The current climate warming results in a quick recession of glaciers on the northern slopes and valleys of the Lindströmfjellet-Hĺbergnuten mountain ridge in Nordenskiöld Land. The equilibrium line altitude has risen from c. 500-550 m in 1936 to c.750 m in 2001 and c. 800 m in 2006. The slopes, almost completely glaciated during the Little Ice Age, and even in 1936, have mostly been abandoned by glaciers afterwards. The upper parts of the glaciers undergo a clear retreat diminishing their accumulative (firn) fields. The lower parts of the active glacial tongues have been transformed into marginal zones built of dead ice covered with morainic and glacifluvial deposits. The surfaces of the marginal zones are progressively lowered due to ablation of dead ice. The state of the described glaciers is not balanced under the current climatic conditions. Thus, the landscape transformation of the mountain ridge will most certainly continue.
Being more sensitive to economic fluctuations, childbearing postponement increased during the second demographic transition and was accompanied by a moderate decline in the number of children per woman and the progressive rise of mother’s age at first birth. Under the hypothesis that recessions have a marked influence on population dynamics, the present study investigates spatial changes in mother’s age at birth in Greece with the aim to assess the differential impact of economic crisis along the urban-rural gradient. The percent composition of births by mother's age class – considered a gross indicator of fertility under a changing socioeconomic context – was studied at 4 spatial scales (the whole country, administrative regions, prefectures and metropolitan areas or specific economic districts) over an economic cycle from expansion to recession (1980–2016). While stimulating childbearing postponement observed since the early 1980s, empirical results of this study indicate that the 2007 recession was quite neutral on fertility trends in Greece, consolidating the traditional divide between urban and rural areas.
The economy of Slovakia experienced a turning point in the 1st half of 2008 and entered a phase of decline. The negative impacts of the global economic crisis became evident in the 2nd half of 2008 and led into a recession in the 1st quarter of 2009. The composite leading indicator was originally intended for forecasting of business cycle turning points between the decline and growth phases. The aim of this paper is to transform the qualitative information from composite leading indicator into quantitative forecast and verify whether the beginning of recession in Slovakia could have been identied in advance. The ARIMAX and error correction models are used for the composite reference series and GDP forecasts respectively. The nal result shows that the composite leading indicator is useful not only for identifying turning points, but also for the prediction of recession phase.