Description: Previous studies show accelerations of West Antarctic glaciers, implying that basal melt rates of these glaciers were previously small and increased in the middle of the 20th century. This enhanced melting is a likely source of the observed Ross Sea (RS) freshening, but its long-term impact on the Southern Ocean hydrography has not been well investigated. Here, we conduct coupled sea ice-ice shelf-ocean simulations with different levels of ice shelf melting from West Antarctic glaciers. Freshening of RS shelf and bottom water is simulated with enhanced West Antarctic ice shelf melting, while no significant changes in shelf water properties are simulated when West Antarctic ice shelf melting is small. We further show that the freshening caused by glacial meltwater from ice shelves in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas can propagate further downstream along the East Antarctic coast into the Weddell Sea. The freshening signal propagates onto the RS continental shelf within a year of model simulation, while it takes roughly 5-10 and 10-15 years to propagate into the region off Cape Darnley and into the Weddell Sea, respectively. This advection of freshening modulates the shelf water properties and possibly impacts the production of Antarctic Bottom Water if the enhanced melting of West Antarctic ice shelves continues for a longer period.

Description: Remote sensing of night light emissions in the visible band offers a unique opportunity to directly observe human activity from space. This has allowed a host of applications including mapping urban areas, estimating population and GDP, monitoring disasters and conflicts. More recently, remotely sensed night lights data have found use in understanding the environmental impacts of light emissions (light pollution), including their impacts on human health. In this review, we outline the historical development of night-time optical sensors up to the current state of the art sensors, highlight various applications of night light data, discuss the special challenges associated with remote sensing of night lights with a focus on the limitations of current sensors, and provide an outlook for the future of remote sensing of night lights. While the paper mainly focuses on space borne remote sensing, ground based sensing of night-time brightness for studies on astronomical and ecological light pollution, as well as for calibration and validation of space borne data, are also discussed. Although the development of night light sensors lags behind day-time sensors, we demonstrate that the field is in a stage of rapid development. The worldwide transition to LED lights poses a particular challenge for remote sensing of night lights, and strongly highlights the need for a new generation of space borne night lights instruments. This work shows that future sensors are needed to monitor temporal changes during the night (for example from a geostationary platform or constellation of satellites), and to better understand the angular patterns of light emission (roughly analogous to the BRDF in daylight sensing). Perhaps most importantly, we make the case that higher spatial resolution and multispectral sensors covering the range from blue to NIR are needed to more effectively identify lighting technologies, map urban functions, and monitor energy use.

Description: The west Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region has undergone significant changes in temperature and seasonal ice dynamics since the mid-twentieth century, with strong impacts on the regional ecosystem, ocean chemistry and hydrographic properties. Changes to these long-term trends of warming and sea ice decline have been observed in the 21st century, but their consequences for ocean physics, chemistry and the ecology of the high-productivity shelf ecosystem are yet to be fully established. The WAP shelf is important for regional krill stocks and higher trophic levels, whilst the degree of variability and change in the physical environment and documented biological and biogeochemical responses make this a model system for how climate and sea ice changes might restructure high-latitude ecosystems. Although this region is arguably the best-measured and best-understood shelf region around Antarctica, significant gaps remain in spatial and temporal data capable of resolving the atmosphere-ice-ocean-ecosystem feedbacks that control the dynamics and evolution of this complex polar system. Here we summarise the current state of knowledge regarding the key mechanisms and interactions regulating the physical, biogeochemical and biological processes at work, the ways in which the shelf environment is changing, and the ecosystem response to the changes underway. We outline the overarching cross-disciplinary priorities for future research, as well as the most important discipline-specific objectives. Underpinning these priorities and objectives is the need to better-define the causes, magnitude and timescales of variability and change at all levels of the system. A combination of traditional and innovative approaches will be critical to addressing these priorities and developing a co-ordinated observing system for the WAP shelf, which is required to detect and elucidate change into the future.

Description: This paper contains a taxonomic revision of the Bulbophyllinae, with the genera Bulbophyllum (including Cirrhopetalum and Megaclinium) and Chaseella, from continental Africa (including Bioko (Fernando Poo), Sao Tome, Principe, Annobon and Zanzibar). Keys are given to the genera and species. For each species full synonymy, descriptions, notes on distribution, habitat etc. and a line drawing are presented. Many species are also illustrated by colour photographs. Three new taxa are described: Bulbophyllum subligaculiferum, B. bidenticulatum ssp. joyceae and B. scaberulum var. crotalicaudatum. Some new combinations are made. The botanical terminology used is clarified.

Description: Sulawesi comprises of about 182,870 km\xc2\xb2 of land and fewer botanical specimens (about 23 specimens per 100 km\xc2\xb2, Whitten et al., 1987) have been collected here than in any other major island in Indonesia. This island is up to date botanically poorly explored and according to Van Steenis (1950) about 32,500 specimens of plants were recorded, the number is probably only a rough estimation and certainly in the precomputer era not based on real specimens. Within the framework of STORMA (Stability of Rainforest Margins) we analyzed the vegetation in several plots of one hectare of different land use systems at the Lore Lindu National Park, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Rapidly we were faced with the problem that the identification of the mostly sterile trees would be almost impossible without a sound basic checklist. Because previous hardcopies (Hildebrand, 1950; Soewanda & Tantra, 1973; Whitmore et al., 1989) were either outdated or incomplete (especially for the small diameter trees) we decided to create a new one using data of actual plant specimens housed at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands, Universiteit Leiden branch (with duplicate specimens in several other herbaria like BO, E, K and others), and enter them in the BRAHMS (Botanical Research and Herbarium Management Systems) database developed by Denis Filer, University of Oxford.\nMore than 120 woody families have been screened and the label information of all specimens (c. 13,000) checked and partly analysed. The density index calculated from our figures is very low (7) but for the first time underpinned by hard, retrievable data. As we did not include species \xe2\x80\x94 and specimens rich herbaceous families in our calculations (Orchidaceae, Poaceae, Zingiberaceae, ferns, etc.) the much lower collection index can be at least partially explained.