La cinematografía de Augusto San Miguel: lo popular y lo masivo en los primeros argumentales del cine ecuatoriano. Guayaquil 1924-1925

Reconstruir un hito histórico para la cultura del país: la exhibición de los primeros argumentales cinematográficos realizados entre 1924 y 1925 permite reflexionar sobre sus temáticas. Nos previene acerca de sus espectadores, los impactos y sus elaboraciones de lo visionado. Ubica el contexto socio-cultural de la época y hasta conflictos léxicos y conceptuales de una época donde el cine no era un trabajo de especialistas. La confrontación y fricciones institucionales, las expectativas y límites de esta cinematografía son propuestas que involucran un uso de fuentes de investigación aún no acotadas: suplementos y revistas culturales referidos al cine, testimonios de involucrados como actores o espectadores. Problematizar los conceptos de obra y autor cinematográfico es también objeto de discernimiento, revisión o crítica. Del mismo modo, la experiencia de tránsito de esta cinematografía desde una novedad tecnológica hacia una creación estética o cultural y, sobre todo, hacia un hecho de comunicación. El ensayo confronta lo que significaría para unos espectadores –reales y potenciales– el novedoso suceso de visionar los primeros argumentales del cine ecuatoriano. Una aproximación que aporta un registro de memoria y una reflexión acerca de una cinematografía que ha desaparecido de su formato físico.

El periódico La Antorcha y la emergencia de la ideología socialista en Quito (1924-1925)

La presente investigación tiene como propósito hacer un análisis de los contenidos y discursos que el semanario La Antorcha, utilizó en sus páginas para mostrarse a la opinión pública, entre noviembre de 1924 y junio de 1925, tiempo que duró su circulación en la ciudad de Quito. Este periódico fue el primero que circuló en la capital y en el país, con una clara filiación apegada a la ideología socialista, la misma que empezaba a ser parte del debate político, social y cultural, especialmente a partir de los acontecimientos ocurridos el 15 de Noviembre de 1922 en la ciudad de Guayaquil. Esta investigación parte justamente de ese contexto político, económico, social y cultural, que estuvo presente e influyó en el aparecimiento del semanario La Antorcha. Contexto hegemonizado aún por ideologías y fuerzas políticas tradicionales representadas por conservadores y liberales. Es ahí cuando irrumpe en la esfera política el semanario, influenciado por un matiz socialista marxista y poético literario de sus fundadores. Esta investigación describe también quienes fueron los iniciadores y principales colaboradores del semanario, así como sus principales secciones. La opinión pública se altera de alguna manera e influye en la esfera política con el aparecimiento de La Antorcha. El medio viene a fortalecer la presencia pública de nuevos actores que se identificaban con el semanario y las ideas socialistas. Estos actores, especialmente, estudiantes universitarios y obreros artesanales, sus percepciones e involucramientos con el periódico, forman parte también de nuestro estudio. Dentro del análisis de contenidos y discursos, principalmente, nos ocupamos de estudiar el tipo de Socialismo que se impulsaba desde las páginas del periódico, sus principales propuestas y el lenguaje que utilizó para ser parte de una oposición al gobierno corrupto de un liberalismo en decadencia. Finalmente, la investigación abarca el análisis del discurso y los mecanismos que el semanario utilizó para fortalecer sus relaciones con los sectores sociales en ascendencia, así como con un sector de la joven oficialidad militar que vino a convertirse también en uno de sus principales aliados. Alianza que provocó las reformas llevadas a cabo por civiles y militares con la Revolución Juliana. Dentro de estas alianzas, matizamos en nuestra investigación, las relaciones que el medio mantuvo con los sectores obreros artesanales, como táctica para fortalecer su presencia pública bajo la influencia de la ideología socialista.

