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  • 1
    Publication Date: 2018-01-01
    Print ISSN: 0360-3199
    Electronic ISSN: 1879-3487
    Topics: Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
    Published by Elsevier
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2015-08-12
    Description: The European Parliament recently called for urgent measures to halve food waste in the EU, where consumers are responsible for a major part of total waste along the food supply chain. Due to a lack of data on national food waste statistics, uncertainty in (consumer) waste quantities (and the resulting associated quantities of natural resources) is very high, but has never been previously assessed in studies for the EU. Here we quantify: (1) EU consumer food waste, and (2) associated natural resources required for its production, in term of water and nitrogen, as well as estimating the uncertainty of these values. Total EU consumer food waste averages 123 (min 55?max 190) kg/capita annually (kg/cap/yr), i.e. 16% (min 7?max 24%) of all food reaching consumers. Almost 80%, i.e. 97 (min 45?max 153) kg/cap/yr is avoidable food waste, which is edible food not consumed. We have calculated the water and nitrogen (N) resources associated with avoidable food waste. The associated blue wate...
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: We aim to address the question of whether or not there is a significant recent ?hiatus?, ?pause? or ?slowdown? of global temperature rise. Using a statistical technique known as change point (CP) analysis we identify the changes in four global temperature records and estimate the rates of temperature rise before and after these changes occur. For each record the results indicate that three CPs are enough to accurately capture the variability in the data with no evidence of any detectable change in the global warming trend since ?1970. We conclude that the term ?hiatus? or ?pause? cannot be statistically justified.
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: The impact of geoengineering on crops has to date been studied by examining mean yields. We present the first work focusing on the rate of crop failures under a geoengineered climate. We investigate the impact of a future climate and a potential geoengineering scheme on the number of crop failures in two regions, Northeastern China and West Africa. Climate change associated with a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the number of crop failures in Northeastern China while reducing the number of crop failures in West Africa. In both regions marine cloud brightening is likely to reduce the number crop failures, although it is more effective at reducing mild crop failure than severe crop failure. We find that water stress, rather than heat stress, is the main cause of crop failure in current, future and geoengineered climates. This demonstrates the importance of irrigation and breeding for tolerance to water stress as adaptation methods in all futures. Analysis of global...
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: Scenarios of future changes in small scale precipitation extremes for the Netherlands are presented. These scenarios are based on a new approach whereby changes in precipitation extremes are set proportional to the change in water vapor amount near the surface as measured by the 2m dew point temperature. This simple scaling framework allows the integration of information derived from: (i) observations, (ii) a new unprecedentedly large 16 member ensemble of simulations with the regional climate model RACMO2 driven by EC-Earth, and (iii) short term integrations with a non-hydrostatic model Harmonie. Scaling constants are based on subjective weighting (expert judgement) of the three different information sources taking also into account previously published work. In all scenarios local precipitation extremes increase with warming, yet with broad uncertainty ranges expressing incomplete knowledge of how convective clouds and the atmospheric mesoscale circulation will react to climate...
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: Determining the seasonality of terrestrial carbon exchange with the atmosphere remains a challenge in tropical forests because of the heterogeneity of ecosystem and climate. The magnitude and spatial variability of this flux are unknown, particularly in Amazonia where empirical upscaling approaches from spatially sparse in situ measurements and simulations from process-based models have been challenged in recent scientific literature. Here, we use satellite proxy observations of canopy structure, skin temperature, water content, and optical properties over a period of 10 years (2000?2009) to constrain and quantify the spatial pattern and seasonality of carbon exchange of Amazonian forests. We identify nine regions through an optimized cluster approach with distinct leaf phenology synchronized with either water or light availability and corresponding seasonal cycles of gross primary production (GPP), covering more than 600 million ha of remaining old growth forests of Amazo...
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2015-08-18
    Description: Ozone air pollution is identified as one of the main threats bearing upon human health and ecosystems, with 25 000 deaths in 2005 attributed to surface ozone in Europe (IIASA 2013 TSAP Report #10). In addition, there is a concern that climate change could negate ozone pollution mitigation strategies, making them insufficient over the long run and jeopardising chances to meet the long term objective set by the European Union Directive of 2008 ( Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 ) (60 ppbv, daily maximum). This effect has been termed the ozone climate penalty. One way of assessing this climate penalty is by driving chemistry-transport models with future climate projections while holding the ozone precursor emissions constant (although the climate penalty may also be influenced by changes in emission of precursors). Here we present an analysis of the robustness of the climate penalty in Europe across time periods and scenar...
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2015-08-18
    Description: Projected future trends in water availability are associated with large uncertainties in many regions of the globe. In mountain areas with complex topography, climate models have often limited capabilities to adequately simulate the precipitation variability on small spatial scales. Also, their validation is hampered by typically very low station density. In the Central Andes of South America, a semi-arid high-mountain region with strong seasonality, zonal wind in the upper troposphere is a good proxy for interannual precipitation variability. Here, we combine instrumental measurements, reanalysis and paleoclimate data, and a 57-member ensemble of CMIP5 model simulations to assess changes in Central Andes precipitation over the period AD 1000–2100. This new database allows us to put future projections of precipitation into a previously missing multi-centennial and pre-industrial context. Our results confirm the relationship between regional summer precipitation and 200 hPa zonal ...
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2015-08-21
    Description: Methane (CH 4 ) is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that affects the global climate system. Knowledge about land–atmospheric CH 4 exchanges on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is insufficient. Using a coupled biogeochemistry model, this study analyzes the net exchanges of CH 4 and CO 2 over the QTP for the period of 1979–2100. Our simulations show that the region currently acts as a net CH 4 source with 0.95 Tg CH 4 y −1 emissions and 0.19 Tg CH 4 y −1 soil uptake, and a photosynthesis C sink of 14.1 Tg C y −1 . By accounting for the net CH 4 emission and the net CO 2 sequestration since 1979, the region was found to be initially a warming source until the 2010s with a positive instantaneous radiative forcing peak in the 1990s. In response to future climate change projected by multiple global climate models (GCMs) under four representative concentration pathway (RCP...
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2015-08-21
    Description: Irrigated agriculture is placing increasing pressure on finite freshwater resources, especially in developing countries, where water extraction is often unregulated, un-priced and even subsidized. To shift agriculture to a more sustainable use of water without harming the food security and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of smallholders, substantial improvements of water use efficiency will be required. Here, we use detailed hydroclimatic and agricultural data to estimate the potential for the widespread adoption of efficient irrigation technologies to halt the depletion of India’s groundwater resources. Even though we find substantial technical potential for reversing water table declines, we show that the impacts are highly sensitive to assumptions about farmers’ water use decisions. For example, we find that widespread adoption of proven technologies that include drip and sprinkler irrigation has the potential to reduce the amount of excessive extraction of groundwater by ...
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  • 11
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: Air quality is heavily influenced by weather conditions. In this study, we assessed the impact of long-term weather changes on air quality and health in the US during 1994?2012. We quantified past weather-related increases, or ?weather penalty?, in ozone (O 3 ) and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), and thereafter estimated the associated excess deaths. Using statistical regression methods, we derived the weather penalty as the additional increases in air pollution relative to trends assuming constant weather conditions (i.e., weather-adjusted trends). During our study period, temperature increased and wind speed decreased in most US regions. Nationally, weather-related 8 h max O 3 increases were 0.18 ppb per year (95% CI: 0.06, 0.31) in the warm season (May?October) and 0.07 ppb per year (95% CI: 0.02, 0.13) in the cold season (November?April). The weather penalties on O 3 were relatively larger than PM 2.5 weather penalties, which...
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  • 12
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: We quantify the source contributions to surface PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) pollution over North China from January 2013 to 2015 using the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model and its adjoint with improved model horizontal resolution (1/4????5/16?) and aqueous-phase chemistry for sulfate production. The adjoint method attributes the PM2.5 pollution to emissions from different source sectors and chemical species at the model resolution. Wintertime surface PM2.5 over Beijing is contributed by emissions of organic carbon (27% of the total source contribution), anthropogenic fine dust (27%), and SO 2 (14%), which are mainly from residential and industrial sources, followed by NH 3 (13%) primarily from agricultural activities. About half of the Beijing pollution originates from sources outside of the city municipality. Adjoint analyses for other cities in North China all show significant regional pollution transport, supporting a joint regional control policy for...
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  • 13
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: We combine Landsat and MODIS data in a land model to assess the impact of urbanization on US surface climate. For cities built within forests, daytime urban land surface temperature (LST) is much higher than that of vegetated lands. For example, in Washington DC and Atlanta, daytime mean temperature differences between impervious and vegetated lands reach 3.3 and 2.0 ?C, respectively. Conversely, for cities built within arid lands, such as Phoenix, urban areas are 2.2 ?C cooler than surrounding shrubs. We find that the choice and amount of tree species in urban settings play a commanding role in modulating cities? LST. At continental and monthly scales, impervious surfaces are 1.9 ?C???0.6 ?C warmer than surroundings during summer and expel 12% of incoming precipitation as surface runoff compared to 3.2% over vegetation. We also show that the carbon lost to urbanization represents 1.8% of the continental total, a striking number considering urbanization occupies only 1.1% of the ...
