DBP formation and disinfection under current and future climates - slides

EPA Science Inventory

How to predict and monitoring DBP formation under current and future climate is a challenge and important to water plant operations and water supply security. This presentation summarizes a system approach being developed at the EPA Water Resources Adaptation Program (WRAP).

Frontiers in Decadal Climate Variability: Proceedings of a Workshop

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

Purcell, Amanda

A number of studies indicate an apparent slowdown in the overall rise in global average surface temperature between roughly 1998 and 2014. Most models did not predict such a slowdown--a fact that stimulated a lot of new research on variability of Earth's climate system. At a September 2015 workshop, leading scientists gathered to discuss current understanding of climate variability on decadal timescales (10 to 30 years) and whether and how prediction of it might be improved. Many researchers have focused their attention on the climate system itself, which is known to vary across seasons, decades, and other timescales. Several naturalmore » variables produce "ups and downs" in the climate system, which are superimposed on the long-term warming trend due to human influence. Understanding decadal climate variability is important not only for assessing global climate change but also for improving decision making related to infrastructure, water resources, agriculture, energy, and other realms. Like the well-studied El Nino and La Nina interannual variations, decadal climate variability is associated with specific regional patterns of temperature and precipitation, such as heat waves, cold spells, and droughts. Several participants shared research that assesses decadal predictive capability of current models.« less

Attribution of floods in the Okavango basin, Southern Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wolski, Piotr; Stone, Dáithí; Tadross, Mark; Wehner, Michael; Hewitson, Bruce

2014-04-01

In the charismatic wetlands of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, the annual floods of 2009-2011 reached magnitudes last seen 20-30 years ago, considerably affecting life of local populations and the economically important tourism industry. In this study, we analyse results from an attribution modelling system designed to examine how anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to weather and flood risk in our current climate. The system is based on comparison of real world climate and hydrological simulations with parallel counterfactual simulations of the climate and hydrological responses under conditions that might have been had human activities not emitted greenhouse gases. The analyses allow us to address the question of whether anthropogenic climate change contributed to increasing the risk of these high flood events in the Okavango system. Results show that the probability of occurrence of high floods during 2009-2011 in the current climate is likely lower than it would have been in a climate without anthropogenic greenhouse gases. This result is robust across the two climate models and various data processing procedures, although the exact figures for the associated decrease in risk differ. Results also differ between the three years examined, indicating that the “time-slice” method used here needs to be applied to multiple years in order to accurately estimate the contribution of emissions to current risk. Simple sensitivity analyses indicate that the reduction in flood risk is attributed to higher temperatures (and thus evaporation) in the current world, with little difference in the analysed domain's rainfall simulated in the two scenarios.

CEOS SEO and GISS Meeting

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Killough, Brian; Stover, Shelley

2008-01-01

The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) provides a brief to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) regarding the CEOS Systems Engineering Office (SEO) and current work on climate requirements and analysis. A "system framework" is provided for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). SEO climate-related tasks are outlined including the assessment of essential climate variable (ECV) parameters, use of the "systems framework" to determine relevant informational products and science models and the performance of assessments and gap analyses of measurements and missions for each ECV. Climate requirements, including instruments and missions, measurements, knowledge and models, and decision makers, are also outlined. These requirements would establish traceability from instruments to products and services allowing for benefit evaluation of instruments and measurements. Additionally, traceable climate requirements would provide a better understanding of global climate models.

Characterization of cocoa production, income diversification and shade tree management along a climate gradient in Ghana.

