This study investigates the impacts of the timing of an extreme cyclone that occurred in August 2012 on the sea-ice volume evolution based on the Arctic Ice Ocean Prediction System (ArcIOPS). By applying a novel cyclone removal algorithm to the atmospheric forcing during 4–12 August 2012, we superimpose the derived cyclone component onto the atmospheric forcing one month later or earlier. This study finds that although the extreme cyclone leads to strong sea-ice volume loss in all runs, large divergence occurs in sea-ice melting mechanism in response to various timing of the cyclone. The extreme cyclone occurred in August, when enhanced ice volume loss is attributed to ice bottom melt primarily and ice surface melt secondarily. If the cyclone occurs one month earlier, ice surface melt dominates ice volume loss, and earlier appearance of open water within the ice zone initiates positive ice-albedo feedback, leading to a long lasting of the cyclone-induced impacts for approximately one month, and eventually a lower September ice volume. In contrast, if the cyclone occurs one month later, ice bottom melt entirely dominates ice volume loss, and the air-open water heat flux in the ice zone tends to offset ice volume loss.

On March 15, 2019, Cyclone Idai made landfall near the port city of Beira in central Mozambique causing significant casualties and serious damage to infrastructure. The Emergency Medical Team Type 2 – Italy Regione Piemonte (EMT2-ITA) was deployed approximately two weeks after the disaster to support the country in need, providing essential medical and surgical care.

The EMT2-ITA staff was composed of 77 team members including two rotations and integrating local staff. A total of 1,121 patients (1,183 triage admissions) were treated during the 27 days of field hospital activity; among all the admissions, only few cases (17; 1%) were directly or indirectly attributed to the disaster event. Only three cases of cholera were confirmed and transferred to one of the treatment centers set up in Beira. The EMT2-ITA performed a total of 62 surgical operations (orthopedic, gynecological, general, and plastic surgery), of which more than one-half were elective procedures.

The objective of this manuscript is to report the mission of the EMT2-ITA in Mozambique, raising interesting points of discussion regarding the impact of timing on the mission outcomes, the operational and clinical activities in the field hospital, and the great importance to integrate local staff into the team.

Disasters, such as cyclones, create conditions that increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks. Epidemic forecasts can be valuable for targeting highest risk populations before an outbreak. The two main barriers to routine use of real-time forecasts include scientific and operational challenges. First, accuracy may be limited by availability of data and the uncertainty associated with the inherently stochastic processes that determine when and where outbreaks happen and spread. Second, even if data are available, the appropriate channels of communication may prevent their use for decision making.

In April 2019, only six weeks after Cyclone Idai devastated Mozambique’s central region and sparked a cholera outbreak, Cyclone Kenneth severely damaged northern areas of the country. By June 10, a total of 267 cases of cholera were confirmed, sparking a vaccination campaign. Prior to Kenneth’s landfall, a team of academic researchers, humanitarian responders, and health agencies developed a simple model to forecast areas at highest risk of a cholera outbreak. The model created risk indices for each district using combinations of four metrics: (1) flooding data; (2) previous annual cholera incidence; (3) sensitivity of previous outbreaks to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle; and (4) a diffusion (gravity) model to simulate movement of infected travelers. As information on cases became available, the risk model was continuously updated. A web-based tool was produced, which identified highest risk populations prior to the cyclone and the districts at-risk following the start of the outbreak.

The model prior to Kenneth’s arrival using the metrics of previous incidence, projected flood, and El Niño sensitivity accurately predicted areas at highest risk for cholera. Despite this success, not all data were available at the scale at which the vaccination campaign took place, limiting the model’s utility, and the extent to which the forecasts were used remains unclear. Here, the science behind these forecasts and the organizational structure of this collaborative effort are discussed. The barriers to the routine use of forecasts in crisis settings are highlighted, as well as the potential for flexible teams to rapidly produce actionable insights for decision making using simple modeling tools, both before and during an outbreak.

