North American West Research Articles

Seasonal Predictability of Bottom Temperatures Along the North American West Coast

AbstractBottom Temperature anomalies (BTA) along the North American West Coast strongly influence benthic and demersal marine species. However, to date seasonal BTA forecast efforts have been limited and sources of BTA predictability largely undiagnosed. Here, an empirical model called a Linear Inverse Model (LIM), constructed from a high‐resolution ocean reanalysis, is developed to predict North American West Coast BTAs and diagnose sources of predictive skill. The LIM is considerably more skillful than damped persistence, particularly in winter, with anomaly correlation (AC) skill values of 0.6 at 6‐month lead. Analysis of the LIM's dynamics shows that elevated BTA forecast skill is linked to developing El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, driving predicted BTA responses whose peaks occur at longer leads with increasing latitude. Weaker ENSO‐related signals in the northern coastal region still yield high BTA skill because noise there is also weaker. Likewise, the LIM's forecast signal‐to‐noise ratio is highest for bathymetry depths of ∼50–150 m, maximizing forecast skill there. Together, these predictive components lead to “forecasts of opportunity” when LIM anticipates especially high prediction skill. For the top 20% of events identified by the LIM as the forecasts of opportunity, 6‐month lead BTA hindcasts have AC skill averaging 0.7, while the remaining 80% hindcasts have mean skill of only 0.4, suggesting that the LIM can leverage ENSO‐related predictability of BTA to produce skillful forecasts.

England and Russia: The Beginnings of the Struggle for the Pacific Colonies, 1700–1750

The article is about the development of the struggle between Russia and England for colonies in the North Pacific Ocean. The purpose of our research is to show the relationship between events in the North Pacific Ocean and the general course of colonization of new territories. The interest of Peter the Great in England is considered. The article identifies factors that contributed to the development of the American northwest, including the level of geographical knowledge in both countries about the borders of America and Asia. It is shown that their study became a complex and multifaceted process in which English and Russian navigators took part, and it was controlled by the state authorities of both countries. The importance of the initiative of private commercial companies in the development of territories is emphasized. It is noted that Great Britain initially pursued a cautious policy, which gave way to an active phase at the end of the 18th century. If Great Britain’s interest was primarily associated with the search for a northern route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, then Russia’s advance to the north-west of America was due to economic and political reasons. The article looks at the changes in the attitude of Russia as well as England in relation to the territories under consideration throughout the period under study. It is concluded that the peculiarities of sailing in the waters of the Pacific Ocean made a collision on the high seas less likely than in coastal waters and on land, where Russian fur hunters were subsequently opposed by representatives of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The article is written on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach, using archival sources. The results we obtained can be used in the theoretical and practical parts of interaction with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, as well as England.

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century. Edited By Brenden W. Rensink

<i>The North American West in the Twenty-First Century</i>. Edited By Brenden W. Rensink

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Brenden W. Rensink (review)

The North American West in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Brenden W. Rensink (review)

Revisiting the Relationship between the North Pacific High and Upwelling Winds along the West Coast of North America in the Present and Future Climate

Abstract The wind-driven circulation is an important driver of upwelling in the California Current System, a key factor in maintaining a productive ecosystem. In summer, the North Pacific high (NPH) dominates the atmospheric circulation, including the nearshore winds. The impact of the NPH on the surface winds along the North American west coast during summer is examined using the ECMWF Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) and the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) large ensemble of simulations. The strength, latitude, and longitude of the sea level pressure (SLP) and subsidence at 500 hPa are used to assess the NPH and its variability. While both the surface high pressure cell and subsidence are related to the interannual variability of the surface winds over the North Pacific, the strength of subsidence has a much larger effect on the coastal winds than the variability in SLP. Based on the mean of the 40 CESM simulations, future changes in upwelling also more strongly coincide with changes in subsidence than in SLP. Subsidence and southward upwelling-favorable winds increase off the Canadian coast, with the reverse occurring off the U.S. West Coast, by the end of the twenty-first century. In particular, the intermember correlation between the changes in the nearshore surface winds and the 500-hPa pressure vertical velocity reaches 0.75 and 0.87 in the southern and northern portions of the northeast Pacific, respectively. The effect of the subsidence on upwelling winds in the future is confirmed by the CESM2 large ensemble.

