PEI Currents — Princeton Environmental Institute newsletter

The Spring 2015 issue is now available here:

http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=80f0f238867161406feab010b&id=7b4802df07&e=b33

Prof. Francois Morel has returned as the Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute, and Prof. Kelly Caylor has become the Director of the Program in Environmental Studies.

 

 

Table of Contents Alerts to > 25,000 Scholarly Journals

  • http://www.journaltocs.hw.ac.uk/

    “Current Awareness Services have been published by libraries for a long time. They usually include new books, table of contents alerts, blogs, citation alerts, and other information. JournalTOCs builds on the idea by offering tables of contents (TOCs) for the newest issues of thousands of academic journals via this free website. Readers may type in the name of any journal in the search function on the homepage to access that journal’s latest table of contents. They may also browse by publishers and subjects. For librarians, students, and scholars who want to keep up to date on the breaking research in their field, this is a valuable resource. [CNH]

  • Main Publishers
  • Source:  The Scout Report, Vol. 21(4), University of Wisconsin, Jan. 30, 2015

Planet Earth’s Stability is significantly affected

Summary:
“Almost half of the processes that are crucial to maintaining the stability of the planet have become dangerously compromised by human activity. That is the view of an international team of 18 researchers who provide new evidence of significant changes in four of the nine systems which regulate the resilience of the Earth.”

Nine planetary boundaries  (the crucial processes)

  1. Climate change
  2. Change in biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and species extinction)
  3. Stratospheric ozone depletion
  4. Ocean acidification
  5. Biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles)
  6. Land-system change (for example deforestation)
  7. Freshwater use
  8. Atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms)
  9. Introduction of novel entities (e.g. organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics).                                                                   Journal Reference:
    1. Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, R. Biggs, Stephen R. Carpenter, Wim de Vries, Cynthia A. de Wit, Carl Folke, Dieter Gerten, Jens Heinke, Georgina M. Mace, Linn M. Persson, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, B. Reyers, and Sverker Sörlin. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 15 January 2015 DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855

Source: McGill University. “Nearly half the systems crucial to stability of planet compromised.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 January 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150115163533.htm>.

SCOPUS reviewed in Choice, January, 2015

Scopus. Elsevier.http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/scopus.

A very complimentary review by –J. N. Jeffryes, University of Minnesota

“Scopus’s nearest competitor is Web of Science http://thomsonreuters.com/thomson-reuters-web-of-science/ (CH, Jan’11, 48-2436), and the two tools remain somewhat complementary.  For post-1996 information, Scopus comes off as the more impressive of the two with its advanced citation analysis visualizations, wider inclusion of conference papers, and adoption of alternative impact metrics.  Because the citation counts and h index calculations go back only to 1996, Web of Science has the historical edge.  In the areas of interface design and record readability, Scopus is the stronger tool.  It provides an intuitive search format to explore an impressively broad base of research; if the depth of coverage were expanded (or as 1996 becomes more distant), this tool would become even more valuable.  Even as it is today, it is a very valuable resource for academic and professional libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above”

The complete review is here:  http://www.cro3.org/content/52/05/52-2504.full

 

 

EPA Coal Plant Emissions Data included in TOXMAP

10 Dec 2014

*NLM Technical Bulletin, Nov-Dec 2014, NLM Resource Update: TOXMAP Now Includes EPA Coal Plant Emissions Data

Data was obtained from the Air Markets Program Data (AMPD) tool, a publicly-available data system for searching and downloading data collected as part of EPA emissions trading programs. In 2013, about 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions were attributable to electricity generated from coal.

TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from NLM that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Superfund Programs.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/nd14/brief/nd14_epa_coal_plant_emissions_data.html

Wonders of Life, with Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

SLJ1412w Top10 Apps WondersofLife SLJ’s Top 10 Apps for 2014   http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rgjt0

“In Brian Cox’s Wonders of Life (HarperCollins/William Collins; Gr 4 Up), the renowned physicist-cum-BBC host and Andrew Cohen take viewers around the world on an awe-inspiring trip to locations both forbidding and exotic while delving into the origins and mysteries of life on Earth. The app’s illuminating text and commentary, 1,000-plus high-resolution photos, numerous 3-D images, and hours of video clips will leave viewers with a profound respect for and curiosity about the diverse life forms and environs found on our planet, and inspire a desire to protect them. Up-close footage of numerous species is guaranteed to produce lots of “ooohhh…” moments.”

http://www.slj.com/2014/12/reviews/best-of/sljs-top-10-apps-for-2014/#_

One of the top 10 aps for 2014, assessed by School Library Journal, Dec. 9, 2014.

