Climate Change, Habitat Loss, Protected Areas and the Climate Adaptation Potential of Species in Mediterranean Ecosystems Worldwide

PubMed Central

Klausmeyer, Kirk R.; Shaw, M. Rebecca

2009-01-01

Mediterranean climate is found on five continents and supports five global biodiversity hotspots. Based on combined downscaled results from 23 atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) for three emissions scenarios, we determined the projected spatial shifts in the mediterranean climate extent (MCE) over the next century. Although most AOGCMs project a moderate expansion in the global MCE, regional impacts are large and uneven. The median AOGCM simulation output for the three emissions scenarios project the MCE at the end of the 21st century in Chile will range from 129–153% of its current size, while in Australia, it will contract to only 77–49% of its current size losing an area equivalent to over twice the size of Portugal. Only 4% of the land area within the current MCE worldwide is in protected status (compared to a global average of 12% for all biome types), and, depending on the emissions scenario, only 50–60% of these protected areas are likely to be in the future MCE. To exacerbate the climate impact, nearly one third (29–31%) of the land where the MCE is projected to remain stable has already been converted to human use, limiting the size of the potential climate refuges and diminishing the adaptation potential of native biota. High conversion and low protection in projected stable areas make Australia the highest priority region for investment in climate-adaptation strategies to reduce the threat of climate change to the rich biodiversity of the mediterranean biome. PMID:19641600

Assessing agreement among alternative climate change projections to inform conservation recommendations in the contiguous United States.

PubMed

Belote, R Travis; Carroll, Carlos; Martinuzzi, Sebastián; Michalak, Julia; Williams, John W; Williamson, Matthew A; Aplet, Gregory H

2018-06-21

Addressing uncertainties in climate vulnerability remains a challenge for conservation planning. We evaluate how confidence in conservation recommendations may change with agreement among alternative climate projections and metrics of climate exposure. We assessed agreement among three multivariate estimates of climate exposure (forward velocity, backward velocity, and climate dissimilarity) using 18 alternative climate projections for the contiguous United States. For each metric, we classified maps into quartiles for each alternative climate projections, and calculated the frequency of quartiles assigned for each gridded location (high quartile frequency = more agreement among climate projections). We evaluated recommendations using a recent climate adaptation heuristic framework that recommends emphasizing various conservation strategies to land based on current conservation value and expected climate exposure. We found that areas where conservation strategies would be confidently assigned based on high agreement among climate projections varied substantially across regions. In general, there was more agreement in forward and backward velocity estimates among alternative projections than agreement in estimates of local dissimilarity. Consensus of climate predictions resulted in the same conservation recommendation assignments in a few areas, but patterns varied by climate exposure metric. This work demonstrates an approach for explicitly evaluating alternative predictions in geographic patterns of climate change.

The impact of climate change on the geographical distribution of two vectors of Chagas disease: implications for the force of infection

PubMed Central

Medone, Paula; Ceccarelli, Soledad; Parham, Paul E.; Figuera, Andreína; Rabinovich, Jorge E.

2015-01-01

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is the most important vector-borne disease in Latin America. The vectors are insects belonging to the Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae), and are widely distributed in the Americas. Here, we assess the implications of climatic projections for 2050 on the geographical footprint of two of the main Chagas disease vectors: Rhodnius prolixus (tropical species) and Triatoma infestans (temperate species). We estimated the epidemiological implications of current to future transitions in the climatic niche in terms of changes in the force of infection (FOI) on the rural population of two countries: Venezuela (tropical) and Argentina (temperate). The climatic projections for 2050 showed heterogeneous impact on the climatic niches of both vector species, with a decreasing trend of suitability of areas that are currently at high-to-moderate transmission risk. Consequently, climatic projections affected differently the FOI for Chagas disease in Venezuela and Argentina. Despite the heterogeneous results, our main conclusions point out a decreasing trend in the number of new cases of Tr. cruzi human infections per year between current and future conditions using a climatic niche approach. PMID:25688019

Determining the impacts of climate change and catchment development on future water availability in Tasmania, Australia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Post, David

2010-05-01

In a water-scarce country such as Australia, detailed, accurate and reliable assessments of current and future water availability are essential in order to adequately manage the limited water resource. This presentation describes a recently completed study which provided an assessment of current water availability in Tasmania, Australia, and also determined how this water availability would be impacted by climate change and proposed catchment development by the year 2030. The Tasmania Sustainable Yields Project (http://www.csiro.au/partnerships/TasSY.html) assessed current water availability through the application of rainfall-runoff models, river models, and recharge and groundwater models. These were calibrated to streamflow records and parameterised using estimates of current groundwater and surface water extractions and use. Having derived a credible estimate of current water availability, the impacts of future climate change on water availability were determined through deriving changes in rainfall and potential evapotranspiration from 15 IPCC AR4 global climate models. These changes in rainfall were then dynamically downscaled using the CSIRO-CCAM model over the relatively small study area (50,000 square km). A future climate sequence was derived by modifying the historical 84-year climate sequence based on these changes in rainfall and potential evapotranspiration. This future climate sequence was then run through the rainfall-runoff, river, recharge and groundwater models to give an estimate of water availability under future climate. To estimate the impacts of future catchment development on water availability, the models were modified and re-run to reflect projected increases in development. Specifically, outputs from the rainfall-runoff and recharge models were reduced over areas of projected future plantation forestry. Conversely, groundwater recharge was increased over areas of new irrigated agriculture and new extractions of water for irrigation were implemented in the groundwater and river models. Results indicate that historical average water availability across the project area was 21,815 GL/year. Of this, 636 GL/year of surface water and 38 GL/year of groundwater are currently extracted for use. By 2030, rainfall is projected to decrease by an average of 3% over the project area. This decrease in rainfall and concurrent increase in potential evapotranspiration leads to a decrease in water availability of 5% by 2030. As a result of lower streamflows, under current cease-to-take rules, currently licensed extractions are projected to decrease by 3% (19 GL/year). This however is offset by an additional 120 GL/year of extractions for proposed new irrigated agriculture. These new extractions, along with the increase in commercial forest plantations lead to a reduction in total surface water of 1% in addition to the 5% reduction due to climate change. Results from this study are being used by the Tasmanian and Australian governments to guide the development of a sustainable irrigated agriculture industry in Tasmania. In part, this is necessary to offset the loss of irrigated agriculture from the southern Murray-Darling Basin where climate change induced reductions in rainfall are projected to be far worse.

Malaria vectors in South America: current and future scenarios.

PubMed

Laporta, Gabriel Zorello; Linton, Yvonne-Marie; Wilkerson, Richard C; Bergo, Eduardo Sterlino; Nagaki, Sandra Sayuri; Sant'Ana, Denise Cristina; Sallum, Maria Anice Mureb

2015-08-19

Malaria remains a significant public health issue in South America. Future climate change may influence the distribution of the disease, which is dependent on the distribution of those Anopheles mosquitoes competent to transmit Plasmodium falciparum. Herein, predictive niche models of the habitat suitability for P. falciparum, the current primary vector Anopheles darlingi and nine other known and/or potential vector species of the Neotropical Albitarsis Complex, were used to document the current situation and project future scenarios under climate changes in South America in 2070. To build each ecological niche model, we employed topography, climate and biome, and the currently defined distribution of P. falciparum, An. darlingi and nine species comprising the Albitarsis Complex in South America. Current and future (i.e., 2070) distributions were forecast by projecting the fitted ecological niche model onto the current environmental situation and two scenarios of simulated climate change. Statistical analyses were performed between the parasite and each vector in both the present and future scenarios to address potential vector roles in the dynamics of malaria transmission. Current distributions of malaria vector species were associated with that of P. falciparum, confirming their role in transmission, especially An. darlingi, An. marajoara and An. deaneorum. Projected climate changes included higher temperatures, lower water availability and biome modifications. Regardless of future scenarios considered, the geographic distribution of P. falciparum was exacerbated in 2070 South America, with the distribution of the pathogen covering 35-46% of the continent. As the current primary vector An. darlingi showed low tolerance for drier environments, the projected climate change would significantly reduce suitable habitat, impacting both its distribution and abundance. Conversely, climate generalist members of the Albitarsis Complex showed significant spatial and temporal expansion potential in 2070, and we conclude these species will become more important in the dynamics of malaria transmission in South America. Our data suggest that climate and landscape effects will elevate the importance of members of the Albitarsis Complex in malaria transmission in South America in 2070, highlighting the need for further studies addressing the bionomics, ecology and behaviours of the species comprising the Albitarsis Complex.

Projected asymmetric response of Adélie penguins to Antarctic climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cimino, Megan A.; Lynch, Heather J.; Saba, Vincent S.; Oliver, Matthew J.

2016-06-01

The contribution of climate change to shifts in a species’ geographic distribution is a critical and often unresolved ecological question. Climate change in Antarctica is asymmetric, with cooling in parts of the continent and warming along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a circumpolar meso-predator exposed to the full range of Antarctic climate and is undergoing dramatic population shifts coincident with climate change. We used true presence-absence data on Adélie penguin breeding colonies to estimate past and future changes in habitat suitability during the chick-rearing period based on historic satellite observations and future climate model projections. During the contemporary period, declining Adélie penguin populations experienced more years with warm sea surface temperature compared to populations that are increasing. Based on this relationship, we project that one-third of current Adélie penguin colonies, representing ~20% of their current population, may be in decline by 2060. However, climate model projections suggest refugia may exist in continental Antarctica beyond 2099, buffering species-wide declines. Climate change impacts on penguins in the Antarctic will likely be highly site specific based on regional climate trends, and a southward contraction in the range of Adélie penguins is likely over the next century.

Impact of climate change on ozone-related mortality and morbidity in Europe.

PubMed

Orru, Hans; Andersson, Camilla; Ebi, Kristie L; Langner, Joakim; Aström, Christofer; Forsberg, Bertil

2013-02-01

Ozone is a highly oxidative pollutant formed from precursors in the presence of sunlight, associated with respiratory morbidity and mortality. All else being equal, concentrations of ground-level ozone are expected to increase due to climate change. Ozone-related health impacts under a changing climate are projected using emission scenarios, models and epidemiological data. European ozone concentrations are modelled with the model of atmospheric transport and chemistry (MATCH)-RCA3 (50×50 km). Projections from two climate models, ECHAM4 and HadCM3, are applied under greenhouse gas emission scenarios A2 and A1B, respectively. We applied a European-wide exposure-response function to gridded population data and country-specific baseline mortality and morbidity. Comparing the current situation (1990-2009) with the baseline period (1961-1990), the largest increase in ozone-associated mortality and morbidity due to climate change (4-5%) have occurred in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK. Comparing the baseline period and the future periods (2021-2050 and 2041-2060), much larger increases in ozone-related mortality and morbidity are projected for Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal, with the impact being stronger using the climate projection from ECHAM4 (A2). However, in Nordic and Baltic countries the same magnitude of decrease is projected. The current study suggests that projected effects of climate change on ozone concentrations could differentially influence mortality and morbidity across Europe.

Climate change impact on the establishment and seasonal abundance of Invasive Mosquito Species: current state and future risk maps over southeast Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tagaris, Efthimios; -Eleni Sotiropoulou, Rafaella; Sotiropoulos, Andreas; Spanos, Ioannis; Milonas, Panayiotis; Michaelakis, Antonios

2017-04-01

Establishment and seasonal abundance of a region for Invasive Mosquito Species (IMS) are related to climatic parameters such as temperature and precipitation. In this work the current state is assessed using data from the European Climate Assessment and Dataset (ECA&D) project over Greece and Italy for the development of current spatial risk databases of IMS. Results are validated from the installation of a prototype IMS monitoring device that has been designed and developed in the framework of the LIFE CONOPS project at key points across the two countries. Since climate models suggest changes in future temperature and precipitation rates, the future potentiality of IMS establishment and spread over Greece and Italy is assessed using the climatic parameters in 2050's provided by the NASA GISS GCM ModelE under the IPCC-A1B emissions scenarios. The need for regional climate projections in a finer grid size is assessed using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to dynamically downscale GCM simulations. The estimated changes in the future meteorological parameters are combined with the observation data in order to estimate the future levels of the climatic parameters of interest. The final product includes spatial distribution maps presenting the future suitability of a region for the establishment and seasonal abundance of the IMS over Greece and Italy. Acknowledgement: LIFE CONOPS project "Development & demonstration of management plans against - the climate change enhanced - invasive mosquitoes in S. Europe" (LIFE12 ENV/GR/000466).

Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests

DOE PAGES

Le Page, Yannick; Morton, Douglas; Hartin, Corinne; ...

2017-12-20

Tropical forests have been a permanent feature of the Amazon basin for at least 55 million years, yet climate change and land use threaten the forest's future over the next century. Understory forest fires, which are common under the current climate in frontier forests, may accelerate Amazon forest losses from climate-driven dieback and deforestation. Far from land use frontiers, scarce fire ignitions and high moisture levels preclude significant burning, yet projected climate and land use changes may increase fire activity in these remote regions. Here, we used a fire model specifically parameterized for Amazon understory fires to examine the interactionsmore » between anthropogenic activities and climate under current and projected conditions. In a scenario of low mitigation efforts with substantial land use expansion and climate change – Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 – projected understory fires increase in frequency and duration, burning 4–28 times more forest in 2080–2100 than during 1990–2010. In contrast, active climate mitigation and land use contraction in RCP4.5 constrain the projected increase in fire activity to 0.9–5.4 times contemporary burned area. Importantly, if climate mitigation is not successful, land use contraction alone is very effective under low to moderate climate change, but does little to reduce fire activity under the most severe climate projections. These results underscore the potential for a fire-driven transformation of Amazon forests if recent regional policies for forest conservation are not paired with global efforts to mitigate climate change.« less

Synergy between land use and climate change increases future fire risk in Amazon forests

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Le Page, Yannick; Morton, Douglas; Hartin, Corinne

Tropical forests have been a permanent feature of the Amazon basin for at least 55 million years, yet climate change and land use threaten the forest's future over the next century. Understory forest fires, which are common under the current climate in frontier forests, may accelerate Amazon forest losses from climate-driven dieback and deforestation. Far from land use frontiers, scarce fire ignitions and high moisture levels preclude significant burning, yet projected climate and land use changes may increase fire activity in these remote regions. Here, we used a fire model specifically parameterized for Amazon understory fires to examine the interactionsmore » between anthropogenic activities and climate under current and projected conditions. In a scenario of low mitigation efforts with substantial land use expansion and climate change – Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 – projected understory fires increase in frequency and duration, burning 4–28 times more forest in 2080–2100 than during 1990–2010. In contrast, active climate mitigation and land use contraction in RCP4.5 constrain the projected increase in fire activity to 0.9–5.4 times contemporary burned area. Importantly, if climate mitigation is not successful, land use contraction alone is very effective under low to moderate climate change, but does little to reduce fire activity under the most severe climate projections. These results underscore the potential for a fire-driven transformation of Amazon forests if recent regional policies for forest conservation are not paired with global efforts to mitigate climate change.« less

How early can the seeding dates of spring wheat be under current and future climate in Saskatchewan, Canada?

PubMed

He, Yong; Wang, Hong; Qian, Budong; McConkey, Brian; DePauw, Ron

2012-01-01

Shorter growing season and water stress near wheat maturity are the main factors that presumably limit the yield potential of spring wheat due to late seeding in Saskatchewan, Canada. Advancing seeding dates can be a strategy to help producers mitigate the impact of climate change on spring wheat. It is unknown, however, how early farmers can seed while minimizing the risk of spring frost damage and the soil and machinery constraints. This paper explores early seeding dates of spring wheat on the Canadian Prairies under current and projected future climate. To achieve this, (i) weather records from 1961 to 1990 were gathered at three sites with different soil and climate conditions in Saskatchewan, Canada; (ii) four climate databases that included a baseline (treated as historic weather climate during the period of 1961-1990) and three climate change scenarios (2040-2069) developed by the Canadian global climate model (GCM) with the forcing of three greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1); (iii) seeding dates of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under baseline and projected future climate were predicted. Compared with the historical record of seeding dates, the predicted seeding dates were advanced under baseline climate for all sites using our seeding date model. Driven by the predicted temperature increase of the scenarios compared with baseline climate, all climate change scenarios projected significantly earlier seeding dates than those currently used. Compared to the baseline conditions, there is no reduction in grain yield because precipitation increases during sensitive growth stages of wheat, suggesting that there is potential to shift seeding to an earlier date. The average advancement of seeding dates varied among sites and chosen scenarios. The Swift Current (south-west) site has the highest potential for earlier seeding (7 to 11 days) whereas such advancement was small in the Melfort (north-east, 2 to 4 days) region. The extent of projected climate change in Saskatchewan indicates that growers in this region have the potential of earlier seeding. The results obtained in this study may be used for adaptation assessments of seeding dates under possible climate change to mitigate the impact of potential warming.

Future local climate unlike currently observed anywhere

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dahinden, Fabienne; Fischer, Erich M.; Knutti, Reto

2017-08-01

The concept of spatial climate analogs, that is identifying a place with a present-day climate similar to the projections of a place of interest, is a promising method for visualizing and communicating possible effects of climate change. We show that when accounting for seasonal cycles of both temperature and precipitation, it is impossible to find good analogs for projections at many places across the world. For substantial land fractions, primarily in the tropics and subtropics, there are no analogs anywhere with current seasonal cycles of temperature and precipitation matching their projected future conditions. This implies that these places experience the emergence of novel climates. For 1.5 °C global warming about 15% and for 2 °C warming about 21% of the global land is projected to experience novel climates, whereas for a 4 °C warming the corresponding novel climates may emerge on more than a third of the global land fraction. Similar fractions of today’s climates, mainly found in the tropics, subtropics and polar north, are anticipated to disappear in the future. Note that the exact quantification of the land fraction is sensitive to the threshold selection. Novel and disappearing climates may have serious consequences for impacts that are sensitive to the full seasonal cycle of temperature and precipitation. For individual seasons, however, spatial analogs may still be a powerful tool for climate change communication.

Spatial allocation of future landscape patterns for biomass and alleviation of hydrologic impacts of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ssegane, H.; Negri, M. C.

2015-12-01

Current and future demand for food, feed, fiber, and energy require novel approaches to land management, which demands that multifunctional landscapes are created to integrate various ecosystem functions into a sustainable land use. Concurrently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts an increase of 2 to 4°C over the next 100 years above the preindustrial baseline, beginning as early as 2016 to 2035 over all seasons in the North America. This climate change is projected to further strain water resources currently stressed by anthropogenic activities. Therefore, placement of bioenergy crops on strategically selected sub-field areas in an agricultural landscape has the potential to increase the environmental and economic sustainability if location and choice of the crops result in minimal disruption of current food production systems and therefore cause minimal indirect land use change. This study identified sub-field marginal areas in an agricultural watershed using soil-based environmental sustainability criteria and a crop productivity index. Future landscape patterns (FLPs) were developed by allocating bioenergy crops (switchgrass: Panicum virgatum or shrub willows: Salix spp.) to these marginal areas (20% of the watershed). SWAT hydrologic model and dynamically downscaled climatic projection were used to asses impact of climate change on extreme flow conditions, total annual production of commodity and bioenergy crops, and water quality under current and future landscape patterns for the mid-21st century (2045-2055) and late 21st century (2085-2095) climatic projections. The frequency of flood and drought conditions was projected to increase while the corresponding durations to decrease. Sediment yields were projected to increase by 85% to 170% while FLPs would mitigate this increase by 26% to 32%.

The impact of climate change on the geographical distribution of two vectors of Chagas disease: implications for the force of infection.

PubMed

Medone, Paula; Ceccarelli, Soledad; Parham, Paul E; Figuera, Andreína; Rabinovich, Jorge E

2015-04-05

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is the most important vector-borne disease in Latin America. The vectors are insects belonging to the Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae), and are widely distributed in the Americas. Here, we assess the implications of climatic projections for 2050 on the geographical footprint of two of the main Chagas disease vectors: Rhodnius prolixus (tropical species) and Triatoma infestans (temperate species). We estimated the epidemiological implications of current to future transitions in the climatic niche in terms of changes in the force of infection (FOI) on the rural population of two countries: Venezuela (tropical) and Argentina (temperate). The climatic projections for 2050 showed heterogeneous impact on the climatic niches of both vector species, with a decreasing trend of suitability of areas that are currently at high-to-moderate transmission risk. Consequently, climatic projections affected differently the FOI for Chagas disease in Venezuela and Argentina. Despite the heterogeneous results, our main conclusions point out a decreasing trend in the number of new cases of Tr. cruzi human infections per year between current and future conditions using a climatic niche approach. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Determing Credibility of Regional Simulations of Future Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mearns, L. O.

2009-12-01

Climate models have been evaluated or validated ever since they were first developed. Establishing that a climate model can reproduce (some) aspects of the current climate of the earth on various spatial and temporal scales has long been a standard procedure for providing confidence in the model's ability to simulate future climate. However, direct links between the successes and failures of models in reproducing the current climate with regard to what future climates the models simulate has been largely lacking. This is to say that the model evaluation process has been largely divorced from the projections of future climate that the models produce. This is evidenced in the separation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) WG1 report of the chapter on evaluation of models from the chapter on future climate projections. There has also been the assumption of 'one model, one vote, that is, that each model projection is given equal weight in any multi-model ensemble presentation of the projections of future climate. There have been various attempts at determing measures of credibility that would avoid the 'ultrademocratic' assumption of the IPCC. Simple distinctions between models were made by research such as in Giorgi and Mearns (2002), Tebaldi et al., (2005), and Greene et al., (2006). But the metrics used were rather simplistic. More ambitous means of discriminating among the quality of model simulations have been made through the production of complex multivariate metrics, but insufficent work has been produced to verify that the metrics successfully discriminate in meaningful ways. Indeed it has been suggested that we really don't know what a model must successfully model to establish confidence in its regional-scale projections (Gleckler et al., 2008). Perhaps a more process oriented regional expert judgment approach is needed to understand which errors in climate models really matter for the model's response to future forcing. Such an approach is being attempted in the North American Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) whereby multiple global models are used to drive multiple regional models for the current period and the mid-21st century over the continent. Progress in this endeavor will be reported.

The Climate Variability & Predictability (CVP) Program at NOAA - Recent Program Advancements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lucas, S. E.; Todd, J. F.

2015-12-01

The Climate Variability & Predictability (CVP) Program supports research aimed at providing process-level understanding of the climate system through observation, modeling, analysis, and field studies. This vital knowledge is needed to improve climate models and predictions so that scientists can better anticipate the impacts of future climate variability and change. To achieve its mission, the CVP Program supports research carried out at NOAA and other federal laboratories, NOAA Cooperative Institutes, and academic institutions. The Program also coordinates its sponsored projects with major national and international scientific bodies including the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the International and U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR/US CLIVAR) Program, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The CVP program sits within NOAA's Climate Program Office (http://cpo.noaa.gov/CVP). The CVP Program currently supports multiple projects in areas that are aimed at improved representation of physical processes in global models. Some of the topics that are currently funded include: i) Improved Understanding of Intraseasonal Tropical Variability - DYNAMO field campaign and post -field projects, and the new climate model improvement teams focused on MJO processes; ii) Climate Process Teams (CPTs, co-funded with NSF) with projects focused on Cloud macrophysical parameterization and its application to aerosol indirect effects, and Internal-Wave Driven Mixing in Global Ocean Models; iii) Improved Understanding of Tropical Pacific Processes, Biases, and Climatology; iv) Understanding Arctic Sea Ice Mechanism and Predictability;v) AMOC Mechanisms and Decadal Predictability Recent results from CVP-funded projects will be summarized. Additional information can be found at http://cpo.noaa.gov/CVP.

Projecting malaria hazard from climate change in eastern Africa using large ensembles to estimate uncertainty.

PubMed

Leedale, Joseph; Tompkins, Adrian M; Caminade, Cyril; Jones, Anne E; Nikulin, Grigory; Morse, Andrew P

2016-03-31

The effect of climate change on the spatiotemporal dynamics of malaria transmission is studied using an unprecedented ensemble of climate projections, employing three diverse bias correction and downscaling techniques, in order to partially account for uncertainty in climate- driven malaria projections. These large climate ensembles drive two dynamical and spatially explicit epidemiological malaria models to provide future hazard projections for the focus region of eastern Africa. While the two malaria models produce very distinct transmission patterns for the recent climate, their response to future climate change is similar in terms of sign and spatial distribution, with malaria transmission moving to higher altitudes in the East African Community (EAC) region, while transmission reduces in lowland, marginal transmission zones such as South Sudan. The climate model ensemble generally projects warmer and wetter conditions over EAC. The simulated malaria response appears to be driven by temperature rather than precipitation effects. This reduces the uncertainty due to the climate models, as precipitation trends in tropical regions are very diverse, projecting both drier and wetter conditions with the current state-of-the-art climate model ensemble. The magnitude of the projected changes differed considerably between the two dynamical malaria models, with one much more sensitive to climate change, highlighting that uncertainty in the malaria projections is also associated with the disease modelling approach.

Recent and projected future climatic suitability of North America for the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus.

PubMed

Ogden, Nicholas H; Milka, Radojević; Caminade, Cyril; Gachon, Philippe

2014-12-02

Since the 1980s, populations of the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus have become established in south-eastern, eastern and central United States, extending to approximately 40°N. Ae. albopictus is a vector of a wide range of human pathogens including dengue and chikungunya viruses, which are currently emerging in the Caribbean and Central America and posing a threat to North America. The risk of Ae. albopictus expanding its geographic range in North America under current and future climate was assessed using three climatic indicators of Ae. albopictus survival: overwintering conditions (OW), OW combined with annual air temperature (OWAT), and a linear index of precipitation and air temperature suitability expressed through a sigmoidal function (SIG). The capacity of these indicators to predict Ae. albopictus occurrence was evaluated using surveillance data from the United States. Projected future climatic suitability for Ae. albopictus was obtained using output of nine Regional Climate Model experiments (RCMs). OW and OWAT showed >90% specificity and sensitivity in predicting observed Ae. albopictus occurrence and also predicted moderate to high risk of Ae. albopictus invasion in Pacific coastal areas of the Unites States and Canada under current climate. SIG also well predicted observed Ae. albopictus occurrence (ROC area under the curve was 0.92) but predicted wider current climatic suitability in the north-central and north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada. RCM output projected modest (circa 500 km) future northward range expansion of Ae. albopictus by the 2050s when using OW and OWAT indicators, but greater (600-1000 km) range expansion, particularly in eastern and central Canada, when using the SIG indicator. Variation in future possible distributions of Ae. albopictus was greater amongst the climatic indicators used than amongst the RCM experiments. Current Ae. albopictus distributions were well predicted by simple climatic indicators and northward range expansion was predicted for the future with climate change. However, current and future predicted geographic distributions of Ae. albopictus varied amongst the climatic indicators used. Further field studies are needed to assess which climatic indicator is the most accurate in predicting regions suitable for Ae. albopictus survival in North America.

