ALBERT

Description: Seagrass meadows have a disproportionally high organic carbon (Corg) storage potential within their sediments and thus can play a role in climate change mitigation via their conservation and restoration. However, high spatial heterogeneity is observed in Corg, with wide differences seen globally, regionally, and even locally (within a seagrass meadow). Consequently, it is difficult to determine their contributions to the national remaining carbon dioxide (CO2) budget without introducing a large degree of uncertainty. To address this spatial heterogeneity, we sampled 20 locations across the German Baltic Sea to quantify Corg stocks and sources in Zostera marina seagrass-vegetated and adjacent unvegetated sediments. To predict and integrate the Corg inventory in space, we measured the physical (seawater depth, sediment grain size, current velocity at the seafloor, anthropogenic inputs) and biological (seagrass complexity) environments to determine regional and local drivers of Corg variation. Here, we show that seagrass meadows in Germany constitute a significant Corg stock, storing on average 7,785 g C/m2, 13 times greater than meadows from other parts of the Baltic Sea, and fourfold richer than adjacent unvegetated sediments. Stocks were highly heterogenous; they differed widely between (by 10-fold) and even within (by 3- to 55-fold) sites. Regionally, Corg was controlled by seagrass complexity, fine sediment fraction, and seawater depth. Autochthonous material contributed to 78% of the total Corg in seagrass-vegetated sediments, and the remaining 22% originated from allochthonous sources (phytoplankton and macroalgae). However, relic terrestrial peatland material, deposited approximately 6,000 years BP during the last deglaciation, was an unexpected and significant source of Corg. Collectively, German seagrasses in the Baltic Sea are preventing 8.14 Mt of future CO2 emissions. Because Corg is mostly produced on-site and not imported from outside the meadow boundaries, the richness of this pool may be contingent on seagrass habitat health. Disturbance of this Corg stock could act as a source of CO2 emissions. However, the high spatial heterogeneity warrants site-specific investigations to obtain accurate estimates of blue carbon and a need to consider millennial timescale deposits of Corg beneath seagrass meadows in Germany and potentially other parts of the southwestern Baltic Sea.

Description: We contend that ocean turbulent fluxes should be included in the list of Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) created by the Global Ocean Observing System. This list aims to identify variables that are essential to observe to inform policy and maintain a healthy and resilient ocean. Diapycnal turbulent fluxes quantify the rates of exchange of tracers (such as temperature, salinity, density or nutrients, all of which are already EOVs) across a density layer. Measuring them is necessary to close the tracer concentration budgets of these quantities. Measuring turbulent fluxes of buoyancy (Jb), heat (Jq), salinity (JS) or any other tracer requires either synchronous microscale (a few centimeters) measurements of both the vector velocity and the scalar (e.g., temperature) to produce time series of the highly correlated perturbations of the two variables, or microscale measurements of turbulent dissipation rates of kinetic energy (ϵ) and of thermal/salinity/tracer variance (χ), from which fluxes can be derived. Unlike isopycnal turbulent fluxes, which are dominated by the mesoscale (tens of kilometers), microscale diapycnal fluxes cannot be derived as the product of existing EOVs, but rather require observations at the appropriate scales. The instrumentation, standardization of measurement practices, and data coordination of turbulence observations have advanced greatly in the past decade and are becoming increasingly robust. With more routine measurements, we can begin to unravel the relationships between physical mixing processes and ecosystem health. In addition to laying out the scientific relevance of the turbulent diapycnal fluxes, this review also compiles the current developments steering the community toward such routine measurements, strengthening the case for registering the turbulent diapycnal fluxes as an pilot Essential Ocean Variable.

Description: The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to strengthen the global response to climate change, and to maintain an average global temperature well below 2 °C, with aspirations towards 1.5 °C, by means of balancing sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions. Following this, the importance of carbon dioxide removal in global emission pathways has been further emphasized, and Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) that capture carbon from the atmosphere and remove it from the system have been put in the spotlight. NETs range from innovative, engineered technologies, to well-known approaches like afforestation/reforestation. These technologies essentially compensate for a shrinking carbon budget coupled with hard-to-abate future emissions, and a historical lack of action. However, none has been deployed at scales close to what is envisioned in emission pathways in line with the Paris Agreement goals. To understand the potential contribution of NETs to meet global emission goals, we need to better understand opportunities and constraints for deploying NETs on a national level. We examine 17 Long-Term Low Greenhouse Gas Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), and discuss them in the context of available NETs feasibility assessments. Our mapping shows that most countries include NETs in their long-term strategies, and that enhancement of natural sinks is the most dominating type of NET in these strategies. In line with many feasibility assessments, LT-LEDS focus on technical and biophysical considerations, and neglect socio-cultural dimensions. We suggest that feasibility assessments at the national level need to be more holistic; context-specific and comprehensive in terms of aspects assessed.