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  • 14
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: This letter assesses low carbon scenarios for India at the subnational level in the passenger road transport sector. We estimate the future passenger mobility demand and assess the impact of carbon mitigation policies using the Asia?Pacific Integrated Assessment/Enduse models. This letter focuses on the transitions of energy and emissions of passenger transport in India in alternate scenarios i.e. the business-as-usual scenario and a low carbon scenario that aligns to the 2 ?C temperature stabilization target agreed under the global climate change negotiations. The modelling results show that passenger mobility demand will rise in all sub-national regions of India in the coming few decades. However, the volume and modal structure will vary across regions. Modelling assessment results show that aligning global low carbon policies with local policies has potential to deliver significant air quality co-benefits. This analysis provides insights into the comparative dynamics of enviro...
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  • 15
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: The US residential solar market is growing quickly, and as solar adoption diffuses into new populations, later adopters may differ significantly from earlier ones. Using a unique household-level survey dataset including 1234 adopters and 790 non-adopters from San Diego County, California, we explore differences in attitudinal and socio-economic factors for three groups: (i) adopters and non-adopters; (ii) early and more recent adopters; (iii) consumers adopting via buying or leasing. Our results suggest that adopters overall have higher incomes, are more educated, live in larger homes, and expect to stay in their homes for longer than their non-adopting peers. They also differ in their expectations of electricity retail rate changes and the impact solar could have on their home resale value. When examining differences between early and more recent adopters, we find that recent adopters are more representative of general homeowners and more politically moderate. They are also incr...
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  • 16
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: The decline in Arctic sea ice cover has been widely documented and it is clear that this change is having profound impacts locally. An emerging and highly uncertain area of scientific research, however, is whether such Arctic change has a tangible effect on weather and climate at lower latitudes. Of particular societal relevance is the open question: will continued Arctic sea ice loss make mid-latitude weather more extreme? Here we analyse idealized atmospheric general circulation model simulations, using two independent models, both forced by projected Arctic sea ice loss in the late twenty-first century. We identify robust projected changes in regional temperature and precipitation extremes arising solely due to Arctic sea ice loss. The likelihood and duration of cold extremes are projected to decrease over high latitudes and over central and eastern North America, but to increase over central Asia. Hot extremes are projected to increase in frequency and duration over high lati...
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  • 17
    Publication Date: 2015-08-04
    Description: We examined new satellite climate data records documenting frozen (FR) season and snow cover extent (SCE) changes from 1979 to 2011 over all northern vegetated land areas (?45 ?N). New insight on the spatial and temporal characteristics of seasonal FR ground and snowpack melt changes were revealed by integrating the independent FR and SCE data records. Similar decreasing trends in annual FR and SCE durations coincided with widespread warming (0.4 ?C decade ?1 ). Relatively strong declines in FR and SCE durations in spring and summer are partially offset by increasing trends in fall and winter. These contrasting seasonal trends result in relatively weak decreasing trends in annual FR and SCE durations. A dominant SCE retreat response to FR duration decreases was observed, while the sign and strength of this relationship was spatially complex, varying by latitude and regional snow cover, and climate characteristics. The spatial extent of FR conditions exceeds SCE in early ...
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  • 18
    Publication Date: 2015-08-05
    Description: The articles in this special issue examine the critical nexus of electricity, water, and climate, emphasizing connections amongresources;?the prospect of increasing vulnerabilities of water resources and electricity generation in a changingclimate;?and the opportunities for research to inform integrated energy and water policy and management measures aimed at reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience. Here, we characterize several major themes emerging from this research and highlight some of the uptake of this work in both scientific and publicspheres.?Underpinning much of this research is the recognition that water resources are expected to undergo substantial changes based on the global warming that results primarily from fossil energy-based carbon emissions.?At the same time, the production of electricity from fossil fuels, nuclear power, and some renewable technologies (biomass, geothermal and concentrating solar power) can be highly water-intensive.?Energy ch...
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  • 19
    Publication Date: 2015-08-05
    Description: Description unavailable
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  • 20
    Publication Date: 2015-08-05
    Description: An analysis of the climate impact of various forms of beef production is carried out, with a particular eye to the comparison between systems relying primarily on grasses grown in pasture (?grass-fed? or ?pastured? beef) and systems involving substantial use of manufactured feed requiring significant external inputs in the form of synthetic fertilizer and mechanized agriculture (?feedlot? beef). The climate impact is evaluated without employing metrics such as ##IMG## [http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/10/8/085002/erl517448ieqn1.gif] {${\mathrm{CO}}_{2}{\rm{e}}$} or global warming potentials. The analysis evaluates the impact at all time scales out to 1000 years. It is concluded that certain forms of pastured beef production have substantially lower climate impact than feedlot systems. However, pastured systems that require significant synthetic fertilization, inputs from supplemental feed, or deforestation to create pasture, have substantially greater clim...
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  • 21
    Publication Date: 2015-08-05
    Description: By applying the concept of the coupled natural and human system (CNH), we compared spatiotemporal changes in livestock (LSK), land cover, and ecosystem production to understand the relative roles that natural and social driving forces have on CNH dynamics on the Mongolia plateau. We used socioeconomic and physical data at prefecture level for Inner Mongolia and Mongolia from 1981 through 2010 to represent changes in net primary productivity (NPP), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), precipitation, annual average temperature, LSK, livestock density (LSKD), land cover change (LCC), gross domestic production (GDP), and population (POP). The ratios such as LSK:NPP, LSKD: EVI, LSKD:albedo, LSK:POP, and LSK:GDP were examined and compared between Inner Mongolia and Mongolia, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to quantify the complex interactions. Substantial differences in LSK, POP, and economic development were found among the biomes and between Inner Mongolia and Mongolia...
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  • 22
    Publication Date: 2015-08-05
    Description: Description unavailable
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  • 23
    Publication Date: 2015-08-08
    Description: Storms following wildfires are known to impair drinking water supplies in the southwestern United States, yet our understanding of the role of precipitation in post-wildfire water quality is far from complete. We quantitatively assessed water-quality impacts of different hydrologic events in the Colorado Front Range and found that for a three-year period, substantial hydrologic and geochemical responses downstream of a burned area were primarily driven by convective storms with a 30 min rainfall intensity 〉10 mm h ?1 . These storms, which typically occur several times each year in July?September, are often small in area, short-lived, and highly variable in intensity and geographic distribution. Thus, a rain gage network with high temporal resolution and spatial density, together with high-resolution stream sampling, are required to adequately characterize post-wildfire responses. We measured total suspended sediment, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrate, and mangan...
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  • 24
    Publication Date: 2015-08-08
    Description: An analysis of observed trends in African annual-average near-surface temperatures over the last five decades reveals drastic increases, particularly over parts of the subtropics and central tropical Africa. Over these regions, temperatures have been rising at more than twice the global rate of temperature increase. An ensemble of high-resolution downscalings, obtained using a single regional climate model forced with the sea-surface temperatures and sea-ice fields of an ensemble of global circulation model (GCM) simulations, is shown to realistically represent the relatively strong temperature increases observed in subtropical southern and northern Africa. The amplitudes of warming are generally underestimated, however. Further warming is projected to occur during the 21st century, with plausible increases of 4?6 ?C over the subtropics and 3?5 ?C over the tropics by the end of the century relative to present-day climate under the A2 (a low mitigation) scenario of the Special Rep...
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  • 25
    Publication Date: 2015-08-12
    Description: Fires associated with agricultural and plantation development in Indonesia impact ecosystem services and release emissions into the atmosphere that degrade regional air quality and contribute to greenhouse gas concentrations. In this study, we estimate the relative contributions of the oil palm, timber (for wood pulp and paper), and logging industries in Sumatra and Kalimantan to land cover change, fire activity, and regional population exposure to smoke concentrations. Concessions for these three industries cover 21% and 49% of the land area in Sumatra and Kalimantan respectively, with the highest overall area in lowlands on mineral soils instead of more carbon-rich peatlands. In 2012, most remaining forest area was located in logging concessions for both islands, and for all combined concessions, there was higher remaining lowland and peatland forest area in Kalimantan (45% and 46%, respectively) versus Sumatra (20% and 27%, respectively). Emissions from all combined concession...
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  • 26
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: The increased exposure of human populations to heat stress is one of the likely consequences of global warming, and it has detrimental effects on health and labor capacity. Here, we consider the evolution of heat stress under climate change using 21 general circulation models (GCMs). Three heat stress indicators, based on both temperature and humidity conditions, are used to investigate present-day model biases and spreads in future climate projections. Present day estimates of heat stress indicators from observational data shows that humid tropical areas tend to experience more frequent heat stress than other regions do, with a total frequency of heat stress 250?300 d yr ?1 . The most severe heat stress is found in the Sahel and south India. Present-day GCM simulations tend to underestimate heat stress over the tropics due to dry and cold model biases. The model based estimates are in better agreement with observation in mid to high latitudes, but this is due to compens...