Use of NARCCAP Model Projections to Develop a Future Typical Meteorological Year and Estimate the Impact of a Changing Climate on Building Energy Consumption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patton, S. L.; Takle, E. S.; Passe, U.; Kalvelage, K.

2013-12-01

Current simulations of building energy consumption use weather input files based on the past thirty years of climate observations. These 20th century climate conditions may be inadequate when designing buildings meant to function well into the 21st century. An alternative is using model projections of climate change to estimate future risk to the built environment. In this study, model-projected changes in climate were combined with existing typical meteorological year data to create future typical meteorological year data. These data were then formatted for use in EnergyPlus simulation software to evaluate their potential impact on commercial building energy consumption. The modeled climate data were taken from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). NARCCAP uses results of global climate models to drive regional climate models, also known as dynamical downscaling. This downscaling gives higher resolution results over specific locations, and the multiple global/regional climate model combinations provide a unique opportunity to quantify the uncertainty of climate change projections and their impacts. Our results show a projected decrease in heating energy consumption and a projected increase in cooling energy consumption for nine locations across the United States for all model combinations. Warmer locations may expect a decrease in heating load of around 30% to 45% and an increase in cooling load of around 25% to 35%. Colder locations may expect a decrease in heating load of around 15% to 25% and an increase in cooling load of around 40% to 70%. The change in net energy consumption is determined by the balance between the magnitudes of heating change and cooling change. Net energy consumption is projected to increase by an average of 5% for lower-latitude locations and decrease by an average of 5% for higher-latitude locations. With these projected annual and seasonal changes presenting strong evidence for the unsuitable nature of current building practices holding up under future climate change, we recommend using our methods and results to make modifications and adaptations to existing buildings and to aid in the design of future buildings.

Potential impacts of projected climate change on vegetation management in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park

USGS Publications Warehouse

Camp, Richard J.; Loh, Rhonda; Berkowitz, S. Paul; Brinck, Kevin W.; Jacobi, James D.; Price, Jonathan; McDaniel, Sierra; Fortini, Lucas B.

2018-01-01

Climate change will likely alter the seasonal and annual patterns of rainfall and temperature in Hawai`i. This is a major concern for resource managers at Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park where intensely managed Special Ecological Areas (SEAs), focal sites for managing rare and endangered plants, may no longer provide suitable habitat under future climate. Expanding invasive species’ distributions also may pose a threat to areas where native plants currently predominate. We combine recent climate modeling efforts for the state of Hawai`i with plant species distribution models to forecast changes in biodiversity in SEAs under future climate conditions. Based on this bioclimatic envelope model, we generated projected species range maps for four snapshots in time (2000, 2040, 2070, and 2090) to assess whether the range of 39 native and invasive species of management interest are expected to contract, expand, or remain the same under a moderately warmer and more variable precipitation scenario. Approximately two-thirds of the modeled native species were projected to contract in range, while one-third were shown to increase. Most of the park’s SEAs were projected to lose a majority of the native species modeled. Nine of the 10 modeled invasive species were projected to contract within the park; this trend occurred in most SEAs, including those at low, middle, and high elevations. There was good congruence in the current (2000) distribution of species richness and SEA configuration; however, the congruence between species richness hotspots and SEAs diminished by the end of this century. Over time the projected species-rich hotspots increasingly occurred outside of current SEA boundaries. Our research brought together managers and scientists to increase understanding of potential climate change impacts, and provide needed information to address how plants may respond under future conditions relative to current managed areas.

Strategies for reforestation under uncertain future climates: guidelines for Alberta, Canada.

PubMed

Gray, Laura K; Hamann, Andreas

2011-01-01

Commercial forestry programs normally use locally collected seed for reforestation under the assumption that tree populations are optimally adapted to local environments. However, in western Canada this assumption is no longer valid because of climate trends that have occurred over the last several decades. The objective of this study is to show how we can arrive at reforestation recommendations with alternative species and genotypes that are viable under a majority of climate change scenarios. In a case study for commercially important tree species of Alberta, we use an ecosystem-based bioclimate envelope modeling approach for western North America to project habitat for locally adapted populations of tree species using multi-model climate projections for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. We find that genotypes of species that are adapted to drier climatic conditions will be the preferred planting stock over much of the boreal forest that is commercially managed. Interestingly, no alternative species that are currently not present in Alberta can be recommended with any confidence. Finally, we observe large uncertainties in projections of suitable habitat that make reforestation planning beyond the 2050s difficult for most species. More than 50,000 hectares of forests are commercially planted every year in Alberta. Choosing alternative planting stock, suitable for expected future climates, could therefore offer an effective climate change adaptation strategy at little additional cost. Habitat projections for locally adapted tree populations under observed climate change conform well to projections for the 2020s, which suggests that it is a safe strategy to change current reforestation practices and adapt to new climatic realities through assisted migration prescriptions.

Projected continent-wide declines of the emperor penguin under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jenouvrier, Stéphanie; Holland, Marika; Stroeve, Julienne; Serreze, Mark; Barbraud, Christophe; Weimerskirch, Henri; Caswell, Hal

2014-08-01

Climate change has been projected to affect species distribution and future trends of local populations, but projections of global population trends are rare. We analyse global population trends of the emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri), an iconic Antarctic top predator, under the influence of sea ice conditions projected by coupled climate models assessed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) effort. We project the dynamics of all 45 known emperor penguin colonies by forcing a sea-ice-dependent demographic model with local, colony-specific, sea ice conditions projected through to the end of the twenty-first century. Dynamics differ among colonies, but by 2100 all populations are projected to be declining. At least two-thirds are projected to have declined by >50% from their current size. The global population is projected to have declined by at least 19%. Because criteria to classify species by their extinction risk are based on the global population dynamics, global analyses are critical for conservation. We discuss uncertainties arising in such global projections and the problems of defining conservation criteria for species endangered by future climate change.

Biodiversity in a changing climate: a synthesis of current and projected trends in the US

USGS Publications Warehouse

Staudinger, Michelle D.; Carter, Shawn L.; Cross, Molly S.; Dubois, Natalie S.; Duffy, J. Emmett; Enquist, Carolyn; Griffis, Roger; Hellmann, Jessica J.; Lawler, Joshua J.; O’Leary, John; Morrison, Scott A.; Sneddon, Lesley; Stein, Bruce A.; Thompson, Laura M.; Turner, Woody

2013-01-01

This paper provides a synthesis of the recent literature describing how global biodiversity is being affected by climate change and is projected to respond in the future. Current studies reinforce earlier findings of major climate-change-related impacts on biological systems and document new, more subtle after-effects. For example, many species are shifting their distributions and phenologies at faster rates than were recorded just a few years ago; however, responses are not uniform across species. Shifts have been idiosyncratic and in some cases counterintuitive, promoting new community compositions and altering biotic interactions. Although genetic diversity enhances species' potential to respond to variable conditions, climate change may outpace intrinsic adaptive capacities and increase the relative vulnerabilities of many organisms. Developing effective adaptation strategies for biodiversity conservation will not only require flexible decision-making and management approaches that account for uncertainties in climate projections and ecological responses but will also necessitate coordinated monitoring efforts.

Woody plants and the prediction of climate-change impacts on bird diversity.

PubMed

Kissling, W D; Field, R; Korntheuer, H; Heyder, U; Böhning-Gaese, K

2010-07-12

Current methods of assessing climate-induced shifts of species distributions rarely account for species interactions and usually ignore potential differences in response times of interacting taxa to climate change. Here, we used species-richness data from 1005 breeding bird and 1417 woody plant species in Kenya and employed model-averaged coefficients from regression models and median climatic forecasts assembled across 15 climate-change scenarios to predict bird species richness under climate change. Forecasts assuming an instantaneous response of woody plants and birds to climate change suggested increases in future bird species richness across most of Kenya whereas forecasts assuming strongly lagged woody plant responses to climate change indicated a reversed trend, i.e. reduced bird species richness. Uncertainties in predictions of future bird species richness were geographically structured, mainly owing to uncertainties in projected precipitation changes. We conclude that assessments of future species responses to climate change are very sensitive to current uncertainties in regional climate-change projections, and to the inclusion or not of time-lagged interacting taxa. We expect even stronger effects for more specialized plant-animal associations. Given the slow response time of woody plant distributions to climate change, current estimates of future biodiversity of many animal taxa may be both biased and too optimistic.

Understanding global climate change scenarios through bioclimate stratification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soteriades, A. D.; Murray-Rust, D.; Trabucco, A.; Metzger, M. J.

2017-08-01

Despite progress in impact modelling, communicating and understanding the implications of climatic change projections is challenging due to inherent complexity and a cascade of uncertainty. In this letter, we present an alternative representation of global climate change projections based on shifts in 125 multivariate strata characterized by relatively homogeneous climate. These strata form climate analogues that help in the interpretation of climate change impacts. A Random Forests classifier was calculated and applied to 63 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 climate scenarios at 5 arcmin resolution. Results demonstrate how shifting bioclimate strata can summarize future environmental changes and form a middle ground, conveniently integrating current knowledge of climate change impact with the interpretation advantages of categorical data but with a level of detail that resembles a continuous surface at global and regional scales. Both the agreement in major change and differences between climate change projections are visually combined, facilitating the interpretation of complex uncertainty. By making the data and the classifier available we provide a climate service that helps facilitate communication and provide new insight into the consequences of climate change.

An Analysis of the Potential Impact of Climate Change on Dengue Transmission in the Southeastern United States.

PubMed

Butterworth, Melinda K; Morin, Cory W; Comrie, Andrew C

2017-04-01

Dengue fever, caused by a mosquito-transmitted virus, is an increasing health concern in the Americas. Meteorological variables such as temperature and precipitation can affect disease distribution and abundance through biophysical impacts on the vector and on the virus. Such tightly coupled links may facilitate further spread of dengue fever under a changing climate. In the southeastern United States, the dengue vector is widely established and exists on the current fringe of dengue transmission. We assessed projected climate change-driven shifts in dengue transmission risk in this region. We used a dynamic mosquito population and virus transmission model driven by meteorological data to simulate Aedes aegypti populations and dengue cases in 23 locations in the southeastern United States under current climate conditions and future climate projections. We compared estimates for each location with simulations based on observed data from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where dengue is endemic. Our simulations based on current climate data suggest that dengue transmission at levels similar to those in San Juan is possible at several U.S. locations during the summer months, particularly in southern Florida and Texas. Simulations that include climate change projections suggest that conditions may become suitable for virus transmission in a larger number of locations and for a longer period of time during each year. However, in contrast with San Juan, U.S. locations would not sustain year-round dengue transmission according to our model. Our findings suggest that Dengue virus (DENV) transmission is limited by low winter temperatures in the mainland United States, which are likely to prevent its permanent establishment. Although future climate conditions may increase the length of the mosquito season in many locations, projected increases in dengue transmission are limited to the southernmost locations.

Precipitation Indices as a Tool for Climate-Resilient Development in the Peruvian Andes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chisolm, R. E.; McKinney, D. C.

2016-12-01

The local people living in the mountains of the Ancash Department in Peru have noticed changes in their water supply as climate change has altered precipitation patterns. They are seeking adaptation solutions to help guarantee the reliability of their water supply, but there has been very little analysis of historical data to evaluate and justify these adaptation solutions. In addition, Peru's Ministry of Economy and Finance now requires that climate change be part of the vulnerability assessment for all public investment project proposals, but there are currently no tools or methods of data analysis for including climate change in vulnerability assessments. Compounding the difficulties of considering climate change in the sustainability of development projects is the scarcity of climate data in the region and the difficulty of accessing existing data. To counteract this problem, the Peruvian government recommends using local people's perceptions of change as a proxy for gauged climate data. This work focuses on precipitation data analysis in the mountains of Ancash, Peru. The objectives of this analysis were to determine the accuracy of the local population's perceptions of climate change and to investigate how changes in precipitation patterns might impact public investment projects. The precipitation data analysis was compared to a local study of perceptions of change to determine whether or not these perceptions might be used in lieu of gauged climate data. It appears that people's perceptions of precipitation trends do not accurately reflect the trends observed in the gauged data. The methods of analysis were designed so that the results may be useful for public investment projects with a particular emphasis on agricultural projects. The data were analyzed for trends, seasonal patterns and variability. Dry spells were examined, and the results indicate that droughts during the rainy season have become more frequent and of longer duration. This could have significant impact on agricultural projects. It is likely that the current practice of relying exclusively on wet season rainfall to meet crop water requirements may not be sustainable in the future. Further analysis of climate data is needed to generate a regional climatic characterization that can be used for climate-resilient development projects.

Potential impacts of projected climate change on vegetation-management strategies in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park

USGS Publications Warehouse

Camp, Richard J.; Berkowitz, S. Paul; Brink, Kevin W.; Jacobi, James D.; Loh, Rhonda; Price, Jonathan; Fortini, Lucas B.

2018-06-05

Climate change is expected to alter the seasonal and annual patterns of rainfall and temperature in the Hawaiian Islands. Land managers and other responsible agencies will need to know how plant-species habitats will change over the next century in order to manage these resources effectively. This issue is a major concern for resource managers at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO), where currently managed Special Ecological Areas (SEAs) for important plant species and communities may no longer provide suitable habitats in the future as the climate changes. Expanding invasive-species distributions also may pose a threat to areas where native plants currently predominate.The objective of this project was to combine recent climate-modeling efforts for the state of Hawai‘i with existing models of plant-species distribution in order to forecast suitable habitat ranges under future climate conditions derived from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, phase 3 (CMIP3) global circulation model that was dynamically downscaled for the Hawaiian Islands by using the Hawai‘i Regional Climate Model (HRCM). The HRCM uses the A1B emission scenario (a median future climate projection) from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). On the basis of this model, maps showing projected plant-species ranges were generated for four years as snapshots in time (2000, 2040, 2070, 2090) and for three different trajectories of climate change (gradual, linear, rapid) between the present and future.We mapped probabilistic surfaces of suitable habitat for 39 plant species (both native and alien [nonnative]) identified as being of interest to HAVO resource managers. We displayed these surfaces in terms of change relative to present conditions, whether the range of a given plant species was expected to contract, expand, or remain the same in the future. Within HAVO, approximately two-thirds (18 of 29) of the modeled native plant species were projected to contract in range, whereas one-third (11 of 29) were projected to increase. Most of the HAVO SEAs were projected to lose most of the native plant species modeled. Within HAVO, all alien plant species except Lantana camara were projected to contract in range within the park; this trend was observed in most SEAs, including those at low, middle, and high elevations. Congruence was good in the “current” (2000) distribution of plant-species richness and SEA configurations; however, the congruence between species-richness hotspots and SEAs diminished by the projected “end-of-century” (2090) distribution. Over time, the projected species-richness hotspots increasingly occurred outside of the currently configured SEA boundaries.

Ecosystem size structure response to 21st century climate projection: large fish abundance decreases in the central North Pacific and increases in the California Current.

PubMed

Woodworth-Jefcoats, Phoebe A; Polovina, Jeffrey J; Dunne, John P; Blanchard, Julia L

2013-03-01

Output from an earth system model is paired with a size-based food web model to investigate the effects of climate change on the abundance of large fish over the 21st century. The earth system model, forced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special report on emission scenario A2, combines a coupled climate model with a biogeochemical model including major nutrients, three phytoplankton functional groups, and zooplankton grazing. The size-based food web model includes linkages between two size-structured pelagic communities: primary producers and consumers. Our investigation focuses on seven sites in the North Pacific, each highlighting a specific aspect of projected climate change, and includes top-down ecosystem depletion through fishing. We project declines in large fish abundance ranging from 0 to 75.8% in the central North Pacific and increases of up to 43.0% in the California Current (CC) region over the 21st century in response to change in phytoplankton size structure and direct physiological effects. We find that fish abundance is especially sensitive to projected changes in large phytoplankton density and our model projects changes in the abundance of large fish being of the same order of magnitude as changes in the abundance of large phytoplankton. Thus, studies that address only climate-induced impacts to primary production without including changes to phytoplankton size structure may not adequately project ecosystem responses. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Future socio-economic impacts and vulnerabilities

Treesearch

Balgis Osman-Elasha; Neil Adger; Maria Brockhaus; Carol J. Pierce Colfer; Brent Sohngen; Tallaat Dafalla; Linda A. Joyce; Nkem Johnson; Carmenza Robledo

2009-01-01

The projected impacts of climate change are significant, and despite the uncertainties associated with current climate and ecosystem model projections, the associated changes in the provision of forest ecosystem services are expected to be substantial in many parts of the world. These impacts will present significant social and economic challenges for affected...

Potential effects of climate change on the distribution of waterbirds in the Prairie Pothole Region, U.S.A.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Steen, Valerie; Powell, Abby N.

2012-01-01

Wetland-dependent birds are considered to be at particularly high risk for negative climate change effects. Current and future distributions of American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus), American Coot (Fulica americana), Black Tern (Chlidonias niger), Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) and Sora (Porzana carolina), five waterbird species common in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), were predicted using species distribution models (SDMs) in combination with climate data that projected a drier future for the PPR. Regional-scale SDMs were created for the U.S. PPR using breeding bird survey occurrence records for 1971-2000 and wetland and climate parameters. For each waterbird species, current distribution and four potential future distributions were predicted: all combinations of two Global Circulation Models and two emissions scenarios. Averaged for all five species, the ensemble range reduction was 64%. However, projected range losses for individual species varied widely with Sora and Black Tern projected to lose close to 100% and American Bittern 29% of their current range. Future distributions were also projected to a hypothetical landscape where wetlands were numerous and constant to highlight areas suitable as conservation reserves under a drier future climate. The ensemble model indicated that northeastern North Dakota and northern Minnesota would be the best areas for conservation reserves within the U.S. PPR under the modeled conditions.

Carbon pollution increases health inequities: lessons in resilience from the most vulnerable.

PubMed

Ebi, Kristie L; Fawcett, Stephen B; Spiegel, Jerry; Tovalin, Horacio

2016-09-01

Climate change is a social justice as well as an environmental issue. The magnitude and pattern of changes in weather and climate variables are creating differential exposures, vulnerabilities, and health risks that increase stress on health systems while exacerbating existing and creating new health inequities. Examples from national and local health adaptation projects highlight that developing partnerships across sectors and levels are critical for building climate-resilient health systems and communities. Strengthening current and implementing new health interventions, such as using environmental information to develop early warning systems, can be effective in protecting the most vulnerable. However, not all projected risks of climate change can be avoided by climate policies and programs, so health system strengthening is also critical. Applying a health inequity lens can reduce current vulnerabilities while building resilience to longer-term climate change. Taking inequities into account is critical if societies are to effectively prepare for and manage the challenges ahead.

The Coordinated Ocean Wave Climate Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hemer, Mark; Dobrynin, Mikhail; Erikson, Li; Lionello, Piero; Mori, Nobuhito; Semedo, Alvaro; Wang, Xiaolan

2016-04-01

Future 21st Century changes in wind-wave climate have broad implications for marine and coastal infrastructure and ecosystems. Atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GCM) are now routinely used for assessing and providing future projections of climatological parameters such as temperature and precipitation, but generally these provide no information on ocean wind-waves. To fill this information gap a growing number of studies are using GCM outputs and independently producing global and regional scale wind-wave climate projections. Furthermore, additional studies are actively coupling wind-wave dependent atmosphere-ocean exchanges into GCMs, to improve physical representation and quantify the impact of waves in the coupled climate system, and can also deliver wave characteristics as another variable in the climate system. To consolidate these efforts, understand the sources of variance between projections generated by different methodologies and International groups, and ultimately provide a robust picture of the role of wind-waves in the climate system and their projected changes, we present outcomes of the JCOMM supported Coordinated Ocean Wave Climate Project (COWCLIP). The objective of COWCLIP is twofold: to make community based ensembles of wave climate projections openly accessible, to provide the necessary information to support diligent marine and coastal impacts of climate change studies; and to understand the effects and feedback influences of wind-waves in the coupled ocean-atmosphere climate system. We will present the current status of COWCLIP, providing an overview of the objectives, analysis and results of the initial phase - now complete - and the progress of ongoing phases of the project.

Strategies for Reforestation under Uncertain Future Climates: Guidelines for Alberta, Canada

PubMed Central

Gray, Laura K.; Hamann, Andreas

2011-01-01

Background Commercial forestry programs normally use locally collected seed for reforestation under the assumption that tree populations are optimally adapted to local environments. However, in western Canada this assumption is no longer valid because of climate trends that have occurred over the last several decades. The objective of this study is to show how we can arrive at reforestation recommendations with alternative species and genotypes that are viable under a majority of climate change scenarios. Methodology/Principal Findings In a case study for commercially important tree species of Alberta, we use an ecosystem-based bioclimate envelope modeling approach for western North America to project habitat for locally adapted populations of tree species using multi-model climate projections for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. We find that genotypes of species that are adapted to drier climatic conditions will be the preferred planting stock over much of the boreal forest that is commercially managed. Interestingly, no alternative species that are currently not present in Alberta can be recommended with any confidence. Finally, we observe large uncertainties in projections of suitable habitat that make reforestation planning beyond the 2050s difficult for most species. Conclusion/Significance More than 50,000 hectares of forests are commercially planted every year in Alberta. Choosing alternative planting stock, suitable for expected future climates, could therefore offer an effective climate change adaptation strategy at little additional cost. Habitat projections for locally adapted tree populations under observed climate change conform well to projections for the 2020s, which suggests that it is a safe strategy to change current reforestation practices and adapt to new climatic realities through assisted migration prescriptions. PMID:21853061

Response of the North American corn belt to climate warming, CO2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1983-08-01

The climate of the North American corn belt was characterized to estimate the effects of climatic change on that agricultural region. Heat and moisture characteristics of the current corn belt were identified and mapped based on a simulated climate for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The result was a map of the projected corn belt corresponding to the simulated climatic change. Such projections were made with and without an allowance for earlier planting dates that could occur under a CO2-induced climatic warming. Because the direct effects of CO2 increases on plants, improvements in farm technology, and plant breeding are not considered, the resulting projections represent an extreme or worst case. The results indicate that even for such a worst case, climatic conditions favoring corn production would not extend very far into Canada. Climatic buffering effects of the Great Lakes would apparently retard northeastward shifts in corn-belt location.

Near term climate projections for invasive species distributions

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jarnevich, C.S.; Stohlgren, T.J.

2009-01-01

Climate change and invasive species pose important conservation issues separately, and should be examined together. We used existing long term climate datasets for the US to project potential climate change into the future at a finer spatial and temporal resolution than the climate change scenarios generally available. These fine scale projections, along with new species distribution modeling techniques to forecast the potential extent of invasive species, can provide useful information to aide conservation and invasive species management efforts. We created habitat suitability maps for Pueraria montana (kudzu) under current climatic conditions and potential average conditions up to 30 years in the future. We examined how the potential distribution of this species will be affected by changing climate, and the management implications associated with these changes. Our models indicated that P. montana may increase its distribution particularly in the Northeast with climate change and may decrease in other areas. ?? 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Interactive Correlation Analysis and Visualization of Climate Data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ma, Kwan-Liu

The relationship between our ability to analyze and extract insights from visualization of climate model output and the capability of the available resources to make those visualizations has reached a crisis point. The large volume of data currently produced by climate models is overwhelming the current, decades-old visualization workflow. The traditional methods for visualizing climate output also have not kept pace with changes in the types of grids used, the number of variables involved, and the number of different simulations performed with a climate model or the feature-richness of high-resolution simulations. This project has developed new and faster methods formore » visualization in order to get the most knowledge out of the new generation of high-resolution climate models. While traditional climate images will continue to be useful, there is need for new approaches to visualization and analysis of climate data if we are to gain all the insights available in ultra-large data sets produced by high-resolution model output and ensemble integrations of climate models such as those produced for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Towards that end, we have developed new visualization techniques for performing correlation analysis. We have also introduced highly scalable, parallel rendering methods for visualizing large-scale 3D data. This project was done jointly with climate scientists and visualization researchers at Argonne National Laboratory and NCAR.« less

Global synthesis of the documented and projected effects of climate change on inland fishes

USGS Publications Warehouse

Myers, Bonnie; Lynch, Abigail; Bunnell, David; Chu, Cindy; Falke, Jeffrey A.; Kovach, Ryan; Krabbenhoft, Trevor J.; Kwak, Thomas J.; Paukert, Craig P.

2017-01-01

Although climate change is an important factor affecting inland fishes globally, a comprehensive review of how climate change has impacted and will continue to impact inland fishes worldwide does not currently exist. We conducted an extensive, systematic primary literature review to identify English-language, peer-reviewed journal publications with projected and documented examples of climate change impacts on inland fishes globally. Since the mid-1980s, scientists have projected the effects of climate change on inland fishes, and more recently, documentation of climate change impacts on inland fishes has increased. Of the thousands of title and abstracts reviewed, we selected 624 publications for a full text review: 63 of these publications documented an effect of climate change on inland fishes, while 116 publications projected inland fishes’ response to future climate change. Documented and projected impacts of climate change varied, but several trends emerged including differences between documented and projected impacts of climate change on salmonid abundance (P = 0.0002). Salmonid abundance decreased in 89.5% of documented effects compared to 35.7% of projected effects, where variable effects were more commonly reported (64.3%). Studies focused on responses of salmonids (61% of total) to climate change in North America and Europe, highlighting major gaps in the literature for taxonomic groups and geographic focus. Elucidating global patterns and identifying knowledge gaps of climate change effects on inland fishes will help managers better anticipate local changes in fish populations and assemblages, resulting in better development of management plans, particularly in systems with little information on climate change effects on fish.

