From the Cover: Ecosystem responses in the southern Caribbean Sea to global climate change

Over the last few decades, rising greenhouse gas emissions have promoted poleward expansion of the large-scale atmospheric Hadley circulation that dominates the Tropics, thereby affecting behavior of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Expression of these changes in tropical marine ecosystems is poorly understood because of sparse observational datasets. We link contemporary ecological changes in the southern Caribbean Sea to global climate change indices. Monthly observations from the CARIACO Ocean Time-Series between 1996 and 2010 document significant decadal scale trends, including a net sea surface temperature (SST) rise of ∼1.0 ± 0.14 °C (±SE), intensified stratification, reduced delivery of upwelled nutrients to surface waters, and diminished phytoplankton bloom intensities evident as overall declines in chlorophyll a concentrations (ΔChla = −2.8 ± 0.5%⋅y⁻¹) and net primary production (ΔNPP = −1.5 ± 0.3%⋅y⁻¹). Additionally, phytoplankton taxon dominance shifted from diatoms, dinoflagellates, and coccolithophorids to smaller taxa after 2004, whereas mesozooplankton biomass increased and commercial landings of planktivorous sardines collapsed. Collectively, our results reveal an ecological state change in this planktonic system. The weakening trend in Trade Winds (−1.9 ± 0.3%⋅y⁻¹) and dependent local variables are largely explained by trends in two climatic indices, namely the northward migration of the Azores High pressure center (descending branch of Hadley cell) by 1.12 ± 0.42°N latitude and the northeasterly progression of the ITCZ Atlantic centroid (ascending branch of Hadley cell), the March position of which shifted by about 800 km between 1996 and 2009.     

Collaborative approaches using traditional and nontraditional providers of women's health care in the Philippines

Unequal distribution of professional health personnel and scarce resources plague third world countries. The means by which this two‐pronged problem is tackled vary from country to country.

The Philippines, however, should not suffer from this same problem because there are more than enough health professionals graduating every year. Government priorities however, preclude the opening of more jobs for the rural areas, leading to the out‐migration and depletion in the hinterlands. In order to remedy this imperfection, lay women are trained to help solve some of the major problems in health. Full‐time outreach workers, barrio supply point officers, and school teachers are recruited to decrease high fertility and population growth. Nutrition scholars work on the problem of rampant malnutrition especially among children and pregnant and lactating women, while general morbidity is tackled by volunteer health workers. Pharmacy aides dispense the most essential drugs. All these are lay women, but the academe take it upon themselves to innovate teaching strategies to train these volunteers at minimal cost.

Some progress has been achieved. What has been planned as stopgap measures may yet prove to be solutions in the long run. Filipino women are demonstrating that they themselves can solve the problems that beset them and their families.