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  • 27
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: Incorporation of charcoal produced by biomass pyrolysis (biochar) in agricultural soils is a potentially sustainable strategy for climate change mitigation. However, some side effects of large-scale biochar application need to be investigated. In particular a massive use of a low-reflecting material on large cropland areas may impact the climate via changes in surface albedo. Twelve years of MODIS-derived albedo data were analysed for three pairs of selected agricultural sites in central Italy. In each pair bright and dark coloured soil were identified, mimicking the effect of biochar application on the land surface albedo of complex agricultural landscapes. Over this period vegetation canopies never completely masked differences in background soil colour. This soil signal , expressed as an albedo difference, induced a local instantaneous radiative forcing of up to 4.7 W m ?2 during periods of high solar irradiance. Biochar mitigation potential might therefore be ...
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  • 28
    Publication Date: 2015-08-14
    Description: A remarkable feature of nanobubbles (
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  • 29
    Publication Date: 2015-09-11
    Description: Environmental justice (EJ) research has relied on ecological analyses of socio-demographic data from areal units to determine if particular populations are disproportionately burdened by toxic risks. This article advances quantitative EJ research by (a) examining whether statistical associations found for geographic units translate to relationships at the household level; (b) testing alternative explanations for distributional injustices never before investigated; and (c) applying a novel statistical technique appropriate for geographically-clustered data. Our study makes these advances by using generalized estimating equations to examine distributive environmental inequities in the Miami (Florida) metropolitan area, based on primary household-level survey data and census block-level cancer risk estimates of hazardous air pollutant (HAP) exposure from on-road mobile emission sources. In addition to modeling determinants of on-road HAP cancer risk among all survey participants, tw...
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  • 30
    Publication Date: 2015-09-11
    Description: Determining the time of emergence of climates altered from their natural state by anthropogenic influences can help inform the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change. Previous studies have examined the time of emergence of climate averages. However, at the global scale, the emergence of changes in extreme events, which have the greatest societal impacts, has not been investigated before. Based on state-of-the-art climate models, we show that temperature extremes generally emerge slightly later from their quasi-natural climate state than seasonal means, due to greater variability in extremes. Nevertheless, according to model evidence, both hot and cold extremes have already emerged across many areas. Remarkably, even precipitation extremes that have very large variability are projected to emerge in the coming decades in Northern Hemisphere winters associated with a wettening trend. Based on our findings we expect local temperature and precipitation e...
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  • 31
    Publication Date: 2015-09-11
    Description: Artificial removal of CO 2 from the atmosphere (also referred to as negative emissions) has been proposed as a means to restore the climate system to a desirable state, should the impacts of climate change become ‘dangerous’. Here we explore whether negative emissions are indeed effective in reversing climate change on human timescales, given the potentially counteracting effect of natural carbon sinks and the inertia of the climate system. We designed a range of CO 2 emission scenarios, which follow a gradual transition to a zero-carbon energy system and entail implementation of various amounts of net-negative emissions at technologically plausible rates. These scenarios are used to force an Earth System Model of intermediate complexity. Results suggest that while it is possible to revert to a desired level of warming (e.g. 2 °C above pre-industrial) after different levels of overshoot, thermosteric sea level rise is not reversible for at least several centur...
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  • 32
    Publication Date: 2015-09-11
    Description: Human actions, such as converting natural land cover to agricultural or urban land, result in the loss and fragmentation of natural habitat, with important consequences for the provision of ecosystem services. Such habitat loss is especially important for services that are supplied by fragments of natural land cover and that depend on flows of organisms, matter, or people across the landscape to produce benefits, such as pollination, pest regulation, recreation and cultural services. However, our quantitative knowledge about precisely how different patterns of landscape fragmentation might affect the provision of these types of services is limited. We used a simple, spatially explicit model to evaluate the potential impact of natural land cover loss and fragmentation on the provision of hypothetical ecosystem services. Based on current literature, we assumed that fragments of natural land cover provide ecosystem services to the area surrounding them in a distance-dependent manner...
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  • 33
    Publication Date: 2015-09-11
    Description: Estimates of the seasonal and interannual exchanges of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) between land ecosystems north of 45°N and the atmosphere are poorly constrained, in part, because of uncertainty in the temporal variability of water-inundated land area. Here we apply a process-based biogeochemistry model to evaluate how interannual changes in wetland inundation extent might have influenced the overall carbon dynamics of the region during the time period 1993–2004. We find that consideration by our model of these interannual variations between 1993 and 2004, on average, results in regional estimates of net methane sources of 67.8 ± 6.2 Tg CH 4 yr −1 , which is intermediate to model estimates that use two static inundation extent datasets (51.3 ± 2.6 and 73.0 ± 3.6 Tg CH 4 yr −1 ). In contrast, consideration of interannual changes of wetland inundation extent result in regional estimates of the net CO 2
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  • 34
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: As with life cycle assessment (LCA) studies in general, agricultural LCAs often rely on static and outdated inventory data, but literature suggests that agricultural systems may be highly dynamic. Here, we applied life cycle impact assessment methods to investigate the trends and underlying drivers of changes in non-global environmental impacts of major crops in the US. The results show that the impact per hectare corn and cotton generated on the ecological health of freshwater systems decreased by about 50% in the last decade. This change is mainly due to the use of genetically modified (GM) crops, which has reduced the application of insecticides and relatively toxic herbicides such as atrazine. However, the freshwater ecotoxicity impact per hectare soybean production increased by 3-fold, mainly because the spread of an invasive species, soybean aphid, has resulted in an increasing use of insecticides. In comparison, other impact categories remained relatively stable. By evalua...
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  • 35
    Publication Date: 2015-09-12
    Description: Cryptosporidium is a protozoan parasite that can cause diarrhoea. Human faeces are an important source of Cryptosporidium in surface waters. We present a model to study the impact of sanitation, urbanization and population growth on human emissions of Cryptosporidium to surface waters. We build on a global model by Hofstra et al (2013 Sci. Total Environ. 442 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.10.013] 10–9 ) and zoom into Bangladesh and India as illustrative case studies. The model is most sensitive to changes in oocyst excretion and infection rate, and to assumptions on the share of faeces reaching the surface water for different sanitation types. We find urban centres to be hotspots of human Cryptosporidium emissions. We estimate that 53% (Bangladesh) and 91% (India) of total emissions come from urban areas. 50% of oocysts come from only 8% (Bangladesh) and 3% (India) of the country area. In the future, populat...
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  • 36
    Publication Date: 2015-09-23
    Description: A lack of basic information on optimal nitrogen (N) management often results in over- or under-application of N fertilizer in small-scale intensive rice farming. Here, we present a new database of N input from a survey of 6611 small-scale rice farmers and rice yield in response to added N in 1177 experimental on-farm tests across eight agroecological subregions of China. This database enables us to evaluate N management by farmers and develop an optimal approach to regional N management. We also investigated grain yield, N application rate, and estimated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in comparison to N application and farming practices. Across all farmers, the average N application rate, weighted by the area of rice production in each subregion, was 210 kg ha −1 and ranged from 30 to 744 kg ha −1 across fields and from 131 to 316 kg ha −1 across regions. The regionally optimal N rate (RONR) determined from the experiments averaged 167 kg ha −1
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  • 37
    Publication Date: 2015-09-23
    Description: Screen et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/084006] 084006 ) find that model simulations forced by past and future Arctic sea-ice conditions provide robust evidence that a variety of extreme weather events both within and beyond the Arctic will be affected by changing sea-ice conditions.
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  • 38
    Publication Date: 2015-09-23
    Description: Research in the Global North (e.g., US, Europe) has revealed robust patterns of environmental injustice whereby low income and minority residents face exposure to industrial hazards in their neighborhoods. A small body of research suggests that patterns of environmental injustice may diverge between the Global North and South due to differing urban development trajectories. This study uses quantitative environmental justice methods to examine spatial relationships between residential socio-demographics and industrial parks in Tijuana, Baja California Norte, Mexico using 2010 census data for Tijuana’s 401 neighborhoods and municipality-provided locations of industrial parks in the city. Results of spatial lag regression models reveal that formal development is significantly associated with industrial park density, and it accounts for the significant effect of higher socioeconomic status (measured using mean education) on greater industrial density. Higher proportions of female-hea...
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  • 39
    Publication Date: 2015-09-25
    Description: African wildlife conservation has been transformed, shifting from a traditional, state-managed government approach to a broader governance approach with a wide range of actors designing and implementing wildlife policy. The most widely popularized approach has been that of community-managed nature conservancies. The knowledge of how institutions function in relation to humans and their use of the environment is critical to the design and implementation of effective conservation. This paper seeks to review the institutional and governance challenges faced in wildlife conservation in southern and eastern Africa. We discuss two different sets of challenges related to the shift in conservation practices: the practical implementation of wildlife governance, and the capacity of current governance structures to capture and distribute economic benefits from wildlife. To some extent, the issues raised by the new policies must be resolved through theoretical and empirical research addresse...