Large rainfall changes consistently projected over substantial areas of tropical land

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chadwick, Robin; Good, Peter; Martin, Gill; Rowell, David P.

2016-02-01

Many tropical countries are exceptionally vulnerable to changes in rainfall patterns, with floods or droughts often severely affecting human life and health, food and water supplies, ecosystems and infrastructure. There is widespread disagreement among climate model projections of how and where rainfall will change over tropical land at the regional scales relevant to impacts, with different models predicting the position of current tropical wet and dry regions to shift in different ways. Here we show that despite uncertainty in the location of future rainfall shifts, climate models consistently project that large rainfall changes will occur for a considerable proportion of tropical land over the twenty-first century. The area of semi-arid land affected by large changes under a higher emissions scenario is likely to be greater than during even the most extreme regional wet or dry periods of the twentieth century, such as the Sahel drought of the late 1960s to 1990s. Substantial changes are projected to occur by mid-century--earlier than previously expected--and to intensify in line with global temperature rise. Therefore, current climate projections contain quantitative, decision-relevant information on future regional rainfall changes, particularly with regard to climate change mitigation policy.

The Impact of Climate Change on the Potential Distribution of Agricultural Pests: The Case of the Coffee White Stem Borer (Monochamus leuconotus P.) in Zimbabwe

PubMed Central

Kutywayo, Dumisani; Chemura, Abel; Kusena, Winmore; Chidoko, Pardon; Mahoya, Caleb

2013-01-01

The production of agricultural commodities faces increased risk of pests, diseases and other stresses due to climate change and variability. This study assesses the potential distribution of agricultural pests under projected climatic scenarios using evidence from the African coffee white stem borer (CWB), Monochamus leuconotus (Pascoe) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), an important pest of coffee in Zimbabwe. A species distribution modeling approach utilising Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) and Generalized Linear Models (GLM) was applied on current and projected climate data obtained from the WorldClim database and occurrence data (presence and absence) collected through on-farm biological surveys in Chipinge, Chimanimani, Mutare and Mutasa districts in Zimbabwe. Results from both the BRT and GLM indicate that precipitation-related variables are more important in determining species range for the CWB than temperature related variables. The CWB has extensive potential habitats in all coffee areas with Mutasa district having the largest model average area suitable for CWB under current and projected climatic conditions. Habitat ranges for CWB will increase under future climate scenarios for Chipinge, Chimanimani and Mutare districts while it will decrease in Mutasa district. The highest percentage change in area suitable for the CWB was for Chimanimani district with a model average of 49.1% (3 906 ha) increase in CWB range by 2080. The BRT and GLM predictions gave similar predicted ranges for Chipinge, Chimanimani and Mutasa districts compared to the high variation in current and projected habitat area for CWB in Mutare district. The study concludes that suitable area for CWB will increase significantly in Zimbabwe due to climate change and there is need to develop adaptation mechanisms. PMID:24014222

Projected Changes on the Global Surface Wave Drift Climate towards the END of the Twenty-First Century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carrasco, Ana; Semedo, Alvaro; Behrens, Arno; Weisse, Ralf; Breivik, Øyvind; Saetra, Øyvind; Håkon Christensen, Kai

2016-04-01

The global wave-induced current (the Stokes Drift - SD) is an important feature of the ocean surface, with mean values close to 10 cm/s along the extra-tropical storm tracks in both hemispheres. Besides the horizontal displacement of large volumes of water the SD also plays an important role in the ocean mix-layer turbulence structure, particularly in stormy or high wind speed areas. The role of the wave-induced currents in the ocean mix-layer and in the sea surface temperature (SST) is currently a hot topic of air-sea interaction research, from forecast to climate ranges. The SD is mostly driven by wind sea waves and highly sensitive to changes in the overlaying wind speed and direction. The impact of climate change in the global wave-induced current climate will be presented. The wave model WAM has been forced by the global climate model (GCM) ECHAM5 wind speed (at 10 m height) and ice, for present-day and potential future climate conditions towards the end of the end of the twenty-first century, represented by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) CMIP3 (Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project phase 3) A1B greenhouse gas emission scenario (usually referred to as a ''medium-high emissions'' scenario). Several wave parameters were stored as output in the WAM model simulations, including the wave spectra. The 6 hourly and 0.5°×0.5°, temporal and space resolution, wave spectra were used to compute the SD global climate of two 32-yr periods, representative of the end of the twentieth (1959-1990) and twenty-first (1969-2100) centuries. Comparisons of the present climate run with the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) ERA-40 reanalysis are used to assess the capability of the WAM-ECHAM5 runs to produce realistic SD results. This study is part of the WRCP-JCOMM COWCLIP (Coordinated Ocean Wave Climate Project) effort.

Viticultural zoning in Portugal: current conditions and future scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraga, H.; Santos, J. A.; Malheiro, A. C.; Moutinho-Pereira, J.

2012-04-01

Viticulture and wine production represent a main economic activity of the agro-production sector in Portugal, particularly over some world famous winemaking regions, such as the Port Wine / Douro Valley, Minho and Alentejo. As viticultural zoning provides valuable information regarding the suitability of a given grapevine variety to local climatic conditions, it is thus of great interest to the Portuguese winemaking sector. Furthermore, projected future climates are also likely to have important impacts on this zoning. Therefore, in the current study we aim at 1) discussing the current viticultural zoning in Portugal, and 2) assessing its future changes under anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing (A1B SRES scenario) in the 2011-2070 time period. A set of appropriate bioclimatic indices, computed using temperatures and precipitations defined on a daily basis, is used for viticultural zoning. For the assessment of the recent-past conditions an observational gridded dataset (E-OBS) is used, while for future climate change projections, a 16-member ensemble of model experiments (ENSEMBLES project dataset), is considered. Overall, statistically significant increases (decreases) in the thermally-based (humidity-based) indices are projected to occur in the future throughout the country, particularly over its southern and innermost regions. All these changes are in agreement with the widely accepted projections for warmer and dryer Southern European climates. High impacts are found in the most important winemaking regions in Portugal, highlighting the urgent need for developing suitable adaptation and mitigation measures so as to cope with a changing climate. A reshaping of the viticultural regions is thereby expected to occur within the next decades over Portugal.

Mountain Glaciers and Ice Caps

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ananichheva, Maria; Arendt, Anthony; Hagen, Jon-Ove; Hock, Regine; Josberger, Edward G.; Moore, R. Dan; Pfeffer, William Tad; Wolken, Gabriel J.

2011-01-01

Projections of future rates of mass loss from mountain glaciers and ice caps in the Arctic focus primarily on projections of changes in the surface mass balance. Current models are not yet capable of making realistic forecasts of changes in losses by calving. Surface mass balance models are forced with downscaled output from climate models driven by forcing scenarios that make assumptions about the future rate of growth of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Thus, mass loss projections vary considerably, depending on the forcing scenario used and the climate model from which climate projections are derived. A new study in which a surface mass balance model is driven by output from ten general circulation models (GCMs) forced by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) A1B emissions scenario yields estimates of total mass loss of between 51 and 136 mm sea-level equivalent (SLE) (or 13% to 36% of current glacier volume) by 2100. This implies that there will still be substantial glacier mass in the Arctic in 2100 and that Arctic mountain glaciers and ice caps will continue to influence global sea-level change well into the 22nd century.

Limits to health adaptation in a changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ebi, K. L.

2015-12-01

Introduction: Because the health risks of climate variability and change are not new, it has been assumed that health systems have the capacity, experience, and tools to effectively adapt to changing burdens of climate-sensitive health outcomes with additional climate change. However, as illustrated in the Ebola crisis, health systems in many low-income countries have insufficient capacity to manage current health burdens. These countries also are those most vulnerable to climate change, including changes in food and water safety and security, increases in extreme weather and climate events, and increases in the geographic range, incidence, and seasonality of a variety of infectious diseases. The extent to which they might be able to keep pace with projected risks depends on assumptions of the sustainability of development pathways. At the same time, the magnitude and pattern of climate change will depend on greenhouse gas emission pathways. Methods: Review of the success of health adaptation projects and expert judgment assessment of the degree to which adaptation efforts will be able to keep pace with projected changes in climate variability and change. Results: Health adaptation can reduce the current and projected burdens of climate-sensitive health outcomes over the short term in many countries, but the extent to which it could do so past mid-century will depend on emission and development pathways. Under high emission scenarios, climate change will be rapid and extensive, leading to fundamental shifts in the burden of climate-sensitive health outcomes that will challenging for many countries to manage. Sustainable development pathways could delay but not eliminate associated health burdens. Conclusions: To prepare for and cope with the Anthropocene, health systems need additional adaptation policies and measures to develop more robust health systems, and need to advocate for rapid and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate and Vegetation Effects on Temperate Mountain Forest Evapotranspiration

EPA Science Inventory

Current forest composition may be resilient to typical climatic variability; however, climate trends, combined with projected changes in species composition, may increase tree vulnerability to water stress. A shift in forest composition toward tree species with higher water use h...

Anticipating impacts of climate change on fish habitat to support decisionmaking in hydropower licensing: a climate risk study for the Hiram Dam, Saco River, ME

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lagron, C. S.; Ray, A. J.; Barsugli, J. J.

2016-12-01

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issues licenses for non-federal hydropower projects through its Integrated Licensing Process (ILP). Through this multi-stage, multi-year decision process, NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) can request studies needed to prescribe license conditions to mitigate dams' effects on trust resources, e.g. fish passages and flow requirements. NMFS must understand the combined effects of hydropower projects and climate change to fulfill its mandates to maintain fisheries and protected species. Although 30-50 year hydropower licenses and renewals are within the time frame of anticipated risks from changing climate, FERC has consistently rejected NMFS' climate study requests, stating climate science is "too uncertain," and therefore not actionable. The ILP is an opportunity to incorporate climate change risks in this decision process, and to make decisions now to avoid failures later in the system regarding both hydropower reliability (the concern of FERC and the applicant) and ecosystem health (NMFS's concern). NMFS has partnered with climate scientists at the ESRL Physical Sciences Division to co-produce a climate study request for the relicensing of the Hiram Project on the Saco River in Southern Maine. The Saco hosts Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) runs which are not currently self-sustaining. This presentation will describe basin-to-basin variability in both historic river analyses (Hydro-Climate Data Network, HCDN) and projected hydrologic responses of New England rivers to climate forcings using statewide Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) demonstrate the need to develop Saco-specific watershed models. Furthermore, although methods for projecting fishery-relevant metrics (heat waves, flood annual exceedance probabilities) have been proven in nearby basins, this modeling has not been conducted at fishery-relevant thresholds. Climate study requests are an example of bridging between science and applications. We argue that the current state of climate science provides actionable information on climate risks in the region, and will articulate the need and required elements for a Saco-specific climate study request.

Refining climate change projections for organisms with low dispersal abilities: a case study of the Caspian whip snake.

PubMed

Sahlean, Tiberiu C; Gherghel, Iulian; Papeş, Monica; Strugariu, Alexandru; Zamfirescu, Ştefan R

2014-01-01

Climate warming is one of the most important threats to biodiversity. Ectothermic organisms such as amphibians and reptiles are especially vulnerable as climatic conditions affect them directly. Ecological niche models (ENMs) are increasingly popular in ecological studies, but several drawbacks exist, including the limited ability to account for the dispersal potential of the species. In this study, we use ENMs to explore the impact of global climate change on the Caspian whip snake (Dolichophis caspius) as model for organisms with low dispersal abilities and to quantify dispersal to novel areas using GIS techniques. Models generated using Maxent 3.3.3 k and GARP for current distribution were projected on future climatic scenarios. A cost-distance analysis was run in ArcGIS 10 using geomorphological features, ecological conditions, and human footprint as "costs" to dispersal of the species to obtain a Maximum Dispersal Range (MDR) estimate. All models developed were statistically significant (P<0.05) and recovered the currently known distribution of D. caspius. Models projected on future climatic conditions using Maxent predicted a doubling of suitable climatic area, while GARP predicted a more conservative expansion. Both models agreed on an expansion of suitable area northwards, with minor decreases at the southern distribution limit. The MDR area calculated using the Maxent model represented a third of the total area of the projected model. The MDR based on GARP models recovered only about 20% of the total area of the projected model. Thus, incorporating measures of species' dispersal abilities greatly reduced estimated area of potential future distributions.

Projected loss of a salamander diversity hotspot as a consequence of projected global climate change.

PubMed

Milanovich, Joseph R; Peterman, William E; Nibbelink, Nathan P; Maerz, John C

2010-08-16

Significant shifts in climate are considered a threat to plants and animals with significant physiological limitations and limited dispersal abilities. The southern Appalachian Mountains are a global hotspot for plethodontid salamander diversity. Plethodontids are lungless ectotherms, so their ecology is strongly governed by temperature and precipitation. Many plethodontid species in southern Appalachia exist in high elevation habitats that may be at or near their thermal maxima, and may also have limited dispersal abilities across warmer valley bottoms. We used a maximum-entropy approach (program Maxent) to model the suitable climatic habitat of 41 plethodontid salamander species inhabiting the Appalachian Highlands region (33 individual species and eight species included within two species complexes). We evaluated the relative change in suitable climatic habitat for these species in the Appalachian Highlands from the current climate to the years 2020, 2050, and 2080, using both the HADCM3 and the CGCM3 models, each under low and high CO(2) scenarios, and using two-model thresholds levels (relative suitability thresholds for determining suitable/unsuitable range), for a total of 8 scenarios per species. While models differed slightly, every scenario projected significant declines in suitable habitat within the Appalachian Highlands as early as 2020. Species with more southern ranges and with smaller ranges had larger projected habitat loss. Despite significant differences in projected precipitation changes to the region, projections did not differ significantly between global circulation models. CO(2) emissions scenario and model threshold had small effects on projected habitat loss by 2020, but did not affect longer-term projections. Results of this study indicate that choice of model threshold and CO(2) emissions scenario affect short-term projected shifts in climatic distributions of species; however, these factors and choice of global circulation model have relatively small affects on what is significant projected loss of habitat for many salamander species that currently occupy the Appalachian Highlands.

Effects of different regional climate model resolution and forcing scales on projected hydrologic changes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mendoza, Pablo A.; Mizukami, Naoki; Ikeda, Kyoko; Clark, Martyn P.; Gutmann, Ethan D.; Arnold, Jeffrey R.; Brekke, Levi D.; Rajagopalan, Balaji

2016-10-01

We examine the effects of regional climate model (RCM) horizontal resolution and forcing scaling (i.e., spatial aggregation of meteorological datasets) on the portrayal of climate change impacts. Specifically, we assess how the above decisions affect: (i) historical simulation of signature measures of hydrologic behavior, and (ii) projected changes in terms of annual water balance and hydrologic signature measures. To this end, we conduct our study in three catchments located in the headwaters of the Colorado River basin. Meteorological forcings for current and a future climate projection are obtained at three spatial resolutions (4-, 12- and 36-km) from dynamical downscaling with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model, and hydrologic changes are computed using four different hydrologic model structures. These projected changes are compared to those obtained from running hydrologic simulations with current and future 4-km WRF climate outputs re-scaled to 12- and 36-km. The results show that the horizontal resolution of WRF simulations heavily affects basin-averaged precipitation amounts, propagating into large differences in simulated signature measures across model structures. The implications of re-scaled forcing datasets on historical performance were primarily observed on simulated runoff seasonality. We also found that the effects of WRF grid resolution on projected changes in mean annual runoff and evapotranspiration may be larger than the effects of hydrologic model choice, which surpasses the effects from re-scaled forcings. Scaling effects on projected variations in hydrologic signature measures were found to be generally smaller than those coming from WRF resolution; however, forcing aggregation in many cases reversed the direction of projected changes in hydrologic behavior.

Climate Change Impacts at Department of Defense

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kotamarthi, Rao; Wang, Jiali; Zoebel, Zach

This project is aimed at providing the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) with a comprehensive analysis of the uncertainty associated with generating climate projections at the regional scale that can be used by stakeholders and decision makers to quantify and plan for the impacts of future climate change at specific locations. The merits and limitations of commonly used downscaling models, ranging from simple to complex, are compared, and their appropriateness for application at installation scales is evaluated. Downscaled climate projections are generated at selected DoD installations using dynamic and statistical methods with an emphasis on generating probability distributions of climatemore » variables and their associated uncertainties. The sites selection and selection of variables and parameters for downscaling was based on a comprehensive understanding of the current and projected roles that weather and climate play in operating, maintaining, and planning DoD facilities and installations.« less

Uncertainty Management in Urban Water Engineering Adaptation to Climate Change

EPA Science Inventory

Current water resource planning and engineering assume a stationary climate, in which the observed historical water flow rate and water quality variations are often used to define the technical basis. When the non-stationarity is considered, however, climate change projection co...

Spatial variability of climate change impacts on yield of rice and wheat in the Indian Ganga Basin.

PubMed

Mishra, Ashok; Singh, R; Raghuwanshi, N S; Chatterjee, C; Froebrich, Jochen

2013-12-01

Indian Ganga Basin (IGB), one of the most densely populated areas in the world, is facing a significant threat to food grain production, besides increased yield gap between actual and potential production, due to climate change. We have analyzed the spatial variability of climate change impacts on rice and wheat yields at three different locations representing the upper, middle and lower IGB. The DSSAT model is used to simulate the effects of climate variability and climate change on rice and wheat yields by analyzing: (i) spatial crop yield response to current climate, and (ii) impact of a changing climate as projected by two regional climate models, REMO and HadRM3, based on SRES A1B emission scenarios for the period 2011-2040. Results for current climate demonstrate a significant gap between actual and potential yield for upper, middle and lower IGB stations. The analysis based on RCM projections shows that during 2011-2040, the largest reduction in rice and wheat yields will occur in the upper IGB (reduction of potential rice and wheat yield respectively by 43.2% and 20.9% by REMO, and 24.8% and 17.2% by HadRM3). In the lower IGB, however, contrasting results are obtained, with HadRM3 based projections showing an increase in the potential rice and wheat yields, whereas, REMO based projections show decreased potential yields. We discuss the influence of agro-climatic factors; variation in temperature, length of maturity period and leaf area index which are responsible for modeled spatial variability in crop yield response within the IGB. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The contribution of natural variability to GCM bias: Can we effectively bias-correct climate projections?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McAfee, S. A.; DeLaFrance, A.

2017-12-01

Investigating the impacts of climate change often entails using projections from inherently imperfect general circulation models (GCMs) to drive models that simulate biophysical or societal systems in great detail. Error or bias in the GCM output is often assessed in relation to observations, and the projections are adjusted so that the output from impacts models can be compared to historical or observed conditions. Uncertainty in the projections is typically accommodated by running more than one future climate trajectory to account for differing emissions scenarios, model simulations, and natural variability. The current methods for dealing with error and uncertainty treat them as separate problems. In places where observed and/or simulated natural variability is large, however, it may not be possible to identify a consistent degree of bias in mean climate, blurring the lines between model error and projection uncertainty. Here we demonstrate substantial instability in mean monthly temperature bias across a suite of GCMs used in CMIP5. This instability is greatest in the highest latitudes during the cool season, where shifts from average temperatures below to above freezing could have profound impacts. In models with the greatest degree of bias instability, the timing of regional shifts from below to above average normal temperatures in a single climate projection can vary by about three decades, depending solely on the degree of bias assessed. This suggests that current bias correction methods based on comparison to 20- or 30-year normals may be inappropriate, particularly in the polar regions.

Climate Project Screening Tool

Treesearch

Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture

2011-01-01

Climate change poses a challenge for resource managers as they review current management practices. Adaptation is a critical means of addressing climate change in the near future because, due to inherent time lags in climate impacts, the effects of increased atmospheric greenhouse gases will be felt for decades even if effective mitigation begins now. To address the...

Improving assessment and modelling of climate change impacts on global terrestrial biodiversity.

PubMed

McMahon, Sean M; Harrison, Sandy P; Armbruster, W Scott; Bartlein, Patrick J; Beale, Colin M; Edwards, Mary E; Kattge, Jens; Midgley, Guy; Morin, Xavier; Prentice, I Colin

2011-05-01

Understanding how species and ecosystems respond to climate change has become a major focus of ecology and conservation biology. Modelling approaches provide important tools for making future projections, but current models of the climate-biosphere interface remain overly simplistic, undermining the credibility of projections. We identify five ways in which substantial advances could be made in the next few years: (i) improving the accessibility and efficiency of biodiversity monitoring data, (ii) quantifying the main determinants of the sensitivity of species to climate change, (iii) incorporating community dynamics into projections of biodiversity responses, (iv) accounting for the influence of evolutionary processes on the response of species to climate change, and (v) improving the biophysical rule sets that define functional groupings of species in global models. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Uncertainty Management in Urban Water Engineering Adaptation to Climate Change - abstract

EPA Science Inventory

Current water resource planning and engineering assume a stationary climate, in which the observed historical water flow rate and water quality variations are often used to define the technical basis. When the non-stationarity is considered, however, climate change projection co...

Using Local Stories as a Call to Action on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Minnesota

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Phipps, M.

2015-12-01

Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy and the University of Minnesota's Regional Sustainability Development Partnerships (RSDP) have developed a novel approach to engaging rural Minnesotans on climate change issues. Through the use of personal, local stories about individuals' paths to action to mitigate and or adapt to climate change, Climate Generation and RSDP aim to spur others to action. Minnesota's Changing Climate project includes 12 Climate Convenings throughout rural Minnesota in a range of communities (tourism-based, agrarian, natural resources-based, university towns) to engage local populations in highly local conversations about climate change, its local impacts, and local solutions currently occurring. Climate Generation and RSDP have partnered with Molly Phipps Consulting to evaluate the efficacy of this approach in rural Minnesota. Data include pre and post convening surveys examining participants' current action around climate change, attitudes toward climate change (using questions from Maibach, Roser-Renouf, and Leiserowitz, 2009), and the strength of their social network to support their current and ongoing work toward mitigating and adapting to climate change. Although the Climate Convenings are tailored to each community, all include a resource fair of local organizations already engaging in climate change mitigation and adaptation activities which participants can participate in, a welcome from a trusted local official, a presentation on the science of climate change, sharing of local climate stories, and break-out groups where participants can learn how to get involved in a particular mitigation or adaptation strategy. Preliminary results have been positive: participants feel motivated to work toward mitigating and adapting to climate change, and more local stories have emerged that can be shared in follow-up webinars and on a project website to continue to inspire others to act.

Drivers and uncertainties of forecasted range shifts for warm-water fishes under climate and land cover change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bouska, Kristen; Whitledge, Gregory W.; Lant, Christopher; Schoof, Justin

2018-01-01

Land cover is an important determinant of aquatic habitat and is projected to shift with climate changes, yet climate-driven land cover changes are rarely factored into climate assessments. To quantify impacts and uncertainty of coupled climate and land cover change on warm-water fish species’ distributions, we used an ensemble model approach to project distributions of 14 species. For each species, current range projections were compared to 27 scenario-based projections and aggregated to visualize uncertainty. Multiple regression and model selection techniques were used to identify drivers of range change. Novel, or no-analogue, climates were assessed to evaluate transferability of models. Changes in total probability of occurrence ranged widely across species, from a 63% increase to a 65% decrease. Distributional gains and losses were largely driven by temperature and flow variables and underscore the importance of habitat heterogeneity and connectivity to facilitate adaptation to changing conditions. Finally, novel climate conditions were driven by mean annual maximum temperature, which stresses the importance of understanding the role of temperature on fish physiology and the role of temperature-mitigating management practices.

Potential effects of climate change on the distribution range of the main silicate sinker of the Southern Ocean.

PubMed

Pinkernell, Stefan; Beszteri, Bánk

2014-08-01

Fragilariopsis kerguelensis, a dominant diatom species throughout the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, is coined to be one of the main drivers of the biological silicate pump. Here, we study the distribution of this important species and expected consequences of climate change upon it, using correlative species distribution modeling and publicly available presence-only data. As experience with SDM is scarce for marine phytoplankton, this also serves as a pilot study for this organism group. We used the maximum entropy method to calculate distribution models for the diatom F. kerguelensis based on yearly and monthly environmental data (sea surface temperature, salinity, nitrate and silicate concentrations). Observation data were harvested from GBIF and the Global Diatom Database, and for further analyses also from the Hustedt Diatom Collection (BRM). The models were projected on current yearly and seasonal environmental data to study current distribution and its seasonality. Furthermore, we projected the seasonal model on future environmental data obtained from climate models for the year 2100. Projected on current yearly averaged environmental data, all models showed similar distribution patterns for F. kerguelensis. The monthly model showed seasonality, for example, a shift of the southern distribution boundary toward the north in the winter. Projections on future scenarios resulted in a moderately to negligibly shrinking distribution area and a change in seasonality. We found a substantial bias in the publicly available observation datasets, which could be reduced by additional observation records we obtained from the Hustedt Diatom Collection. Present-day distribution patterns inferred from the models coincided well with background knowledge and previous reports about F. kerguelensis distribution, showing that maximum entropy-based distribution models are suitable to map distribution patterns for oceanic planktonic organisms. Our scenario projections indicate moderate effects of climate change upon the biogeography of F. kerguelensis.

Multiple dimensions of climate change and their implications for biodiversity.

PubMed

Garcia, Raquel A; Cabeza, Mar; Rahbek, Carsten; Araújo, Miguel B

2014-05-02

The 21st century is projected to witness unprecedented climatic changes, with greater warming often reported for high latitudes. Yet, climate change can be measured in a variety of ways, reflecting distinct dimensions of change with unequal spatial patterns across the world. Polar climates are projected to not only warm, but also to shrink in area. By contrast, today's hot and arid climates are expected to expand worldwide and to reach climate states with no current analog. Although rarely appreciated in combination, these multiple dimensions of change convey complementary information. We review existing climate change metrics and discuss how they relate to threats and opportunities for biodiversity. Interpreting climate change metrics is particularly useful for unknown or poorly described species, which represent most of Earth's biodiversity.