PubMed

Abdulai, Issaka; Jassogne, Laurence; Graefe, Sophie; Asare, Richard; Van Asten, Piet; Läderach, Peter; Vaast, Philippe

2018-01-01

Reduced climatic suitability due to climate change in cocoa growing regions of Ghana is expected in the coming decades. This threatens farmers' livelihood and the cocoa sector. Climate change adaptation requires an improved understanding of existing cocoa production systems and farmers' coping strategies. This study characterized current cocoa production, income diversification and shade tree management along a climate gradient within the cocoa belt of Ghana. The objectives were to 1) compare existing production and income diversification between dry, mid and wet climatic regions, and 2) identify shade trees in cocoa agroforestry systems and their distribution along the climatic gradient. Our results showed that current mean cocoa yield level of 288kg ha-1yr-1 in the dry region was significantly lower than in the mid and wet regions with mean yields of 712 and 849 kg ha-1 yr-1, respectively. In the dry region, farmers diversified their income sources with non-cocoa crops and off-farm activities while farmers at the mid and wet regions mainly depended on cocoa (over 80% of annual income). Two shade systems classified as medium and low shade cocoa agroforestry systems were identified across the studied regions. The medium shade system was more abundant in the dry region and associated to adaptation to marginal climatic conditions. The low shade system showed significantly higher yield in the wet region but no difference was observed between the mid and dry regions. This study highlights the need for optimum shade level recommendation to be climatic region specific.

Characterization of cocoa production, income diversification and shade tree management along a climate gradient in Ghana

PubMed Central

Jassogne, Laurence; Graefe, Sophie; Asare, Richard; Van Asten, Piet; Läderach, Peter; Vaast, Philippe

2018-01-01

Reduced climatic suitability due to climate change in cocoa growing regions of Ghana is expected in the coming decades. This threatens farmers’ livelihood and the cocoa sector. Climate change adaptation requires an improved understanding of existing cocoa production systems and farmers’ coping strategies. This study characterized current cocoa production, income diversification and shade tree management along a climate gradient within the cocoa belt of Ghana. The objectives were to 1) compare existing production and income diversification between dry, mid and wet climatic regions, and 2) identify shade trees in cocoa agroforestry systems and their distribution along the climatic gradient. Our results showed that current mean cocoa yield level of 288kg ha-1yr-1 in the dry region was significantly lower than in the mid and wet regions with mean yields of 712 and 849 kg ha-1 yr-1, respectively. In the dry region, farmers diversified their income sources with non-cocoa crops and off-farm activities while farmers at the mid and wet regions mainly depended on cocoa (over 80% of annual income). Two shade systems classified as medium and low shade cocoa agroforestry systems were identified across the studied regions. The medium shade system was more abundant in the dry region and associated to adaptation to marginal climatic conditions. The low shade system showed significantly higher yield in the wet region but no difference was observed between the mid and dry regions. This study highlights the need for optimum shade level recommendation to be climatic region specific. PMID:29659629

Climate Change and Cities in Africa: Current Dilemmas and Future Challenges

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-10-01

naturally emanates from Earth’s atmosphere .8 One piece of scientific evidence of climate change has been an increase in the average global temperature...is just one element of climate change . Atmospheric temperature interacts with other natural systems, such as the oceanic system, in complex ways with...SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: How will climate change affect people living in African cities? The answer to this complex question has two interrelated

High sensitivity of Indian summer monsoon to Middle East dust absorptive properties.

PubMed

Jin, Qinjian; Yang, Zong-Liang; Wei, Jiangfeng

2016-07-28

The absorptive properties of dust aerosols largely determine the magnitude of their radiative impacts on the climate system. Currently, climate models use globally constant values of dust imaginary refractive index (IRI), a parameter describing the dust absorption efficiency of solar radiation, although it is highly variable. Here we show with model experiments that the dust-induced Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall differences (with dust minus without dust) change from -9% to 23% of long-term climatology as the dust IRI is changed from zero to the highest values used in the current literature. A comparison of the model results with surface observations, satellite retrievals, and reanalysis data sets indicates that the dust IRI values used in most current climate models are too low, tending to significantly underestimate dust radiative impacts on the ISM system. This study highlights the necessity for developing a parameterization of dust IRI for climate studies.

Useful and Usable Climate Science: Frameworks for Bridging the Social and Physical domains.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buja, L.