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  • 40
    Publication Date: 2015-09-25
    Description: Description unavailable
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  • 41
    Publication Date: 2015-11-24
    Description: Studies investigating migration as a response to climate variability have largely focused on rural locations to the exclusion of urban areas. This lack of urban focus is unfortunate given the sheer numbers of urban residents and continuing high levels of urbanization. To begin filling this empirical gap, this study investigates climate change impacts on US-bound migration from rural and urban Mexico, 1986–1999. We employ geostatistical interpolation methods to construct two climate change indices, capturing warm and wet spell duration, based on daily temperature and precipitation readings for 214 weather stations across Mexico. In combination with detailed migration histories obtained from the Mexican Migration Project, we model the influence of climate change on household-level migration from 68 rural and 49 urban municipalities. Results from multilevel event-history models reveal that a temperature warming and excessive precipitation significantly increased international migrat...
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  • 42
    Publication Date: 2015-11-21
    Description: The urban heat island effect is a phenomenon observed worldwide, i.e. evening and nocturnal temperatures in cities are usually several degrees higher than in the surrounding countryside. In contrast, cities are sometimes found to be cooler than their rural surroundings in the morning and early afternoon. Here, a general physical explanation for this so-called daytime urban cool island (UCI) effect is presented and validated for the cloud-free days in the BUBBLE campaign in Basel, Switzerland. Simulations with a widely evaluated conceptual atmospheric boundary-layer model coupled to a land-surface model, reveal that the UCI can form due to differences between the early morning mixed-layer depth over the city (deeper) and over the countryside (shallower). The magnitude of the UCI is estimated for various types of urban morphology, categorized by their respective local climate zones.
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  • 43
    Publication Date: 2015-11-21
    Description: Forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change because of their high carbon storage and productivity. China has experienced a pronounced increase in forest area resulting from afforestation and reforestation activities since the 1970s. However, few comprehensive analyses have been made to assess the recent dynamics of biomass carbon sinks in China’s forests. This study refined biomass carbon sinks of China’s forests based on eight forest inventories from 1973 to 2013. These sinks increased from 25.0 to 166.5 Tg C yr −1 between 1973 and 2008, and then decreased to 130.9 Tg C yr −1 for the period of 2009–2013 because the increases in forest area and biomass carbon density became slower. About 7% and 93% of this sink reduction occurred in planted and natural forests. The carbon sinks for young, middle-aged and premature forests decreased by 27.3, 27.0, and 7.6 Tg C yr −1 , respectively. 42% of this decrease was offset by mature and overmature ...
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  • 44
    Publication Date: 2015-08-29
    Description: International climate mitigation efforts are focused on limiting increase in global mean temperature, which has been shown to be proportional to cumulative CO 2 emissions. However, the ability of natural and human systems to successfully adapt to climatic changes depends on both the magnitude and rate of change, the latter of which will depend on how quickly a given level of cumulative emissions occurs. We show that cumulative CO 2 emissions of 4620 Gt CO 2 (reached in 2100 in RCP4.5 and 2057 in RCP8.5) produce globally averaged warming rates that are nearly twice as fast in RCP8.5 than RCP4.5 (0.34 ± 0.08 °C per decade versus 0.19 ± 0.05 °C per decade, respectively). Similarly, the globally averaged velocity of climate change calculated according to the ‘nearest equivalent climate’ is greater by a factor of ∼2 in RCP8.5 than in RCP4.5 (2.51 ± 0.67 km yr −1 versus 1.32 ± 0.39 km yr −1 , respectively), despite equivalent cumulative ...
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  • 45
    Publication Date: 2015-08-29
    Description: While terrestrial precipitation is a societally highly relevant climate variable, there is little consensus among climate models about its projected 21st century changes. An important source of precipitable water over land is plant transpiration. Plants control transpiration by opening and closing their stomata. The sensitivity of this process to increasing CO 2 concentrations is uncertain. To assess the impact of this uncertainty on future climate, we perform experiments with an intermediate complexity Earth System Climate Model (UVic ESCM) for a range of model-imposed transpiration-sensitivities to CO 2 . Changing the sensitivity of transpiration to CO 2 causes simulated terrestrial precipitation to change by −10% to +27% by 2100 under a high emission scenario. This study emphasises the importance of an improved assessment of the dynamics of environmental impact on vegetation to better predict future changes of the terrestrial hydrological and carbo...
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  • 46
    Publication Date: 2015-08-29
    Description: Airlines and Air Navigation Service Providers are united in their goal to reduce fuel consumption. While changes to flight operations and technology investments are the focus of a number of studies, our study is among the first to investigate an untapped source of aviation fuel consumption: excess contingency fuel loading. Given the downside risk of fuel exhaustion of diverting to an alternate airport, airline dispatchers may load excess fuel onto an aircraft. Such conservatism comes at a cost of consuming excess fuel, as fuel consumed is a function of, among other factors, aircraft weight. The aim of this paper is to quantify, on a per-flight basis, the fuel burned due to carrying fuel beyond what is needed for foreseeable contingencies, and thereby motivate research, federal guidance, and investments that allow airline dispatchers to reduce fuel uplift while maintaining near zero risks of fuel exhaustion. We merge large publicly available aviation and weather databases with a d...
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  • 47
    Publication Date: 2015-06-03
    Description: Four-year ground-level measurements of the two primary greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 )) were conducted at Dongsha Island (DSI), situated in the northern South China Sea (SCS), from March 2010 to February 2014. Their mean mixing ratios are calculated to be 396.3 ± 5.4 ppm and 1863.6 ± 50.5 ppb, with an annual growth rate of +2.19 ± 0.5 ppm yr –1 and +4.70 ± 4.4 ppb yr –1 for CO 2 and CH 4 , respectively, over the study period. Our results suggest that the Asian continental outflow driven by the winter northeast monsoon could have brought air pollutants into the northern SCS, as denoted by significantly elevated levels of 6.5 ppm for CO 2 and 59.6 ppb for CH 4 , which are greater than the marine boundary layer references at Cape Kumukahi (KUM) in the tropical northern Pacific in January. By contrast, the summertime CH 4 at DSI is shown to be lower than that at KUM by 1...
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  • 48
    Publication Date: 2015-05-24
    Description: Numerous studies have suggested an impact of the 11 year solar cycle on the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with an increased tendency for positive (negative) NAO signals to occur at maxima (minima) of the solar cycle. Climate models have successfully reproduced this solar cycle modulation of the NAO, although the magnitude of the effect is often considerably weaker than implied by observations. A leading candidate for the mechanism of solar influence is via the impact of ultraviolet radiation variability on heating rates in the tropical upper stratosphere, and consequently on the meridional temperature gradient and zonal winds. Model simulations show a zonal mean wind anomaly that migrates polewards and downwards through wave?mean flow interaction. On reaching the troposphere this produces a response similar to the winter NAO. Recent analyses of observations have shown that solar cycle?NAO link becomes clearer approximately three years after solar maximum and minimum. P...
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  • 49
    Publication Date: 2015-05-24
    Description: Short periods of intense rainfall may be associated with significant impacts on society, particularly urban flooding. Climate model projections have suggested an intensification of precipitation under scenarios of climate change. This is in accordance with the hypothesis that precipitation intensities will increase with temperature according to the thermodynamic Clausius?Clapyeron (CC) relation (a rate of ?6?7% ?C ?1 )?a warmer atmosphere being capable of holding more moisture. Consequently, CC scaling between temperature and extreme precipitation has been demonstrated in numerous studies and in different locations, with higher than CC scaling (so-called super CC scaling) observed for sub-daily extremes. Here we use a new dataset of UK hourly precipitation to identify seasonal scaling relationships between mean daily temperature and 99th percentile hourly precipitation intensities. Pooling the data for the whole UK indicates only slightly higher than CC scaling in spring...
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  • 50
    Publication Date: 2015-05-24
    Description: The early 21st century was marked by several severe winters over Central Eurasia linked to a blocking anti-cyclone centered south of the Barents Sea. Severe winters in Central Eurasia were frequent in the 1960s when Arctic sea ice cover was anomalously large, and rare in the 1990s featuring considerably less sea ice cover; the 1960s being characterized by a low, the 1990s by a high phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation, the major driver of surface climate variability in Central Eurasia. We performed ensemble simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model using a set of multi-year Arctic sea ice climatologies corresponding to different periods during 1966?2012. The atmospheric response to the strongly reduced sea ice cover of 2005?2012 exhibits a statistically significant anti-cyclonic surface pressure anomaly which is similar to that observed. A similar response is found when the strongly positive sea ice cover anomaly of 1966?1969 drives the model. Basically no sign...
