2 results
6 - Storms, clouds, and weather
-
- By C. A. Griffith, University of Arizona, S. Rafkin, Southwest Research Institute, P. Rannou, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, C. P. McKay, NASA Ames Research Center
- Edited by Ingo Müller-Wodarg, Imperial College London, Caitlin A. Griffith, University of Arizona, Emmanuel Lellouch, Observatoire de Paris, Meudon, Thomas E. Cravens, University of Kansas
-
- Book:
- Titan
- Published online:
- 05 January 2014
- Print publication:
- 24 February 2014, pp 190-223
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
6.1 Introduction
Titan appears alluringly familiar. Its surface is shaped by weather, with lakes, fluvial channels, and dunes (Tomasko et al., 2005; Lorenz et al., 2006; Stofan et al., 2007; Barnes et al., 2007; Lopes et al., 2010). Its atmosphere sports clouds that can grow to over four times the height of terrestrial thunderstorms (Griffith et al., 1998; Brown et al., 2002; Roe et al., 2002; Schaller et al., 2006a). These features result from an uncanny resemblance to Earth; similar to the terrestrial hydro-logical cycle, Titan has a methane cycle, with methane clouds, rain, and seas. On both Earth and Titan, the condensable is supplied by the surface; evaporates into the atmosphere, where it condenses into clouds; redistributes in the atmosphere; and precipitates back to the surface. These processes depend on the partitioning of solar insolation, the atmospheric structure and temperature, the condensable inventory and properties, and the circulation, all of which differ between Earth and Titan (Table 6.1).
On Earth, the equivalent of 2.7 km of water covers the surface and supplies the atmosphere with the equivalent of 2.6 cm of precipitable water. This largely wet surface (70% of the globe) is heated by, on average, 60 percent of the incident sunlight, which passes through the mostly transparent (when cloudless) atmosphere. Sunlight powers weather. Its effects are direct – for example, through the evaporation of surface liquids. In addition, there are indirect impacts – for example, through differential heating across the globe, which ultimately steers the general circulation of the planet, with conditions altered locally by the variable heating associated with surface topography, land-water contrast, and other terrain heterogeneities.
3 - Physicians and medical futility: experience in the critical care setting
- Edited by Marjorie B. Zucker, Choice In Dying, New York, Howard D. Zucker, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York
- Foreword by Alexander Morgan Capron, University of Southern California
-
- Book:
- Medical Futility
- Published online:
- 11 September 2009
- Print publication:
- 13 March 1997, pp 24-35
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Intensive care units were created to facilitate and enhance the delivery of care to the most extremely ill patients. Underlying this concept was the assumption that grouping critically ill patients in one area staffed by physicians and nurses trained in the care of such patients would improve the delivery of care. This approach has been effective. Despite the high level of illness seen in the intensive care unit (ICU), hospital mortality rates for ICU patients range from 15% to 20%.
Paradoxically, the advances that have allowed a high survival rate have also created an increase in the number of individuals who survive in a state of chronic persistent illness. Many of these patients proceed to a slow death at the expense of both human suffering and dollars spent. As a consequence, the process of dying has been scrutinized as closely as other more traditional aspects of health care delivery. How we die in the ICU has become an issue.
The public has become more sophisticated about the strengths and weaknesses of critical care and is asking more frequently that physicians not administer care that fails to confer benefit to the patient. Similarly, some physicians have become more sophisticated about the limitations of medical care and about the suffering that can result from invasive, yet unfruitful, therapy and are now less willing to administer care that they consider of no benefit, even in the rare circumstances when they are asked to do so.