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No description available.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the applications and limitations of the Climatological Dispersion Model (CDM), and to explain the role of dispersion modeling within the framework of urban and regional planning. In order to reach the first objective, a detailed study study of the mechanics of the CDM was conducted. Completion of this task provided the necessary foundation for a discussion of the assets and limitations of the model. Conclusions and recommendations are made concerning the utility of the CDM for an urban area.The second objective focuses on the practical applications of dispersion modeling and is divided into four areas; the role of dispersion modeling in air quality management, the practical applications of dispersion modeling from a community view, the incorporation of dispersion modeling into the planning process, and the effectiveness and future direction of dispersion modeling. / Department of Urban Planning

Unchecked climate change has the potential to have devastating effect on the Earth and its inhabitants. However, there is still time to avoid most of the worst impacts climate change will bring through massive mitigative actions. While state led governance mechanisms must be employed to effectively mitigate climate change, states seem unwilling or unable to effectuate the needed actions. How can states be pushed to take action aimed at mitigating climate change? This thesis utilises Securitisation Theory, as a starting point to test not only whether or not securitising climate change can induce state action on it, but also whether induced policies constitute ‘good’ or ‘bad’ actions. This thesis undertakes two case studies that focus on the executive level of governance of two sate: the United States and California. / Graduate

This study explores and develops the potential of fossil mammals to differentiate between the various climatic episodes of the post-Anglian Middle Pleistocene in Britain. Mammalian fossils are particularly valuable as biostratigraphic indicators on account of their morphological evolution and rapid turnover, through origination and extinction of species. Furthermore, the large-scale climatic fluctuations that affected north-west Europe during the Quaternary produced major shifts in the geographical distributions of many species, resulting in discernible patterns of presence and absence in the fossil record of a particular region. The development of a globally-applicable climatostratigraphic framework, based on the oxygen isotope record from deep-ocean sediments, has provided a new and challenging scheme for the interpretation of the British Quaternary record. Long fluvial sequences in Britain have been related to this record with considerable success, thereby providing a detailed archive of climatic change through the Pleistocene. The Thames valley was selected as a framework for the relative dating of the various climatic fluctuations, since it has been claimed to have the most reliably-dated long terrestrial sequence in the later Middle Pleistocene. The Thames model was therefore adopted as a testable hypothesis against which the mammalian evidence could be compared. The findings of this study confirm the presence of four complete climatic cycles between the Anglian and the Holocene, each with its own distinctive mammalian suite. In addition, it has been possible to identify subdivisions within these temperate stages, probably representing smaller-scale climatic fluctuations within an interglacial, and perhaps corresponding to isotopic substages. It has been possible to resolve a longstanding controversy concerning the age of the British type Hoxnian Interglacial. Amino acid geochronology had suggested that sediments at Hoxne belonged to a later interglacial than deposits from the first post-Anglian temperate episode in the Thames valley, such as Swanscombe. The results of the present study reveal close similarity between the mammalian fauna from Hoxne and that from Swanscombe, suggesting that there was indeed a single Hoxnian Interglacial, and that it directly post-dated the Anglian (i.e. Stage 11). Sediments of this age can be distinguished from those attributable to two other late Middle Pleistocene interglacials, all of them distinct from and older than, the Ipswichian. It has been suggested that distinctive mammalian assemblages can be identified from interglacials equivalent to oxygen isotope stages 9 and 7; moreover, it is apparent that the assemblages from warm Substages 7c and 7a differed from one another in species composition. Certain useful characters have also been determined, which can permit useful separation of some of the late Middle Pleistocene cold episodes, although in comparison with the interglacials, the evidence from these is scanty. The present study has provided a new biostratigraphic framework that may be both tested and refined as new sites become available in Britain, and also compared with the evidence from continental north-west Europe.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2003. / Advisor: H. P. Schwarcz. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2003. / Advisor: H. P. Schwarcz. Includes bibliographical references. Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 233-250).