El periódico La Antorcha y los inicios del socialismo en Quito 1924-1925

Este libro analiza los contenidos y discursos que el semanario La Antorcha utilizó en sus páginas para mostrarse a la opinión pública entre noviembre de 1924 y junio de 1925, tiempo que duró su circulación en la ciudad de Quito. Este periódico fue el primero en circular en la capital y en el país, con una clara filiación a la ideología socialista, la misma que empezaba a ser parte del debate político, so cial y cultural, especialmente, a partir de los acontecimientos ocurridos el 15 de noviembre de 1922 en la ciudad de Guayaquil. El autor parte justamente de ese entorno político, económico, social y cultural, in fluenciado por ideologías y fuerzas políticas conservadoras y liberales, para desentrañar cómo ese contexto permite la irrupción de La Antorcha en la esfera política, con el matiz socialista marxista y poético literario de sus fundadores. El libro se adentra en estudiar los inicios del periódico, sus fundadores y sus principales redactores. Analiza los contenidos y discursos que estos utilizaron para llegar a sus lectores, principalmente, estudiantes universitarios, obreros artesanales y jóvenes militares progresistas. El estudio concluye con un análisis del tipo de socialismo que impulsó La Antorcha, sus acercamientos con diversos actores y su táctica de alianza con los grupos de obreros al rededor de dicha ideología.

Climate response to basin-scale warming and cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean

Using experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model, the climate impacts of a basin-scale warming or cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean are investigated. Multidecadal fluctuations with this pattern were observed during the twentieth century, and similar variations--but with larger amplitude--are believed to have occurred in the more distant past. It is found that in all seasons the response to warming the North Atlantic is strongest, in the sense of highest signal-to-noise ratio, in the Tropics. However there is a large seasonal cycle in the climate impacts. The strongest response is found in boreal summer and is associated with suppressed precipitation and elevated temperatures over the lower-latitude parts of North and South America. In August­-September-­October there is a significant reduction in the vertical shear in the main development region for Atlantic hurricanes. In winter and spring, temperature anomalies over land in the extratropics are governed by dynamical changes in circulation rather than simply reflecting a thermodynamic response to the warming or cooling of the ocean. The tropical climate response is primarily forced by the tropical SST anomalies, and the major features are in line with simple models of the tropical circulation response to diabatic heating anomalies. The extratropical climate response is influenced both by tropical and higher-latitude SST anomalies and exhibits nonlinear sensitivity to the sign of the SST forcing. Comparisons with multidecadal changes in sea level pressure observed in the twentieth century support the conclusion that the impact of North Atlantic SST change is most important in summer, but also suggest a significant influence in lower latitudes in autumn and winter. Significant climate impacts are not restricted to the Atlantic basin, implying that the Atlantic Ocean could be an important driver of global decadal variability. The strongest remote impacts are found to occur in the tropical Pacific region in June­-August and September­-November. Surface anomalies in this region have the potential to excite coupled ocean­atmosphere feedbacks, which are likely to play an important role in shaping the ultimate climate response.

Mechanisms for the land/sea warming contrast exhibited by simulations of climate change

The land/sea warming contrast is a phenomenon of both equilibrium and transient simulations of climate change: large areas of the land surface at most latitudes undergo temperature changes whose amplitude is more than those of the surrounding oceans. Using idealised GCM experiments with perturbed SSTs, we show that the land/sea contrast in equilibrium simulations is associated with local feedbacks and the hydrological cycle over land, rather than with externally imposed radiative forcing. This mechanism also explains a large component of the land/sea contrast in transient simulations as well. We propose a conceptual model with three elements: (1) there is a spatially variable level in the lower troposphere at which temperature change is the same over land and sea; (2) the dependence of lapse rate on moisture and temperature causes different changes in lapse rate upon warming over land and sea, and hence a surface land/sea temperature contrast; (3) moisture convergence over land predominantly takes place at levels significantly colder than the surface; wherever moisture supply over land is limited, the increase of evaporation over land upon warming is limited, reducing the relative humidity in the boundary layer over land, and hence also enhancing the land/sea contrast. The non-linearity of the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship of saturation specific humidity to temperature is critical in (2) and (3). We examine the sensitivity of the land/sea contrast to model representations of different physical processes using a large ensemble of climate model integrations with perturbed parameters, and find that it is most sensitive to representation of large-scale cloud and stomatal closure. We discuss our results in the context of high-resolution and Earth-system modelling of climate change.

