Climate Summit

The Climate Summit 2014 (sometimes also referred to as the Leader’s Climate Summit) was a meeting on climate change in New York on September 23, 2014. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced it in September 2013 and invited leaders of governments, the private sector, and civil society to unite in concrete action towards a low-carbon world.

The Summit’s focus was on initiatives and actions rather than on negotiations between countries. It was seen as a milestone on the path towards closing the emissions gap between reduction pledges and the necessary emission cuts for the 2 °C scenario, and to a new legal agreement on climate change, to be approved by the COP21 in Paris in December 2015. One product of the Summit was the New York Declaration on Forests.

Developments and positions prior to the Summit

After the COP19 in Warsaw, the Climate Summit was the next high-level gathering on climate change. Since the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period expires in 2020, the UNFCCC process attempts to establish a new worldwide contract about climate protection and emission reduction objectives, that is to be drafted in 2014 at the COP20 in Lima and adopted in 2015 at the COP21 in Paris. The Climate Summit in September 2014 is not part of this negotiating process, but is expected to serve as a kick-off for a year of intense activity in climate policy and an indicator on the countries’ ambitions to reduce emissions and support climate protection. Having this in mind, UN Secretary-General Ban invited leaders of governments, the private sector and civil society from all over the world to unite in action:

Climate

Climate is the statistics (usually, mean or variability) of weather, usually over a 30-year interval. It is measured by assessing the patterns of variation in temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological variables in a given region over long periods of time. Climate differs from weather, in that weather only describes the short-term conditions of these variables in a given region.

A region's climate is generated by the climate system, which has five components: atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere.

The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, and altitude, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and the typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme was Köppen climate classification originally developed by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration along with temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying biological diversity and the potential effects on it of climate changes. The Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses that define the climate of a region.

Climate as complex networks

The field of Complex Networks has emerged as an important area of science to generate novel insights into nature of complex systems. The application of the theory to Climate Science is a young and emerging field. , , , To identify and analyze patterns in global climate, scientists model the climate data as Complex Networks.

Unlike most of the real-world networks in which nodes and edges are well defined, nodes in climate networks are identified with the spatial grid points of underlying global climate data set, which is defined arbitrarily and can be represented at various resolutions. Two nodes are connected by an edge depending on the degree of statistical dependence between corresponding pairs of time-series taken from climate data, on the basis of similarity shared in climatic variability.,, The climate network approach enables novel insights into the dynamics of the climate system over many spatial scales., ,

Construction of Climate Networks

Depending upon the choice of nodes and/or edges, climate networks may take many different forms, shapes, sizes and complexities. Tsonis et al introduced the field of complex networks to climate. In their model, the nodes for the network were constituted by a single variable (500 hPa) from NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis datasets. In order to estimate the edges between nodes, correlation coefficient at zero time lag between all possible pairs of nodes was estimated. A pair of nodes was considered to be connected, if their correlation coefficient is above a threshold of 0.5.

Climate categories in viticulture

In viticulture, the climates of wine regions are categorised based on the overall characteristics of the area's climate during the growing season. While variations in macroclimate are acknowledged, the climates of most wine regions are categorised (somewhat loosely based on the Köppen climate classification) as being part of a Mediterranean (for example Tuscany), maritime (ex: Bordeaux) or continental climate (ex: Columbia Valley). The majority of the world's premium wine production takes place in one of these three climate categories in locations between the 30th parallel and 50th parallel in both the northern and southern hemisphere. While viticulture does exist in some tropical climates, most notably Brazil, the amount of quality wine production in those areas is so small that the climate effect has not been as extensively studied as other categories.

Influence of climate on viticulture

Beyond establishing whether or not viticulture can even be sustained in an area, the climatic influences of a particular area goes a long way in influencing the type of grape varieties grown in a region and the type of viticultural practices that will be used. The presence of adequate sun, heat and water are all vital to the healthy growth and development of grapevines during the growing season. Additionally, continuing research has shed more light on the influence of dormancy that occurs after harvest when the grapevine essentially shuts down and reserves its energy for the beginning of the next year's growing cycle.

Summit (Catonsville, Maryland)

Summit is a historic home located at Catonsville, Baltimore County, Maryland. It a large brick house, once part of a country estate owned by James Albert Gary. It features a three-story Italianate tower and large wing extending to the rear. The main façade is three stories and five bays wide, with the tower located on the east side. A one-story porch with square columns and railings runs across the full façade. The mansion was built originally as a summer home and later converted to apartments after its sale to the Summit Park Company in 1919.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

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Lakewood Church Central Campus

The Lakewood Church Central Campus (originally The Summit and formerly Compaq Center) is a house of worship in Houston, Texas. It is located about five miles southwest of Downtown Houston, next to the Greenway Plaza.

From 1975 to 2003 the building served as a multi-purpose sports arena, for various professional teams in Houston.

From its opening until 1998, the building was known as The Summit. Computer technology firm Compaq bought naming rights to the building after that and it was known as Compaq Center until 2003. At that point the name was dropped, coinciding with opening of the Toyota Center as a new professional sports venue in Houston. Shortly after, the building was leased out to Lakewood Church for use as its main facility. Lakewood Church purchased the building outright in 2010.

Construction of The Summit

In 1971, the National Basketball Association's San Diego Rockets were purchased by new ownership group Texas Sports Investments, who moved the franchise to Houston. The city, however, lacked an indoor arena suitable to host a major sports franchise. The largest arena in the city at the time was 34-year-old Sam Houston Coliseum, but the Rockets would not even consider using it as a temporary facility. Plans were immediately undertaken to construct the new venue that would become The Summit. The Rockets played their home games in various local facilities such as Hofheinz Pavilion and the Astrodome during the interim.

Summit (album)

Summit is an album by Argentinean bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla and jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. The original LP was recorded and released in Italy in 1974.

Background

The album was born from the meeting, which took place in Italy in 1974, between the Argentinean bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla and the North American saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, considered among the most prominent members of the world music scene.

The album was recorded in Milan and includes eight compositions, seven written by Piazzolla and one by Mulligan. The fusion of the nuevo tango of Astor Piazzolla with the jazz influences of Gerry Mulligan, backed by an orchestra of Italian and Argentinian musicians, has been described as "a memorable disc of rare beauty" and "a one-off event, wholly successful".

Recording

The album was recorded on 24–26 September and 1–4 October 1974 at Mondial Sound Studio in Milan, Italy, by sound engineer Tonino Paolillo.

Release history

The release history of Summit appears somewhat loose. The LP was originally released in 1974 on the Italian label Erre T.V. Besides a release on the short-lived label of the German chemical company BASF the album was re-released the following year by the German WEA on the Atlantic Records label as Tango Nuevo. In Latin America the album was released as Reunión cumbre on the Venezuelan label Trova and (without further title) in Brazil on Pick Jazz. Although several times reissued on CD since the late 1980s the album was not digitally remastered yet.