Large‐Scale Circulation Context for North American West Coast Atmospheric Rivers: Influence of the Subseasonal NPO/WP Teleconnection

AbstractUnderstanding the variability of atmospheric rivers (ARs) on subseasonal time scales is pivotal for efficient water resource management along the west coast of North America. ARs during 1980–2018 based on the Modern‐Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 are analyzed to quantify the modulation of winter (December–February) landfalling ARs in the western US by leading subseasonal teleconnections, focusing on pentad evolution rather than seasonal‐mean patterns. The growth phase of the North Pacific Oscillation/West Pacific (NPO/WP) teleconnection—the second leading pattern in 200‐hPa geopotential heights in boreal winter—is found to be particularly influential in modulating the number of landfalling ARs in this region. In the positive phase of NPO/WP growth, the presence of anomalous low pressure centered just south of Alaska (i.e., a strengthening of the Aleutian Low) and anomalous high pressure around Hawaii results in moisture convergence in the central and eastern Pacific, bringing southwesterly moisture fluxes to the coast and inland. The modulation by NPO/WP is stronger than by commonly‐considered climate variability modes, such as the Pacific/North American (PNA) pattern. Although southwesterly fluxes are stronger over the Pacific Ocean during the positive phase of PNA, they tend to transition to southerly fluxes before extending inland, resulting in smaller overland impacts in the western US. The analysis of temporal evolutions indicates AR activity peaks 5 days after the mature phase of NPO/WP growth, as in the case of PNA. Overall, the study suggests potential subseasonal predictability of US West Coast ARs from incipient‐phase knowledge of the leading teleconnection patterns, especially the NPO/WP.

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West by E Cram (review)

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West by E Cram (review)

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West, By E Cram

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West, By E Cram

‘We Thought We were the Only Lesbians in the World’: 1971 Vancouver and the Rise of Lesbian and Transnational Feminist Identities Between Canada and the USA

AbstractLesbian feminists in Vancouver cite the 1971 Vancouver Indochinese Women's Conference (VIWC) as a critical moment in the formation of solidarity networks and community building. In the months leading up to, and during the 1971 VIWC, lesbians forged long‐lasting connections with one another across regional and international borders. As a result of these efforts, these early lesbian feminists developed meaningful lesbian support networks that would continue for over fifty years. The VIWC was a watershed event for lesbians across the North American West.

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West

Jesuit Cartography in the Rockies: Pierre-Jean De Smet and the Mapping of Native Landscapes of the American Northwest

Jesuit Cartography in the Rockies: Pierre-Jean De Smet and the Mapping of Native Landscapes of the American Northwest

Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West. By Sheila McManus

Both Sides Now is a much-needed work on the historiography and history of the North American western borderlands. Writing for scholars and students, McManus deftly distills the most pervasive intellectual influences on the concept of North American western “borderlands” while sustaining an abridged history of the region more as spaces of connection than as zones of stark division. McManus traces how and why borderlands scholars from Canada and the United States (she is silent on borderlands scholars from Mexico or those published in Spanish) initially wrote nationally bounded frameworks history that worked in service of settler-colonialism and Anglo nationalism erasing the Indigenous past. Both Sides Now does not short-shrift these points. McManus directly implicates the now-infamous Turner Thesis, and Herbert Bolton’s previously pathbreaking work on hemispheric borderlands, as handmaids of racist, gendered, nation-centered histories that had shaped the history of North American western borderlands. Women, Indigenous peoples, and non-elite Hispanos were present in Turner’s West and Bolton’s borderlands but primarily as caricatures in the sweep of history in which they played a minor role. Rather than reproduce these dynamics, today’s borderlands scholars, although working in different traditions, reject nation-centered histories even as they are keen to trouble how border enforcement has circumscribed life between the lines.

Review: Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West, by Sheila McManus

Book Review| May 01 2023 Review: Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West, by Sheila McManus Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West. By Sheila McManus. (College Station, Texas A & M University Press, 2022. 224 pp.). Benjamin H. Johnson Benjamin H. Johnson Loyola University Chicago Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (2023) 92 (2): 306–308. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.2.306 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Benjamin H. Johnson; Review: Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West, by Sheila McManus. Pacific Historical Review 1 May 2023; 92 (2): 306–308. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2023.92.2.306 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search In this slender yet substantive volume, Sheila McManus offers a historiographic account of recent scholarship on the Mexico-U.S. and western Canada-U.S. borders. McManus achieves the difficult feat of writing an account that is historiographically oriented yet rooted in the actual histories of these places, accessible yet rigorous, and even-handed in its description of scholarship but also helpfully proscriptive. “Borderlands have long memories,” the author proclaims in the book’s evocative first sentence, “they remember and reveal the messy, uneven, contested history of the constructed nature of the national spaces” (p. 1). In an introduction that traces the history of studying the regions that became international borderlands in the nineteenth century, McManus urges historians to “craft inclusive comparative frameworks” by examining the ways borderlands “retain their unique characteristics” and by focusing on the methodology of such studies (p. 3). The five body chapters that follow are both thematic and roughly chronological, serving... You do not currently have access to this content.

Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West. By E Cram

“What might we do with violent inheritance?” (30) E Cram’s timely study centers on this question. Cram traces material, affective, and ideological “land lines” to engage places where sexual modernity intersects with other extractive structures including settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and petromodernity (6–7). Their analysis focuses on a loosely defined western region including Wyoming (where they grew up) but also encompassing Colorado, Idaho, Iowa (where they live), and Manitoba (where I live). Bringing together queer ecologies, the energy humanities, settler-colonial studies, communication studies, and geography, Violent Inheritance models innovative research methods for “embodied queer ecological criticism” (9)—including looking for “gasps” in the archive (79), resisting extractive research practices, and pushing queer studies beyond the individual or the subject and toward the (infra)structural. Cram’s introduction lays out an important, yet dizzying, array of terms: “sexual modernities, land lines, and [queer and anticolonial] regeneration” are identified as the main ones (emphasis in original; 9), alongside others (especially “innervation” and “enervation” [emphasis in original; 14–15], and “infrastructures of feeling” [22; 202]). The first chapter, which centers on the writings of Owen Wister, engages late-nineteenth-century theories of neurasthenia alongside a modern, energetic, colonial notion of subjectivity forged through friction with and dominance of western climates and environments. The second chapter considers the archival remains of Wyoming political economist and settler feminist Grace Raymond Hebard as both a eugenic violent inheritance and a queer archive that can be regenerated without being recuperated.

Never Caught Twice: Horse Stealing in Western Nebraska, 1850–1890

The history of the North American West—whether real or imagined—is one in which violence looms large. The Archimedean spirals of winter counts depict men and animals red with gore; the journals of black-robed priests, fur traders, explorers, and emigrants note the ravages of war and a catalog of much smaller misdeeds. Indigenous rivals vied for control over millennia and across landscapes; European invaders charted a path of destruction across the continent, the legacy of which remains today. Murder, assault, and arson connect events as diverse as the Washita massacre and the sack of Lawrence, Kansas. To this litany of destruction, Never Caught Twice adds a seemingly innocuous transgression. Through meticulous analysis that is by turns qualitative and quantitative, the book is equally a microhistory of a particular time and a very specific place, and a grand tale about power, greed, and desire. The time and place are western Nebraska in the second half of the nineteenth century; the objects of desire are horses.From the outset, the author makes a strong case for the unique nature of his subject. Western Nebraska is not merely a place to be endured on the seemingly endless trek between Gothenburg and Scottsbluff, nor are horses mere beasts of burden. Aridity, isolation, sand-topped hills, and riparian valleys conspired to make the region a place where horses, horse owners, and thieves collided. The obvious qualities of horses—power, speed, and nimble action—made them indispensable to anyone wishing to get from one point to another. But horses’ intangible attributes—their grace, beauty, generosity, and indefatigable memories—also made them a vital part of many people’s lives. Luckett’s attention to “the miracle of the horse” allows for a truly monumental reading of horse theft—an activity that bound people together, pushed them apart, and shaped an entire continent.Never Caught Twice opens with the historical and cultural geography of western Nebraska. A summary worthy of the late D. W. Meinig points to factors that encouraged horse theft, including terrain and the presence of major wagon roads. Though the author’s reading of Plains equestrian cultures is rather conventional, he makes the familiar interesting by delving into Indigenous accounts of horse-based reciprocity. Horse raids, horse gifts, and ceremonial practices pointed to the complexities of horse wealth and ways in which horses were intertwined with human emotions and interactions. Horse theft functioned as proxy warfare (warriors seized horses instead of killing one another) and an economic system in which Indigenous communities transferred horse wealth among themselves.Anglo-Americans disrupted this delicate balance when they invaded the grasslands, decimated wild game populations, carved paths through Native homelands, and unwittingly inserted themselves into Indigenous rivalries. The United States Army, occupying a line of forts throughout the plains, often interposed itself between the two groups. Though the military carried out violent punitive campaigns against Native peoples, many army officers also helped Native people recover stolen horses, warned them to beware white thieves, and worked with Native leaders to preserve peace. The author is careful to distinguish between major military campaigns (the focus of much scholarly and popular literature) and the far less visible efforts of army officers committed to upholding treaty obligations.Never Caught Twice focuses on Anglo-American horse thieves in at least three of its six chapters; material on the habits and characteristics of outlaws functions as an ethnography of sorts. Scholars of Plains Indigenous communities—and lovers of horses—will find much of interest nevertheless.