Science Montana

“The database is available online (http://www.sciencemontana.org/).

Free resources include lesson plans, videos, hands-on activities and other materials in earth science, life science, physical science and space science. Scientists at Montana universities created most of the materials.”

Source:  ResearchBuzz, Dec. 2, 2014, by Tara Calishain

NASA apps: global planet changes, NASA content and television

Featured NASA Apps

NASA Spinoff

NASA Spinoff App
NASA Spinoff profiles the best examples of technology that have been transferred from NASA research and missions into commercial products. From life-saving satellite systems to hospital robots that care for patients and more, NASA technologies benefit society. There’s more space in your life than you think!
› Get the iPad App →
Related: › Technology Innovation iPad App →

 

Images of Change

 

Earth as Art

 

Human activities, a changing climate and natural disasters are rapidly altering the face of our planet. Now, with NASA’s Images of Change iPad application, users can get an interactive before-and-after view of these changes.

 

› Read More
› Get the iPad App→

NASA App

NASA App
The NASA App showcases a huge collection of the latest NASA content, including images, videos on-demand, NASA Television, mission information, news & feature stories, latest tweets, ISS sighting opportunities, satellite tracking, Third Rock Radio and much more.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/apps.html#.VHYWqTHF_To

U.S. Citizens — Free access to online NTIS reports, Oct. 2014

NTIS is launching greater access to federally funded science & technology information and reports. Starting in October 2014, U.S. citizens will have free access to all electronically-available documents in the NTIS collection.

Currently there are more than 850,000 documents digitized for free public access. For the first time, Individuals will have the option to subscribe to the NTRL in order to benefit from the Premium features of the database, such as Digitization-on-Demand (NTRL Premium Individual). Premium Institutional subscribers (including corporations) will continue to have access to the more than 2.8 million records with a variety of enhanced features as listed in the chart below.

More at: http://www.ntis.gov/pdf/NTRNews7-3.pdf

National Technical Information Service (NTIS) connects to the database.

Princeton University Library has a subscription to NTRL reports,

(National Technical Reports Library)  and is a founding member…I think.

Drought Risk Atlas, the National Drought Mitigation Center

“Drought Risk Atlas, from The National Drought Mitigation Center.
http://droughtatlas.unl.edu/

[Visited Jun’14] In 1994, the Army Corps of Engineers issued The National Drought Atlas, which is cataloged in only five libraries; it apparently never made it into the Federal Depository Library Program. A new online resource, the national Drought Risk Atlas, rectifies that oversight. The atlas has six sections: Home, Map Viewer, Data (viewer page), Methodology, About, and Help. Home provides introductory information about the atlas and explains the other sections. Map Viewer allows users to view drought status from 2000 to the present. The Data section allows users to select stations by name or interactively on a map and view data for that station over time. Many stations contain more than 100 years of data. Data can be displayed as a time series chart or table for a given decade. In addition, users can display data for each decade ranked from driest to wettest and warmest to coolest temperatures, along with ranked monthly precipitation and temperature records. The system also allows data retrieval for various indexes, including the Standardized Precipitation Index, Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index, Palmer Drought Severity Index, and Self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index.

There is a separate tabbed section for each index, which includes a description of the index and the option to select the period of interest. Data can be displayed as a time series chart, table, ranked table, or heat map plot, which shows whether a selected station was particularly wet or dry during the decade by color. Users can also download data for additional research. The Help section provides information on using the site. Many years ago, this type of weather data for selected locations was available in books published by Gale Research. This valuable site provides temperature and precipitation data and more for free. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All library collections.”

–L. R. Zellmer, Western Illinois University