2016-12-01

Society is transforming the Earth's system in unprecedented ways, often with significant variations across space and time. In turn, the impacts of climate change on the human system vary dramatically due to differences in cultural, socioeconomic, institutional, and physical processes at the local level. The Climate Science and Applications Program (CSAP) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado addresses societal vulnerability, impacts and adaptation to climate change through the development of frameworks and methods for analyzing current and future vulnerability, and integrated analyses of climate impacts and adaptation at local, regional and global scales. CSAP relies heavily on GIS-based scientific data and knowledge systems to bridge social and physical science approaches in its five focus areas: Governance of inter-linked natural and managed resource systems. The role of urban areas in driving emissions of climate change Weather, climate and global human health, GIS-based science data & knowledge systems. Regional Climate Science and Services for Adaptation Advanced methodologies and frameworks for assessing current and future risks to environmental hazards through the integration of physical and social science models, research results, and remote sensing data are presented in the context of recent national and international projects on climate change and food/water security, urban carbon emissions, metropolitan extreme heat and global health. In addition, innovative CSAP international capacity building programs teaching interdisciplinary approaches for using geospatial technologies to integrate multi-scale spatial information of weather, climate change into important sectors such as disaster reduction, agriculture, tourism and society for decision-making are discussed.

Teaching Scales in the Climate System: An example of interdisciplinary teaching and learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baehr, Johanna; Behrens, Jörn; Brüggemann, Michael; Frisius, Thomas; Glessmer, Mirjam S.; Hartmann, Jens; Hense, Inga; Kaleschke, Lars; Kutzbach, Lars; Rödder, Simone; Scheffran, Jürgen

2016-04-01

Climate change is commonly regarded as one of 21st century's grand challenges that needs to be addressed by conducting integrated research combining natural and social sciences. To meet this need, how to best train future climate researchers should be reconsidered. Here, we present our experience from a team-taught semester-long course with students of the international master program "Integrated Climate System Sciences" (ICSS) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Ten lecturers with different backgrounds in physical, mathematical, biogeochemical and social sciences accompanied by a researcher trained in didactics prepared and regularly participated in a course which consisted of weekly classes. The foundation of the course was the use of the concept of 'scales' - climate varying on different temporal and spatial scales - by developing a joint definition of 'scales in the climate system' that is applicable in the natural sciences and in the social sciences. By applying this interdisciplinary definition of 'scales' to phenomena from all components of the climate system and the socio-economic dimensions, we aimed for an integrated description of the climate system. Following the concept of research-driven teaching and learning and using a variety of teaching techniques, the students designed their own scale diagram to illustrate climate-related phenomena in different disciplines. The highlight of the course was the presentation of individually developed scale diagrams by every student with all lecturers present. Based on the already conducted course, we currently re-design the course concept to be teachable by a similarly large group of lecturers but with alternating presence in class. With further refinement and also a currently ongoing documentation of the teaching material, we will continue to use the concept of 'scales' as a vehicle for teaching an integrated view of the climate system.

Understanding climate: A strategy for climate modeling and predictability research, 1985-1995

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thiele, O. (Editor); Schiffer, R. A. (Editor)

1985-01-01

The emphasis of the NASA strategy for climate modeling and predictability research is on the utilization of space technology to understand the processes which control the Earth's climate system and it's sensitivity to natural and man-induced changes and to assess the possibilities for climate prediction on time scales of from about two weeks to several decades. Because the climate is a complex multi-phenomena system, which interacts on a wide range of space and time scales, the diversity of scientific problems addressed requires a hierarchy of models along with the application of modern empirical and statistical techniques which exploit the extensive current and potential future global data sets afforded by space observations. Observing system simulation experiments, exploiting these models and data, will also provide the foundation for the future climate space observing system, e.g., Earth observing system (EOS), 1985; Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) North, et al. NASA, 1984.

The current evolution of complex high mountain debris-covered glacier systems and its relation with ground ice nature and distribution: the case of Rognes and Pierre Ronde area (Mont-Blanc range, France).