Disturbance is a central process in forest dynamics, yet the role of natural disturbance in tropical montane forests (TMFs) has not been systematically addressed. We posit that disturbance in TMFs has a wider role than commonly acknowledged and its effects are distinctive because: (1) TMFs often have very low rates of productivity due to low resources, and so recovery from disturbance may be slow, (2) montane forests have marked environmental heterogeneity which interacts with disturbance, (3) a large percentage of TMFs are regularly exposed to high energy windstorms and landslides, and (4) TMFs contain a biogeographically rich mixture of tree species with divergent evolutionary histories that interact differently with different disturbance types. We reviewed the literature on natural disturbance in TMFs and found 119 peer-reviewed papers which met our search criteria. Our review shows that disturbance is widespread in TMFs with pronounced effects on structure, function, composition and dynamics. Disturbance is also evident in the ecology of TMF biota with clear examples of plant life-history traits adapted to disturbance, including disturbance-triggered germination, treefall gap strategies and resprouting ability. Important aspects of TMF disturbances are stochastic and site-specific, but there are broad patterns in disturbance type, frequency and severity along latitudinal, altitudinal and environmental gradients. Compared with the lowland tropics, TMF disturbances are more spatially structured, TMFs experience more disturbance types in a given area due to environmental complexity, and TMFs are much more prone to small-scale yet severe landslides as well the large and potentially catastrophic disturbances of cyclones, forest die-back and fire. On the whole, natural disturbance should assume a larger role in models of ecosystem processes and vegetation patterns in TMFs. An improved understanding of what creates variation in disturbance severity and post-disturbance recovery rates, how composition and diversity feedback on disturbance type and likelihood, and how global change will alter these dynamics are important priorities in future TMF ecology research.

Bats provide important ecosystem services throughout the South Pacific but many species are threatened. The Fiji archipelago has a rich bat fauna yet few arrangements exist to promote the conservation of this group. From July 2008 to March 2011 we visited important sites identified in previous surveys for bats on Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Viti Levu and the Yasawa Islands. We netted and recorded five of Fiji's six bat species (Pteropus tonganus, Pteropus samoensis nawaiensis, Notopteris macdonaldi, Chaerephon bregullae and the Critically Endangered Mirimiri acrodonta). This was only the sixth recorded capture of M. acrodonta. P. tonganus is widespread in Fiji and exploits many different environments. P. samoensis nawaiensis mostly uses forested areas, and large tracts of forest are required for its long-term protection. Cave protection is vital for the two insectivorous species (C. bregullae and Emballonura semicaudata) and N. macdonaldi. In particular, the Nakanacagi maternity site remains globally significant for C. bregullae. E. semicaudata was not caught or detected during our surveys. It appears to be extinct from most large islands in Fiji and has abandoned the only large cave roost (Yaqeta) observed 10 years ago. This species has disappeared from or declined dramatically on Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. We recommend that the category of E. semicaudata semicaudata on the IUCN Red List be changed to Critically Endangered. Management priorities should focus on community engagement and education, and improved cave and forest management and protection.

Biological invasions by non-indigenous species are widely recognized as an important threat to biodiversity. However, the dimension, magnitude and mechanism of the impacts of invasive species remains poorly understood. We assessed the role of invasive plants by comparing vegetation changes that occurred between 1939 and 1999, a snapshot period that coincides with the onset of invasion, in Macabé Reserve in Mauritius. This Reserve was described as biotically homogeneous in 1939. In both surveys all native trees (> 10 cm DBH) were recorded from 10 1,000 m2 random plots. In 1999 the mean richness of plant species in plots was significantly lower: 15 species compared to 28 in 1939. The density and basal area of native species were both 70% lower in 1999. Plots with north and north-west aspects had significantly lower species richness and density than other aspects. We suggest that invasive plants have been the main trigger for the rapid and severe decline of native flora but we also observed that the decline of native species has been more spatially variable in the Reserve than the homogeneous distribution of invasive plants. This indicates that there are other feedback mechanisms driving biodiversity loss.

This paper describes estimates of canopy openness and associated light availability in the understorey of a north-east Australian rain forest before and immediately after a tropical cyclone. On the basis of 20 hemispherical (fisheye) canopy photographs it was shown that direct, diffuse and total site factors increased significantly as a result of the slight-to-moderate canopy disturbance caused by the cyclone. In the understorey, median total site factors ranged from 2.5–3.4% before the cyclone and from 6.0–8.6% after the cyclone, representing a 2- to 3-fold increase in potential light availability. Following the cyclone, mean relative gap frequencies increased substantially at all altitudes but particularly at canopy positions more than 70° above the horizon. Cyclone-induced canopy disturbance not only reduced the complexity of the understorey light regime but may have also increased the seasonal variability of light within the understorey of the forest during the interval of canopy recovery. The implications of these results for the ecophysiology of understorey tree seedlings and saplings at several temporal scales are discussed.

