University of New Hampshire

About: University of New Hampshire is a education organization based out in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Solar wind. The organization has 9379 authors who have published 24025 publications receiving 1020112 citations. The organization is also known as: UNH.

Helium, Oxygen, Proton, and Electron (HOPE) Mass Spectrometer for the Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission

Abstract: The HOPE mass spectrometer of the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission (renamed the Van Allen Probes) is designed to measure the in situ plasma ion and electron fluxes over 4π sr at each RBSP spacecraft within the terrestrial radiation belts. The scientific goal is to understand the underlying physical processes that govern the radiation belt structure and dynamics. Spectral measurements for both ions and electrons are acquired over 1 eV to 50 keV in 36 log-spaced steps at an energy resolution ΔE FWHM/E≈15 %. The dominant ion species (H+, He+, and O+) of the magnetosphere are identified using foil-based time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometry with channel electron multiplier (CEM) detectors. Angular measurements are derived using five polar pixels coplanar with the spacecraft spin axis, and up to 16 azimuthal bins are acquired for each polar pixel over time as the spacecraft spins. Ion and electron measurements are acquired on alternate spacecraft spins. HOPE incorporates several new methods to minimize and monitor the background induced by penetrating particles in the harsh environment of the radiation belts. The absolute efficiencies of detection are continuously monitored, enabling precise, quantitative measurements of electron and ion fluxes and ion species abundances throughout the mission. We describe the engineering approaches for plasma measurements in the radiation belts and present summaries of HOPE measurement strategy and performance.

Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects

Abstract: U.S. public opinion regarding climate change has become increasingly polarized in recent years, as partisan think tanks and others worked to recast an originally scientific topic into a political wedge issue. Nominally “scientific” arguments against taking anthropogenic climate change seriously have been publicized to reach informed but ideologically receptive audiences. Reflecting the success of such arguments, polls have noted that concern about climate change increased with education among Democrats, but decreased with education among Republicans. These observations lead to the hypothesis that there exist interaction (non-additive) effects between education or knowledge and political orientation, net of other background factors, in predicting public concern about climate change. Two regional telephone surveys, conducted in New Hampshire (n = 541) and Michigan (n = 1, 008) in 2008, included identical climate-change questions that provide opportunities to test this hypothesis. Multivariate analysis of both surveys finds significant interactions. These empirical results fit with theoretical interpretations and several other recent studies. They suggest that the classically identified social bases of concern about the environment in general, and climate in particular, have shifted in recent years. Narrowcast media, including the many Web sites devoted to discrediting climate-change concerns, provide ideal conduits for channeling contrarian arguments to an audience predisposed to believe and electronically spread them further. Active-response Web sites by climate scientists could prove critical to counterbalancing contrarian arguments.

The underpinnings of land‐use history: three centuries of global gridded land‐use transitions, wood‐harvest activity, and resulting secondary lands

Abstract: To accurately assess the impacts of human land use on the Earth system, information is needed on the current and historical patterns of land-use activities. Previous global studies have focused on developing reconstructions of the spatial patterns of agriculture. Here, we provide the first global gridded estimates of the underlying land conversions (land-use transitions), wood harvesting, and resulting secondary lands annually, for the period 1700–2000. Using data-based historical cases, our results suggest that 42–68% of the land surface was impacted by land-use activities (crop, pasture, wood harvest) during this period, some multiple times. Secondary land area increased 10–44 × 106 km2; about half of this was forested. Wood harvest and shifting cultivation generated 70–90% of the secondary land by 2000; permanent abandonment and relocation of agricultural land accounted for the rest. This study provides important new estimates of globally gridded land-use activities for studies attempting to assess the consequences of anthropogenic changes to the Earth's surface over time.

An improved bathymetric portrayal of the Arctic Ocean: Implications for ocean modeling and geological, geophysical and oceanographic analyses

Abstract: [1] A digital representation of ocean floor topography is essential for a broad variety of geological, geophysical and oceanographic analyses and modeling. In this paper we present a new version of the International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO) in the form of a digital grid on a Polar Stereographic projection with grid cell spacing of 2 × 2 km. The new IBCAO, which has been derived from an accumulated database of available bathymetric data including the recent years of multibeam mapping, significantly improves our portrayal of the Arctic Ocean seafloor.