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We study a generic reaction-diffusion model for single-species population dynamics that includes reproduction, death, and competition. The population is assumed to be confined in a refuge beyond which conditions are so harsh that they lead…
Ecological patterns arise from the interplay of many different processes, and yet the emergence of consistent phenomena across a diverse range of ecological systems suggests that many patterns may in part be determined by statistical or…
Epidemics have shaped human history, often with devastating consequences, motivating the development of mathematical models to understand and control their dynamics. Among the many aspects of epidemic behavior, the conditions that lead to…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
Climate change is one of the most significant global challenges, yet misconceptions persist regarding its causes and impact. This report addresses common myths surrounding climate change and presents scientific evidence to clarify its…
The recent discovery of super-Earths (masses less or equal to 10 earth-masses) has initiated a discussion about conditions for habitable worlds. Among these is the mode of convection, which influences a planet's thermal evolution and…
Along with the accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the loss of primary forests and other natural ecosystems is a major disruption of the Earth system causing global concern. Quantifying planetary warming from carbon emissions,…
This paper studies natural disasters and the psychological costs of climate change. It presents what we believe to be the first evidence that higher temperature variability and not a higher level of temperature is what predicts natural…
We analyze the occurrence and the values of record-breaking temperatures in daily and monthly temperature observations. Our aim is to better understand and quantify the statistics of temperature records in the context of global warming.…
Unconstrained CO2 emission from fossil fuel burning has been the dominant cause of observed anthropogenic global warming. The amounts of "proven" and potential fossil fuel reserves are uncertain and debated. Regardless of the true values,…
The rise in global mean temperature is an incomplete description of warming. For many purposes, including agriculture and human life, temperature extremes may be more important than temperature means and changes in local extremes may be…
As a consequence of greenhouse forcing, all state of the art general circulation models predict a positive temperature trend that is greater for the troposphere than the surface. This predicted positive trend increases in value with…
The current rate of species extinction is rapidly approaching unprecedented highs and life on Earth presently faces a sixth mass extinction event driven by anthropogenic activity, climate change and ecological collapse. The field of…
A number of authors have in recent years proposed that the processes of macroevolution may give rise to self-organized critical phenomena which could have a significant effect on the dynamics of ecosystems. In particular it has been…
Feeding a larger and wealthier global population without transgressing ecological limits is increasingly challenging, as rising food demand (especially for animal products) intensifies pressure on ecosystems, accelerates deforestation, and…
Ecosystems are complex systems, currently experiencing several threats associated with global warming, intensive exploitation, and human-driven habitat degradation. Such threats are pushing ecosystems to the brink of collapse. Because of a…
Environmental noise can cause an exponential reduction in the mean time to extinction (MTE) of an isolated population. We study this effect on an example of a stochastic birth-death process with rates modulated by a colored Gaussian noise.…
In this kind of model, the main characteristic that determines population viability in the long term is the stochastic growth rate (SGR) denoted $\lambda_S$. When $\lambda_S$ is larger than one, the population grows exponentially with…
Environmental data science for spatial extremes has traditionally relied heavily on max-stable processes. Even though the popularity of these models has perhaps peaked with statisticians, they are still perceived and considered as the…
We present a new approach to modeling the future development of extreme temperatures globally and on a long time-scale by using non-stationary generalized extreme value distributions in combination with logistic functions. This approach is…