Noah’s Ark Conservation Will Not Preserve Threatened Ecological Communities under Climate Change

PubMed Central

Harris, Rebecca Mary Bernadette; Carter, Oberon; Gilfedder, Louise; Porfirio, Luciana Laura; Lee, Greg; Bindoff, Nathaniel Lee

2015-01-01

Background Effective conservation of threatened ecological communities requires knowledge of where climatically suitable habitat is likely to persist into the future. We use the critically endangered Lowland Grassland community of Tasmania, Australia as a case study to identify options for management in cases where future climatic conditions become unsuitable for the current threatened community. Methods We model current and future climatic suitability for the Lowland Themeda and the Lowland Poa Grassland communities, which make up the listed ecological community. We also model climatic suitability for the structurally dominant grass species of these communities, and for closely related grassland and woodland communities. We use a dynamically downscaled regional climate model derived from six CMIP3 global climate models, under the A2 SRES emissions scenario. Results All model projections showed a large reduction in climatically suitable area by mid-century. Outcomes are slightly better if closely related grassy communities are considered, but the extent of suitable area is still substantially reduced. Only small areas within the current distribution are projected to remain climatically suitable by the end of the century, and very little of that area is currently in good condition. Conclusions As the climate becomes less suitable, a gradual change in the species composition, structure and habitat quality of the grassland communities is likely. Conservation management will need to focus on maintaining diversity, structure and function, rather than attempting to preserve current species composition. Options for achieving this include managing related grassland types to maintain grassland species at the landscape-scale, and maximising the resilience of grasslands by reducing further fragmentation, weed invasion and stress from other land uses, while accepting that change is inevitable. Attempting to maintain the status quo by conserving the current structure and composition of Lowland Grassland communities is unlikely to be a viable management option in the long term. PMID:25881302

Noah's Ark conservation will not preserve threatened ecological communities under climate change.

PubMed

Harris, Rebecca Mary Bernadette; Carter, Oberon; Gilfedder, Louise; Porfirio, Luciana Laura; Lee, Greg; Bindoff, Nathaniel Lee

2015-01-01

Effective conservation of threatened ecological communities requires knowledge of where climatically suitable habitat is likely to persist into the future. We use the critically endangered Lowland Grassland community of Tasmania, Australia as a case study to identify options for management in cases where future climatic conditions become unsuitable for the current threatened community. We model current and future climatic suitability for the Lowland Themeda and the Lowland Poa Grassland communities, which make up the listed ecological community. We also model climatic suitability for the structurally dominant grass species of these communities, and for closely related grassland and woodland communities. We use a dynamically downscaled regional climate model derived from six CMIP3 global climate models, under the A2 SRES emissions scenario. All model projections showed a large reduction in climatically suitable area by mid-century. Outcomes are slightly better if closely related grassy communities are considered, but the extent of suitable area is still substantially reduced. Only small areas within the current distribution are projected to remain climatically suitable by the end of the century, and very little of that area is currently in good condition. As the climate becomes less suitable, a gradual change in the species composition, structure and habitat quality of the grassland communities is likely. Conservation management will need to focus on maintaining diversity, structure and function, rather than attempting to preserve current species composition. Options for achieving this include managing related grassland types to maintain grassland species at the landscape-scale, and maximising the resilience of grasslands by reducing further fragmentation, weed invasion and stress from other land uses, while accepting that change is inevitable. Attempting to maintain the status quo by conserving the current structure and composition of Lowland Grassland communities is unlikely to be a viable management option in the long term.

Evaluating the sources of potential migrant species: implications under climate change

Treesearch

Ines Ibanez; James S. Clark; Michael C. Dietze

2008-01-01

As changes in climate become more apparent, ecologists face the challenge of predicting species responses to the new conditions. Most forecasts are based on climate envelopes (CE), correlative approaches that project future distributions on the basis of the current climate often assuming some dispersal lag. One major caveat with this approach is that it ignores the...

Tools for assessing climate impacts on fish and wildlife

Treesearch

Chad B. Wilsey; Joshua J. Lawler; Edwin P. Maurer; Donald McKenzie; Patricia A. Townsend; Richard Gwozdz; James A. Freund; Keala Hagmann; Karen M. Hutten

2013-01-01

Climate change is already affecting many fish and wildlife populations. Managing these populations requires an understanding of the nature, magnitude, and distribution of current and future climate impacts. Scientists and managers have at their disposal a wide array of models for projecting climate impacts that can be used to build such an understanding. Here, we...

Estimation of the climate change impact on a catchment water balance using an ensemble of GCMs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reshmidevi, T. V.; Nagesh Kumar, D.; Mehrotra, R.; Sharma, A.

2018-01-01

This work evaluates the impact of climate change on the water balance of a catchment in India. Rainfall and hydro-meteorological variables for current (20C3M scenario, 1981-2000) and two future time periods: mid of the 21st century (2046-2065) and end of the century (2081-2100) are simulated using Modified Markov Model-Kernel Density Estimation (MMM-KDE) and k-nearest neighbor downscaling models. Climate projections from an ensemble of 5 GCMs (MPI-ECHAM5, BCCR-BCM2.0, CSIRO-mk3.5, IPSL-CM4, and MRI-CGCM2) are used in this study. Hydrologic simulations for the current as well as future climate scenarios are carried out using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) integrated with ArcGIS (ArcSWAT v.2009). The results show marginal reduction in runoff ratio, annual streamflow and groundwater recharge towards the end of the century. Increased temperature and evapotranspiration project an increase in the irrigation demand towards the end of the century. Rainfall projections for the future shows marginal increase in the annual average rainfall. Short and moderate wet spells are projected to decrease, whereas short and moderate dry spells are projected to increase in the future. Projected reduction in streamflow and groundwater recharge along with the increase in irrigation demand is likely to aggravate the water stress in the region under the future scenario.

Projected range contractions of European protected oceanic montane plant communities: focus on climate change impacts is essential for their future conservation.

PubMed

Hodd, Rory L; Bourke, David; Skeffington, Micheline Sheehy

2014-01-01

Global climate is rapidly changing and while many studies have investigated the potential impacts of this on the distribution of montane plant species and communities, few have focused on those with oceanic montane affinities. In Europe, highly sensitive bryophyte species reach their optimum occurrence, highest diversity and abundance in the north-west hyperoceanic regions, while a number of montane vascular plant species occur here at the edge of their range. This study evaluates the potential impact of climate change on the distribution of these species and assesses the implications for EU Habitats Directive-protected oceanic montane plant communities. We applied an ensemble of species distribution modelling techniques, using atlas data of 30 vascular plant and bryophyte species, to calculate range changes under projected future climate change. The future effectiveness of the protected area network to conserve these species was evaluated using gap analysis. We found that the majority of these montane species are projected to lose suitable climate space, primarily at lower altitudes, or that areas of suitable climate will principally shift northwards. In particular, rare oceanic montane bryophytes have poor dispersal capacity and are likely to be especially vulnerable to contractions in their current climate space. Significantly different projected range change responses were found between 1) oceanic montane bryophytes and vascular plants; 2) species belonging to different montane plant communities; 3) species categorised according to different biomes and eastern limit classifications. The inclusion of topographical variables in addition to climate, significantly improved the statistical and spatial performance of models. The current protected area network is projected to become less effective, especially for specialised arctic-montane species, posing a challenge to conserving oceanic montane plant communities. Conservation management plans need significantly greater focus on potential climate change impacts, including models with higher-resolution species distribution and environmental data, to aid these communities' long-term survival.

Projected Range Contractions of European Protected Oceanic Montane Plant Communities: Focus on Climate Change Impacts Is Essential for Their Future Conservation

PubMed Central

Skeffington, Micheline Sheehy

2014-01-01

Global climate is rapidly changing and while many studies have investigated the potential impacts of this on the distribution of montane plant species and communities, few have focused on those with oceanic montane affinities. In Europe, highly sensitive bryophyte species reach their optimum occurrence, highest diversity and abundance in the north-west hyperoceanic regions, while a number of montane vascular plant species occur here at the edge of their range. This study evaluates the potential impact of climate change on the distribution of these species and assesses the implications for EU Habitats Directive-protected oceanic montane plant communities. We applied an ensemble of species distribution modelling techniques, using atlas data of 30 vascular plant and bryophyte species, to calculate range changes under projected future climate change. The future effectiveness of the protected area network to conserve these species was evaluated using gap analysis. We found that the majority of these montane species are projected to lose suitable climate space, primarily at lower altitudes, or that areas of suitable climate will principally shift northwards. In particular, rare oceanic montane bryophytes have poor dispersal capacity and are likely to be especially vulnerable to contractions in their current climate space. Significantly different projected range change responses were found between 1) oceanic montane bryophytes and vascular plants; 2) species belonging to different montane plant communities; 3) species categorised according to different biomes and eastern limit classifications. The inclusion of topographical variables in addition to climate, significantly improved the statistical and spatial performance of models. The current protected area network is projected to become less effective, especially for specialised arctic-montane species, posing a challenge to conserving oceanic montane plant communities. Conservation management plans need significantly greater focus on potential climate change impacts, including models with higher-resolution species distribution and environmental data, to aid these communities' long-term survival. PMID:24752011

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

PubMed Central

Pugh, T.A.M.; Müller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.

2016-01-01

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand. PMID:27646707

Climate Analogues Suggest Limited Potential for Intensification of Production on Current Croplands Under Climate Change

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pugh, T. A. M.; Mueller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.

2016-01-01

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand.

Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pugh, T. A. M.; Müller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.

2016-09-01

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of assessing the effect of climate change on crop yields. Strong reductions in attainable yields of major cereal crops are found across a large fraction of current cropland by 2050. These areas are vulnerable to climate change and have greatly reduced opportunity for agricultural intensification. However, the total land area, including regions not currently used for crops, climatically suitable for high attainable yields of maize, wheat and rice is similar by 2050 to the present-day. Large shifts in land-use patterns and crop choice will likely be necessary to sustain production growth rates and keep pace with demand.

Uncertainty Quantification in Climate Modeling and Projection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Qian, Yun; Jackson, Charles; Giorgi, Filippo

The projection of future climate is one of the most complex problems undertaken by the scientific community. Although scientists have been striving to better understand the physical basis of the climate system and to improve climate models, the overall uncertainty in projections of future climate has not been significantly reduced (e.g., from the IPCC AR4 to AR5). With the rapid increase of complexity in Earth system models, reducing uncertainties in climate projections becomes extremely challenging. Since uncertainties always exist in climate models, interpreting the strengths and limitations of future climate projections is key to evaluating risks, and climate change informationmore » for use in Vulnerability, Impact, and Adaptation (VIA) studies should be provided with both well-characterized and well-quantified uncertainty. The workshop aimed at providing participants, many of them from developing countries, information on strategies to quantify the uncertainty in climate model projections and assess the reliability of climate change information for decision-making. The program included a mixture of lectures on fundamental concepts in Bayesian inference and sampling, applications, and hands-on computer laboratory exercises employing software packages for Bayesian inference, Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, and global sensitivity analyses. The lectures covered a range of scientific issues underlying the evaluation of uncertainties in climate projections, such as the effects of uncertain initial and boundary conditions, uncertain physics, and limitations of observational records. Progress in quantitatively estimating uncertainties in hydrologic, land surface, and atmospheric models at both regional and global scales was also reviewed. The application of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) concepts to coupled climate system models is still in its infancy. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) multi-model ensemble currently represents the primary data for assessing reliability and uncertainties of climate change information. An alternative approach is to generate similar ensembles by perturbing parameters within a single-model framework. One of workshop’s objectives was to give participants a deeper understanding of these approaches within a Bayesian statistical framework. However, there remain significant challenges still to be resolved before UQ can be applied in a convincing way to climate models and their projections.« less

Climate Hazard Assessment for Stakeholder Adaptation Planning in New York City

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Horton, Radley M.; Gornitz, Vivien; Bader, Daniel A.; Ruane, Alex C.; Goldberg, Richard; Rosenzweig, Cynthia

2011-01-01

This paper describes a time-sensitive approach to climate change projections, developed as part of New York City's climate change adaptation process, that has provided decision support to stakeholders from 40 agencies, regional planning associations, and private companies. The approach optimizes production of projections given constraints faced by decision makers as they incorporate climate change into long-term planning and policy. New York City stakeholders, who are well-versed in risk management, helped pre-select the climate variables most likely to impact urban infrastructure, and requested a projection range rather than a single 'most likely' outcome. The climate projections approach is transferable to other regions and consistent with broader efforts to provide climate services, including impact, vulnerability, and adaptation information. The approach uses 16 Global Climate Models (GCMs) and three emissions scenarios to calculate monthly change factors based on 30-year average future time slices relative to a 30- year model baseline. Projecting these model mean changes onto observed station data for New York City yields dramatic changes in the frequency of extreme events such as coastal flooding and dangerous heat events. Based on these methods, the current 1-in-10 year coastal flood is projected to occur more than once every 3 years by the end of the century, and heat events are projected to approximately triple in frequency. These frequency changes are of sufficient magnitude to merit consideration in long-term adaptation planning, even though the precise changes in extreme event frequency are highly uncertain

Climate-driven vital rates do not always mean climate-driven population.

PubMed

Tavecchia, Giacomo; Tenan, Simone; Pradel, Roger; Igual, José-Manuel; Genovart, Meritxell; Oro, Daniel

2016-12-01

Current climatic changes have increased the need to forecast population responses to climate variability. A common approach to address this question is through models that project current population state using the functional relationship between demographic rates and climatic variables. We argue that this approach can lead to erroneous conclusions when interpopulation dispersal is not considered. We found that immigration can release the population from climate-driven trajectories even when local vital rates are climate dependent. We illustrated this using individual-based data on a trans-equatorial migratory seabird, the Scopoli's shearwater Calonectris diomedea, in which the variation of vital rates has been associated with large-scale climatic indices. We compared the population annual growth rate λ i , estimated using local climate-driven parameters with ρ i , a population growth rate directly estimated from individual information and that accounts for immigration. While λ i varied as a function of climatic variables, reflecting the climate-dependent parameters, ρ i did not, indicating that dispersal decouples the relationship between population growth and climate variables from that between climatic variables and vital rates. Our results suggest caution when assessing demographic effects of climatic variability especially in open populations for very mobile organisms such as fish, marine mammals, bats, or birds. When a population model cannot be validated or it is not detailed enough, ignoring immigration might lead to misleading climate-driven projections. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The IAHR project CCHE-Climate Change impact on the Hydrological cycle, water management and Engineering: an overview and preliminary results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ranzi, Roberto; Kojiri, T.; Mynett, A.; Barontini, S.; van de Giesen, N.; Kolokytha, E.; Ngo, L. A.; Oreamuno, R.; Renard, B.; Sighomnou, D.; Vizina, A.

2010-05-01

IAHR, the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research launched a research Project called Climate Change impact on the Hydrological cycle, water management and Engineering (IAHR CCHE Project). It was motivated by the fact that, although it is now well accepted that, in the light of the recent IPCC reports the vast majority of members of the scientific community are convinced that the climate is changing or at least will experience a significant fluctuation already during the current century, it is perceived that some hydrologists, water experts and hydraulic engineers are not yet ready to incorporate climate change scenarios in their designs for such projects as: - flood protection and river training, - dam rehabilitation, - water resources management under water scarcity and changes in the hydrological regimes. The objective of the project is to encourage a close co-operation between the scientific and engineering communities in taking appropriate and timely action in response to the impact of climate change on the hydrological regime and on water resource projects. The project aims at reporting on (a) the current state of knowledge as regards the impact of projected climate change on the hydrological regime in different regions of the world, where these regions are defined not just in geographic terms but also on the basis of their level of economic and water resources development; (b) the extent to which these impacts are recognized and taken into account by national water authorities, engineering organizations and other regulating bodies in setting their standard practices and procedures for the planning, design and operation of water works. These adaptation measures will include both "hard" responses, such as the construction or enlargement of engineering structures, and "soft" responses, such as changes in legislation or the operating rules of existing structures. An overview of the project and preliminary results extracted from of an Inventory of existing studies and projects considering observed and projected trends in the hydrological regimes of riverbasins and adaptation measures of the structural and non-structural type in Europe, Africa, America, Asia and Oceania and are presented.

Mapping Climate Change: Six U.S. Case Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmberg, Marjorie O.

2010-01-01

This research focuses on the current role of mapping practices in communicating climate change in the United States. This includes maps used in monitoring climate change, projecting its potential impacts, and identifying potential adaptation strategies at particular scales. Since few, if any, studies have been done specifically on mapping…

Climate and Pest-Driven Geographic Shifts in Global Coffee Production: Implications for Forest Cover, Biodiversity and Carbon Storage

PubMed Central

Magrach, Ainhoa; Ghazoul, Jaboury

2015-01-01

Coffee is highly sensitive to temperature and rainfall, making its cultivation vulnerable to geographic shifts in response to a changing climate. This could lead to the establishment of coffee plantations in new areas and potential conflicts with other land covers including natural forest, with consequent implications for biodiversity and ecosystem services. We project areas suitable for future coffee cultivation based on several climate scenarios and expected responses of the coffee berry borer, a principle pest of coffee crops. We show that the global climatically-suitable area will suffer marked shifts from some current major centres of cultivation. Most areas will be suited to Robusta coffee, demand for which could be met without incurring forest encroachment. The cultivation of Arabica, which represents 70% of consumed coffee, can also be accommodated in the future, but only by incurring some natural forest loss. This has corresponding implications for carbon storage, and is likely to affect areas currently designated as priority areas for biodiversity. Where Arabica coffee does encroach on natural forests, we project average local losses of 35% of threatened vertebrate species. The interaction of climate and coffee berry borer greatly influences projected outcomes. PMID:26177201

Coastline Mapping and Cultural Review to Predict Sea Level Rise Impact on Hawaiian Archeological Sites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clinton, J.

2017-12-01

Much of Hawaii's history is recorded in archeological sites. Researchers and cultural practitioners have been studying and reconstructing significant archeological sites for generations. Climate change, and more specifically, sea level rise may threaten these sites. Our research records current sea levels and then projects possible consequences to these cultural monuments due to sea level rise. In this mixed methods study, research scientists, cultural practitioners, and secondary students use plane-table mapping techniques to create maps of coastlines and historic sites. Students compare historical records to these maps, analyze current sea level rise trends, and calculate future sea levels. They also gather data through interviews with community experts and kupuna (elders). If climate change continues at projected rates, some historic sites will be in danger of negative impact due to sea level rise. Knowing projected sea levels at specific sites allows for preventative action and contributes to raised awareness of the impacts of climate change to the Hawaiian Islands. Students will share results with the community and governmental agencies in hopes of inspiring action to minimize climate change. It will take collaboration between scientists and cultural communities to inspire future action on climate change.

Predicted changes in climatic niche and climate refugia of conservation priority salamander species in the northeastern United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sutton, William B.; Barrett, Kyle; Moody, Allison T.; Loftin, Cynthia S.; deMaynadier, Phillip G.; Nanjappa, Priya

2015-01-01

Global climate change represents one of the most extensive and pervasive threats to wildlife populations. Amphibians, specifically salamanders, are particularly susceptible to the effects of changing climates due to their restrictive physiological requirements and low vagility; however, little is known about which landscapes and species are vulnerable to climate change. Our study objectives included, (1) evaluating species-specific predictions (based on 2050 climate projections) and vulnerabilities to climate change and (2) using collective species responses to identify areas of climate refugia for conservation priority salamanders in the northeastern United States. All evaluated salamander species were projected to lose a portion of their climatic niche. Averaged projected losses ranged from 3%–100% for individual species, with the Cow Knob Salamander (Plethodon punctatus), Cheat Mountain Salamander (Plethodon nettingi), Shenandoah Mountain Salamander (Plethodon virginia), Mabee’s Salamander (Ambystoma mabeei), and Streamside Salamander (Ambystoma barbouri) predicted to lose at least 97% of their landscape-scale climatic niche. The Western Allegheny Plateau was predicted to lose the greatest salamander climate refugia richness (i.e., number of species with a climatically-suitable niche in a landscape patch), whereas the Central Appalachians provided refugia for the greatest number of species during current and projected climate scenarios. Our results can be used to identify species and landscapes that are likely to be further affected by climate change and potentially resilient habitats that will provide consistent climatic conditions in the face of environmental change.

Direct and indirect effects of climate change on projected future fire regimes in the western United States.

PubMed

Liu, Zhihua; Wimberly, Michael C

2016-01-15

We asked two research questions: (1) What are the relative effects of climate change and climate-driven vegetation shifts on different components of future fire regimes? (2) How does incorporating climate-driven vegetation change into future fire regime projections alter the results compared to projections based only on direct climate effects? We used the western United States (US) as study area to answer these questions. Future (2071-2100) fire regimes were projected using statistical models to predict spatial patterns of occurrence, size and spread for large fires (>400 ha) and a simulation experiment was conducted to compare the direct climatic effects and the indirect effects of climate-driven vegetation change on fire regimes. Results showed that vegetation change amplified climate-driven increases in fire frequency and size and had a larger overall effect on future total burned area in the western US than direct climate effects. Vegetation shifts, which were highly sensitive to precipitation pattern changes, were also a strong determinant of the future spatial pattern of burn rates and had different effects on fire in currently forested and grass/shrub areas. Our results showed that climate-driven vegetation change can exert strong localized effects on fire occurrence and size, which in turn drive regional changes in fire regimes. The effects of vegetation change for projections of the geographic patterns of future fire regimes may be at least as important as the direct effects of climate change, emphasizing that accounting for changing vegetation patterns in models of future climate-fire relationships is necessary to provide accurate projections at continental to global scales. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An Analysis of the Potential Impact of Climate Change on Dengue Transmission in the Southeastern United States

PubMed Central

Butterworth, Melinda K.; Morin, Cory W.; Comrie, Andrew C.

2016-01-01

Background: Dengue fever, caused by a mosquito-transmitted virus, is an increasing health concern in the Americas. Meteorological variables such as temperature and precipitation can affect disease distribution and abundance through biophysical impacts on the vector and on the virus. Such tightly coupled links may facilitate further spread of dengue fever under a changing climate. In the southeastern United States, the dengue vector is widely established and exists on the current fringe of dengue transmission. Objectives: We assessed projected climate change–driven shifts in dengue transmission risk in this region. Methods: We used a dynamic mosquito population and virus transmission model driven by meteorological data to simulate Aedes aegypti populations and dengue cases in 23 locations in the southeastern United States under current climate conditions and future climate projections. We compared estimates for each location with simulations based on observed data from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where dengue is endemic. Results: Our simulations based on current climate data suggest that dengue transmission at levels similar to those in San Juan is possible at several U.S. locations during the summer months, particularly in southern Florida and Texas. Simulations that include climate change projections suggest that conditions may become suitable for virus transmission in a larger number of locations and for a longer period of time during each year. However, in contrast with San Juan, U.S. locations would not sustain year-round dengue transmission according to our model. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that Dengue virus (DENV) transmission is limited by low winter temperatures in the mainland United States, which are likely to prevent its permanent establishment. Although future climate conditions may increase the length of the mosquito season in many locations, projected increases in dengue transmission are limited to the southernmost locations. Citation: Butterworth MK, Morin CW, Comrie AC. 2017. An analysis of the potential impact of climate change on dengue transmission in the southeastern United States. Environ Health Perspect 125:579–585; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP218 PMID:27713106

Past and ongoing shifts in Joshua tree distribution support future modeled range contraction

Treesearch

Kenneth L. Cole; Kirsten Ironside; Jon Eischeid; Gregg Garfin; Phillip B. Duffy; Chris Toney

2011-01-01

The future distribution of the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is projected by combining a geostatistical analysis of 20th-century climates over its current range, future modeled climates, and paleoecological data showing its response to a past similar climate change. As climate rapidly warmed ~11 700 years ago, the range of Joshua tree contracted, leaving only the...

Climate change on the Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming: a synthesis of past climate, climate projections, and ecosystem implications

Treesearch

Janine Rice; Andrew Tredennick; Linda A. Joyce

2012-01-01

The Shoshone National Forest (Shoshone) covers 2.4 million acres of mountainous topography in northwest Wyoming and is a vital ecosystem that provides clean water, wildlife habitat, timber, grazing, recreational opportunities, and aesthetic value. The Shoshone has experienced and adapted to changes in climate for many millennia, and is currently experiencing a warming...

Comparative Synthesis of Current and Future Urban Stormwater Runoff Scenarios in Tampa Bay Basin under a Changing Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khan, M.; Abdul-Aziz, O. I.

2016-12-01

Changes in climatic regimes and basin characteristics such as imperviousness, roughness and land use types would lead to potential changes in stormwater budget. In this study we quantified reference sensitivities of stormwater runoff to the potential climatic and land use/cover changes by developing a large-scale, mechanistic rainfall-runoff model for the Tampa Bay Basin of Florida using the US EPA Storm Water Management Model (SWMM 5.1). Key processes of urban hydrology, its dynamic interactions with groundwater and sea level, hydro-climatic variables and land use/cover characteristics were incorporated within the model. The model was calibrated and validated with historical streamflow data. We then computed the historical (1970-2000) and potential 2050s stormwater budgets for the Tampa Bay Basin. Climatic scenario projected by the global climate models (GCMs) and the regional climate models (RCMs), along with sea level and land use/cover projections, were utilized to anticipate the future stormwater budget. The comparative assessment of current and future stormwater scenario will aid a proactive management of stormwater runoff under a changing climate in the Tampa Bay Basin and similar urban basins around the world.

Future malaria spatial pattern based on the potential global warming impact in South and Southeast Asia.

