Investigations in Wright Valley, adjacent to the Transantarctic Mountains in East Antarctica, shed light on the question of whether high-latitude Pliocene climate was warm enough to cause widespread deglaciation of the East Antarctic craton with a concurrent Magellanic moorland-like environment. If Pliocene-age diatoms, presently in glaciogenic deposits high in the Transantarctic Mountains, had...

On the North American Great Plains, several snake species reach their northern range limit where they rely on sparsely distributed hibernacula located in major river valleys. Independent colonization histories for the river valleys and barriers to gene flow caused by the lack of suitable habitat between them may have produced genetically differentiated snake populations. To test this hypothesis...

Rough surfaces immersed under water remain practically dry if the liquid-solid contact is on roughness peaks, while the roughness valleys are filled with gas. Mechanisms that prevent water from invading the valleys are well studied. However, to remain practically dry under water, additional mechanisms need consideration. This is because trapped gas (e.g. air) in the roughness valleys can dissol...

In 13 villages in the savannah zone and 21 villages in the forest zone of Côte d'Ivoire, the biting density of the principal malaria vector, Anopheles gambiae, was studied as a function of rice cultivation in the inland valleys in a 2-km radius around each village. In the savannah villages, during the main season cropping period, surface water on rice-cultivated and to a lesser extent on uncult...

A numerical model was developed for simulating the formation of U-shaped glacial valleys by coupling a two-dimensional ice flow model with an erosion model for a transverse cross section. The erosion model assumes that the erosion rate varies quadratically with sliding speed. We compare the two-dimensional model with a simple shallow-ice approximation model and show the differences in the evolu...

The summer daylight and evening surface flows over southern Israel were simulated by a numerical mesoscale model. The overall characteristics of the simulated flow patterns were reasonably resolved as implied by the available observational studies. The nature of specific di~crepancies between predicted and observed flows was evaluated. The development of the flow patterns along the eastern slop...

4 A new index relating large hail occurrence to environmental parameters has been developed. Hail 5 events are defined as the total number of three-hourly periods in a month that experience one or 6 more instance of hail larger than one inch. The index is derived using Poisson regression between 7 hail events and monthly mean variables describing the large scale environment from the North 8 Ame...

Inland valleys are becoming increasingly important agricultural production areas for rural households in sub-Saharan Africa due to their relative high and secure water availability and soil fertility. In addition, inland valleys are important as water buffer and biodiversity hot spots and they provide local communities with forest, forage, and fishing resources. As different inland-valley ecosy...