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  • 51
    Publication Date: 2015-05-24
    Description: Terrestrial ecosystems currently sequester about one third of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions each year, an important ecosystem service that dampens climate change. The future fate of this net uptake of CO 2 by land based ecosystems is highly uncertain. Most ecosystem models used to predict the future terrestrial carbon cycle share a common architecture, whereby carbon that enters the system as net primary production (NPP) is distributed to plant compartments, transferred to litter and soil through vegetation turnover and then re-emitted to the atmosphere in conjunction with soil decomposition. However, while all models represent the processes of NPP and soil decomposition, they vary greatly in their representations of vegetation turnover and the associated processes governing mortality, disturbance and biome shifts. Here we used a detailed second generation dynamic global vegetation model with advanced representation of vegetation growth and mortality, and the a...
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  • 52
    Publication Date: 2015-05-24
    Description: Understanding the changing nature of the intraseasonal oscillatory (ISO) modes of Indian summer monsoon manifested by active and break phase, and their association with extreme rainfall events are necessary for probabilistic estimation of flood-related risks in a warming climate. Here, using ground-based observed rainfall, we define an index to measure the strength of monsoon ISOs and show that the relative strength of the northward-propagating low-frequency ISO (20?60 days) modes have had a significant decreasing trend during the past six decades, possibly attributed to the weakening of large-scale circulation in the region during monsoon season. This reduction is compensated by a gain in synoptic-scale (3?9 days) variability. The decrease in low-frequency ISO variability is associated with a significant decreasing trend in the percentage of extreme events during the active phase of the monsoon. However, this decrease is balanced by significant increasing trends in the percentag...
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  • 53
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: The area covered by boreal forests accounts for ∼16% of the global and 22% of the Northern Hemisphere landmass. Changes in the productivity and functioning of this circumpolar biome not only have strong effects on species composition and diversity at regional to larger scales, but also on the Earth’s carbon cycle. Although temporal inconsistency in the response of tree growth to temperature has been reported from some locations at the higher northern latitudes, a systematic dendroecological network assessment is still missing for most of the boreal zone. Here, we analyze the geographical patterns of changes in summer temperature and precipitation across northern Eurasia 〉60 °N since 1951 AD, as well as the growth trends and climate responses of 445 Pinus , Larix and Picea ring width chronologies in the same area and period. In contrast to widespread summer warming, fluctuations in precipitation and tree growth are spatially more diverse and overall less di...
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  • 54
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: The representation of land surface processes and fluxes in climate models critically affects the simulation of near-surface climate over land. Here we present an evaluation of COSMO-CLM 2 , a model which couples the COSMO-CLM Regional Climate Model to the Community Land Model (CLM4.0). CLM4.0 provides a more detailed representation of land processes compared to the native land surface scheme in COSMO-CLM. We perform historical reanalysis-driven simulations over Europe with COSMO-CLM 2 following the EURO-CORDEX intercomparison protocol. We then evaluate simulations performed with COSMO-CLM 2 , the standard COSMO-CLM and other EURO-CORDEX RCMs against various observational datasets of temperature, precipitation and surface fluxes. Overall, the results indicate that COSMO-CLM 2 outperforms both the standard COSMO-CLM and the other EURO-CORDEX models in simulating sensible, latent and surface radiative fluxes as well as 2-meter temperature acros...
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  • 55
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: Field measurements, satellite observations, and models document a thinning trend in seasonal Arctic lake ice growth, causing a shift from bedfast to floating ice conditions. September sea ice concentrations in the Arctic Ocean since 1991 correlate well ( r = +0.69, p 
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  • 56
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: Although tropical dry forests (TDFs) cover roughly 42% of all tropical ecosystems, extensive deforestation and habitat fragmentation pose important limitations for their conservation and restoration worldwide. In order to develop conservation policies for this endangered ecosystem, it is necessary to quantify their provision of ecosystems services such as carbon sequestration and primary production. In this paper we explore the potential of the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford approach (CASA) for estimating aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in a secondary TDF located at the Santa Rosa National Park (SRNP), Costa Rica. We calculated ANPP using the CASA model (ANPP CASA ) in three successional stages (early, intermediate, and late). Each stage has a stand age of 21 years, 32 years, and 50+ years, respectively, estimated as the age since land abandonment. Our results showed that the ANPP CASA for early, intermediate, and late successional stages were 3.22 Mg C ha...
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  • 57
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
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  • 58
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: Some of the most damaging impacts of climate change are a consequence of changes to the global water cycle. Atmospheric warming causes the water cycle to intensify, increasing both atmospheric water vapor concentrations and global precipitation and enhancing existing patterns of precipitation minus evaporation ( P − E ). This relationship between temperature and precipitation therefore makes understanding how precipitation has changed with global temperatures in the past crucial for projecting changes with future warming. In situ observations cannot readily estimate global precipitation sensitivity to temperature (d P /d T ), as land precipitation changes are affected by water limitation. Satellite observations of precipitation over ocean are only available after 1979, but studies based on them suggest a precipitation sensitivity over wet tropical (30N–30S) oceans that exceeds the Clausius–Clapeyron value. Here, we determine for the first time precip...
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  • 59
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: Humans affect fire regimes by providing ignition sources in some cases, suppressing wildfires in others, and altering natural vegetation in ways that may either promote or limit fire. In North America, several studies have evaluated the effects of society on fire activity; however, most studies have been regional or subcontinental in scope and used different data and methods, thereby making continent-wide comparisons difficult. We circumvent these challenges by investigating the broad-scale impact of humans on fire activity using parallel statistical models of fire probability from 1984 to 2014 as a function of climate, enduring features (topography and percent nonfuel), lightning, and three indices of human activity (population density, an integrated metric of human activity [Human Footprint Index], and a measure of remoteness [roadless volume]) across equally spaced regions of the United States and Canada. Through a statistical control approach, whereby we account for the effe...
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  • 60
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: Land is under pressure from a number of demands, including the need for increased supplies of bioenergy. While bioenergy is an important ingredient in many pathways compatible with reaching the 2 °C target, areas where cultivation of the biomass feedstock would be most productive appear to co-host other important ecosystems services. We categorize global geo-data on land availability into productivity deciles, and provide a geographically explicit assessment of potentials that are concurrent with EU sustainability criteria. The deciles unambiguously classify the global productivity range of potential land currently not in agricultural production for biomass cultivation. Results show that 53 exajoule (EJ) sustainable biomass potential are available from 167 million hectares (Mha) with a productivity above 10 tons of dry matter per hectare and year (tD Mha −1 a −1 ), while additional 33 EJ are available on 264 Mha with yields between 4 and 10 tD M ha −1
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  • 61
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: The five most severe and persistent droughts in the American West (AW) during the Common Era occurred during a 450 year period known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA—850–1299 C.E.). Herein we use timeseries modeling to estimate the probability of such a period of hydroclimate change occurring. Clustering of severe and persistent drought during an MCA-length period occurs in approximately 10% of surrogate timeseries that were constructed to have the same characteristics as a tree-ring derived estimate of AW hydroclimate variability between 850 and 2005 C.E. Periods of hydroclimate change like the MCA are thus expected to occur in the AW, although not frequently, with a recurrence interval of approximately 11 000 years. Importantly, a shift in mean hydroclimate conditions during the MCA is found to be necessary for drought to reach the severity and persistence of the actual MCA megadroughts. This result has consequences for our understanding of the atmosphere-ocean dynamics un...
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  • 62
    Publication Date: 2016-07-25
    Description: Global consumption of farming commodities is an important driver of water demand in regions of production. This is the case in Brazil, which has emerged as one of the main producers of globally traded farming commodities. Traditional methods to assess environmental implications of this demand rely on international trade material flows at country resolution; we argue for the need of finer scales that capture spatial heterogeneity in environmental variables in the regions of production, and that account for differential sourcing within the borders of a country of production. To illustrate this, we obtain virtual water flows from Brazilian municipalities to countries of consumption, by allocating high-resolution water footprints of sugarcane and soy production to spatially-explicit material trade flows. We found that this approach results in differences of virtual water use estimations of over 20% when compared to approaches that disregard spatial heterogeneity in sourcing patterns...
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  • 63
    Publication Date: 2016-05-27
    Description: Several regions of Australia are projected to experience an increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves (HWs) under future climate change. The large-scale dynamics of HWs are well understood, however, the influence of soil moisture deficits—due for example to drought—remains largely unexplored in the region. Using the standardised precipitation evapotranspiration index, we show that the statistical responses of HW intensity and frequency to soil moisture deficits at the peak of the summer season are asymmetric and occur mostly in the lower and upper tails of the probability distribution, respectively. For aspects of HWs related to intensity, substantially greater increases are experienced at the 10th percentile when antecedent soil moisture is low (mild HWs get hotter). Conversely, HW aspects related to longevity increase much more strongly at the 90th percentile in response to low antecedent soil moisture (long HWs get longer). A corollary to this is that in ...