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bosson, Jean-Baptiste; Lambiel, Christophe

2014-05-01

The current climate forcing, through negative glacier mass balance and rockfall intensification, is leading to the rapid burring of many small glacier systems. When the debris mantle exceeds some centimeters of thickness, the climate control on ice melt is mitigated and delayed. As well, debris-covered glaciers respond to climate forcing in a complex way. This situation is emphasised in high mountain environments, where topo-climatic conditions, such as cold temperatures, amount of solid precipitation, duration of snow cover, nebulosity or shadow effect of rockwalls, limit the influence of rising air temperatures in the ground. Beside, due to Holocene climate history, glacier-permafrost interactions are not rare within the periglacial belt. Glacier recurrence may have removed and assimilated former ice-cemented sediments, the negative mass balance may have led to the formation of ice-cored rock glaciers and neopermafrost may have formed recently under cold climate conditions. Hence, in addition to sedimentary ice, high mountain debris-covered glacier systems can contain interstitial magmatic ice. Especially because of their position at the top of alpine cascade systems and of the amount of water and (unconsolidated) sediment involved, it is important to understand and anticipate the evolution of these complex landforms. Due to the continuous and thick debris mantle and to the common existence of dead ice in deglaciated areas, the current extent of debris-covered glacier can be difficult to point out. Thus, the whole system, according to Little Ice Age (LIA) extent, has sometimes to be investigated to understand the current response of glacier systems to the climate warming. In this context, two neighbouring sites, Rognes and Pierre Ronde systems (45°51'38''N, 6°48'40''E; 2600-3100m a.s.l), have been studied since 2011. These sites are almost completely debris-covered and only few ice outcrops in the upper slopes still witness the existence of former glaciers. Electrical resistivity tomographies, kinematic data and ground surface temperature show that heterogeneous responses to climate forcing are occurring despites their small areas (> 0.3 km2). This complex situation is related to Holocene climate history and especially to glacier systems evolution since LIA. The current dynamics depend of ground ice nature and distribution. Five main behaviours can be highlighted: - Debris covered glacier areas are the most active. Their responses to climate forcing are relatively fast, especially through massive ice melt-out each summer. - Ice-cored rock glacier areas are quite active. The existence of massive glacier ice under few meters of debris explain the important surface lowering during the snow free period . - Ice-cemented rock glacier areas are characterised by winter and summer subhorizontal downslope creeping. - Moraine areas containing dead ice have heterogeneous activities (directions and values of detected movements) related to the ice vanishing. - Deglaciated moraine areas are almost inactive, except modest superficial paraglacial rebalancing.

Do we know how to reconcile preservation of landscapes with adaptation of agriculture to climate change? A case-study in a hilly area in Southern Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Menenti, Massimo; Alfieri, Silvia; Basile, Angelo; Bonfante, Antonello; Monaco, Eugenia; Riccardi, Maria; De Lorenzi, Francesca

2013-04-01

Limited impacts of climate change on agricultural yields are unlikely to induce any significant changes in current landscapes. Larger impacts, unacceptable on economic or social ground, are likely to trigger interventions towards adaptation of agricultural production systems by reducing or removing vulnerabilities to climate variability and change. Such interventions may require a transition to a different production system, i.e. complete substitution of current crops, or displacement of current crops at their current location towards other locations, e.g. at higher elevations within the landscape. We have assessed the impacts of climate change and evaluated options for adaptation of a valley in Southern Italy, dominated by vine and olive orchards with a significant presence of wheat. We have first estimated the climatic requirements of several varieties for each dominant species. Next, to identify options for adaptation we have evaluated the compatibility of such requirements with indicators of a reference (current) climate and of future climate. This climate - compatibility assessment was done for each soil unit within the valley, leading to maps of locations where each crop is expected to be compatible with climate. This leads to identify both potential crop substitutions within the entire valley and crop displacements from one location to another within the valley. Two climate scenarios were considered: reference (1961-90) and future (2021-2050) climate, the former from climatic statistics, and the latter from statistical downscaling of general circulation models (AOGCM). Climatic data consists of daily time series of maximum and minimum temperature, and daily rainfall on a grid with a spatial resolution of 35 km. We evaluated the adaptive capacity of the "Valle Telesina" (Campania Region, Southern Italy). A mechanistic model of water flow in the soil-plant-atmosphere system (SWAP) was used to describe the hydrological conditions in response to climate for each soil unit. Crop-specific input data and model parameters were estimated on the basis of local experiments and of scientific literature and assumed to be generically representative of the species. Time series of MODIS TIR data were used to downscale gridded climate data on air temperature for both the reference and the future climate. The results indicate that no complete crop substitution will be required within this time frame, i.e. the Valle Telesina will preserve its typical landscape features of a vine - olive orchards dominated production system, typical of many regions in Mediterranean Europe. On the other hand very significant crop displacements will be necessary to grow each variety under optimal hydrothermal conditions, from the point of view of both quantity and quality of yield. The work was carried out within the Italian national project AGROSCENARI funded by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies (MIPAAF, D.M. 8608/7303/2008)