PubMed

Khormi, Hassan M; Kumar, Lalit

2016-11-21

We used the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate-H climate model with the A2 Special Report on Emissions Scenarios for the years 2050 and 2100 and CLIMEX software for projections to illustrate the potential impact of climate change on the spatial distributions of malaria in China, India, Indochina, Indonesia, and The Philippines based on climate variables such as temperature, moisture, heat, cold and dryness. The model was calibrated using data from several knowledge domains, including geographical distribution records. The areas in which malaria has currently been detected are consistent with those showing high values of the ecoclimatic index in the CLIMEX model. The match between prediction and reality was found to be high. More than 90% of the observed malaria distribution points were associated with the currently known suitable climate conditions. Climate suitability for malaria is projected to decrease in India, southern Myanmar, southern Thailand, eastern Borneo, and the region bordering Cambodia, Malaysia and the Indonesian islands, while it is expected to increase in southern and south-eastern China and Taiwan. The climatic models for Anopheles mosquitoes presented here should be useful for malaria control, monitoring, and management, particularly considering these future climate scenarios.

Projecting the climatic effects of increasing carbon dioxide

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

MacCracken, M C; Luther, F M

This report presents the current knowns, unknowns, and uncertainties regarding the projected climate changes that might occur as a result of an increasing atmospheric CO/sub 2/ concentration. Further, the volume describes what research is required to estimate the magnitude and rate of a CO/sub 2/-induced clamate change with regional and seasonal resolution. Separate abstracts have been prepared for the individual papers. (ACR)

Projected Changes to Streamflow Characteristics in Quebec Basins as Simulated by the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM4)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huziy, O.; Sushama, L.; Khaliq, M.; Lehner, B.; Laprise, R.; Roy, R.

2011-12-01

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), an intensification of the global hydrological cycle and increase in precipitation for some regions around the world, including the northern mid- to high-latitudes, is expected in future climate. This will have an impact on mean and extreme flow characteristics, which need to be assessed for better development of adaptation strategies. Analysis of the mean and extreme streamflow characteristics for Quebec (North-eastern Canada) basins in current climate and their projected changes in future climate are assessed using a 10 member ensemble of current (1970 - 1999) and future (2041 - 2070) Canadian RCM (CRCM4) simulations. Validation of streamflow characteristics, performed by comparing modeled values with those observed, available from the Centre d'expertise hydrique du Quebec (CEHQ) shows that the model captures reasonably well the high flows. Results suggest increase in mean and 10 year return levels of 1 day high flows, which appear significant for most of the northern basins.

Protected areas' role in climate-change mitigation.

PubMed

Melillo, Jerry M; Lu, Xiaoliang; Kicklighter, David W; Reilly, John M; Cai, Yongxia; Sokolov, Andrei P

2016-03-01

Globally, 15.5 million km(2) of land are currently identified as protected areas, which provide society with many ecosystem services including climate-change mitigation. Combining a global database of protected areas, a reconstruction of global land-use history, and a global biogeochemistry model, we estimate that protected areas currently sequester 0.5 Pg C annually, which is about one fifth of the carbon sequestered by all land ecosystems annually. Using an integrated earth systems model to generate climate and land-use scenarios for the twenty-first century, we project that rapid climate change, similar to high-end projections in IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report, would cause the annual carbon sequestration rate in protected areas to drop to about 0.3 Pg C by 2100. For the scenario with both rapid climate change and extensive land-use change driven by population and economic pressures, 5.6 million km(2) of protected areas would be converted to other uses, and carbon sequestration in the remaining protected areas would drop to near zero by 2100.

Climate and human intervention effects on future fire activity and consequences for air pollution across the 21st century

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Val Martin, M.; Pierce, J. R.; Heald, C. L.; Li, F.; Lawrence, D. M.; Wiedinmyer, C.; Tilmes, S.; Vitt, F.

2016-12-01

Emissions of aerosols and gases from fires have been shown to adversely affect air quality across the world. Fire activity is strongly related to climate and anthropogenic activities. Current fire projections for the 21st century seem very uncertain, ranging from increasing to declining depending on the climate, land cover change and population growth scenarios used. Here we present an analysis of the changes in future wildfire activity and consequences on air quality, with focus on PM2.5 and surface O3 over regions vulnerable to fire. We use the global Community Earth System Model (CESM) with a process-based fire model to simulate emissions from agriculture, peatland, deforestation and landscape fires for present-day and throughout the current century. We consider two future Representative Concentration Pathways climate scenarios combined with population density changes predicted from Shared Socio-economic Pathways to project climate and demographic effects on fire activity and further consequences for future air quality.

Is this what you need? Direct feedback help climate change information exchange

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bachelet, D. M.; Brown, M.; Gough, M.; Basin, D.

2015-12-01

The combination of projected climate change and land use adds uncertainty to the long-term effectiveness of current management strategies. Managers need reliable information to adjust their strategies as population density increases. However they are currently overwhelmed by the diversity of available information and the multiplicity of sources. CBI's goal is to centralize and package effectively the usable information for land managers and for the general public in order to increase awareness and promote preparation for the challenges ahead. We are designing conservation planning atlases in Data Basin for a number of landscape conservation cooperatives to address this need. We are adding some user-friendly tools to specifically serve the available climate projections and land use data in a meaningful way. By working closely with a group of managers, our goal is to understand how consideration of these projections figures into the decision-making process and refine the ways we can deliver relevant metrics. We have been holding interviews to gather information and critical feedback on existing climate-related web pages and tools, providing us with benchmarks for improvement. As it turned out, the student-manager dialogue added a component of climate change education and awareness of available tools to the project. Through an iterative process we plan to continue this exchange and address the variety of issues managers continually have to face to maintain healthy ecosystems.

Robust Engineering Designs for Infrastructure Adaptation to a Changing Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samaras, C.; Cook, L.

2015-12-01

Infrastructure systems are expected to be functional, durable and safe over long service lives - 50 to over 100 years. Observations and models of climate science show that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities have changed climate, weather and extreme events. Projections of future changes (albeit with uncertainties caused by inadequacies of current climate/weather models) can be made based on scenarios for future emissions, but actual future emissions are themselves uncertain. Most current engineering standards and practices for infrastructure assume that the probabilities of future extreme climate and weather events will match those of the past. Climate science shows that this assumption is invalid, but is unable, at present, to define these probabilities over the service lives of existing and new infrastructure systems. Engineering designs, plans, and institutions and regulations will need to be adaptable for a range of future conditions (conditions of climate, weather and extreme events, as well as changing societal demands for infrastructure services). For their current and future projects, engineers should: Involve all stakeholders (owners, financers, insurance, regulators, affected public, climate/weather scientists, etc.) in key decisions; Use low regret, adaptive strategies, such as robust decision making and the observational method, comply with relevant standards and regulations, and exceed their requirements where appropriate; Publish design studies and performance/failure investigations to extend the body of knowledge for advancement of practice. The engineering community should conduct observational and modeling research with climate/weather/social scientists and the concerned communities and account rationally for climate change in revised engineering standards and codes. This presentation presents initial research on decisionmaking under uncertainty for climate resilient infrastructure design.

An Archive of Downscaled WCRP CMIP3 Climate Projections for Planning Applications in the Contiguous United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brekke, L. D.; Pruitt, T.; Maurer, E. P.; Duffy, P. B.

2007-12-01

Incorporating climate change information into long-term evaluations of water and energy resources requires analysts to have access to climate projection data that have been spatially downscaled to "basin-relevant" resolution. This is necessary in order to develop system-specific hydrology and demand scenarios consistent with projected climate scenarios. Analysts currently have access to "climate model" resolution data (e.g., at LLNL PCMDI), but not spatially downscaled translations of these datasets. Motivated by a common interest in supporting regional and local assessments, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and LLNL (through support from the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory) have teamed to develop an archive of downscaled climate projections (temperature and precipitation) with geographic coverage consistent with the North American Land Data Assimilation System domain, encompassing the contiguous United States. A web-based information service, hosted at LLNL Green Data Oasis, has been developed to provide Reclamation, LLNL, and other interested analysts free access to archive content. A contemporary statistical method was used to bias-correct and spatially disaggregate projection datasets, and was applied to 112 projections included in the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset hosted by LLNL PCMDI (i.e. 16 GCMs and their multiple simulations of SRES A2, A1b, and B1 emissions pathways).

US Food Security and Climate Change: Mid-Century Projections of Commodity Crop Production by the IMPACT Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takle, E. S.; Gustafson, D. I.; Beachy, R.; Nelson, G. C.; Mason-D'Croz, D.; Palazzo, A.

2013-12-01

Agreement is developing among agricultural scientists on the emerging inability of agriculture to meet growing global food demands. The lack of additional arable land and availability of freshwater have long been constraints on agriculture. Changes in trends of weather conditions that challenge physiological limits of crops, as projected by global climate models, are expected to exacerbate the global food challenge toward the middle of the 21st century. These climate- and constraint-driven crop production challenges are interconnected within a complex global economy, where diverse factors add to price volatility and food scarcity. We use the DSSAT crop modeling suite, together with mid-century projections of four AR4 global models, as input to the International Food Policy Research Institute IMPACT model to project the impact of climate change on food security through the year 2050 for internationally traded crops. IMPACT is an iterative model that responds to endogenous and exogenous drivers to dynamically solve for the world prices that ensure global supply equals global demand. The modeling methodology reconciles the limited spatial resolution of macro-level economic models that operate through equilibrium-driven relationships at a national level with detailed models of biophysical processes at high spatial resolution. The analysis presented here suggests that climate change in the first half of the 21st century does not represent a near-term threat to food security in the US due to the availability of adaptation strategies (e.g., loss of current growing regions is balanced by gain of new growing regions). However, as climate continues to trend away from 20th century norms current adaptation measures will not be sufficient to enable agriculture to meet growing food demand. Climate scenarios from higher-level carbon emissions exacerbate the food shortfall, although uncertainty in climate model projections (particularly precipitation) is a limitation to impact studies.

Combining dispersal, landscape connectivity and habitat suitability to assess climate-induced changes in the distribution of Cunningham's skink, Egernia cunninghami.

PubMed

Ofori, Benjamin Y; Stow, Adam J; Baumgartner, John B; Beaumont, Linda J

2017-01-01

The ability of species to track their climate niche is dependent on their dispersal potential and the connectivity of the landscape matrix linking current and future suitable habitat. However, studies modeling climate-driven range shifts rarely address the movement of species across landscapes realistically, often assuming "unlimited" or "no" dispersal. Here, we incorporate dispersal rate and landscape connectivity with a species distribution model (Maxent) to assess the extent to which the Cunningham's skink (Egernia cunninghami) may be capable of tracking spatial shifts in suitable habitat as climate changes. Our model was projected onto four contrasting, but equally plausible, scenarios describing futures that are (relative to now) hot/wet, warm/dry, hot/with similar precipitation and warm/wet, at six time horizons with decadal intervals (2020-2070) and at two spatial resolutions: 1 km and 250 m. The size of suitable habitat was projected to decline 23-63% at 1 km and 26-64% at 250 m, by 2070. Combining Maxent output with the dispersal rate of the species and connectivity of the intervening landscape matrix showed that most current populations in regions projected to become unsuitable in the medium to long term, will be unable to shift the distance necessary to reach suitable habitat. In particular, numerous populations currently inhabiting the trailing edge of the species' range are highly unlikely to be able to disperse fast enough to track climate change. Unless these populations are capable of adaptation they are likely to be extirpated. We note, however, that the core of the species distribution remains suitable across the broad spectrum of climate scenarios considered. Our findings highlight challenges faced by philopatric species and the importance of adaptation for the persistence of peripheral populations under climate change.

The subtle role of climate change on population genetic structure in Canada lynx.

PubMed

Row, Jeffrey R; Wilson, Paul J; Gomez, Celine; Koen, Erin L; Bowman, Jeff; Thornton, Daniel; Murray, Dennis L

2014-07-01

Anthropogenically driven climatic change is expected to reshape global patterns of species distribution and abundance. Given recent links between genetic variation and environmental patterns, climate change may similarly impact genetic population structure, but we lack information on the spatial and mechanistic underpinnings of genetic-climate associations. Here, we show that current genetic variability of Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) is strongly correlated with a winter climate gradient (i.e. increasing snow depth and winter precipitation from west-to-east) across the Pacific-North American (PNO) to North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) climatic systems. This relationship was stronger than isolation by distance and not explained by landscape variables or changes in abundance. Thus, these patterns suggest that individuals restricted dispersal across the climate boundary, likely in the absence of changes in habitat quality. We propose habitat imprinting on snow conditions as one possible explanation for this unusual phenomenon. Coupling historical climate data with future projections, we also found increasingly diverging snow conditions between the two climate systems. Based on genetic simulations using projected climate data (2041-2070), we predicted that this divergence could lead to a threefold increase in genetic differentiation, potentially leading to isolated east-west populations of lynx in North America. Our results imply that subtle genetic structure can be governed by current climate and that substantive genetic differentiation and related ecological divergence may arise from changing climate patterns. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Sensitivity of ground - water recharge estimates to climate variability and change, Columbia Plateau, Washington

USGS Publications Warehouse

Vaccaro, John J.

1992-01-01

The sensitivity of groundwater recharge estimates was investigated for the semiarid Ellensburg basin, located on the Columbia Plateau, Washington, to historic and projected climatic regimes. Recharge was estimated for predevelopment and current (1980s) land use conditions using a daily energy-soil-water balance model. A synthetic daily weather generator was used to simulate lengthy sequences with parameters estimated from subsets of the historical record that were unusually wet and unusually dry. Comparison of recharge estimates corresponding to relatively wet and dry periods showed that recharge for predevelopment land use varies considerably within the range of climatic conditions observed in the 87-year historical observation period. Recharge variations for present land use conditions were less sensitive to the same range of historical climatic conditions because of irrigation. The estimated recharge based on the 87-year historical climatology was compared with adjustments to the historical precipitation and temperature records for the same record to reflect CO2-doubling climates as projected by general circulation models (GCMs). Two GCM scenarios were considered: an average of conditions for three different GCMs with CO2 doubling, and a most severe “maximum” case. For the average GCM scenario, predevelopment recharge increased, and current recharge decreased. Also considered was the sensitivity of recharge to the variability of climate within the historical and adjusted historical records. Predevelopment and current recharge were less and more sensitive, respectively, to the climate variability for the average GCM scenario as compared to the variability within the historical record. For the maximum GCM scenario, recharge for both predevelopment and current land use decreased, and the sensitivity to the CO2-related climate change was larger than sensitivity to the variability in the historical and adjusted historical climate records.

Using ecological forecasting of future vegetation transition and fire frequency change in the Sierra Nevada to assess fire management strategies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thorne, J. H.; Schwartz, M. W.; Holguin, A. J.; Moritz, M.; Batllori, E.; Folger, K.; Nydick, K.

2013-12-01

Ecological systems may respond in complex manners as climate change progresses. Among the responses, site-level climate conditions may cause a shift in vegetation due to the physiological tolerances of plant species, and the fire return interval may change. Natural resource managers challenged with maintaining ecosystem health need a way to forecast how these processes may affect every location, in order to determine appropriate management actions and prioritize locations for interventions. We integrated climate change-driven vegetation type transitions with projected change in fire frequency for 45,203 km2 of the southern Sierra Nevada, California, containing over 10 land management agencies as well as private lands. This Magnitude of Change (MOC) approach involves classing vegetation types in current time according to their climate envelopes, and identifying which sites will in the future have climates beyond what that vegetation currently occurs in. Independently, fire models are used to determine the change in fire frequency for each site. We examined 82 vegetation types with >50 grid cell occurrences. We found iconic resources such as the giant sequoia, lower slope oak woodlands, and high elevation conifer forests are projected as highly vulnerable by models that project a warmer drier future, but not as much by models that project a warmer future that is not drier than current conditions. Further, there were strongly divergent vulnerabilities of these forest types across land ownership (National Parks versus US Forest Service lands), and by GCM. For example, of 50 giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) groves and complexes, all but 3 (on Sierra National Forest) were in the 2 highest levels of risk of climate and fire under the GFDL A2 projection, while 15 groves with low-to-moderate risk were found on both the National Parks and National Forests 18 in the 2 under PCM A2. Landscape projections of potential MOC suggest that the region is likely to experience strong upslope shifting of open grassland, chaparral and hardwood types, which may be initiated by increased fire frequencies, particularly where fires have not recently burned within normal fire recurrence interval departures (FRID). An evaluation of four fire management strategies (business as usual; resist change; foster orderly change; protect vital resources) across four combinations of future climate and fire frequency found that no single management strategy was uniformly successful in protecting critical resources across the range of future conditions examined. This limitation is somewhat driven by current management constraints on the amount of management available to resource managers, which suggests management will need to use a triage approach to application of proactive fire management strategies, wherein MOC landscape projections can be used in decision support.

Aedes albopictus and Aedes japonicus - two invasive mosquito species with different temperature niches in Europe.

PubMed

Cunze, Sarah; Koch, Lisa K; Kochmann, Judith; Klimpel, Sven

2016-11-04

Aedes albopictus and Ae. japonicus are two of the most widespread invasive mosquito species that have recently become established in western Europe. Both species are associated with the transmission of a number of serious diseases and are projected to continue their spread in Europe. In the present study, we modelled the habitat suitability for both species under current and future climatic conditions by means of an Ensemble forecasting approach. We additionally compared the modelled MAXENT niches of Ae. albopictus and Ae. japonicus regarding temperature and precipitation requirements. Both species were modelled to find suitable habitat conditions in distinct areas within Europe: Ae. albopictus within the Mediterranean regions in southern Europe, Ae. japonicus within the more temperate regions of central Europe. Only in few regions, suitable habitat conditions were projected to overlap for both species. Whereas Ae. albopictus is projected to be generally promoted by climate change in Europe, the area modelled to be climatically suitable for Ae. japonicus is projected to decrease under climate change. This projection of range reduction under climate change relies on the assumption that Ae. japonicus is not able to adapt to warmer climatic conditions. The modelled MAXENT temperature niches of Ae. japonicus were found to be narrower with an optimum at lower temperatures compared to the niches of Ae. albopictus. Species distribution models identifying areas with high habitat suitability can help improving monitoring programmes for invasive species currently in place. However, as mosquito species are known to be able to adapt to new environmental conditions within the invasion range quickly, niche evolution of invasive mosquito species should be closely followed upon in future studies.

[Projection of potential geographic distribution of Apocynum venetum under climate change in northern China].

PubMed

Yang, Hui-Feng; Zheng, Jiang-Hua; Jia, Xiao-Guang; Li, Xiao-Jin

2017-03-01

Apocynum venetum belongs to apocynaceae and is a perennial medicinal plant, its stem is an important textile raw materials. The projection of potential geographic distribution of A. venetum has an important significance for the protection and sustainable utilization of the plant. This study was conducted to determine the potential geographic distribution of A. venetum and to project how climate change would affect its geographic distribution. The projection geographic distribution of A. venetum under current bioclimatic conditions in northern China was simulated using MaxEnt software based on species presence data at 44 locations and 19 bioclimatic parameters. The future distributions of A. venetum were also projected in 2050 and 2070 under the climate change scenarios of RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 described in 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The result showed that min air temperature of the coldest month, annual mean air temperature, precipitation of the coldest quarter and mean air temperature of the wettest quarter dominated the geographic distribution of A. venetum. Under current climate, the suitable habitats of A. venetum is 11.94% in China, the suitable habitats are mainly located in the middle of Xinjiang, in the northern part of Gansu, in the southern part of Neimeng, in the northern part of Ningxia, in the middle and northern part of Shaanxi, in the southern part of Shanxi, in the middle and northern part of Henan, in the middle and southern part of Hebei, Shandong, Tianjin, in the southern part of Liaoning and part of Beijing. From 2050 to 2070, the model outputs indicated that the suitable habitats of A. venetum would decrease under the climate change scenarios of RCP2.6 and RCP8.5. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

Variability and Change in the Canadian Cryosphere: A Canadian Science Contribution to International Polar Year

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walker, A. E.; Derksen, C.

2008-12-01

The cryosphere (snow, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground, ice caps and glaciers, sea-, river-, and lake ice) represents a significant feature of the Canadian landscape that impacts climate, hydrology, the economy and the daily lives of all Canadians, especially those living in northern communities. Over the past few decades significant changes have been observed in cryospheric elements (e.g. decreases in snow cover, glacier extent, sea ice cover) that have been attributed to a warming climate. This poster presentation will highlight initial scientific results from the approved Canadian International Polar Year project "Variability and Change in the Canadian Cryosphere" that is being led by Environment Canada and involves 33 co- investigators from government, academia and the private sector and links with international collaborators. This project builds on Canadian strengths in remote sensing, climate analysis and modeling with the overall objective to observe and understand the current state of the cryosphere in Canada and determine how fast it is changing and why. Research activities are focused on: (1) developing new satellite-based capabilities to provide information on the current state of the Canadian cryosphere during the IPY period; (2) placing current cryospheric conditions in the context of the historical record to document the magnitude of changes over the 50 years since the last International Polar Year (IGY 1957-1958); (3) characterizing and explaining the observed variability and changes in the context of the coupled climate cryosphere system; and (4) improving the representation of the cryosphere in Canadian land surface and climate models to provide current and future climate simulations of the cryosphere for climate impact studies. The project also includes several outreach activities to engage northern communities in cryospheric monitoring and incorporate traditional knowledge with remotely-sensed information to generate new maps on local river ice and sea ice conditions to assist residents in planning safe navigation routes.

Incorporating climate science in applications of the US endangered species act for aquatic species.

PubMed

McClure, Michelle M; Alexander, Michael; Borggaard, Diane; Boughton, David; Crozier, Lisa; Griffis, Roger; Jorgensen, Jeffrey C; Lindley, Steven T; Nye, Janet; Rowland, Melanie J; Seney, Erin E; Snover, Amy; Toole, Christopher; VAN Houtan, Kyle

2013-12-01

Aquatic species are threatened by climate change but have received comparatively less attention than terrestrial species. We gleaned key strategies for scientists and managers seeking to address climate change in aquatic conservation planning from the literature and existing knowledge. We address 3 categories of conservation effort that rely on scientific analysis and have particular application under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA): assessment of overall risk to a species; long-term recovery planning; and evaluation of effects of specific actions or perturbations. Fewer data are available for aquatic species to support these analyses, and climate effects on aquatic systems are poorly characterized. Thus, we recommend scientists conducting analyses supporting ESA decisions develop a conceptual model that links climate, habitat, ecosystem, and species response to changing conditions and use this model to organize analyses and future research. We recommend that current climate conditions are not appropriate for projections used in ESA analyses and that long-term projections of climate-change effects provide temporal context as a species-wide assessment provides spatial context. In these projections, climate change should not be discounted solely because the magnitude of projected change at a particular time is uncertain when directionality of climate change is clear. Identifying likely future habitat at the species scale will indicate key refuges and potential range shifts. However, the risks and benefits associated with errors in modeling future habitat are not equivalent. The ESA offers mechanisms for increasing the overall resilience and resistance of species to climate changes, including establishing recovery goals requiring increased genetic and phenotypic diversity, specifying critical habitat in areas not currently occupied but likely to become important, and using adaptive management. Incorporación de las Ciencias Climáticas en las Aplicaciones del Acta Estadunidense de Especies en Peligro para Especies Acuáticas. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology No claim to original US government works.

Socio-ecological transitions trigger fire regime shifts and modulate fire-climate interactions in the Sierra Nevada, CA, 1600-2015 CE

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trouet, V.; Taylor, A. H.; Skinner, C. N.; Stephens, S.

2016-12-01

In California, large wildfires cause significant socio-ecological impacts and they incur high federal funding costs for fire suppression. Future fire activity is projected to increase with climate change, but anthropogenic effects can modulate or even override climatic effects causing large uncertainty in fire projections. We developed a 415-year fire history record (1600-2015 CE) based on tree-ring fire-scar data from 29 sites throughout the Sierra Nevada, California. Changes in socio-ecological systems from the Native American to the current period drove large historical fire regime shifts in our record and socio-ecological conditions amplified and buffered fire response to climate. Fire activity was highest and fire-climate relationships were strongest after Native American depopulation - following mission establishment ca. 1775 CE - reduced the self-limiting effect of Native American burns on fire spread. With the Gold Rush and Euro-American immigration (ca. 1865 CE), area burned declined and the strong multidecadal relationship between temperature and fire decayed and then disappeared after implementation of fire suppression (ca. 1900 CE). The past anthropogenic modulation of fire-climate relationships underscores the need for nuanced representations of human-fire interactions to improve the skill of future fire-climate projections. In California, large wildfires cause significant socio-ecological impacts and they incur high federal funding costs for fire suppression. Future fire activity is projected to increase with climate change, but anthropogenic effects can modulate or even override climatic effects causing large uncertainty in fire projections. We developed a 415-year fire history record (1600-2015 CE) based on tree-ring fire-scar data from 29 sites throughout the Sierra Nevada, California. Changes in socio-ecological systems from the Native American to the current period drove large historical fire regime shifts in our record and socio-ecological conditions amplified and buffered fire response to climate. Fire activity was highest and fire-climate relationships were strongest after Native American depopulation - following mission establishment ca. 1775 CE - reduced the self-limiting effect of Native American burns on fire spread. With the Gold Rush and Euro-American immigration (ca. 1865 CE), area burned declined and the strong multidecadal relationship between temperature and fire decayed and then disappeared after implementation of fire suppression (ca. 1900 CE). The past anthropogenic modulation of fire-climate relationships underscores the need for nuanced representations of human-fire interactions to improve the skill of future fire-climate projections.

Central Hardwoods ecosystem vulnerability assessment and synthesis: a report from the Central Hardwoods Climate Change Response Framework project

Treesearch

Leslie Brandt; Hong He; Louis Iverson; Frank R. Thompson; Patricia Butler; Stephen Handler; Maria Janowiak; P. Danielle Shannon; Chris Swanston; Matthew Albrecht; Richard Blume-Weaver; Paul Deizman; John DePuy; William D. Dijak; Gary Dinkel; Songlin Fei; D. Todd Jones-Farrand; Michael Leahy; Stephen Matthews; Paul Nelson; Brad Oberle; Judi Perez; Matthew Peters; Anantha Prasad; Jeffrey E. Schneiderman; John Shuey; Adam B. Smith; Charles Studyvin; John M. Tirpak; Jeffery W. Walk; Wen J. Wang; Laura Watts; Dale Weigel; Steve Westin

2014-01-01

The forests in the Central Hardwoods Region will be affected directly and indirectly by a changing climate over the next 100 years. This assessment evaluates the vulnerability of terrestrial ecosystems in the Central Hardwoods Region of Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri to a range of future climates. Information on current forest conditions, observed climate trends,...