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  • 64
    Publication Date: 2016-05-27
    Description: CO 2 emissions from inland waters are commonly determined by indirect methods that are based on the product of a gas transfer coefficient and the concentration gradient at the air water interface (e.g., wind-based gas transfer models). The measurements of concentration gradient are typically collected during the day in fair weather throughout the course of a year. Direct measurements of eddy covariance CO 2 fluxes from a large inland water body (Ross Barnett reservoir, Mississippi, USA) show that CO 2 effluxes at night are approximately 70% greater than those during the day. At longer time scales, frequent synoptic weather events associated with extratropical cyclones induce CO 2 flux pulses, resulting in further increase in annual CO 2 effluxes by 16%. Therefore, CO 2 emission rates from this reservoir, if these diel and synoptic processes are under-sampled, are likely to be underestimated by approximately 40%. Our res...
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  • 65
    Publication Date: 2016-05-27
    Description: Land cover and land change were monitored continuously between 1985 and 2011 at 30 m resolution across New England in the Northeastern United States in support of modeling the terrestrial carbon budget. It was found that the forest area has been decreasing throughout the study period in each state of the region since the 1980s. A total of 386 657 ± 98 137 ha (95% confidence interval) of forest has been converted to other land covers since 1985. Mainly driven by low density residential development, the deforestation accelerated in the mid-1990s until 2007 when it plateaued as a result of declining new residential construction and in turn, the financial crisis of 2007–08. The area of forest harvest, estimated at 226 519 ± 66 682 ha, was mapped separately and excluded from the deforestation estimate, while the area of forest expansion on non-forested lands was found to not be significantly different from zero. New England is often held as a principal example of a forest transition ...
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  • 66
    Publication Date: 2016-05-27
    Description: California has experienced severe drought in recent years posing great challenges to agricultural production, water resources, and land management. El Niño, as the prime source of seasonal to interannual climate predictability, offers the potential of amelioration of drought in California. Here El Niño’s impacts on California winter precipitation are examined, focusing on variations by season, region, and the strength of El Niño using observational data for the period 1901–2010. The El Niño influence on California precipitation strengthens from early to late winter and is stronger in the south than the north. Eight of ten moderate-to-strong El Niños in the late winter put southern California in the wettest tercile and none of these ten events put northern California in the driest tercile. The early to late winter strengthening of the El Niño impact on precipitation occurs even as El Niño weakens and is associated with a strengthening and eastward extending tropical deep convecti...
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  • 67
    Publication Date: 2016-05-27
    Description: The potential exploitation of areas becoming ice-free in response to ongoing climate change has rarely been addressed, although it could be of interest from the water management perspective. Here we present an estimate for the potential of mitigating projected changes in seasonal water availability from melting glaciers by managing runoff through reservoirs. For the European Alps we estimate that by the end of the century, such a strategy could offset up to 65% of the expected summer-runoff changes from presently glacierized surfaces. A first-order approach suggests that the retention volume potentially available in the areas becoming deglacierized is in excess of the volume required for achieving the maximal possible mitigation by more than one order of magnitude. Obviously, however, such a strategy cannot compensate for the reduction in annual runoff caused by glacier ice depletion. Our estimates indicate that by 2070–2099, 0.73 ± 0.67 km 3 a −1 of this non...
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  • 68
    Publication Date: 2015-05-01
    Description: Lark et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044003] 044003 ), analyze recent shifts in US agricultural land use (2008–2012) using newly-available, high-resolution geospatial information, the Cropland Data Layer. Cropland expansion documented by Lark et al suggests the need to reform national agricultural policies in the wake of an emerging, new era of US agriculture characterized by rapid land cover/land use change.
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  • 69
    Publication Date: 2015-05-01
    Description: In 2014, Central England experienced its warmest year in a record extending back to 1659. Using both state-of-the-art climate models and empirical techniques, our analysis shows a substantial and significant increase in the likelihood of record-breaking warm years, such as 2014, due to human influences on climate. With 90% confidence we find that anthropogenic forcings on the climate have increased the chances of record warm years in Central England by at least 13-fold. This study points to a large influence of human activities on extreme warm years despite the small region of study and the variable climate of Central England. Our analysis shows that climate change is clearly visible on the local-scale in this case.
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  • 70
    Publication Date: 2015-05-01
    Description: Cities are hotspots of socio-economic activities and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study was to extend the research range of the urban carbon footprint (CF) to cover emissions embodied in products traded among regions and intra-city sectors. Using Xiamen City as a study case, the total urban-related emissions were evaluated, and the carbon flows among regions and intra-city sectors were tracked. Then five urban CF accountings were evaluated, including purely geographic accounting (PGA), community-wide infrastructure footprint (CIF), and consumption-based footprint (CBF) methods, as well as the newly defined production-based footprint (PBF) and purely production footprint (PPF). Research results show that the total urban-related emissions of Xiamen City in 2010 were 55.2 Mt CO 2 e / y , of which total carbon flow among regions or intra-city sectors accounted for 53.7 Mt CO 2 e / y . Within the total carbon flow, import and export...
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  • 71
    Publication Date: 2015-05-01
    Description: On average, three tropical cyclones (TCs) affect the Republic of Korea each year, causing extensive damage. To alleviate the TC-induced disasters, the Korean government has invested nearly 4% of its annual budget in recent decades in prevention efforts; however, the effectiveness of this costly program has not been evaluated. This study determined whether any evidence shows a reduced vulnerability to TCs in Korea over 1979–2010 by utilizing multi-linear regression. Homelessness, casualties, and property losses were individually examined. These explained variables were normalized into the socio-economic circumstances of 2005 before the regression to eliminate the effect of changing exposure by dealing with population and wealth at provincial levels. Three potential explanatory variables based on nationwide weather-station data were considered, including the maximum wind, maximum rainfall, and number of affected stations over each TC’s damaging period. In addition, the annual per c...
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  • 72
    Publication Date: 2015-05-07
    Description: An expected global increase in bioenergy-crop cultivation as an alternative to fossil fuels will have consequences on both global climate and local air quality through changes in biogenic emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While greenhouse gas emissions may be reduced through the substitution of next-generation bioenergy crops such as eucalyptus, giant reed, and switchgrass for fossil fuels, the choice of species has important ramifications for human health, potentially reducing the benefits of conversion due to increases in ozone (O 3 ) and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) levels as a result of large changes in biogenic emissions. Using the Community Earth System Model we simulate the conversion of marginal and underutilized croplands worldwide to bioenergy crops under varying future anthropogenic emissions scenarios. A conservative global replacement using high VOC-emitting crop profiles leads to modeled population-weighted O 3 increase...
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  • 73
    Publication Date: 2015-05-12
    Description: Rivers of the world discharge about 36000 km 3 of freshwater into the ocean every year. To investigate the impact of river discharge on climate, we have carried out two 100 year simulations using the Community Climate System Model (CCSM3), one including the river runoff into the ocean and the other excluding it. When the river discharge is shut off, global average sea surface temperature (SST) rises by about 0.5°C and the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR) increases by about 10% of the seasonal total with large increase in the eastern Bay of Bengal and along the west coast of India. In addition, the frequency of occurrence of La Niña-like cooling events in the equatorial Pacific increases and the correlation between ISMR and Pacific SST anomalies become stronger. The teleconnection between the SST anomalies in the Pacific and monsoon is effected via upper tropospheric meridional temperature gradient and the North African–Asian Jet axis.
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  • 74
    Publication Date: 2015-05-12
    Description: We present an updated version of the radiosonde dataset homogenized by Iterative Universal Kriging (IUKv2), now extended through February 2013, following the method used in the original version (Sherwood et al 2008 Robust tropospheric warming revealed by iteratively homogenized radiosonde data J. Clim. 21 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2320.1] 5336–52 ). This method, in effect, performs a multiple linear regression of the data onto a structural model that includes both natural variability, trends, and time-changing instrument biases, thereby avoiding estimation biases inherent in traditional homogenization methods. One modification now enables homogenized winds to be provided for the first time. This, and several other small modifications made to the original method sometimes affect results at individual stations, but do not strongly affect broad-scale temperature trends. Temperature trends in the updated data show three noteworthy features. Fi...
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  • 75
    Publication Date: 2015-05-14
    Description: Heat waves (HWs) are projected to become more frequent and last longer over most land areas in the late 21st century, which raises serious public health concerns. Urban residents face higher health risks due to synergies between HWs and urban heat islands (UHIs) (i.e., UHIs are higher under HW conditions). However, the responses of urban and rural surface energy budgets to HWs are still largely unknown. This study analyzes observations from two flux towers in Beijing, China and reveals significant differences between the responses of urban and rural (cropland) ecosystems to HWs. It is found that UHIs increase significantly during HWs, especially during the nighttime, implying synergies between HWs and UHIs. Results indicate that the urban site receives more incoming shortwave radiation and longwave radiation due to HWs as compared to the rural site, resulting in a larger radiative energy input into the urban surface energy budget. Changes in turbulent heat fluxes also diverge str...
