allied healthcare professionals, non-clinical staff, intensivists, and managers were invited to participate in the cross sectional survey. RESULTS: The response rate was 74% (313/426). The internal consistency of the SCSu and SCSc was 0.86 and 0.80, respectively, while the SCM performed poorly at 0.51. Because of poor internal consistency, no further analysis of the SCM was therefore performed. Test-retest reliability of the SCSu and SCSc was 0.92. Out of a maximum score of 5, the mean (SD) scores of the SCSu and SCSc were 3.4 (0.6) and 3.4 (0.7), respectively. No differences were noted between the three medical-surgical and one cardiovascular ICU. Managers perceived a significantly more positive safety climate than other staff, as measured by the SCSu and SCSc. These results need to be interpreted cautiously because of the small number of management participants. CONCLUSIONS: Of the three instruments, the SCSu and SCSc appear to be measuring one construct and are sufficiently reliable. Future research should examine the properties of patient safety instruments in other ICUs, including responsiveness to change, to ensure that they are valid outcome measures for patient safety initiatives.

Canada↗
PubMed1980

Developing a motivating organizational climate for effective team functioning.

In order to enhance team functioning and to prevent the development of back wards, an institution must have a climate that motivates both staff and patients. The author summarizes the current technology for developing a motivating organizational climate, and describes the introduction of motivation factors into the climate of a hospital. Subsequent changes in morale, motivation, and innovation affected every segment of the hospital population--administrators, lineworkers, and patients--as well as departments and wards. On a 50-bed custodial back ward of chronic schizophrenics, motivation factors promoted more effective team functioning, improved discharge rates, and conveyed a sense of the ward as no longer backward.

Community Mental Health Services↗
PubMed2005

The influence of the current medicolegal climate on New South Wales anaesthetic practice.

A survey was posted to all New South Wales and Provisional Fellows of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists to assess the influence of the current medicolegal climate on their anaesthetic practice. Information collected included demographics, opinions regarding the current medico-legal climate, medical defence organizations, and the implications for anaesthetic practice. The response rate was 78% (640/820). Nearly all (95.3%) were concerned about the current medical indemnity crisis and 80.5% felt concerned about the financial security of medical insurers. Of all these respondents 23.6% had personal experience of litigation and 73.6% expected to have a claim made against them during their career: Respondents spent an average of 8.3% of their gross annual income on medical insurance premiums and 47.2% are concerned about the viability of their practice given the rising costs of medical insurance. Obstetric anaesthesia was the most common area of practice to be ceased due to medicolegal concerns. In the next two years, 20.2% of obstetric anaesthetists who responded intend to cease practice. In the past two years, 3.1% of respondents retired due to their litigation concerns, while 12.8% (average age 56.7y) are intending to retire in the next two years for the same reasons. Changes to the conduct of the preoperative consultation were common. Other changes to practice included more thorough documentation of complications (50.8%) and a strong reluctance to perform neuraxial blocks (54%). This survey suggests that anaesthetists are concerned about the current medicolegal climate and as a result, some are retiring earlier and giving up high-risk areas of practice.

Anesthesia↗
PubMed2006

Challenges of climate change: an Arctic perspective.

Climate change is being experienced particularly intensely in the Arctic. Arctic average temperature has risen at almost twice the rate as that of the rest of the world in the past few decades. Widespread melting of glaciers and sea ice and rising permafrost temperatures present additional evidence of strong Arctic warming. These changes in the Arctic provide an early indication of the environmental and societal significance of global consequences. The Arctic also provides important natural resources to the rest of the world (such as oil, gas, and fish) that will be affected by climate change, and the melting of Arctic glaciers is one of the factors contributing to sea level rise around the globe. An acceleration of these climatic trends is projected to occur during this century, due to ongoing increases in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere. These Arctic changes will, in turn, impact the planet as a whole.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Cumulative effects of climate warming and other human activities on freshwaters of Arctic and subarctic North America.

Despite their generally isolated geographic locations, the freshwaters of the north are subjected to a wide spectrum of environmental stressors. High-latitude regions are especially sensitive to the effects of recent climatic warming, which have already resulted in marked regime shifts in the biological communities of many Arctic lakes and ponds. Important drivers of these limnological changes have included changes in the amount and duration of snow and ice cover, and, for rivers and lakes in their deltas, the frequency and extent of spring floods. Other important climate-related shifts include alterations in evaporation and precipitation ratios, marked changes in the quality and quantity of lake and river water inflows due to accelerated glacier and permafrost melting, and declining percentages of precipitation that falls as snow. The depletion of stratospheric ozone over the north, together with the clarity of many Arctic lakes, renders them especially susceptible to damage from ultraviolet radiation. In addition, the long-range atmospheric transport of pollutants, coupled with the focusing effects of contaminant transport from biological vectors to some local ecosystems (e.g., salmon nursery lakes, ponds draining seabird colonies) and biomagnification in long food chains, have led to elevated concentrations of many persistent organic pollutants (e.g., insecticides, which have never been used in Arctic regions) and other pollutants (e.g., mercury). Rapid development of gas and oil pipelines, mining for diamonds and metals, increases in human populations, and the development of all-season roads, seaports, and hydroelectric dams will stress northern aquatic ecosystems. The cumulative effects of these stresses will be far more serious than those caused by changing climate alone.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Predicting extinctions as a result of climate change.