Description: Plastic production and plastic waste have increased to such an extent that it has become globally ubiquitous. Recent research has highlighted that it has also invaded remote Polar Regions including the Arctic, where it is expected to accumulate over time due to transport from distant sources, rising local anthropogenic activities and increasing fragmentation of existing ocean plastics to microplastics (plastic items 〈5 mm). While a growing body of research has documented microplastics in the atmosphere, cryosphere, sea surface, water column, sediments and biota, contamination levels on Arctic beaches are poorly known. To fill this knowledge gap, we engaged citizen scientists participating in tourist cruises to sample beach sediments during shore visits on Svalbard, Norway. Following drying, sieving, and visual inspection of samples under a binocular microscope, putative plastic particles ≥1 mm were analysed by attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. Plastic particles ≥1 mm were found in two out of 53 samples from 23 beaches (mean: 196.3 particles kg−1 and 147.4 particles L−1). These pollution levels could be due to our focus on plastic particles ≥1 mm as well as the relatively small sample sizes used during this initial phase of the project. In addition, the coarse substrate on most beaches might retain fewer plastic particles. The two samples with plastic particles ≥1 mm contained six polyester-epoxide particles and 4920 polypropylene fibres. The latter likely originated from a fishing net and points to possibly accelerated plastic fragmentation processes on Arctic beaches. Since fisheries-related debris is an important source of plastic on Svalbard, a build-up of microplastic quantities can be expected to burden Arctic ecosystems in addition to climate change unless efficient upstream action is taken to combat plastic pollution.

Description: AI promises major benefits for healthcare. But along with the benefits come risks. Not so much the risk of powerful super-intelligent machines taking over, but the risk of structural injustices, biases, and inequalities being perpetuated in a system that cannot be challenged because nobody actually knows how the algorithms work. Or, the risk that there might be no doctor or nurse present to hold your hand and reassure you when you are at your most vulnerable. There There are many initiatives to come up with ethical or trustworthy AI and these efforts are important. Yet we should demand more than this. Technological solutionism and the urge to “move fast and break things” often dominate the tech industry but are inappropriate for the healthcare context and incompatible with basic healthcare values of empathy, solidarity, and trust. So how can such socio-political and ethical issues get resolved? It is at this juncture that we have the opportunity to imagine different different different futures. Using Grace's fictional story, this chapter argues that in order to shape the future of healthcare we need to decide whether, to what extent, and how—under what regulatory frameworks and safeguards—these technologies could and should play a part in this future. AI can indeed improve healthcare but, instead of casting ourselves loose and at the mercy of this seemingly inevitable technological drift, drift, we should be actively paddling towards a future of our choice.

Description: This book collects together a series of original essays in honor of the American Law Institute’s (ALI’s) Centennial. The essays are authored by leading experts in their fields, often including current and former Restatement Reporters. The essays also provide a wide range of perspectives on both methodology and the law. The volume coverage focuses on specific ALI undertakings, including some of the more important Restatements and Codes; several leading Principles projects; statutory projects such as the Model Penal Code and the Uniform Commercial Code; themes that cut across substantive fields of law (such as Restatements and codification or Restatements and the common law); and the ALI’s institutional history over the past century. The resulting book is a unique and compelling contribution to its fields of study.

Description: The Argentine Sea is worldwide recognized as a highly productive area, characterized by extensive phytoplankton blooms during spring and summer. Despite the well-known importance of frontal areas for biomass accumulation, phytoplankton diversity remains poorly studied. In an unprecedented approach for the Argentine Sea, we combined microscopy and 18Sv4 metabarcoding analyses for a refined assessment of summer phytoplankton composition in three understudied frontal areas of the Argentine Sea (≈43°−55°S), with contrasting oceanographic conditions. Metabarcoding and microscopy analyses agreed on the detection of the dominant phytoplanktonic groups in the different frontal areas studied; chlorophytes in Valdés Peninsula, dinoflagellates in waters off Blanco Cape, and diatoms in de los Estados Island. The analysis of the phytoplankton community was significantly enriched by combining both techniques, microscopy provided cell abundances and biomass data and metabarcoding provided greater detail on species composition, revealing an important specific richness of dinoflagellates, diatoms and other delicate groups, such as chlorophytes. However, we also considered differences between the methods for certain taxa at a lower taxonomic level (species/genus) of the dominant taxa, such as the underestimation of the diatoms Asterionellopsis glacialis and Pseudo-nitzschia spp. and the overestimation of Chaetoceros contortus by metabarcoding in comparison to microscopic counts. The detection of several taxa belonging to small and delicate groups, previously overlooked due to the lack of distinct morphological features, establishes a baseline for future studies on phytoplankton diversity in the Argentine Sea.