Sheila McManus, Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West

"Sheila McManus, Both Sides Now: Writing the Edges of the North American West." Journal of History, 58(1), pp. 108–109

Population structure and adaptive differentiation in the sea cucumber Apostichopus californicus and implications for spatial resource management.

A growing body of evidence suggests that spatial population structure can develop in marine species despite large population sizes and high gene flow. Characterizing population structure is important for the effective management of exploited species, as it can be used to identify appropriate scales of management in fishery and aquaculture contexts. The California sea cucumber, Apostichopus californicus, is one such exploited species whose management could benefit from further characterization of population structure. Using restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) sequencing, we developed 2075 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to quantify genetic structure over a broad section of the species' range along the North American west coast and within the Salish Sea, a region supporting the Washington State A. californicus fishery and developing aquaculture production of the species. We found evidence for population structure (global fixation index (FST) = 0.0068) with limited dispersal driving two patterns of differentiation: isolation-by-distance and a latitudinal gradient of differentiation. Notably, we found detectable population differences among collection sites within the Salish Sea (pairwise FST = 0.001-0.006). Using FST outlier detection and gene-environment association, we identified 10.2% of total SNPs as putatively adaptive. Environmental variables (e.g., temperature, salinity) from the sea surface were more correlated with genetic variation than those same variables measured near the benthos, suggesting that selection on pelagic larvae may drive adaptive differentiation to a greater degree than selection on adults. Our results were consistent with previous estimates of and patterns in population structure for this species in other extents of the range. Additionally, we found that patterns of neutral and adaptive differentiation co-varied, suggesting that adaptive barriers may limit dispersal. Our study provides guidance to decision-makers regarding the designation of management units for A. californicus and adds to the growing body of literature identifying genetic population differentiation in marine species despite large, nominally connected populations.

Sunflower sea star predation on urchins can facilitate kelp forest recovery.

The recent collapse of predatory sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) owing to sea star wasting disease (SSWD) is hypothesized to have contributed to proliferation of sea urchin barrens and losses of kelp forests on the North American west coast. We used experiments and a model to test whether restored Pycnopodia populations may help recover kelp forests through their consumption of nutritionally poor purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) typical of barrens. Pycnopodia consumed 0.68 S. purpuratus d-1, and our model and sensitivity analysis shows that the magnitude of recent Pycnopodia declines is consistent with urchin proliferation after modest sea urchin recruitment, and even small Pycnopodia recoveries could generally lead to lower densities of sea urchins that are consistent with kelp-urchin coexistence. Pycnopodia seem unable to chemically distinguish starved from fed urchins and indeed have higher predation rates on starved urchins owing to shorter handling times. These results highlight the importance of Pycnopodia in regulating purple sea urchin populations and maintaining healthy kelp forests through top-down control. The recovery of this important predator to densities commonly found prior to SSWD, whether through natural means or human-assisted reintroductions, may therefore be a key step in kelp forest restoration at ecologically significant scales.

Building resilient landscapes in a semi-arid watershed: Anthropogenic and natural burning histories in Late Holocene Tesuque Creek, northern New Mexico

As mega-fires have swept the North American West in recent decades, studies of past fire events have gained academic interest. Deep-time perspectives are necessary to better understand the periodicity of fire events and to identify basic drivers of frequent fire episodes through time, including potential anthropogenic fire use. Our study contributes to the growing field of archeological fire ecology in the Southwest with an examination of a high-resolution geobotanical dataset for Holocene fire regimes as indicated within sediments from an alluvial section from Tesuque Creek in northern New Mexico. Using phytolith, geochemical, and sedimentological data, we reconstruct indices for burn cycle seasonality and destabilization of riparian vegetation communities that suggest potential anthropogenic land use and possible patterns distinguishing human burning from lightning ignitions. Through this study, we consider the potential role of hunter-gatherer behavior in producing fire landscapes as part of their strategies for managing risks in the fragile environments of the Middle-Late Holocene in northern New Mexico. We suggest that combining geo and botanical datasets from alluvial sections with archeological evidence will allow researchers to fine-tune the resolution of local climate sequences and their environmental impacts on small landscape scales. When such small-scale studies can be aggregated, they may further contribute to testing models of regional patch-burning, either natural or anthropogenic. We further posit that human relationships with fire in the past should be considered as collaborative efforts with lightning-ignited burns, to manage the risks associated with both too much and too little fire in fragile dryland ecosystems.