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  • 76
    Publication Date: 2015-05-14
    Description: Urbanization, a major driver of global change, profoundly impacts our physical and social world, for example, altering not just water and carbon cycling, biodiversity, and climate, but also demography, public health, and economy. Understanding these consequences for better scientific insights and effective decision-making unarguably requires accurate information on urban extent and its spatial distributions. We developed a method to map the urban extent from the defense meteorological satellite program/operational linescan system nighttime stable-light data at the global level and created a new global 1 km urban extent map for the year 2000. Our map shows that globally, urban is about 0.5% of total land area but ranges widely at the regional level, from 0.1% in Oceania to 2.3% in Europe. At the country level, urbanized land varies from about 0.01 to 10%, but is lower than 1% for most (70%) countries. Urbanization follows land mass distribution, as anticipated, with the highest co...
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  • 77
    Publication Date: 2015-05-14
    Description: Fire emissions associated with land cover change and land management contribute to the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants, which can affect regional air quality and climate. Mitigating these impacts requires a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between fires and different land cover change trajectories and land management strategies. We develop future fire emissions inventories from 2010?2030 for Sumatra and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) to assess the impact of varying levels of forest and peatland conservation on air quality in Equatorial Asia. To compile these inventories, we combine detailed land cover information from published maps of forest extent, satellite fire radiative power observations, fire emissions from the Global Fire Emissions Database, and spatially explicit future land cover projections using a land cover change model. We apply the sensitivities of mean smoke concentrations to Indonesian fire emissions, calculated by the GEOS-Chem adjoint mo...
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  • 78
    Publication Date: 2015-05-15
    Description: During the Soviet Virgin Lands Campaign, approximately 23 million hectares (Mha) of Eurasian steppe grassland were converted into cropland in Northern Kazakhstan from 1954 to 1963. As a result Kazakhstan became an important breadbasket of the former Soviet Union. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered widespread agricultural abandonment, and much cropland reverted to grasslands. Our goal in this study was to reconstruct and analyze agricultural land-cover change since the eve of the Virgin Lands Campaign, from 1953 to 2010 in Kostanay Province, a region that is representative of Northern Kazakhstan. Further, we assessed the potential of currently idle cropland for re-cultivation. We reconstructed the cropland extent before and after the Virgin Lands Campaign using archival maps, and we mapped the agricultural land cover in the late Soviet and post-Soviet period using multi-seasonal Landsat TM/ETM+ images from circa 1990, 2000 and 2010. Cropland extent peaked ...
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  • 79
    Publication Date: 2015-05-15
    Description: Climate variability and extremes are expected to increase due to climate change; this may have significant negative impacts for agricultural production. Previous work has primarily focused on the impact of mean growing season temperature and precipitation on rainfed crop yields with little work on irrigated crop yields or climate extremes and their timing. County-level crop yields and daily precipitation and temperature data are pooled to quantify the impact of climate variability and extremes on four major staple crops in the United States. Conditional density plots are used to graphically explore the relationship between climate extremes and crop yields, thereby avoiding assumptions about linearity or underlying probability distributions. Non-linear and threshold-type relationships exist between yields and both precipitation and temperature climate indices; irrigation significantly reduces the impact of all climate indices. In some cases, this occurs by shifting the threshold, ...
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  • 80
    Publication Date: 2015-05-16
    Description: Previous studies have offered strong evidence that grazers alter the vegetation composition and ecosystem carbon (C) balance in ecosystems. In Arctic peatlands, however, the role of grazing has remained largely uninvestigated. Falk et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/045001] 045001 ) showed that grazing by muskoxen in a high Arctic mire significantly affected both the vegetation and release of greenhouse gases. This finding highlights the potential of grazers to alter ecosystem processes in Arctic peatlands and, thus, to act as a major player in the global C budget.
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  • 81
    Publication Date: 2015-05-16
    Description: Climate change in Ethiopia is occurring against a backdrop of rapid population growth and urbanization, entrenched poverty and a heavy burden of disease, and there is little information on specific health risks with which to approach adaptation planning and strengthen adaptive capacity. Using detailed household surveys (400 households, 1660 individuals, 100% participation) and focus groups in two informal urban communities in the Southern city of Shashemene, we identified locally relevant hazards and found that climate change is likely to intensify existing problems associated with poverty. We also showed that despite their proximity (situated only 1 km apart) the two communities differ in key characteristics that may affect climate change vulnerability and require nuanced approaches to adaptation. Detailed, community-level research is therefore necessary, especially where other sources of data are lacking, to ensure that adaptation activities in the world’s poorest communities a...
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  • 82
    Publication Date: 2015-05-08
    Description: In this study, we examine a supply-chain approach to more effectively mitigate primary PM 2.5 emissions in China from the perspectives of production, consumption and their linkages using structural path analysis. We identify the pattern of all supply chain paths using principal component analysis. To address the severe haze problems in China, it is important to understand how final demand purchase initiates production processes and ultimately leads to primary PM 2.5 emission. We found that consumers’ demands on power and transportation mainly induce direct emissions, quite different from the demands on construction, industry and service products which largely drive emissions in upstream activities. We also found that nearly 80% of the economic sectors in China follow a similar pattern in generating primary PM 2.5 emissions in electricity, cement and the ferrous metal industries; but only the construction sector increases the release of PM 2.5
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  • 83
    Publication Date: 2015-05-09
    Description: The Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) contributes nearly 80% of the annual rainfall over India and has a significant influence on the country’s gross domestic product through the agricultural sector. Onset of the ISMR displays substantial interannual variability and controls the crop calendar and hence the agricultural output. This variability is traditionally linked to sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over the tropical Pacific Ocean. The tropical Pacific SST underwent a regime shift during 1976/77. We report a prominent delay in the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) onset following the regime shift. The onset dates are computed with the Hydrologic Onset and Withdrawal Index, based on vertically integrated moisture transport over the Arabian Sea (AS). The shift in onset is found to be due to the change in moisture availability over the AS. A delay in the development of easterly vertical shear reduces northward-propagating intraseasonal variability during May–June, limiting t...
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  • 84
    Publication Date: 2015-05-16
    Description: Eurasian fall snow cover changes have been suggested as a driver for changes in the Arctic Oscillation and might provide a link between sea-ice decline in the Arctic during summer and atmospheric circulation in the following winter. However, the mechanism connecting snow cover in Eurasia to sea-ice decline in autumn is still under debate. Our analysis is based on snow observations from 820 Russian land stations, moisture transport using a Lagrangian approach derived from meteorological re-analyses. We show that declining sea-ice in the Barents and Kara Seas (BKS) acts as moisture source for the enhanced Western Siberian snow depth as a result of changed tropospheric moisture transport. Transient disturbances enter the continent from the BKS region related to anomalies in the planetary wave pattern and move southward along the Ural mountains where they merge into the extension of the Mediterranean storm track.
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  • 85
    Publication Date: 2015-04-27
    Description: All of the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) assume that future emissions of aerosols and aerosol precursors will decline sharply. There is considerable evidence that historically increasing aerosols have substantially affected tropical precipitation, but the effects of projected aerosol declines have received little attention. We compare projections forced by the medium-low RCP4.5 pathway in two subsets of models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5): one group (HiForc) includes treatments of indirect aerosol effects on cloud albedo and cloud lifetime as well as direct aerosol effects, while the other group (LoForc) only treats direct aerosol effects. In this scenario we find that models in the HiForc group consistently project larger increases in both the mean and inter-hemispheric (north minus south) asymmetry of tropical sea-surface temperature (SST) and precipitation than do models in the LoForc group. Earlier projections from CMIP3, in wh...
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  • 86
    Publication Date: 2015-04-27
    Description: Uncertainties in terrestrial carbon (C) cycle projections increase uncertainty of potential climate feedbacks. Efforts to improve model performance often include increased representation of biogeochemical processes, such as coupled carbon?nitrogen (N) cycles. In doing so, models are becoming more complex, generating structural uncertainties in model form that reflect incomplete knowledge of how to represent underlying processes. Here, we explore structural uncertainties associated with biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) and quantify their effects on C cycle projections. We find that alternative plausible structures to represent BNF result in nearly equivalent terrestrial C fluxes and pools through the twentieth century, but the strength of the terrestrial C sink varies by nearly a third (50 Pg C) by the end of the twenty-first century under a business-as-usual climate change scenario representative concentration pathway 8.5. These results indicate that actual uncertainty in futur...
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  • 87
    Publication Date: 2015-04-27
    Description: Seasonal and inter-annual variabilities of biogeochemical variables, including nitrous oxide (N 2 O), an important climate active gas, were analyzed during monthly observations between 2002 and 2012 at an ocean Time-Series station in the coastal upwelling area off central Chile (36? 30.8?; 73? 15?). Oxygen, N 2 O, nutrients and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) showed clear seasonal variability associated with upwelling favorable winds (spring?summer) and also inter-annual variability, which in the case of N 2 O was clearly observed during the occurrence of N 2 O hotspots with saturation levels of up to 4849%. These hotspots consistently took place during the upwelling-favorable periods in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011, below the mixed layer (15?50 m depth) in waters with hypoxia and some ##IMG## [http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/10/4/044017/erl512763ieqn1.gif] {${\rm N}{{{\rm O}}_{2}}^{-}$} accumulation. The N 2 O hotspo...