Widespread extinction is a predicted ecological consequence of global warming. Extinction risk under climate change scenarios is a function of distribution breadth. Focusing on trees and birds of the eastern United States, we used joint climate and environment models to examine fit and climate change vulnerability as a function of distribution breadth. We found that extinction vulnerability increases with decreasing distribution size. We also found that model fit decreases with decreasing distribution size, resulting in high prediction uncertainty among narrowly distributed species. High prediction uncertainty creates a conservation dilemma in that excluding these species under-predicts extinction risk and favors mistaken inaction on global warming. By contrast, including narrow endemics results in over-predicting extinction risk and promotes mistaken inaction on behalf of individual species prematurely considered doomed to extinction.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Emergence cues of a mayfly in a high-altitude stream ecosystem: potential response to climate change.

To understand the consequences of human accelerated environmental change, it is important to document the effects on natural populations of an increasing frequency of extreme climatic events. In stream ecosystems, recent climate change has resulted in extreme variation in both thermal and hydrological regimes. From 2001 to 2004, a severe drought in western United States corresponded with earlier emergence of the adult stage of the high-altitude stream mayfly, Baetis bicaudatus. Using a long-term database from a western Colorado stream, the peak emergence date of this mayfly population was predicted by both the magnitude and date of peak stream flow, and by the mean daily water temperature, suggesting that Baetis may respond to declining stream flow or increasing water temperature as proximate cues for early metamorphosis. However, in a one-year survey of multiple streams from the same drainage basin, only water temperature predicted spatial variation in the onset of emergence of this mayfly. To decouple the effects of temperature and flow, we separately manipulated these factors in flow-through microcosms and measured the timing of B. bicaudatus metamorphosis to the adult stage. Mayflies emerged sooner in a warmed-water treatment than an ambient-water treatment; but reducing flow did not accelerate the onset of mayfly emergence. Nonetheless, using warming temperatures to cue metamorphosis enables mayflies to time their emergence during the descending limb of the hydrograph when oviposition sites (protruding rocks) are becoming available. We speculate that large-scale climate changes involving warming and stream drying could cause significant shifts in the timing of mayfly metamorphosis, thereby having negative effects on populations that play an important role in stream ecosystems.

Altitude↗
PubMed2002

Effects of hospital staffing and organizational climate on needlestick injuries to nurses.

OBJECTIVES: This study determined the effects of nurse staffing and nursing organization on the likelihood of needlestick injuries in hospital nurses. METHODS: We analyzed retrospective data from 732 and prospective data from 960 nurses on needlestick exposures and near misses over different 1-month periods in 1990 and 1991. Staffing levels and survey data about working climate and risk factors for needlestick injuries were collected on 40 units in 20 hospitals. RESULTS: Nurses from units with low staffing and poor organizational climates were generally twice as likely as nurses on well-staffed and better-organized units to report risk factors, needlestick injuries, and near misses. CONCLUSIONS: Staffing and organizational climate influence hospital nurses' likelihood of sustaining needlestick injuries. Remedying problems with understaffing, inadequate administrative support, and poor morale could reduce needlestick injuries.

Blood-Borne Pathogens↗
PubMed1999

Motivational-behavioral correlates of goal orientation and perceived motivational climate in physical education contexts.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how goal orientation (task and ego) and perceived motivational climate (mastery and performance) related to intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, adherence, and evaluated skill within Korean physical education contexts, 218 men attending physical education classes completed the Korean versions of the Perception of Success Questionnaire and the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire, including a battery of motivational and behavioral assessments. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that over-all fit for the modified versions of the questionnaires were reasonably acceptable. The results of canonical correlation analyses indicated that the task goal orientation was positively associated with intrinsic motivation and self-esteem, while the climate of perceived mastery was positively related to intrinsic motivation, adherence, and evaluated skill. These results were discussed within the frame of goal perspective theory in physical education contexts.

Ego↗
PubMed2004

Goal orientations, motivational climate, equality, and discipline of Spanish physical education students.

This study analyzes how dispositional goal orientations and perception of different motivational climates are related to the students' perception of sex-related egalitarian treatment and the appearance of disciplined or undisciplined behaviors in physical education classes. Analyses showed that ego orientation is a predictor of undisciplined behavior. Task orientation was positively associated to discipline. The perception of task-involving motivational climate is related to the students' perception of equal treatment. On the contrary, the perception of ego-involving climate has been linked positively to the prediction of the perception of sex discrimination in physical education classes and negatively to the perception of equality and the appearance of disciplined behavior. This study discusses the implications of these results related to teaching instructional actions in physical education classes.

Child↗
PubMed2026

Species Distribution Models Support Distinct and Non-Random Climatic Constraints on Globally Distributed Generalist Fungi.

Fungi play essential roles in ecosystems as pathogens, mutualists, and ubiquitous decomposers. However, like many important microbes, the spatial distribution of species and natural populations remains poorly understood compared to plants and animals. Many fungi are described as global generalists because they occur across wide geographic areas, but it remains unclear how and if these species are constrained by climate or geographic barriers. In this study, we used Species Distribution Models to infer the global climatic suitability of three common and globally distributed fungi: Aspergillus flavus, Penicillium chrysogenum and Aspergillus fumigatus. Models were constructed using global occurrence data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and were trained with Bioclimatic variables from the WorldClim dataset. All species' models showed high prediction fit, with predicted occurrence concentrated in the temperate and subtropical regions and broadly structured patterns. Each species showed distinct predicted distributions, but they displayed considerable spatial overlap on a global scale. Together, these results demonstrate that even apparently globally occurring and generalist fungal species occupy climatically structured niches. This study highlights the utility of SDMs and it provides a framework for future studies integrating ecological, genomics and evolutionary perspectives among the difficult to assess geographically widespread and common fungi.

comparative biogeography↗