Built Expansion and Global Climate Change Drive Projected Urban Heat: Relative Magnitudes, Interactions, and Mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krayenhoff, E. S.; Georgescu, M.; Moustaoui, M.

2016-12-01

Surface climates are projected to warm due to global climate change over the course of the 21st century, and demographic projections suggest urban areas in the United States will continue to expand and develop, with associated local climate outcomes. Interactions between these two drivers of urban heat have not been robustly quantified to date. Here, simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting model (coupled to a Single-Layer Urban Canopy Model) are performed at 20 km resolution over the continental U.S. for two 10-year periods: contemporary (2000-2009) and end-of-century (2090-2099). Present and end of century urban land use are derived from the Environmental Protection Agency's Integrated Climate and Land-Use Scenarios. Modelled effects on urban climates are evaluated regionally. Sensitivity to climate projection (Community Climate System Model 4.0, RCP 4.5 vs. RCP 8.5) and associated urban development scenarios are assessed. Effects on near-surface urban air temperature of RCP8.5 climate change are greater than those attributable to the corresponding urban development in many regions. Interaction effects vary by region, and while of lesser magnitude, are not negligible. Moreover, urban development and its interactions with RCP8.5 climate change modify the distribution of convective precipitation over the eastern US. Interaction effects result from the different meteorological effects of urban areas under current and future climate. Finally, the potential for design implementations such as green roofs and high albedo roofs to offset the projected warming is considered. Impacts of these implementations on precipitation are also assessed.

Assessing uncertainties in land cover projections.

PubMed

Alexander, Peter; Prestele, Reinhard; Verburg, Peter H; Arneth, Almut; Baranzelli, Claudia; Batista E Silva, Filipe; Brown, Calum; Butler, Adam; Calvin, Katherine; Dendoncker, Nicolas; Doelman, Jonathan C; Dunford, Robert; Engström, Kerstin; Eitelberg, David; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Harrison, Paula A; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Havlik, Petr; Holzhauer, Sascha; Humpenöder, Florian; Jacobs-Crisioni, Chris; Jain, Atul K; Krisztin, Tamás; Kyle, Page; Lavalle, Carlo; Lenton, Tim; Liu, Jiayi; Meiyappan, Prasanth; Popp, Alexander; Powell, Tom; Sands, Ronald D; Schaldach, Rüdiger; Stehfest, Elke; Steinbuks, Jevgenijs; Tabeau, Andrzej; van Meijl, Hans; Wise, Marshall A; Rounsevell, Mark D A

2017-02-01

Understanding uncertainties in land cover projections is critical to investigating land-based climate mitigation policies, assessing the potential of climate adaptation strategies and quantifying the impacts of land cover change on the climate system. Here, we identify and quantify uncertainties in global and European land cover projections over a diverse range of model types and scenarios, extending the analysis beyond the agro-economic models included in previous comparisons. The results from 75 simulations over 18 models are analysed and show a large range in land cover area projections, with the highest variability occurring in future cropland areas. We demonstrate systematic differences in land cover areas associated with the characteristics of the modelling approach, which is at least as great as the differences attributed to the scenario variations. The results lead us to conclude that a higher degree of uncertainty exists in land use projections than currently included in climate or earth system projections. To account for land use uncertainty, it is recommended to use a diverse set of models and approaches when assessing the potential impacts of land cover change on future climate. Additionally, further work is needed to better understand the assumptions driving land use model results and reveal the causes of uncertainty in more depth, to help reduce model uncertainty and improve the projections of land cover. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A Semi-empirical Model of the Stratosphere in the Climate System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sodergren, A. H.; Bodeker, G. E.; Kremser, S.; Meinshausen, M.; McDonald, A.

2014-12-01

Chemistry climate models (CCMs) currently used to project changes in Antarctic ozone are extremely computationally demanding. CCM projections are uncertain due to lack of knowledge of future emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and ozone depleting substances (ODSs), as well as parameterizations within the CCMs that have weakly constrained tuning parameters. While projections should be based on an ensemble of simulations, this is not currently possible due to the complexity of the CCMs. An inexpensive but realistic approach to simulate changes in stratospheric ozone, and its coupling to the climate system, is needed as a complement to CCMs. A simple climate model (SCM) can be used as a fast emulator of complex atmospheric-ocean climate models. If such an SCM includes a representation of stratospheric ozone, the evolution of the global ozone layer can be simulated for a wide range of GHG and ODS emissions scenarios. MAGICC is an SCM used in previous IPCC reports. In the current version of the MAGICC SCM, stratospheric ozone changes depend only on equivalent effective stratospheric chlorine (EESC). In this work, MAGICC is extended to include an interactive stratospheric ozone layer using a semi-empirical model of ozone responses to CO2and EESC, with changes in ozone affecting the radiative forcing in the SCM. To demonstrate the ability of our new, extended SCM to generate projections of global changes in ozone, tuning parameters from 19 coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) and 10 carbon cycle models (to create an ensemble of 190 simulations) have been used to generate probability density functions of the dates of return of stratospheric column ozone to 1960 and 1980 levels for different latitudes.

Climate change impact assessment on flow regime by incorporating spatial correlation and scenario uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vallam, P.; Qin, X. S.

2017-07-01

Flooding risk is increasing in many parts of the world and may worsen under climate change conditions. The accuracy of predicting flooding risk relies on reasonable projection of meteorological data (especially rainfall) at the local scale. The current statistical downscaling approaches face the difficulty of projecting multi-site climate information for future conditions while conserving spatial information. This study presents a combined Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) stochastic weather generator and multi-site rainfall simulator RainSim (CLWRS) approach to investigate flow regimes under future conditions in the Kootenay Watershed, Canada. To understand the uncertainty effect stemming from different scenarios, the climate output is fed into a hydrologic model. The results showed different variation trends of annual peak flows (in 2080-2099) based on different climate change scenarios and demonstrated that the hydrological impact would be driven by the interaction between snowmelt and peak flows. The proposed CLWRS approach is useful where there is a need for projection of potential climate change scenarios.

Rates of change in climatic niches in plant and animal populations are much slower than projected climate change

PubMed Central

Jezkova, Tereza

2016-01-01

Climate change may soon threaten much of global biodiversity. A critical question is: can species undergo niche shifts of sufficient speed and magnitude to persist within their current geographic ranges? Here, we analyse niche shifts among populations within 56 plant and animal species using time-calibrated trees from phylogeographic studies. Across 266 phylogeographic groups analysed, rates of niche change were much slower than rates of projected climate change (mean difference > 200 000-fold for temperature variables). Furthermore, the absolute niche divergence among populations was typically lower than the magnitude of projected climate change over the next approximately 55 years for relevant variables, suggesting the amount of change needed to persist may often be too great, even if these niche shifts were instantaneous. Rates were broadly similar between plants and animals, but especially rapid in some arthropods, birds and mammals. Rates for temperature variables were lower at lower latitudes, further suggesting that tropical species may be especially vulnerable to climate change. PMID:27881748

Rates of change in climatic niches in plant and animal populations are much slower than projected climate change.

PubMed

Jezkova, Tereza; Wiens, John J

2016-11-30

Climate change may soon threaten much of global biodiversity. A critical question is: can species undergo niche shifts of sufficient speed and magnitude to persist within their current geographic ranges? Here, we analyse niche shifts among populations within 56 plant and animal species using time-calibrated trees from phylogeographic studies. Across 266 phylogeographic groups analysed, rates of niche change were much slower than rates of projected climate change (mean difference > 200 000-fold for temperature variables). Furthermore, the absolute niche divergence among populations was typically lower than the magnitude of projected climate change over the next approximately 55 years for relevant variables, suggesting the amount of change needed to persist may often be too great, even if these niche shifts were instantaneous. Rates were broadly similar between plants and animals, but especially rapid in some arthropods, birds and mammals. Rates for temperature variables were lower at lower latitudes, further suggesting that tropical species may be especially vulnerable to climate change. © 2016 The Author(s).

The roles of hydraulic and carbon stress in a widespread climate-induced forest die-off

PubMed Central

Anderegg, William R. L.; Berry, Joseph A.; Smith, Duncan D.; Sperry, John S.; Anderegg, Leander D. L.; Field, Christopher B.

2012-01-01

Forest ecosystems store approximately 45% of the carbon found in terrestrial ecosystems, but they are sensitive to climate-induced dieback. Forest die-off constitutes a large uncertainty in projections of climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, climate–ecosystem interactions, and carbon-cycle feedbacks. Current understanding of the physiological mechanisms mediating climate-induced forest mortality limits the ability to model or project these threshold events. We report here a direct and in situ study of the mechanisms underlying recent widespread and climate-induced trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) forest mortality in western North America. We find substantial evidence of hydraulic failure of roots and branches linked to landscape patterns of canopy and root mortality in this species. On the contrary, we find no evidence that drought stress led to depletion of carbohydrate reserves. Our results illuminate proximate mechanisms underpinning recent aspen forest mortality and provide guidance for understanding and projecting forest die-offs under climate change. PMID:22167807

Dynamic Agroecological Zones for the Inland Pacific Northwest, USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huggins, D. R.; Rupp, R.; Gessler, P.; Pan, W.; Brown, D. J.; Machado, S.; Walden, V. P.; Eigenbrode, S.; Abatzoglou, J. T.

2011-12-01

Agroecological zones (AEZ's) have traditionally been defined by integrating multiple layers of biophysical (e.g. climate, soil, terrain) and occasionally socioeconomic data to create unique zones with specific ranges of land use constraints and potentials. Our approach to defining AEZ's assumes that current agricultural land uses have emerged as a consequence of biophysical and socioeconomic drivers. Therefore, we explore the concept that AEZ's can be derived from classifying the geographic distribution of current agricultural systems (e.g. the wheat-fallow cropping system zone) based on spatially geo-referenced annual cropland use data that is currently available through the National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS). By defining AEZ's in this way, we expect to: (1) provide baseline information that geographically delineates the boundaries of current AEZ's and subzones and therefore the capacity to evaluate shifts in AEZ boundaries over time; (2) assess the biophysical (e.g. climate, soils, terrain) and socioeconomic factors (e.g. commodity prices) that are most useful for predicting and correctly classifying current AEZ's, subzones or future shifts in AEZ boundaries; (3) identify and develop AEZ-relevant climate mitigation and adaptation strategies; and (4) integrate biophysical and socioeconomic data sources to pursue a transdisciplinary examination of climate-driven AEZ futures. Achieving these goals will aid in realizing major objectives for a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, Cooperative Agricultural Project entitled "Regional Approaches to Climate Change (REACCH) for Pacific Northwest Agriculture". REACCH is a research, education and extension project under the leadership of the University of Idaho with significant collaboration from Washington State University, Oregon State University and the USDA Agricultural Research Service that is working towards increasing the capacity of Inland Pacific Northwest cereal production systems to adapt to and mitigate climate change. The AEZ concept is central to project-wide integration that will enable researchers, stakeholders, students, the public, and policymakers to acquire a more holistic understanding of the interrelationships of agriculture, climate change and the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Therefore AEZ's are part of a prescription for land management, given climate change that will enable the incorporation of information from climate models, economic models, crop models, pest disease and weed vulnerabilities, and other data sources. Specific to this presentation, we address the AEZ-related objective of developing methodology for defining major AEZ's within the Inland Pacific Northwest REACCH study area based on annual NASS cropland data.

Evaluation of the impacts of climate change on disease vectors through ecological niche modelling.

PubMed

Carvalho, B M; Rangel, E F; Vale, M M

2017-08-01

Vector-borne diseases are exceptionally sensitive to climate change. Predicting vector occurrence in specific regions is a challenge that disease control programs must meet in order to plan and execute control interventions and climate change adaptation measures. Recently, an increasing number of scientific articles have applied ecological niche modelling (ENM) to study medically important insects and ticks. With a myriad of available methods, it is challenging to interpret their results. Here we review the future projections of disease vectors produced by ENM, and assess their trends and limitations. Tropical regions are currently occupied by many vector species; but future projections indicate poleward expansions of suitable climates for their occurrence and, therefore, entomological surveillance must be continuously done in areas projected to become suitable. The most commonly applied methods were the maximum entropy algorithm, generalized linear models, the genetic algorithm for rule set prediction, and discriminant analysis. Lack of consideration of the full-known current distribution of the target species on models with future projections has led to questionable predictions. We conclude that there is no ideal 'gold standard' method to model vector distributions; researchers are encouraged to test different methods for the same data. Such practice is becoming common in the field of ENM, but still lags behind in studies of disease vectors.

Enabling Automated Graph-based Search for the Identification and Characterization of Mesoscale Convective Complexes in Satellite Datasets through Integration with the Apache Open Climate Workbench

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McGibbney, L. J.; Whitehall, K. D.; Mattmann, C. A.; Goodale, C. E.; Joyce, M.; Ramirez, P.; Zimdars, P.

2014-12-01

We detail how Apache Open Climate Workbench (OCW) (recently open sourced by NASA JPL) was adapted to facilitate an ongoing study of Mesoscale Convective Complexes (MCCs) in West Africa and their contributions within the weather-climate continuum as it relates to climate variability. More than 400 MCCs occur annually over various locations on the globe. In West Africa, approximately one-fifth of that total occur during the summer months (June-November) alone and are estimated to contribute more than 50% of the seasonal rainfall amounts. Furthermore, in general the non-discriminatory socio-economic geospatial distribution of these features correlates with currently and projected densely populated locations. As such, the convective nature of MCCs raises questions regarding their seasonal variability and frequency in current and future climates, amongst others. However, in spite of the formal observation criteria of these features in 1980, these questions have remained comprehensively unanswered because of the untimely and subjective methods for identifying and characterizing MCCs due to limitations data-handling limitations. The main outcome of this work therefore documents how a graph-based search algorithm was implemented on top of the OCW stack with the ultimate goal of improving fully automated end-to-end identification and characterization of MCCs in high resolution observational datasets. Apache OCW as an open source project was demonstrated from inception and we display how it was again utilized to advance understanding and knowledge within the above domain. The project was born out of refactored code donated by NASA JPL from the Earth science community's Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES), a joint project between the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE), and a scientific collaboration between the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and NASA JPL. The Apache OCW project was then integrated back into the donor code with the aim of more efficiently powering that project. Notwithstanding, the object-oriented approach to creating a core set of libraries Apache OCW has scaled the usability of the project beyond climate model evaluation as displayed in the MCC use case detailed herewith.

Climate change, tropospheric ozone and particulate matter, and health impacts.

PubMed

Ebi, Kristie L; McGregor, Glenn

2008-11-01

Because the state of the atmosphere determines the development, transport, dispersion, and deposition of air pollutants, there is concern that climate change could affect morbidity and mortality associated with elevated concentrations of these gases and fine particles. We review how climate change could affect future concentrations of tropospheric ozone and particulate matter (PM), and what changing concentrations could mean for population health. We review studies projecting the impacts of climate change on air quality and studies projecting the impacts of these changes on morbidity and mortality. Climate change could affect local to regional air quality through changes in chemical reaction rates, boundary layer heights that affect vertical mixing of pollutants, and changes in synoptic airflow patterns that govern pollutant transport. Sources of uncertainty include the degree of future climate change, future emissions of air pollutants and their precursors, and how population vulnerability may change in the future. Given these uncertainties, projections suggest that climate change will increase concentrations of tropospheric ozone, at least in high-income countries when precursor emissions are held constant, which would increase morbidity and mortality. Few projections are available for low- and middle-income countries. The evidence is less robust for PM, primarily because few studies have been conducted. Additional research is needed to better understand the possible impacts of climate change on air pollution-related health impacts. If improved models continue to project higher ozone concentrations with climate change, then reducing greenhouse gas emissions would enhance the health of current and future generations.

Distribution and protection of climatic refugia in North America.

PubMed

Michalak, Julia L; Lawler, Joshua J; Roberts, David R; Carroll, Carlos

2018-05-10

As evidenced by past climatic refugia, locations projected to harbor remnants of present day climates may serve as critical refugia for current biodiversity in the face of modern climate change. Here, we map potential future climatic refugia across North America, defined as locations with increasingly rare climatic conditions. We identified these locations by tracking projected changes in the size and distribution of climate analogs over time. We used biologically-derived thresholds to define analogs and tested the impacts of dispersal limitation using four distances to limit analog searches. We identified at most 12% of North America as potential climatic refugia. Refugia extent varied depending on the analog threshold, dispersal distance, and climate projection. However, in all cases refugia were concentrated at high elevations and in topographically complex regions. Refugia identified using different climate projections were largely nested, suggesting that identified refugia were relatively robust to climate projection selection. Existing conservation areas cover approximately 10% of North America and yet protected up to 25% of identified refugia, indicating that protected areas disproportionately include refugia. Refugia located at lower latitudes (≤ 40°N) and slightly lower elevations (∼2500 m) were more likely to be unprotected. Based on our results, a 23% expansion of the protected areas network would be sufficient to protect the refugia that were present under all three of the climate projections that we explored. We propose that these refugia are high conservation priorities, due to their potential to harbor rare species in the future. However, these locations are simultaneously highly vulnerable to climate change over the long-term. We found that these refugia contracted substantially between the 2050s and the 2080s, emphasizing that the pace of climate change will strongly determine the availability and effectiveness of refugia for protecting today's biodiversity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

A Way Forward: Cooperative Solutions to Our Climate Challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Little, L. J.; Byrne, J. M.

2014-12-01

Solving the global climate crisis is a multidisciplinary challenge. The world is seeking solutions to climate change. The climate research and education community must move beyond the realm of debating the science - we MUST provide the solutions. The research community understands the science and many of the solutions very well. This project will address the specifics of solutions involving social, political and science disciplines. The content is targeted to multidisciplinary education at the senior undergraduate and graduate levels in universities and colleges. Humanity has already changed the climate and current greenhouse gas emission (GHG) projections indicate our world will warm 2-6° C within a young person's lifetime. We must coordinate societal mitigation and adaptation policies, programs and technology transformations. There is now a dramatic need for many, many highly trained multidisciplinary climate change solutions professionals that understand the complexities of the challenges and can work through the social, political and science tribulations needed to sustain communities around the world. This proposed education project: Provides an introduction to the social, political, technical, health and well-being challenges of climate change; Defines and describes the unprecedented changes to personal and community lifestyle, and consumption of energy and other resources; Examines ways and means for rapid transition of energy systems from fossil fuels to clean renewable technologies. Evaluates redevelopment of our infrastructure to withstand increasing weather extremes; Inventories possible abandonment and/or protection of infrastructure that cannot be redeveloped or reworked, particularly with respect to coastal zones where substantial populations currently live. We propose an online living textbook project. Chapter contributions will be invited from outstanding solutions research professionals from around the world. The online presence is the best means to facilitate a multimedia presentation of the core content of the proposed text.

The American Meteorological Society and Second Nature: Working Together to Increase Climate Literacy at Minority Serving Institutions Nationwide

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brey, J. A.; Geer, I. W.; Mills, E. W.; Kauffman, C.; Nugnes, K. A.; Naik, A.

2013-12-01

To raise climate literacy, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) developed AMS Climate Studies, an innovative, undergraduate-level climate science course. With a focus on real-world climate data, the course is a primer for responsible, scientifically-literate participation in the discussion of climate change. Designed to be adaptable to traditional, hybrid, or online instructional settings, AMS Climate Studies has already been adopted by more than 80 institutions since fall 2010. Course materials include a hardcover textbook, an investigations manual, and an online lab component, Current Climate Studies, which is created weekly throughout the semester utilizing resources from the IPCC, the US Global Change Research Program, NASA, and NOAA. AMS Climate Studies is mutually beneficial because AMS enhances coursework with real-world data while NASA, NOAA, and other government agencies reach a much larger audience with the results of their work. With support from NSF and NASA and in partnership with Second Nature, AMS offers the AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project with the goal of training 100 minority-serving institution (MSI) faculty members to implement the climate course on their campus. The Diversity Project consists of an expenses-paid weeklong workshop for MSI faculty members and a follow-up workshop at the next year's AMS Annual Meeting. The initial workshop covers fundamental understandings within AMS Climate Studies and implementation procedures. Highlights of this workshop are presentations from NOAA, NASA, and other government and university climate scientists as well as field trips to science laboratories. In the year following workshop attendance, faculty work within their MSI to implement AMS Climate Studies. Participants are then invited to a second workshop at the AMS Annual Meeting to report back the results of their work. Currently in its second year, the Project has trained 50 MSI faculty members with subsequent workshops to be held throughout the next 2 years. The AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project follows the proven models of the AMS Weather Studies (2002-2007) and AMS Ocean Studies (2006-2008) Diversity Projects, which have impacted more than 200 MSI faculty and 24,000 students. Second Nature is a national non-profit organization that works with higher education leaders to accelerate movement toward a sustainable society. Second Nature manages and supports the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), a high-visibility effort by a network of more than 670 presidents and chancellors committed to achieving climate neutrality by eliminating net greenhouse gas emissions from campus operations, and making sustainability a part of the curriculum and other educational experiences for all students. Second Nature has been actively working with MSIs, which has given AMS the opportunity to effectively recruit for the AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project. With successful partnerships, such as this one, AMS is excited to bring climate science coursework to more students, strengthening the pathway towards advanced geoscience study and careers, and empowering institutions to be leaders in deep climate action.

Spatially-Explicit Simulation Modeling of Ecological Response to Climate Change: Methodological Considerations in Predicting Shifting Population Dynamics of Infectious Disease Vectors.

PubMed

Dhingra, Radhika; Jimenez, Violeta; Chang, Howard H; Gambhir, Manoj; Fu, Joshua S; Liu, Yang; Remais, Justin V

2013-09-01

Poikilothermic disease vectors can respond to altered climates through spatial changes in both population size and phenology. Quantitative descriptors to characterize, analyze and visualize these dynamic responses are lacking, particularly across large spatial domains. In order to demonstrate the value of a spatially explicit, dynamic modeling approach, we assessed spatial changes in the population dynamics of Ixodes scapularis , the Lyme disease vector, using a temperature-forced population model simulated across a grid of 4 × 4 km cells covering the eastern United States, using both modeled (Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) 3.2.1) baseline/current (2001-2004) and projected (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5; 2057-2059) climate data. Ten dynamic population features (DPFs) were derived from simulated populations and analyzed spatially to characterize the regional population response to current and future climate across the domain. Each DPF under the current climate was assessed for its ability to discriminate observed Lyme disease risk and known vector presence/absence, using data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Peak vector population and month of peak vector population were the DPFs that performed best as predictors of current Lyme disease risk. When examined under baseline and projected climate scenarios, the spatial and temporal distributions of DPFs shift and the seasonal cycle of key questing life stages is compressed under some scenarios. Our results demonstrate the utility of spatial characterization, analysis and visualization of dynamic population responses-including altered phenology-of disease vectors to altered climate.

Spatially-Explicit Simulation Modeling of Ecological Response to Climate Change: Methodological Considerations in Predicting Shifting Population Dynamics of Infectious Disease Vectors

PubMed Central

Dhingra, Radhika; Jimenez, Violeta; Chang, Howard H.; Gambhir, Manoj; Fu, Joshua S.; Liu, Yang; Remais, Justin V.

2014-01-01

Poikilothermic disease vectors can respond to altered climates through spatial changes in both population size and phenology. Quantitative descriptors to characterize, analyze and visualize these dynamic responses are lacking, particularly across large spatial domains. In order to demonstrate the value of a spatially explicit, dynamic modeling approach, we assessed spatial changes in the population dynamics of Ixodes scapularis, the Lyme disease vector, using a temperature-forced population model simulated across a grid of 4 × 4 km cells covering the eastern United States, using both modeled (Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) 3.2.1) baseline/current (2001–2004) and projected (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5; 2057–2059) climate data. Ten dynamic population features (DPFs) were derived from simulated populations and analyzed spatially to characterize the regional population response to current and future climate across the domain. Each DPF under the current climate was assessed for its ability to discriminate observed Lyme disease risk and known vector presence/absence, using data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Peak vector population and month of peak vector population were the DPFs that performed best as predictors of current Lyme disease risk. When examined under baseline and projected climate scenarios, the spatial and temporal distributions of DPFs shift and the seasonal cycle of key questing life stages is compressed under some scenarios. Our results demonstrate the utility of spatial characterization, analysis and visualization of dynamic population responses—including altered phenology—of disease vectors to altered climate. PMID:24772388

Realized niche width of a brackish water submerged aquatic vegetation under current environmental conditions and projected influences of climate change.

PubMed

Kotta, Jonne; Möller, Tiia; Orav-Kotta, Helen; Pärnoja, Merli

2014-12-01

Little is known about how organisms might respond to multiple climate stressors and this lack of knowledge limits our ability to manage coastal ecosystems under contemporary climate change. Ecological models provide managers and decision makers with greater certainty that the systems affected by their decisions are accurately represented. In this study Boosted Regression Trees modelling was used to relate the cover of submerged aquatic vegetation to the abiotic environment in the brackish Baltic Sea. The analyses showed that the majority of the studied submerged aquatic species are most sensitive to changes in water temperature, current velocity and winter ice scour. Surprisingly, water salinity, turbidity and eutrophication have little impact on the distributional pattern of the studied biota. Both small and large scale environmental variability contributes to the variability of submerged aquatic vegetation. When modelling species distribution under the projected influences of climate change, all of the studied submerged aquatic species appear to be very resilient to a broad range of environmental perturbation and biomass gains are expected when seawater temperature increases. This is mainly because vegetation develops faster in spring and has a longer growing season under the projected climate change scenario. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Including hydrological self-regulating processes in peatland models: Effects on peatmoss drought projections.