The role of ultrasound in disaster medicine has not been not well established. This report describes the transport and use of point-of-care ultrasound by Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) responding to a mass-casualty incident due to a cyclone. Ultrasound-competent physicians on the team were able to use portable ultrasound on cyclone casualties to exclude intra-abdominal hemorrhage, peri cardial fluid, pneumothoraces, and hemothoraces Information obtained using ultrasound made initial patient management, and subsequent decisions regarding triage for transport safer and based on more detailed clinical information.

An important challenge of invasion biology is to understand how interactions between species traits and ecosystem properties enable alien species to become invasive at particular locations. We investigated how gap dynamics in a tropical rain forest on the island of Réunion affected the invasiveness of alien plants. In the 12 000-m2 study area, alien plants occupied 24.9% of the area of gaps, which represented 5.62% of the forest area, but only 0.8% of the understorey area. The most abundant invasive species was Rubus alceifolius, which formed dense, monospecific stands in the largest gaps (> 25 m2). Although plants could persist in the shade, a germination experiment revealed that canopy openings were essential for seedling establishment. A cyclone that struck the study area in 2002 caused a temporary thinning of the canopy, increasing light levels to above the threshold needed for germination of R. alceifolius and also stimulating the growth of established plants. We conclude that the ability of this and other alien species to colonize intact lowland tropical rain forest is strongly influenced by the prevailing gap dynamics. Because gaps are also essential for the regeneration of many native trees in our study area, there is a real danger of the forest being progressively degraded by alien plants. There are no simple solutions to controlling species such as Rubus alceifolius, but efforts should be focused mainly upon the larger gaps where the species are most invasive.

On 31 December 2001, Tropical Cyclone Waka passed directly over the Vava'u island group, Kingdom of Tonga, with sustained and maximum wind speeds of 185 km h−1 and 230 km h−1 respectively. During a prior study of forest secondary succession, 44 forest plots on 13 islands had been surveyed in 1995 and their locations marked. Nineteen of the plots were resurveyed and two additional transects established in May–June 2002, 6 mo following the cyclone. Cyclone-related tree mortality averaged 6%, varied from 0–7% for lowland late-successional species, and tended to be higher for early successional plots (8–16%) and species (4–19%). Severe damage (uprooting, snapped stems) affected 25% of the 2030 stems measured. The proportion of snapped stems was disproportionately high in the 10–15-cm stem diameter class. Uprooting was more prevalent than expected by chance among larger trees (>20 cm diameter). The greatest mortality and severe damage (combined,>35% of stems) occurred in plots that were early successional. Over the 6 y prior to the storm, background recruitment and mortality averaged 1.4% and 3.3% respectively. Mortality was greater than recruitment, while basal area was increasing, in most plots that had not experienced additional anthropogenic disturbance.

The population of the Mayotte brown lemur Eulemur fulvus fulvus on the island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean was reported to have decreased by 50% between 1975 and 1987, from 50,000 to 25,000. From a series of censuses carried out in 1999 and 2000 in the various vegetation types of the island, we estimate that the lemur population now numbers 42,000–72,000. The decline observed in 1987 may have been largely caused by the cyclone that devastated Mayotte in 1984. That the population has recovered must not obscure the fact that loss of forest, increased human pressure associated with further development of infrastructure, and changes in agricultural practices will undoubtedly continue to affect this species on Mayotte.

The prediction of future disasters drives the priorities, urgencies, and perceived adequacies of disaster management, public policy, and government funding. Disasters always arise from some fundamental dysequilibrium between hazards in the environment and the vulnerabilities of human communities. Understanding the major factors that will tend to produce hazards and vulnerabilities in the future plays a key role in disaster risk assessment.

The factors tending to produce hazards in the 21st Century include population growth, environmental degradation, infectious agents (including biological warfare agents), hazardous materials (industrial chemicals, chemical warfare agents, nuclear materials, and hazardous waste), economic imbalance (usually within countries), and cultural tribalism. The factors tending to generate vulnerabilities to hazardous events include population growth, aging populations, poverty, maldistribution of populations to disaster-prone areas, urbanization, marginalization of populations to informal settlements within urban areas, and structural vulnerability.

An increasing global interconnectedness also will bring hazards and vulnerabilities together in unique ways to produce familiar disasters in unfamiliar forms and unfamiliar disasters in forms not yet imagined. Despite concerns about novel disasters, many of the disasters common today also will be common tomorrow.

The risk of any given disaster is modifiable through its manageability. Effective disaster management has the potential to counter many of the factors tending to produce future hazards and vulnerabilities. Hazard mitigation and vulnerability reduction based on a clear understanding of the complex causal chains that comprise disasters will be critical in the complex world of the 21st Century.