Land/sea warming ratio in response to climate change: IPCC AR4 model results and comparison with observations

Climate model simulations consistently show that in response to greenhouse gas forcing surface temperatures over land increase more rapidly than over sea. The enhanced warming over land is not simply a transient effect, since it is also present in equilibrium conditions. We examine 20 models from the IPCC AR4 database. The global land/sea warming ratio varies in the range 1.36–1.84, independent of global mean temperature change. In the presence of increasing radiative forcing, the warming ratio for a single model is fairly constant in time, implying that the land/sea temperature difference increases with time. The warming ratio varies with latitude, with a minimum in equatorial latitudes, and maxima in the subtropics. A simple explanation for these findings is provided, and comparisons are made with observations. For the low-latitude (40°S–40°N) mean, the models suggest a warming ratio of 1.51 ± 0.13, while recent observations suggest a ratio of 1.54 ± 0.09.

Isolating the signal of ocean global warming

Identifying the signature of global warming in the world's oceans is challenging because low frequency circulation changes can dominate local temperature changes. The IPCC fourth assessment reported an average ocean heating rate of 0.21 ± 0.04 Wm−2 over the period 1961–2003, with considerable spatial, interannual and inter-decadal variability. We present a new analysis of millions of ocean temperature profiles designed to filter out local dynamical changes to give a more consistent view of the underlying warming. Time series of temperature anomaly for all waters warmer than 14°C show large reductions in interannual to inter-decadal variability and a more spatially uniform upper ocean warming trend (0.12 Wm−2 on average) than previous results. This new measure of ocean warming is also more robust to some sources of error in the ocean observing system. Our new analysis provides a useful addition for evaluation of coupled climate models, to the traditional fixed depth analyses.

Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes

Climate models suggest that extreme precipitation events will become more common in an anthropogenically warmed climate. However, observational limitations have hindered a direct evaluation of model-projected changes in extreme precipitation. We used satellite observations and model simulations to examine the response of tropical precipitation events to naturally driven changes in surface temperature and atmospheric moisture content. These observations reveal a distinct link between rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. Furthermore, the observed amplification of rainfall extremes is found to be larger than that predicted by models, implying that projections of future changes in rainfall extremes in response to anthropogenic global warming may be underestimated.

A Possible Influence of Equatorial Winds on the September 2002 Southern Hemisphere Sudden Warming Event

The stratospheric sudden warming in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) in September 2002 was unexpected for two reasons. First, planetary wave activity in the Southern Hemisphere is very weak, and midwinter warmings have never been observed, at least not since observations of the upper stratosphere became regularly available. Second, the warming occurred in a west phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in the lower stratosphere. This is unexpected because warmings are usually considered to be more likely in the east phase of the QBO, when a zero wind line is present in the winter subtropics and hence confines planetary wave propagation to higher latitudes closer to the polar vortex. At first, this evidence suggests that the sudden warming must therefore be simply a result of anomalously strong planetary wave forcing from the troposphere. However, recent model studies have suggested that the midwinter polar vortex may also be sensitive to the equatorial winds in the upper stratosphere, the region dominated by the semiannual oscillation. In this paper, the time series of equatorial zonal winds from two different data sources, the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA) and the Met Office assimilated dataset, are reviewed. Both suggest that the equatorial winds in the upper stratosphere above 10 hPa were anomalously easterly in 2002. Idealized model experiments are described in which the modeled equatorial winds were relaxed toward these observations for various years to examine whether the anomalous easterlies in 2002 could influence the timing of a warming event. It is found that the 2002 equatorial winds speed up the evolution of a warming event in the model. Therefore, this study suggests that the anomalous easterlies in the 1–10-hPa region may have been a contributory factor in the development of the observed SH warming. However, it is concluded that it is unlikely that the anomalous equatorial winds alone can explain the 2002 warming event.