PubMed

Nijp, Jelmer J; Metselaar, Klaas; Limpens, Juul; Teutschbein, Claudia; Peichl, Matthias; Nilsson, Mats B; Berendse, Frank; van der Zee, Sjoerd E A T M

2017-02-15

The water content of the topsoil is one of the key factors controlling biogeochemical processes, greenhouse gas emissions and biosphere - atmosphere interactions in many ecosystems, particularly in northern peatlands. In these wetland ecosystems, the water content of the photosynthetic active peatmoss layer is crucial for ecosystem functioning and carbon sequestration, and is sensitive to future shifts in rainfall and drought characteristics. Current peatland models differ in the degree in which hydrological feedbacks are included, but how this affects peatmoss drought projections is unknown. The aim of this paper was to systematically test whether the level of hydrological detail in models could bias projections of water content and drought stress for peatmoss in northern peatlands using downscaled projections for rainfall and potential evapotranspiration in the current (1991-2020) and future climate (2061-2090). We considered four model variants that either include or exclude moss (rain)water storage and peat volume change, as these are two central processes in the hydrological self-regulation of peatmoss carpets. Model performance was validated using field data of a peatland in northern Sweden. Including moss water storage as well as peat volume change resulted in a significant improvement of model performance, despite the extra parameters added. The best performance was achieved if both processes were included. Including moss water storage and peat volume change consistently reduced projected peatmoss drought frequency with >50%, relative to the model excluding both processes. Projected peatmoss drought frequency in the growing season was 17% smaller under future climate than current climate, but was unaffected by including the hydrological self-regulating processes. Our results suggest that ignoring these two fine-scale processes important in hydrological self-regulation of northern peatlands will have large consequences for projected climate change impact on ecosystem processes related to topsoil water content, such as greenhouse gas emissions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessing forest vulnerability and the potential distribution of pine beetles under current and future climate scenarios in the Interior West of the US

USGS Publications Warehouse

Evangelista, P.H.; Kumar, S.; Stohlgren, T.J.; Young, N.E.

2011-01-01

The aim of our study was to estimate forest vulnerability and potential distribution of three bark beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) under current and projected climate conditions for 2020 and 2050. Our study focused on the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), western pine beetle (Dendroctonus brevicomis), and pine engraver (Ips pini). This study was conducted across eight states in the Interior West of the US covering approximately 2.2millionkm2 and encompassing about 95% of the Rocky Mountains in the contiguous US. Our analyses relied on aerial surveys of bark beetle outbreaks that occurred between 1991 and 2008. Occurrence points for each species were generated within polygons created from the aerial surveys. Current and projected climate scenarios were acquired from the WorldClim database and represented by 19 bioclimatic variables. We used Maxent modeling technique fit with occurrence points and current climate data to model potential beetle distributions and forest vulnerability. Three available climate models, each having two emission scenarios, were modeled independently and results averaged to produce two predictions for 2020 and two predictions for 2050 for each analysis. Environmental parameters defined by current climate models were then used to predict conditions under future climate scenarios, and changes in different species' ranges were calculated. Our results suggested that the potential distribution for bark beetles under current climate conditions is extensive, which coincides with infestation trends observed in the last decade. Our results predicted that suitable habitats for the mountain pine beetle and pine engraver beetle will stabilize or decrease under future climate conditions, while habitat for the western pine beetle will continue to increase over time. The greatest increase in habitat area was for the western pine beetle, where one climate model predicted a 27% increase by 2050. In contrast, the predicted habitat of the mountain pine beetle from another climate model suggested a decrease in habitat areas as great as 46% by 2050. Generally, 2020 and 2050 models that tested the three climate scenarios independently had similar trends, though one climate scenario for the western pine beetle produced contrasting results. Ranges for all three species of bark beetles shifted considerably geographically suggesting that some host species may become more vulnerable to beetle attack in the future, while others may have a reduced risk over time. ?? 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Global change in forests: responses of species, communities, and biomes

Treesearch

Andrew J. Hansen; Ronald P. Neilson; Virginia H. Dale; Curtis H. Flather; Louis R. Iverson; David J. Currie; Sarah Shafer; Rosamonde Cook; Partick J. Bartlein

2001-01-01

This article serves as a primer on forest biodiversity as a key component of global change. We first synthesize current knowledge of interactions among climate, land use, and biodiversity. We then summarize the results of new analyses on the potential effects of human-induced climate change on forest biodiversity. Our models project how possible future climates may...

Projected changes to short- and long-duration precipitation extremes over the Canadian Prairie Provinces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Masud, M. B.; Khaliq, M. N.; Wheater, H. S.

2017-09-01

The effects of climate change on April-October short- and long-duration precipitation extremes over the Canadian Prairie Provinces were evaluated using a multi-Regional Climate Model (RCM) ensemble available through the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. Simulations considered include those performed with six RCMs driven by the National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis II product for the 1981-2000 period and those driven by four Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) for the current 1971-2000 and future 2041-2070 periods (i.e. a total of 11 current-to-future period simulation pairs). A regional frequency analysis approach was used to develop 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, and 50-year return values of precipitation extremes from NCEP and AOGCM-driven current and future period simulations that respectively were used to study the performance of RCMs and projected changes for selected return values at regional, grid-cell and local scales. Performance errors due to internal dynamics and physics of RCMs studied for the 1981-2000 period reveal considerable variation in the performance of the RCMs. However, the performance errors were found to be much smaller for RCM ensemble averages than for individual RCMs. Projected changes in future climate to selected regional return values of short-duration (e.g. 15- and 30-min) precipitation extremes and for longer return periods (e.g. 50-year) were found to be mostly larger than those to the longer duration (e.g. 24- and 48-h) extremes and short return periods (e.g. 2-year). Overall, projected changes in precipitation extremes were larger for southeastern regions followed by southern and northern regions and smaller for southwestern and western regions of the study area. The changes to return values were also found to be statistically significant for the majority of the RCM-AOGCM simulation pairs. These projections might be useful as a key input for the future planning of urban drainage infrastructure and development of strategic climate change adaptation measures.

Back to the future: using historical climate variation to project near-term shifts in habitat suitable for coast redwood.

PubMed

Fernández, Miguel; Hamilton, Healy H; Kueppers, Lara M

2015-11-01

Studies that model the effect of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems often use climate projections from downscaled global climate models (GCMs). These simulations are generally too coarse to capture patterns of fine-scale climate variation, such as the sharp coastal energy and moisture gradients associated with wind-driven upwelling of cold water. Coastal upwelling may limit future increases in coastal temperatures, compromising GCMs' ability to provide realistic scenarios of future climate in these coastal ecosystems. Taking advantage of naturally occurring variability in the high-resolution historic climatic record, we developed multiple fine-scale scenarios of California climate that maintain coherent relationships between regional climate and coastal upwelling. We compared these scenarios against coarse resolution GCM projections at a regional scale to evaluate their temporal equivalency. We used these historically based scenarios to estimate potential suitable habitat for coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens D. Don) under 'normal' combinations of temperature and precipitation, and under anomalous combinations representative of potential future climates. We found that a scenario of warmer temperature with historically normal precipitation is equivalent to climate projected by GCMs for California by 2020-2030 and that under these conditions, climatically suitable habitat for coast redwood significantly contracts at the southern end of its current range. Our results suggest that historical climate data provide a high-resolution alternative to downscaled GCM outputs for near-term ecological forecasts. This method may be particularly useful in other regions where local climate is strongly influenced by ocean-atmosphere dynamics that are not represented by coarse-scale GCMs. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Conservation Status of North American Birds in the Face of Future Climate Change.

PubMed

Langham, Gary M; Schuetz, Justin G; Distler, Trisha; Soykan, Candan U; Wilsey, Chad

2015-01-01

Human-induced climate change is increasingly recognized as a fundamental driver of biological processes and patterns. Historic climate change is known to have caused shifts in the geographic ranges of many taxa and future climate change is expected to result in even greater redistributions of species. As a result, predicting the impact of climate change on future patterns of biodiversity will greatly aid conservation planning. Using the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Audubon Christmas Bird Count, two of the most comprehensive continental datasets of vertebrates in the world, and correlative distribution modeling, we assessed geographic range shifts for 588 North American bird species during both the breeding and non-breeding seasons under a range of future emission scenarios (SRES A2, A1B, B2) through the end of the century. Here we show that 314 species (53%) are projected to lose more than half of their current geographic range across three scenarios of climate change through the end of the century. For 126 species, loss occurs without concomitant range expansion; whereas for 188 species, loss is coupled with potential to colonize new replacement range. We found no strong associations between projected climate sensitivities and existing conservation prioritizations. Moreover, species responses were not clearly associated with habitat affinities, migration strategies, or climate change scenarios. Our results demonstrate the need to include climate sensitivity into current conservation planning and to develop adaptive management strategies that accommodate shrinking and shifting geographic ranges. The persistence of many North American birds will depend on their ability to colonize climatically suitable areas outside of current ranges and management actions that target climate adaptation.

Conservation Status of North American Birds in the Face of Future Climate Change

PubMed Central

Langham, Gary M.; Schuetz, Justin G.; Distler, Trisha; Soykan, Candan U.; Wilsey, Chad

2015-01-01

Human-induced climate change is increasingly recognized as a fundamental driver of biological processes and patterns. Historic climate change is known to have caused shifts in the geographic ranges of many taxa and future climate change is expected to result in even greater redistributions of species. As a result, predicting the impact of climate change on future patterns of biodiversity will greatly aid conservation planning. Using the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Audubon Christmas Bird Count, two of the most comprehensive continental datasets of vertebrates in the world, and correlative distribution modeling, we assessed geographic range shifts for 588 North American bird species during both the breeding and non-breeding seasons under a range of future emission scenarios (SRES A2, A1B, B2) through the end of the century. Here we show that 314 species (53%) are projected to lose more than half of their current geographic range across three scenarios of climate change through the end of the century. For 126 species, loss occurs without concomitant range expansion; whereas for 188 species, loss is coupled with potential to colonize new replacement range. We found no strong associations between projected climate sensitivities and existing conservation prioritizations. Moreover, species responses were not clearly associated with habitat affinities, migration strategies, or climate change scenarios. Our results demonstrate the need to include climate sensitivity into current conservation planning and to develop adaptive management strategies that accommodate shrinking and shifting geographic ranges. The persistence of many North American birds will depend on their ability to colonize climatically suitable areas outside of current ranges and management actions that target climate adaptation. PMID:26333202

Hydrological modeling as an evaluation tool of EURO-CORDEX climate projections and bias correction methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hakala, Kirsti; Addor, Nans; Seibert, Jan

2017-04-01

Streamflow stemming from Switzerland's mountainous landscape will be influenced by climate change, which will pose significant challenges to the water management and policy sector. In climate change impact research, the determination of future streamflow is impeded by different sources of uncertainty, which propagate through the model chain. In this research, we explicitly considered the following sources of uncertainty: (1) climate models, (2) downscaling of the climate projections to the catchment scale, (3) bias correction method and (4) parameterization of the hydrological model. We utilize climate projections at the 0.11 degree 12.5 km resolution from the EURO-CORDEX project, which are the most recent climate projections for the European domain. EURO-CORDEX is comprised of regional climate model (RCM) simulations, which have been downscaled from global climate models (GCMs) from the CMIP5 archive, using both dynamical and statistical techniques. Uncertainties are explored by applying a modeling chain involving 14 GCM-RCMs to ten Swiss catchments. We utilize the rainfall-runoff model HBV Light, which has been widely used in operational hydrological forecasting. The Lindström measure, a combination of model efficiency and volume error, was used as an objective function to calibrate HBV Light. Ten best sets of parameters are then achieved by calibrating using the genetic algorithm and Powell optimization (GAP) method. The GAP optimization method is based on the evolution of parameter sets, which works by selecting and recombining high performing parameter sets with each other. Once HBV is calibrated, we then perform a quantitative comparison of the influence of biases inherited from climate model simulations to the biases stemming from the hydrological model. The evaluation is conducted over two time periods: i) 1980-2009 to characterize the simulation realism under the current climate and ii) 2070-2099 to identify the magnitude of the projected change of streamflow under the climate scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. We utilize two techniques for correcting biases in the climate model output: quantile mapping and a new method, frequency bias correction. The FBC method matches the frequencies between observed and GCM-RCM data. In this way, it can be used to correct for all time scales, which is a known limitation of quantile mapping. A novel approach for the evaluation of the climate simulations and bias correction methods was then applied. Streamflow can be thought of as the "great integrator" of uncertainties. The ability, or the lack thereof, to correctly simulate streamflow is a way to assess the realism of the bias-corrected climate simulations. Long-term monthly mean as well as high and low flow metrics are used to evaluate the realism of the simulations under current climate and to gauge the impacts of climate change on streamflow. Preliminary results show that under present climate, calibration of the hydrological model comprises of a much smaller band of uncertainty in the modeling chain as compared to the bias correction of the GCM-RCMs. Therefore, for future time periods, we expect the bias correction of climate model data to have a greater influence on projected changes in streamflow than the calibration of the hydrological model.

Co-occurrence patterns of trees along macro-climatic gradients and their potential influence on the present and future distribution of Fagus sylvatica L.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Meier, E.S.; Edwards, T.C.; Kienast, Felix; Dobbertin, M.; Zimmermann, N.E.

2011-01-01

Aim During recent and future climate change, shifts in large-scale species ranges are expected due to the hypothesized major role of climatic factors in regulating species distributions. The stress-gradient hypothesis suggests that biotic interactions may act as major constraints on species distributions under more favourable growing conditions, while climatic constraints may dominate under unfavourable conditions. We tested this hypothesis for one focal tree species having three major competitors using broad-scale environmental data. We evaluated the variation of species co-occurrence patterns in climate space and estimated the influence of these patterns on the distribution of the focal species for current and projected future climates.Location Europe.Methods We used ICP Forest Level 1 data as well as climatic, topographic and edaphic variables. First, correlations between the relative abundance of European beech (Fagus sylvatica) and three major competitor species (Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris and Quercus robur) were analysed in environmental space, and then projected to geographic space. Second, a sensitivity analysis was performed using generalized additive models (GAM) to evaluate where and how much the predicted F. sylvatica distribution varied under current and future climates if potential competitor species were included or excluded. We evaluated if these areas coincide with current species co-occurrence patterns.Results Correlation analyses supported the stress-gradient hypothesis: towards favourable growing conditions of F. sylvatica, its abundance was strongly linked to the abundance of its competitors, while this link weakened towards unfavourable growing conditions, with stronger correlations in the south and at low elevations than in the north and at high elevations. The sensitivity analysis showed a potential spatial segregation of species with changing climate and a pronounced shift of zones where co-occurrence patterns may play a major role.Main conclusions Our results demonstrate the importance of species co-occurrence patterns for calibrating improved species distribution models for use in projections of climate effects. The correlation approach is able to localize European areas where inclusion of biotic predictors is effective. The climate-induced spatial segregation of the major tree species could have ecological and economic consequences. ?? 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Development of the virtual research environment for analysis, evaluation and prediction of global climate change impacts on the regional environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okladnikov, Igor; Gordov, Evgeny; Titov, Alexander; Fazliev, Alexander

2017-04-01

Description and the first results of the Russian Science Foundation project "Virtual computational information environment for analysis, evaluation and prediction of the impacts of global climate change on the environment and climate of a selected region" is presented. The project is aimed at development of an Internet-accessible computation and information environment providing unskilled in numerical modelling and software design specialists, decision-makers and stakeholders with reliable and easy-used tools for in-depth statistical analysis of climatic characteristics, and instruments for detailed analysis, assessment and prediction of impacts of global climate change on the environment and climate of the targeted region. In the framework of the project, approaches of "cloud" processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets will be developed on the technical platform of the Russian leading institution involved in research of climate change and its consequences. Anticipated results will create a pathway for development and deployment of thematic international virtual research laboratory focused on interdisciplinary environmental studies. VRE under development will comprise best features and functionality of earlier developed information and computing system CLIMATE (http://climate.scert.ru/), which is widely used in Northern Eurasia environment studies. The Project includes several major directions of research listed below. 1. Preparation of geo-referenced data sets, describing the dynamics of the current and possible future climate and environmental changes in detail. 2. Improvement of methods of analysis of climate change. 3. Enhancing the functionality of the VRE prototype in order to create a convenient and reliable tool for the study of regional social, economic and political consequences of climate change. 4. Using the output of the first three tasks, compilation of the VRE prototype, its validation, preparation of applicable detailed description of climate change in Western Siberia, and dissemination of the Project results. Results of the first stage of the Project implementation are presented. This work is supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant No16-19-10257.

Uncertainty and extreme events in future climate and hydrologic projections for the Pacific Northwest: providing a basis for vulnerability and core/corridor assessments

USGS Publications Warehouse

Littell, Jeremy S.; Mauger, Guillaume S.; Salathe, Eric P.; Hamlet, Alan F.; Lee, Se-Yeun; Stumbaugh, Matt R.; Elsner, Marketa; Norheim, Robert; Lutz, Eric R.; Mantua, Nathan J.

2014-01-01

The purpose of this project was to (1) provide an internally-consistent set of downscaled projections across the Western U.S., (2) include information about projection uncertainty, and (3) assess projected changes of hydrologic extremes. These objectives were designed to address decision support needs for climate adaptation and resource management actions. Specifically, understanding of uncertainty in climate projections – in particular for extreme events – is currently a key scientific and management barrier to adaptation planning and vulnerability assessment. The new dataset fills in the Northwest domain to cover a key gap in the previous dataset, adds additional projections (both from other global climate models and a comparison with dynamical downscaling) and includes an assessment of changes to flow and soil moisture extremes. This new information can be used to assess variations in impacts across the landscape, uncertainty in projections, and how these differ as a function of region, variable, and time period. In this project, existing University of Washington Climate Impacts Group (UW CIG) products were extended to develop a comprehensive data archive that accounts (in a reigorous and physically based way) for climate model uncertainty in future climate and hydrologic scenarios. These products can be used to determine likely impacts on vegetation and aquatic habitat in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) region, including WA, OR, ID, northwest MT to the continental divide, northern CA, NV, UT, and the Columbia Basin portion of western WY New data series and summaries produced for this project include: 1) extreme statistics for surface hydrology (e.g. frequency of soil moisture and summer water deficit) and streamflow (e.g. the 100-year flood, extreme 7-day low flows with a 10-year recurrence interval); 2) snowpack vulnerability as indicated by the ratio of April 1 snow water to cool-season precipitation; and, 3) uncertainty analyses for multiple climate scenarios.

Climate change risks, extinction debt, and conservation implications for a threatened freshwater fish: Carmine shiner (Notropis percobromus).

PubMed

Pandit, Shubha N; Maitland, Bryan M; Pandit, Laxmi K; Poesch, Mark S; Enders, Eva C

2017-11-15

Climate change is affecting many freshwater species, particularly fishes. Predictions of future climate change suggest large and deleterious effects on species with narrow dispersal abilities due to limited hydrological connectivity. In turn, this creates the potential for population isolation in thermally unsuitable habitats, leading to physiological stress, species declines or possible extirpation. The current extent of many freshwater fish species' spatio-temporal distribution patterns and their sensitivity to thermal impacts from climate change - critical information for conservation planning - are often unknown. Carmine shiner (Notropis percobromus) is an ecologically important species listed as threatened or imperilled nationally (Canada) and regionally (South Dakota, United States) due to its restricted range and sensitivity to water quality and temperature. This research aimed to determine the current distribution and spatio-temporal variability in projected suitable habitat for Carmine shiner using niche-based modeling approaches (MaxEnt, BIOCLIM, and DOMAIN models). Statistically downscaled, bias-corrected Global Circulation Models (GCMs) data was used to model the distribution of Carmine shiner in central North America for the period of 2041-2060 (2050s). Maximum mean July temperature and temperature variability were the main factors in determining Carmine shiner distribution. Patterns of projected habitat change by the 2050s suggest the spatial extent of the current distribution of Carmine shiner would shift north, with >50% of the current distribution changing with future projections based on two Representative Concentrations Pathways for CO 2 emissions. Whereas the southern extent of the distribution would become unsuitable for Carmine shiner, suitable habitats are predicted to become available further north, if accessible. Importantly, the majority of habitat gains for Carmine shiner would be in areas currently inaccessible due to dispersal limitations, suggesting current populations may face an extinction debt within the next half century. These results provide evidence that Carmine shiner may be highly vulnerable to a warming climate and suggest that management actions - such as assisted migration - may be needed to mitigate impacts from climate change and ensure the long-term persistence of the species. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Identifying climate analogues for precipitation extremes for Denmark based on RCM simulations from the ENSEMBLES database.

PubMed

Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K; Funder, S G; Madsen, H

2015-01-01

Climate analogues, also denoted Space-For-Time, may be used to identify regions where the present climatic conditions resemble conditions of a past or future state of another location or region based on robust climate variable statistics in combination with projections of how these statistics change over time. The study focuses on assessing climate analogues for Denmark based on current climate data set (E-OBS) observations as well as the ENSEMBLES database of future climates with the aim of projecting future precipitation extremes. The local present precipitation extremes are assessed by means of intensity-duration-frequency curves for urban drainage design for the relevant locations being France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. Based on this approach projected increases of extreme precipitation by 2100 of 9 and 21% are expected for 2 and 10 year return periods, respectively. The results should be interpreted with caution as the best region to represent future conditions for Denmark is the coastal areas of Northern France, for which only little information is available with respect to present precipitation extremes.

On the influence of simulated SST warming on rainfall projections in the Indo-Pacific domain: an AGCM study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Huqiang; Zhao, Y.; Moise, A.; Ye, H.; Colman, R.; Roff, G.; Zhao, M.

2018-02-01

Significant uncertainty exists in regional climate change projections, particularly for rainfall and other hydro-climate variables. In this study, we conduct a series of Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) experiments with different future sea surface temperature (SST) warming simulated by a range of coupled climate models. They allow us to assess the extent to which uncertainty from current coupled climate model rainfall projections can be attributed to their simulated SST warming. Nine CMIP5 model-simulated global SST warming anomalies have been super-imposed onto the current SSTs simulated by the Australian climate model ACCESS1.3. The ACCESS1.3 SST-forced experiments closely reproduce rainfall means and interannual variations as in its own fully coupled experiments. Although different global SST warming intensities explain well the inter-model difference in global mean precipitation changes, at regional scales the SST influence vary significantly. SST warming explains about 20-25% of the patterns of precipitation changes in each of the four/five models in its rainfall projections over the oceans in the Indo-Pacific domain, but there are also a couple of models in which different SST warming explains little of their precipitation pattern changes. The influence is weaker again for rainfall changes over land. Roughly similar levels of contribution can be attributed to different atmospheric responses to SST warming in these models. The weak SST influence in our study could be due to the experimental setup applied: superimposing different SST warming anomalies onto the same SSTs simulated for current climate by ACCESS1.3 rather than directly using model-simulated past and future SSTs. Similar modelling and analysis from other modelling groups with more carefully designed experiments are needed to tease out uncertainties caused by different SST warming patterns, different SST mean biases and different model physical/dynamical responses to the same underlying SST forcing.

What and How Are We Evaluating? Meta-Evaluation Study of the NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) Portfolio

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martin, A. M.; Barnes, M. H.; Chambers, L. H.; Pippin, M. R.

2011-12-01

As part of NASA's Minority University Research and Education Program (MUREP), the NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) project at Langley Research Center has funded 71 climate education initiatives since 2008. The funded initiatives span across the nation and contribute to the development of a climate-literate public and the preparation of a climate-related STEM workforce through research experiences, professional development opportunities, development of data access and modeling tools, and educational opportunities in both K-12 and higher education. Each of the funded projects proposes and carries out its own evaluation plan, in collaboration with external or internal evaluation experts. Using this portfolio as an exemplar case, NICE has undertaken a systematic meta-evaluation of these plans, focused primarily on evaluation questions, approaches, and methods. This meta-evaluation study seeks to understand the range of evaluations represented in the NICE portfolio, including descriptive information (what evaluations, questions, designs, approaches, and methods are applied?) and questions of value (do these evaluations meet the needs of projects and their staff, and of NASA/NICE?). In the current climate, as federal funders of climate change and STEM education projects seek to better understand and incorporate evaluation into their decisions, evaluators and project leaders are also seeking to build robust understanding of program effectiveness. Meta-evaluations like this provide some baseline understanding of the current status quo and the kinds of evaluations carried out within such funding portfolios. These explorations are needed to understand the common ground between evaluative best practices, limited resources, and agencies' desires, capacity, and requirements. When NASA asks for evaluation of funded projects, what happens? Which questions are asked and answered, using which tools? To what extent do the evaluations meet the needs of projects and program officers? How do they contribute to best practices in climate science education? These questions are important to ask about STEM and climate literacy work more generally; the NICE portfolio provides a broad test case for thinking strategically, critically, and progressively about evaluation in our community. Our findings can inform the STEM education, communication, and public outreach communities, and prompt us to consider a broad range of informative evaluation options. During this presentation, we will consider the breadth, depth and utility of evaluations conducted through a NASA climate education funding opportunity. We will examine the relationship between what we want to know about education programs, what we want to achieve with our interventions, and what we ask in our evaluations.

What and How Are We Evaluating? Meta-Evaluation Study of the NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) Portfolio

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martin, A. M.; Barnes, M. H.; Chambers, L. H.; Pippin, M. R.

2013-12-01

As part of NASA's Minority University Research and Education Program (MUREP), the NASA Innovations in Climate Education (NICE) project at Langley Research Center has funded 71 climate education initiatives since 2008. The funded initiatives span across the nation and contribute to the development of a climate-literate public and the preparation of a climate-related STEM workforce through research experiences, professional development opportunities, development of data access and modeling tools, and educational opportunities in both K-12 and higher education. Each of the funded projects proposes and carries out its own evaluation plan, in collaboration with external or internal evaluation experts. Using this portfolio as an exemplar case, NICE has undertaken a systematic meta-evaluation of these plans, focused primarily on evaluation questions, approaches, and methods. This meta-evaluation study seeks to understand the range of evaluations represented in the NICE portfolio, including descriptive information (what evaluations, questions, designs, approaches, and methods are applied?) and questions of value (do these evaluations meet the needs of projects and their staff, and of NASA/NICE?). In the current climate, as federal funders of climate change and STEM education projects seek to better understand and incorporate evaluation into their decisions, evaluators and project leaders are also seeking to build robust understanding of program effectiveness. Meta-evaluations like this provide some baseline understanding of the current status quo and the kinds of evaluations carried out within such funding portfolios. These explorations are needed to understand the common ground between evaluative best practices, limited resources, and agencies' desires, capacity, and requirements. When NASA asks for evaluation of funded projects, what happens? Which questions are asked and answered, using which tools? To what extent do the evaluations meet the needs of projects and program officers? How do they contribute to best practices in climate science education? These questions are important to ask about STEM and climate literacy work more generally; the NICE portfolio provides a broad test case for thinking strategically, critically, and progressively about evaluation in our community. Our findings can inform the STEM education, communication, and public outreach communities, and prompt us to consider a broad range of informative evaluation options. During this presentation, we will consider the breadth, depth and utility of evaluations conducted through a NASA climate education funding opportunity. We will examine the relationship between what we want to know about education programs, what we want to achieve with our interventions, and what we ask in our evaluations.

