These words of Hegel may be taken to express the basic outlook of the "possibilist” geographer of today as he seeks to understand the nature of the relationship of man to earth. Only as men, as individuals or groups have been possessed with an idealistic philosophy associated with a concept of God, the State, or just the urge to enter new lands, to "conquer" nature, do they become truly geographically efficacious. As Professor Crowe has said "effective" man is the concern of geography not the total number.

Like Mackinder, “I propose to define geography as the science whose main function is to trace the interaction of man in society and so much of his environment as varies locally.” (13:143) To write a 'human geography' of any area as it exists to-day, is inevitably to attempt an appraisal of its potentialities for human development. This is no less true of studies descriptive of times past. And the student who presents a series of such pictures is, perforce, brought face to face with the fact that estimates of worth do change quite radically with the passage of the centuries. Obviously the environment itself does change in its superficial forms. Also, men choose, mould, develop and modify various aspects of the framework of their surroundings.

As a part of the Cyrosphere ecosystem, Arctic sea ice is one of the focal points when studying Arctic climate change. Arctic sea ice image has been documented by remotely sensed data since the 1970s. By examining these data, some climate patterns can be revealed. In this research, Arctic region is divided into 9 sections to analyze the regional differences of the ice coverage and variability. Data used are bootstrapped 1979 to 2006 SSM/I and SMMR images from NSIDC to perform a time series analysis to examine the sea ice trends and spatial/temporal anomalies detection by conducting a descending sort of sea ice coverage by years in the sub-regional scale. Then, the temporal mixture analysis developed by Piwowar & LeDrew is applied to the data to reveal the variability within each subregion. Fractional images produced by TMA highlight the temporal signature concentration in the entire Arctic region. And the color-mix image derived from TMA highlights and overlaps temporal signatures that have over 80% concentrations from highest to lowest. The color mix image can reveal the spatial distribution of similar temporal characteristics and the evolution of time series in the same area during the 30-year period. Through this analysis, the spatial and temporal variability of Arctic sea ice can be perceived that in the subpolar regions, Arctic sea ice has a higher seasonal pattern which varies a lot each other. The Arctic sea ice extent endures an overall decline trend, which the decline speed increases every ten years. But this trend is not statistically significant in every subregion. The spatial/temporal anomaly analysis reveals several patterns of Arctic sea ice variability. The seasonal variability of Arctic sea ice in the eastern and western side of the Arctic Basin resemble each other in the long term, which may coincide with the North Atlantic Oscillation. In addition, within a subregion, different areas may have significantly different temporal characteristics, such as the Greenland Sea and Seas of Okhotsk. Moreover, the temporal characteristics some areas in the Arctic region have changed through time significantly regarding early melt or late freeze. Hopefully this analysis will provide undiscovered temporal evolution through time and some new insights on the dynamics of the Arctic sea ice cover.

Aerial photographs of nine peatlands along the Rocky Mountain Front, Montana, were analyzed in a GIS. The boundary of wetland extent was hand-digitized and the area within was classified into land-cover types including: total area, open fen, open water, woody vegetation, and non-wetland/agriculture. Changes in wetland extent and land-cover categories were evaluated from the earliest available imagery in 1937 to the last available imagery in 2009. Images prior to 1995 were orthorectified to correct inherent distortions. Results indicate little change in overall peatland area between 1937 and 2009 despite increasing air temperatures in the region. Open water area and the number of ponds increased over the study period, reflecting a rebounding beaver population. Agriculture in Pine Butte Fen, McDonald Swamp, and the Blackleaf Wetland Complex declined over the study period. Land purchases by the Nature Conservancy of Pine Butte Fen and McDonald Swamp have preserved the natural state of those peatlands, and they hold conservation easements for three of the other fens. One peatland is owned by the state and another is located within the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Conversely the sprawling Theboe Lake wetland has been heavily disturbed by ongoing agriculture since prior to 1937, and Bynum wetland has been heavily impacted since the middle of the study period.

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2007. / "Publication number AAT 3281736"

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Ohio State University, 2006. / (UnM)AAI3220958. Adviser: Kevin R. Cox. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2274.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3224296. Adviser: Michael Brown. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2701.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Geography, 2008. / Title from home page (viewed on May 14, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-09, Section: A, page: 3693.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-73). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 3085. Adviser: Bruce Hannon. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-92) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.