Description: This book explores this developer’s dilemma or ‘Kuznetsian tension’ between structural transformation and income inequality. Developing countries are seeking economic development—that is, structural transformation—which is inclusive in the sense that it is broad-based and raises the income of all, especially the poor. Thus, inclusive economic growth requires steady, or even falling, income inequality if it is to maximize the growth of incomes at the lower end of the distribution. Yet, this is at odds with Simon Kuznets hypothesis that economic development tends to put upward pressure on income inequality, at least initially and in the absence of countervailing policies. The book asks: what are the types or ‘varieties’ of structural transformation that have been experienced in developing countries? What inequality dynamics are associated with each variety of structural transformation? And what policies have been utilized to manage trade-offs between structural transformation, income inequality, and inclusive growth? The book answers these questions using a comparative case study approach, contrasting nine developing countries while employing a common analytical framework and a set of common datasets across the case studies. The intended intellectual contribution of the book is to provide a comparative analysis of the relationship between structural transformation, income inequality, and inclusive growth; to do so empirically at a regional and national level; and to draw conclusions from the cases on the varieties of structural transformation, their inequality dynamics, and the policies that have been employed to mediate the developer’s dilemma.

Description: Introduction: At the cellular level, acute temperature changes alter ionic conductances, ion channel kinetics, and the activity of entire neuronal circuits. This can result in severe consequences for neural function, animal behavior and survival. In poikilothermic animals, and particularly in aquatic species whose core temperature equals the surrounding water temperature, neurons experience rather rapid and wide-ranging temperature fluctuations. Recent work on pattern generating neural circuits in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system have demonstrated that neuronal circuits can exhibit an intrinsic robustness to temperature fluctuations. However, considering the increased warming of the oceans and recurring heatwaves due to climate change, the question arises whether this intrinsic robustness can acclimate to changing environmental conditions, and whether it differs between species and ocean habitats. Methods: We address these questions using the pyloric pattern generating circuits in the stomatogastric nervous system of two crab species, Hemigrapsus sanguineus and Carcinus maenas that have seen a worldwide expansion in recent decades. Results and discussion: Consistent with their history as invasive species, we find that pyloric activity showed a broad temperature robustness (〉30°C). Moreover, the temperature-robust range was dependent on habitat temperature in both species. Warm-acclimating animals shifted the critical temperature at which circuit activity breaks down to higher temperatures. This came at the cost of robustness against cold stimuli in H. sanguineus, but not in C. maenas. Comparing the temperature responses of C. maenas from a cold latitude (the North Sea) to those from a warm latitude (Spain) demonstrated that similar shifts in robustness occurred in natural environments. Our results thus demonstrate that neuronal temperature robustness correlates with, and responds to, environmental temperature conditions, potentially preparing animals for changing ecological conditions and shifting habitats.

Description: Digital sovereignty—the exercise of control over the Internet—is the ambition of the world’s leaders, from Australia to Zimbabwe, a bulwark against both foreign state and foreign corporation. Governments have resoundingly answered first-generation Internet law questions of who if anyone should regulate the Internet—they all will. The second-generation question to confront is not whether, but how to regulate the Internet. This volume features new theoretical perspectives on digital sovereignty and explores cutting-edge issues associated with it. Drawing mainly on various theories concerning political economy, international law, human rights, and data protection, it presents thought-provoking ideas about the nature and scope of digital sovereignty. It also examines the extent to which new technological developments in sectors, such as artificial intelligence, e-commerce, and sharing economy, have posed challenges to assertion of digital sovereignty, and considers how to deal with such challenges. In particular, the volume discusses the promise and pitfalls of digital sovereignty in the process of trade liberalization, data localization, and human rights protection.