Mechanistic insights into the effects of climate change on larval cod.

PubMed

Kristiansen, Trond; Stock, Charles; Drinkwater, Kenneth F; Curchitser, Enrique N

2014-05-01

Understanding the biophysical mechanisms that shape variability in fisheries recruitment is critical for estimating the effects of climate change on fisheries. In this study, we used an Earth System Model (ESM) and a mechanistic individual-based model (IBM) for larval fish to analyze how climate change may impact the growth and survival of larval cod in the North Atlantic. We focused our analysis on five regions that span the current geographical range of cod and are known to contain important spawning populations. Under the SRES A2 (high emissions) scenario, the ESM-projected surface ocean temperatures are expected to increase by >1 °C for 3 of the 5 regions, and stratification is expected to increase at all sites between 1950-1999 and 2050-2099. This enhanced stratification is projected to decrease large (>5 μm ESD) phytoplankton productivity and mesozooplankton biomass at all 5 sites. Higher temperatures are projected to increase larval metabolic costs, which combined with decreased food resources will reduce larval weight, increase the probability of larvae dying from starvation and increase larval exposure to visual and invertebrate predators at most sites. If current concentrations of piscivore and invertebrate predators are maintained, larval survival is projected to decrease at all five sites by 2050-2099. In contrast to past observed responses to climate variability in which warm anomalies led to better recruitment in cold-water stocks, our simulations indicated that reduced prey availability under climate change may cause a reduction in larval survival despite higher temperatures in these regions. In the lower prey environment projected under climate change, higher metabolic costs due to higher temperatures outweigh the advantages of higher growth potential, leading to negative effects on northern cod stocks. Our results provide an important first large-scale assessment of the impacts of climate change on larval cod in the North Atlantic. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Pathogen-Host Associations and Predicted Range Shifts of Human Monkeypox in Response to Climate Change in Central Africa

PubMed Central

Thomassen, Henri A.; Fuller, Trevon; Asefi-Najafabady, Salvi; Shiplacoff, Julia A. G.; Mulembakani, Prime M.; Blumberg, Seth; Johnston, Sara C.; Kisalu, Neville K.; Kinkela, Timothée L.; Fair, Joseph N.; Wolfe, Nathan D.; Shongo, Robert L.; LeBreton, Matthew; Meyer, Hermann; Wright, Linda L.; Muyembe, Jean-Jacques; Buermann, Wolfgang; Okitolonda, Emile; Hensley, Lisa E.; Lloyd-Smith, James O.; Smith, Thomas B.; Rimoin, Anne W.

2013-01-01

Climate change is predicted to result in changes in the geographic ranges and local prevalence of infectious diseases, either through direct effects on the pathogen, or indirectly through range shifts in vector and reservoir species. To better understand the occurrence of monkeypox virus (MPXV), an emerging Orthopoxvirus in humans, under contemporary and future climate conditions, we used ecological niche modeling techniques in conjunction with climate and remote-sensing variables. We first created spatially explicit probability distributions of its candidate reservoir species in Africa's Congo Basin. Reservoir species distributions were subsequently used to model current and projected future distributions of human monkeypox (MPX). Results indicate that forest clearing and climate are significant driving factors of the transmission of MPX from wildlife to humans under current climate conditions. Models under contemporary climate conditions performed well, as indicated by high values for the area under the receiver operator curve (AUC), and tests on spatially randomly and non-randomly omitted test data. Future projections were made on IPCC 4th Assessment climate change scenarios for 2050 and 2080, ranging from more conservative to more aggressive, and representing the potential variation within which range shifts can be expected to occur. Future projections showed range shifts into regions where MPX has not been recorded previously. Increased suitability for MPX was predicted in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Models developed here are useful for identifying areas where environmental conditions may become more suitable for human MPX; targeting candidate reservoir species for future screening efforts; and prioritizing regions for future MPX surveillance efforts. PMID:23935820

An evidence-based public health approach to climate change adaptation.

PubMed

Hess, Jeremy J; Eidson, Millicent; Tlumak, Jennifer E; Raab, Kristin K; Luber, George

2014-11-01

Public health is committed to evidence-based practice, yet there has been minimal discussion of how to apply an evidence-based practice framework to climate change adaptation. Our goal was to review the literature on evidence-based public health (EBPH), to determine whether it can be applied to climate change adaptation, and to consider how emphasizing evidence-based practice may influence research and practice decisions related to public health adaptation to climate change. We conducted a substantive review of EBPH, identified a consensus EBPH framework, and modified it to support an EBPH approach to climate change adaptation. We applied the framework to an example and considered implications for stakeholders. A modified EBPH framework can accommodate the wide range of exposures, outcomes, and modes of inquiry associated with climate change adaptation and the variety of settings in which adaptation activities will be pursued. Several factors currently limit application of the framework, including a lack of higher-level evidence of intervention efficacy and a lack of guidelines for reporting climate change health impact projections. To enhance the evidence base, there must be increased attention to designing, evaluating, and reporting adaptation interventions; standardized health impact projection reporting; and increased attention to knowledge translation. This approach has implications for funders, researchers, journal editors, practitioners, and policy makers. The current approach to EBPH can, with modifications, support climate change adaptation activities, but there is little evidence regarding interventions and knowledge translation, and guidelines for projecting health impacts are lacking. Realizing the goal of an evidence-based approach will require systematic, coordinated efforts among various stakeholders.

Final Technical Report for Collaborative Research: Developing and Implementing Ocean-Atmosphere Reanalyses for Climate Applications (OARCA)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Compo, Gilbert P

As an important step toward a coupled data assimilation system for generating reanalysis fields needed to assess climate model projections, the Ocean Atmosphere Coupled Reanalysis for Climate Applications (OARCA) project assesses and improves the longest reanalyses currently available of the atmosphere and ocean: the 20th Century Reanalysis Project (20CR) and the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation with sparse observational input (SODAsi) system, respectively. In this project, we make off-line but coordinated improvements in the 20CR and SODAsi datasets, with improvements in one feeding into improvements of the other through an iterative generation of new versions. These datasets now span from themore » 19th to 21st centuries. We then study the extreme weather and variability from days to decades of the resulting datasets. A total of 24 publications have been produced in this project.« less

Forest ecosystem vulnerability assessment and synthesis for northern Wisconsin and western Upper Michigan: a report from the Northwoods Climate Change Response Framework project

Treesearch

Maria K. Janowiak; Louis R. Iverson; David J. Mladenoff; Emily Peters; Kirk R. Wythers; Weimin Xi; Leslie A. Brandt; Patricia R. Butler; Stephen D. Handler; P. Danielle Shannon; Chris Swanston; Linda R. Parker; Amy J. Amman; Brian Bogaczyk; Christine Handler; Ellen Lesch; Peter B. Reich; Stephen Matthews; Matthew Peters; Anantha Prasad; Sami Khanal; Feng Liu; Tara Bal; Dustin Bronson; Andrew Burton; Jim Ferris; Jon Fosgitt; Shawn Hagan; Erin Johnston; Evan Kane; Colleen Matula; Ryan O' Connor; Dale Higgins; Matt St. Pierre; Jad Daley; Mae Davenport; Marla R. Emery; David Fehringer; Christopher L. Hoving; Gary Johnson; David Neitzel; Michael Notaro; Adena Rissman; Chadwick Rittenhouse; Robert Ziel

2014-01-01

Forest ecosystems across the Northwoods will face direct and indirect impacts from a changing climate over the 21st century. This assessment evaluates the vulnerability of forest ecosystems in the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province of northern Wisconsin and western Upper Michigan under a range of future climates. Information on current forest conditions, observed climate...

Projecting climate effects on birds and reptiles of the Southwestern United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

van Riper, Charles; Hatten, James R.; Giermakowski, J. Tomasz; Mattson, David; Holmes, Jennifer A.; Johnson, Matthew J.; Nowak, Erika M.; Ironside, Kirsten; Peters, Michael; Heinrich, Paul; Cole, K.L.; Truettner, C.; Schwalbe, Cecil R.

2014-01-01

We modeled the current and future breeding ranges of seven bird and five reptile species in the Southwestern United States with sets of landscape, biotic (plant), and climatic global circulation model (GCM) variables. For modeling purposes, we used PRISM data to characterize the climate of the Western United States between 1980 and 2009 (baseline for birds) and between 1940 and 2009 (baseline for reptiles). In contrast, we used a pre-selected set of GCMs that are known to be good predictors of southwestern climate (five individual and one ensemble GCM), for the A1B emission scenario, to characterize future climatic conditions in three time periods (2010–39; 2040–69; and, 2070–99). Our modeling approach relied on conceptual models for each target species to inform selection of candidate explanatory variables and to interpret the ecological meaning of developed probabilistic distribution models. We employed logistic regression and maximum entropy modeling techniques to create a set of probabilistic models for each target species. We considered climatic, landscape, and plant variables when developing and testing our probabilistic models. Climatic variables included the maximum and minimum mean monthly and seasonal temperature and precipitation for three time periods. Landscape features included terrain ruggedness and insolation. We also considered plant species distributions as candidate explanatory variables where prior ecological knowledge implicated a strong association between a plant and animal species. Projected changes in range varied widely among species, from major losses to major gains. Breeding bird ranges exhibited greater expansions and contractions than did reptile species. We project range losses for Williamson’s sapsucker and pygmy nuthatch of a magnitude that could move these two species close to extinction within the next century. Although both species currently have a relatively limited distribution, they can be locally common, and neither are presently considered candidates for prospective endangerment. We project range losses of over 40 percent, from its current extent of occurrence, for the plateau striped whiptail, Arizona black rattlesnake, and common lesser earless lizard. Currently, these reptile species are thought to be common or at least locally abundant throughout their ranges. The total contribution of plants in each distribution model was very small, but models that contained at least one plant always outperformed models with only physical variables (climatic or landscape). The magnitude of change in projected range increased further into the future, especially when a plant was in the model. Among bird species, those that had the strongest association with a landscape feature during the breeding season, such as terrain ruggedness and insolation, exhibited the smallest contractions in projected breeding range in the future. In contrast, bird species that had weak associations with landscape features, but strong climatic associations, suffered the greatest breeding range contractions. Thus, landscape effects appeared to buffer some of the negative effects of climate change for some species. Among bird species, magnitude of change in projected breeding range was positively related to the annual average temperature of their baseline distribution, thus species with the warmest breeding ranges exhibited the greatest changes in future breeding ranges. This pattern was not evident for reptiles, but might exist if additional species were included in the model. Our results provide managers with a series of projected range maps that will enable scientists, concerned citizens, and wildlife managers to identify what the potential effects of climate change will be on bird and reptile distributions in the Western United States. We hope that our results can be used in proactive ways to mitigate some of the potential effects of climate change on selected species.

Potential effect of climate change on malaria transmission in Africa.

PubMed

Tanser, Frank C; Sharp, Brian; le Sueur, David

2003-11-29

Climate change is likely to affect transmission of vector-borne diseases such as malaria. We quantitatively estimated current malaria exposure and assessed the potential effect of projected climate scenarios on malaria transmission. We produced a spatiotemporally validated (against 3791 parasite surveys) model of Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission in Africa. Using different climate scenarios from the Hadley Centre global climate model (HAD CM3) climate experiments, we projected the potential effect of climate change on transmission patterns. Our model showed sensitivity and specificity of 63% and 96%, respectively (within 1 month temporal accuracy), when compared with the parasite surveys. We estimate that on average there are 3.1 billion person-months of exposure (445 million people exposed) in Africa per year. The projected scenarios would estimate a 5-7% potential increase (mainly altitudinal) in malaria distribution with surprisingly little increase in the latitudinal extents of the disease by 2100. Of the overall potential increase (although transmission will decrease in some countries) of 16-28% in person-months of exposure (assuming a constant population), a large proportion will be seen in areas of existing transmission. The effect of projected climate change indicates that a prolonged transmission season is as important as geographical expansion in correct assessment of the effect of changes in transmission patterns. Our model constitutes a valid baseline against which climate scenarios can be assessed and interventions planned.

Wildfire Suppression Costs for Canada under a Changing Climate

PubMed Central

Stocks, Brian J.; Gauthier, Sylvie

2016-01-01

Climate-influenced changes in fire regimes in northern temperate and boreal regions will have both ecological and economic ramifications. We examine possible future wildfire area burned and suppression costs using a recently compiled historical (i.e., 1980–2009) fire management cost database for Canada and several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate projections. Area burned was modelled as a function of a climate moisture index (CMI), and fire suppression costs then estimated as a function of area burned. Future estimates of area burned were generated from projections of the CMI under two emissions pathways for four General Circulation Models (GCMs); these estimates were constrained to ecologically reasonable values by incorporating a minimum fire return interval of 20 years. Total average annual national fire management costs are projected to increase to just under $1 billion (a 60% real increase from the 1980–2009 period) under the low greenhouse gas emissions pathway and $1.4 billion (119% real increase from the base period) under the high emissions pathway by the end of the century. For many provinces, annual costs that are currently considered extreme (i.e., occur once every ten years) are projected to become commonplace (i.e., occur once every two years or more often) as the century progresses. It is highly likely that evaluations of current wildland fire management paradigms will be necessary to avoid drastic and untenable cost increases as the century progresses. PMID:27513660

Arctic climate tipping points.

PubMed

Lenton, Timothy M

2012-02-01

There is widespread concern that anthropogenic global warming will trigger Arctic climate tipping points. The Arctic has a long history of natural, abrupt climate changes, which together with current observations and model projections, can help us to identify which parts of the Arctic climate system might pass future tipping points. Here the climate tipping points are defined, noting that not all of them involve bifurcations leading to irreversible change. Past abrupt climate changes in the Arctic are briefly reviewed. Then, the current behaviour of a range of Arctic systems is summarised. Looking ahead, a range of potential tipping phenomena are described. This leads to a revised and expanded list of potential Arctic climate tipping elements, whose likelihood is assessed, in terms of how much warming will be required to tip them. Finally, the available responses are considered, especially the prospects for avoiding Arctic climate tipping points.

Climate change may threaten habitat suitability of threatened plant species within Chinese nature reserves

PubMed Central

Wan, Jizhong

2016-01-01

Climate change has the potential to alter the distributions of threatened plant species, and may therefore diminish the capacity of nature reserves to protect threatened plant species. Chinese nature reserves contain a rich diversity of plant species that are at risk of becoming more threatened by climate change. Hence, it is urgent to identify the extent to which future climate change may compromise the suitability of threatened plant species habitats within Chinese nature reserves. Here, we modelled the climate suitability of 82 threatened plant species within 168 nature reserves across climate change scenarios. We used Maxent modelling based on species occurrence localities and evaluated climate change impacts using the magnitude of change in climate suitability and the degree of overlap between current and future climatically suitable habitats. There was a significant relationship between overlap with current and future climate suitability of all threatened plant species habitats and the magnitude of changes in climate suitability. Our projections estimate that the climate suitability of more than 60 threatened plant species will decrease and that climate change threatens the habitat suitability of plant species in more than 130 nature reserves under the low, medium, and high greenhouse gas concentration scenarios by both 2050s and 2080s. Furthermore, future climate change may substantially threaten tree plant species through changes in annual mean temperature. These results indicate that climate change may threaten plant species that occur within Chinese nature reserves. Therefore, we suggest that climate change projections should be integrated into the conservation and management of threatened plant species within nature reserves. PMID:27326373

'Changing climate, changing health, changing stories' profile: using an EcoHealth approach to explore impacts of climate change on inuit health.

PubMed

Harper, S L; Edge, V L; Cunsolo Willox, A

2012-03-01

Global climate change and its impact on public health exemplify the challenge of managing complexity and uncertainty in health research. The Canadian North is currently experiencing dramatic shifts in climate, resulting in environmental changes which impact Inuit livelihoods, cultural practices, and health. For researchers investigating potential climate change impacts on Inuit health, it has become clear that comprehensive and meaningful research outcomes depend on taking a systemic and transdisciplinary approach that engages local citizens in project design, data collection, and analysis. While it is increasingly recognised that using approaches that embrace complexity is a necessity in public health, mobilizing such approaches from theory into practice can be challenging. In 2009, the Rigolet Inuit Community Government in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada partnered with a transdisciplinary team of researchers, health practitioners, and community storytelling facilitators to create the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project, aimed at developing a multi-media participatory, community-run methodological strategy to gather locally appropriate and meaningful data to explore climate-health relationships. The goal of this profile paper is to describe how an EcoHealth approach guided by principles of transdisciplinarity, community participation, and social equity was used to plan and implement this climate-health research project. An overview of the project, including project development, research methods, project outcomes to date, and challenges encountered, is presented. Though introduced in this one case study, the processes, methods, and lessons learned are broadly applicable to researchers and communities interested in implementing EcoHealth approaches in community-based research.

Climate Projections and Drought: Verification for the Colorado River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Santos, N. I.; Piechota, T. C.; Miller, W. P.; Ahmad, S.

2017-12-01

The Colorado River Basin has experienced the driest 17 year period (2000-2016) in over 100 years of historical record keeping. While the Colorado River reservoir system began the current drought at near 100% capacity, reservoir storage has fallen to just above 50% during the drought. Even though federal and state water agencies have worked together to mitigate the impact of the drought and have collaboratively sponsored conservation programs and drought contingency plans, the 17-years of observed data beg the question as to whether the most recent climate projections would have been able to project the current drought's severity. The objective of this study is to analyze observations and ensemble projections (e.g. temperature, precipitation, streamflow) from the CMIP3 and CMIP5 archive in the Colorado River Basin and compare metrics related to skill scores, the Palmer Drought Severity Index, and water supply sustainability index. Furthermore, a sub-ensemble of CMIP3/CMIP5 projections, developed using a teleconnection replication verification technique developed by the author, will also be compared to the observed record to assist in further validating the technique as a usable process to increase skill in climatological projections. In the end, this study will assist to better inform water resource managers about the ability of climate ensembles to project hydroclimatic variability and the appearance of decadal drought periods.

Projecting Heat-Related Mortality Impacts Under a Changing Climate in the New York City Region

PubMed Central

Knowlton, Kim; Lynn, Barry; Goldberg, Richard A.; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Hogrefe, Christian; Rosenthal, Joyce Klein; Kinney, Patrick L.

2007-01-01

Objectives. We sought to project future impacts of climate change on summer heat-related premature deaths in the New York City metropolitan region. Methods. Current and future climates were simulated over the northeastern United States with a global-to-regional climate modeling system. Summer heat-related premature deaths in the 1990s and 2050s were estimated by using a range of scenarios and approaches to modeling acclimatization (e.g., increased use of air conditioning, gradual physiological adaptation). Results. Projected regional increases in heat-related premature mortality by the 2050s ranged from 47% to 95%, with a mean 70% increase compared with the 1990s. Acclimatization effects reduced regional increases in summer heat-related premature mortality by about 25%. Local impacts varied considerably across the region, with urban counties showing greater numbers of deaths and smaller percentage increases than less-urbanized counties. Conclusions. Although considerable uncertainty exists in climate forecasts and future health vulnerability, the range of projections we developed suggests that by midcentury, acclimatization may not completely mitigate the effects of climate change in the New York City metropolitan region, which would result in an overall net increase in heat-related premature mortality. PMID:17901433

Putting Climate Adaptation on the Map: Developing Spatial Management Strategies for Whitebark Pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

PubMed

Ireland, Kathryn B; Hansen, Andrew J; Keane, Robert E; Legg, Kristin; Gump, Robert L

2018-06-01

Natural resource managers face the need to develop strategies to adapt to projected future climates. Few existing climate adaptation frameworks prescribe where to place management actions to be most effective under anticipated future climate conditions. We developed an approach to spatially allocate climate adaptation actions and applied the method to whitebark pine (WBP; Pinus albicaulis) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). WBP is expected to be vulnerable to climate-mediated shifts in suitable habitat, pests, pathogens, and fire. We spatially prioritized management actions aimed at mitigating climate impacts to WBP under two management strategies: (1) current management and (2) climate-informed management. The current strategy reflected management actions permissible under existing policy and access constraints. Our goal was to understand how consideration of climate might alter the placement of management actions, so the climate-informed strategies did not include these constraints. The spatial distribution of actions differed among the current and climate-informed management strategies, with 33-60% more wilderness area prioritized for action under climate-informed management. High priority areas for implementing management actions include the 1-8% of the GYE where current and climate-informed management agreed, since this is where actions are most likely to be successful in the long-term and where current management permits implementation. Areas where climate-informed strategies agreed with one another but not with current management (6-22% of the GYE) are potential locations for experimental testing of management actions. Our method for spatial climate adaptation planning is applicable to any species for which information regarding climate vulnerability and climate-mediated risk factors is available.

Putting Climate Adaptation on the Map: Developing Spatial Management Strategies for Whitebark Pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ireland, Kathryn B.; Hansen, Andrew J.; Keane, Robert E.; Legg, Kristin; Gump, Robert L.

2018-06-01

Natural resource managers face the need to develop strategies to adapt to projected future climates. Few existing climate adaptation frameworks prescribe where to place management actions to be most effective under anticipated future climate conditions. We developed an approach to spatially allocate climate adaptation actions and applied the method to whitebark pine (WBP; Pinus albicaulis) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). WBP is expected to be vulnerable to climate-mediated shifts in suitable habitat, pests, pathogens, and fire. We spatially prioritized management actions aimed at mitigating climate impacts to WBP under two management strategies: (1) current management and (2) climate-informed management. The current strategy reflected management actions permissible under existing policy and access constraints. Our goal was to understand how consideration of climate might alter the placement of management actions, so the climate-informed strategies did not include these constraints. The spatial distribution of actions differed among the current and climate-informed management strategies, with 33-60% more wilderness area prioritized for action under climate-informed management. High priority areas for implementing management actions include the 1-8% of the GYE where current and climate-informed management agreed, since this is where actions are most likely to be successful in the long-term and where current management permits implementation. Areas where climate-informed strategies agreed with one another but not with current management (6-22% of the GYE) are potential locations for experimental testing of management actions. Our method for spatial climate adaptation planning is applicable to any species for which information regarding climate vulnerability and climate-mediated risk factors is available.

Evaluating the utility of dynamical downscaling in agricultural impacts projections

PubMed Central

Glotter, Michael; Elliott, Joshua; McInerney, David; Best, Neil; Foster, Ian; Moyer, Elisabeth J.

2014-01-01

Interest in estimating the potential socioeconomic costs of climate change has led to the increasing use of dynamical downscaling—nested modeling in which regional climate models (RCMs) are driven with general circulation model (GCM) output—to produce fine-spatial-scale climate projections for impacts assessments. We evaluate here whether this computationally intensive approach significantly alters projections of agricultural yield, one of the greatest concerns under climate change. Our results suggest that it does not. We simulate US maize yields under current and future CO2 concentrations with the widely used Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer crop model, driven by a variety of climate inputs including two GCMs, each in turn downscaled by two RCMs. We find that no climate model output can reproduce yields driven by observed climate unless a bias correction is first applied. Once a bias correction is applied, GCM- and RCM-driven US maize yields are essentially indistinguishable in all scenarios (<10% discrepancy, equivalent to error from observations). Although RCMs correct some GCM biases related to fine-scale geographic features, errors in yield are dominated by broad-scale (100s of kilometers) GCM systematic errors that RCMs cannot compensate for. These results support previous suggestions that the benefits for impacts assessments of dynamically downscaling raw GCM output may not be sufficient to justify its computational demands. Progress on fidelity of yield projections may benefit more from continuing efforts to understand and minimize systematic error in underlying climate projections. PMID:24872455

Vegetation projections for Wind Cave National Park with three future climate scenarios: Final report in completion of Task Agreement J8W07100052

USGS Publications Warehouse

King, David A.; Bachelet, Dominique M.; Symstad, Amy J.

2013-01-01

Since the initial application of MC1 to a small portion of WICA (Bachelet et al. 2000), the model has been altered to improve model performance with the inclusion of dynamic fire. Applying this improved version to WICA required substantial recalibration, during which we have made a number of improvements to MC1 that will be incorporated as permanent changes. In this report we document these changes and our calibration procedure following a brief overview of the model. We compare the projections of current vegetation to the current state of the park and present projections of vegetation dynamics under future climates downscaled from three GCMs selected to represent the existing range in available GCM projections. In doing so, we examine the consequences of different management options regarding fire and grazing, major aspects of biotic management at Wind Cave.

Uncertain soil moisture feedbacks in model projections of Sahel precipitation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berg, Alexis; Lintner, Benjamin R.; Findell, Kirsten; Giannini, Alessandra

2017-06-01

Given the uncertainties in climate model projections of Sahel precipitation, at the northern edge of the West African Monsoon, understanding the factors governing projected precipitation changes in this semiarid region is crucial. This study investigates how long-term soil moisture changes projected under climate change may feedback on projected changes of Sahel rainfall, using simulations with and without soil moisture change from five climate models participating in the Global Land Atmosphere Coupling Experiment-Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 experiment. In four out of five models analyzed, soil moisture feedbacks significantly influence the projected West African precipitation response to warming; however, the sign of these feedbacks differs across the models. These results demonstrate that reducing uncertainties across model projections of the West African Monsoon requires, among other factors, improved mechanistic understanding and constraint of simulated land-atmosphere feedbacks, even at the large spatial scales considered here.