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  • 88
    Publication Date: 2015-03-31
    Description: Although mainly used for other purposes, and historically mainly established at the expense of tropical forests, oil palm can be the most land efficient feedstock for biodiesel. Large parts of Brazil are suitable for oil palm cultivation and a series of policy initiatives have recently been launched to promote oil palm production. These initiatives are however highly debated both in the parliament and in academia. Here we present results of a high resolution modelling study of opportunities and risks associated with oil palm production for biodiesel in Brazil, under different energy, policy, and infrastructure scenarios. Oil palm was found to be profitable on extensive areas, including areas under native vegetation where establishment would cause large land use change (LUC) emissions. However, some 40–60 Mha could support profitable biodiesel production corresponding to approximately 10% of the global diesel demand, without causing direct LUC emissions or impinging on protected a...
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  • 89
    Publication Date: 2015-03-31
    Description: The United States is the largest producer of maize in the world, a crop for which demand continues to rise rapidly. Past studies have projected that climate change will negatively impact mean maize yields in this region, while at the same time increasing yield variability. However, some have questioned the accuracy of these projections because they are often based on indirect measures of soil moisture, have failed to explicitly capture the potential interactions between temperature and soil moisture availability, and often omit the beneficial effects of elevated carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) on transpiration efficiency. Here we use a new detailed dataset on field-level yields in Iowa, Indiana, and Illinois, along with fine-resolution daily weather data and moisture reconstructions, to evaluate the combined effects of moisture and heat on maize yields in the region. Projected climate change scenarios over this region from a suite of CMIP5 models are then used to assess future im...
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  • 90
    Publication Date: 2015-03-31
    Description: Herbivory is an important part of most ecosystems and affects the ecosystems’ carbon balance both directly and indirectly. Little is known about herbivory and its impact on the carbon balance in high arctic mire ecosystems. We hypothesized that trampling and grazing by large herbivores influences the vegetation density and composition and thereby also the carbon balance. In 2010, we established fenced exclosures in high arctic Greenland to prevent muskoxen ( Ovibos moschatus ) from grazing. During the growing seasons of 2011 to 2013 we measured CO 2 and CH 4 fluxes in these ungrazed blocks and compared them to blocks subjected to natural grazing. Additionally, we measured depth of the water table and active layer, soil temperature, and in 2011 and 2013 an inventory of the vegetation density and composition were made. In 2013 a significant decrease in total number of vascular plant (33–44%) and Eriophorum scheuchzeri (51–53%) tillers were found in u...
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  • 91
    Publication Date: 2015-04-29
    Description: The Arctic Ocean is expected to transition into a seasonally ice-free state by mid-century, enhancing Arctic warming and leading to substantial ecological and socio-economic challenges across the Arctic region. It has been proposed that artificially increasing high latitude ocean albedo could restore sea ice, but the climate impacts of such a strategy have not been previously explored. Motivated by this, we investigate the impacts of idealized high latitude ocean albedo changes on Arctic sea ice restoration and climate. In our simulated 4xCO 2 climate, imposing surface albedo alterations over the Arctic Ocean leads to partial sea ice recovery and a modest reduction in Arctic warming. With the most extreme ocean albedo changes, imposed over the area 70??90?N, September sea ice cover stabilizes at ?40% of its preindustrial value (compared to ?3% without imposed albedo modifications). This is accompanied by an annual mean Arctic surface temperature decrease of ?2 ?C but no...
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  • 92
    Publication Date: 2015-04-29
    Description: Despite a large increase in the area of selectively logged tropical forest worldwide, the carbon stored in deadwood across a tropical forest degradation gradient at the landscape scale remains poorly documented. Many carbon stock studies have either focused exclusively on live standing biomass or have been carried out in primary forests that are unaffected by logging, despite the fact that coarse woody debris (deadwood with ?10 cm diameter) can contain significant portions of a forest?s carbon stock. We used a field-based assessment to quantify how the relative contribution of deadwood to total above-ground carbon stock changes across a disturbance gradient, from unlogged old-growth forest to severely degraded twice-logged forest, to oil palm plantation. We measured in 193 vegetation plots (25???25 m), equating to a survey area of 〉12 ha of tropical humid forest located within the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems Project area, in Sabah, Malaysia. Our results indicate tha...
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  • 93
    Publication Date: 2015-04-10
    Description: A ground-based field campaign was conducted over the summer of 2011 in Israel to measure the properties of small warm clouds. The horizontal size distribution for cloud sizes of 50–3000 m is presented, with a special focus on the properties of the smallest clouds (liquid water path
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  • 94
    Publication Date: 2015-04-10
    Description: Rather than on crop modelling only, climate change impact assessments in agriculture need to be based on integrated assessment and farming systems analysis, and account for adaptation at different levels. With a case study for Flevoland, the Netherlands, we illustrate that (1) crop models cannot account for all relevant climate change impacts and adaptation options, and (2) changes in technology, policy and prices have had and are likely to have larger impacts on farms than climate change. While crop modelling indicates positive impacts of climate change on yields of major crops in 2050, a semi-quantitative and participatory method assessing impacts of extreme events shows that there are nevertheless several climate risks. A range of adaptation measures are, however, available to reduce possible negative effects at crop level. In addition, at farm level farmers can change cropping patterns, and adjust inputs and outputs. Also farm structural change will influence impacts and adap...
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  • 95
    Publication Date: 2015-04-10
    Description: The interannual variability in the Baltic Sea ice cover is strongly influenced by large scale atmospheric circulation. Recent progress in forecasting of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) provides the possibility of skilful seasonal predictions of Baltic Sea ice conditions. In this paper we use a state-of-the-art forecast system to assess the predictability of the Baltic Sea annual maximum ice extent (MIE). We find a useful level of skill in retrospective forecasts initialized as early as the beginning of November. The forecast system can explain as much as 30% of the observed variability in MIE over the period 1993–2012. This skill is derived from the predictability of the NAO by using statistical relationships between the NAO and MIE in observations, while explicit simulations of sea ice have a less predictive skill. This result supports the idea that the NAO represents the main source of seasonal predictability for Northern Europe.
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  • 96
    Publication Date: 2015-04-16
    Description: Human land use and anthropogenic climate change (CC) are placing mounting pressure on natural ecosystems worldwide, with impacts on biodiversity, water resources, nutrient and carbon cycles. Here, we present a quantitative macro-scale comparative analysis of the separate and joint dual impacts of land use and land cover change (LULCC) and CC on the terrestrial biosphere during the last ca. 300 years, based on simulations with a dynamic global vegetation model and an aggregated metric of simultaneous biogeochemical, hydrological and vegetation-structural shifts. We find that by the beginning of the 21st century LULCC and CC have jointly caused major shifts on more than 90% of all areas now cultivated, corresponding to 26% of the land area. CC has exposed another 26% of natural ecosystems to moderate or major shifts. Within three centuries, the impact of LULCC on landscapes has increased 13-fold. Within just one century, CC effects have caught up with LULCC effects.
    Print ISSN: 1748-9318
    Electronic ISSN: 1748-9326
    Topics: Biology , Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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  • 97
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Land surface hydrology can play a crucial role during extreme events such as droughts, floods and even heat waves. We introduce in this study a new hydrological dataset for Europe that consists of soil moisture, runoff and evapotranspiration (ET). It is derived with a simple water balance model (SWBM) forced with precipitation, temperature and net radiation. The SWBM dataset extends over the period 1984?2013 with a daily time step and 0.5? ? 0.5? resolution. We employ a novel calibration approach, in which we consider 300 random parameter sets chosen from an observation-based range. Using several independent validation datasets representing soil moisture (or terrestrial water content), ET and streamflow, we identify the best performing parameter set and hence the new dataset. To illustrate its usefulness, the SWBM dataset is compared against several state-of-the-art datasets (ERA-Interim/Land, MERRA-Land, GLDAS-2-Noah, simulations of the Community Land Model Version 4), using al...
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    Electronic ISSN: 1748-9326
    Topics: Biology , Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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  • 98
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Air pollutant emissions from aircraft have been subjected to less rigorous control than road traffic emissions, and the rapid growth of global aviation is a matter of concern in relation to human exposures to pollutants, and consequent effects upon health. Yim et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 3 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/3/034001] 034001 ) estimate exposures globally arising from aircraft engine emissions of primary particulate matter, and from secondary sulphates and ozone, and use concentration-response functions to calculate the impact upon mortality, which is monetised using the value of statistical life. This study makes a valuable contribution to estimating the magnitude of public health impact at various scales, ranging from local, near airport, regional and global. The results highlight the need to implement future mitigation actions to limit impacts of aviation upon air quality and public health. The approach adopted in Yim ...
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    Electronic ISSN: 1748-9326
    Topics: Biology , Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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  • 99
    Publication Date: 2015-04-18
    Description: Description unavailable
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    Electronic ISSN: 1748-9326
    Topics: Biology , Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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  • 100
    Publication Date: 2016-01-09
    Description: Description unavailable
    Print ISSN: 1748-9318
    Electronic ISSN: 1748-9326
    Topics: Biology , Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
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