Geoengineering: Direct Mitigation of Climate Warming

EPA Science Inventory

For Frank Princiotta’s book, Global Climate Change—The Technology Challenge With the concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) rising to levels unprecedented in the current glacial epoch, the earth’s climate system appears to be rapidly shifting into a warmer regime....

Assessing climate adaptation options and uncertainties for cereal systems in West Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guan, K.; Sultan, B.; Biasutti, M.; Lobell, D. B.

2015-12-01

The already fragile agriculture production system in West Africa faces further challenges in meeting food security in the coming decades, primarily due to a fast increasing population and risks of climate change. Successful adaptation of agriculture should not only benefit in the current climate but should also reduce negative (or enhance positive) impacts for climate change. Assessment of various possible adaptation options and their uncertainties provides key information for prioritizing adaptation investments. Here, based on the several robust aspects of climate projections in this region (i.e. temperature increases and rainfall pattern shifts), we use two well-validated crop models (i.e. APSIM and SARRA-H) and an ensemble of downscaled climate forcing to assess five possible and realistic adaptation options (late sowing, intensification, thermal time increase, water harvesting and increased resilience to heat stress) in West Africa for the staple crop production of sorghum. We adopt a new assessment framework to account for both the impacts of adaptation options in current climate and their ability to reduce impacts of future climate change, and also consider changes in both mean yield and its variability. Our results reveal that most proposed "adaptation options" are not more beneficial in the future than in the current climate, i.e. not really reduce the climate change impacts. Increased temperature resilience during grain number formation period is the main adaptation that emerges. We also find that changing from the traditional to modern cultivar, and later sowing in West Sahel appear to be robust adaptations.

Enhancing seasonal climate prediction capacity for the Pacific countries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuleshov, Y.; Jones, D.; Hendon, H.; Charles, A.; Cottrill, A.; Lim, E.-P.; Langford, S.; de Wit, R.; Shelton, K.

2012-04-01

Seasonal and inter-annual climate variability is a major factor in determining the vulnerability of many Pacific Island Countries to climate change and there is need to improve weekly to seasonal range climate prediction capabilities beyond what is currently available from statistical models. In the seasonal climate prediction project under the Australian Government's Pacific Adaptation Strategy Assistance Program (PASAP), we describe a comprehensive project to strengthen the climate prediction capacities in National Meteorological Services in 14 Pacific Island Countries and East Timor. The intent is particularly to reduce the vulnerability of current services to a changing climate, and improve the overall level of information available assist with managing climate variability. Statistical models cannot account for aspects of climate variability and change that are not represented in the historical record. In contrast, dynamical physics-based models implicitly include the effects of a changing climate whatever its character or cause and can predict outcomes not seen previously. The transition from a statistical to a dynamical prediction system provides more valuable and applicable climate information to a wide range of climate sensitive sectors throughout the countries of the Pacific region. In this project, we have developed seasonal climate outlooks which are based upon the current dynamical model POAMA (Predictive Ocean-Atmosphere Model for Australia) seasonal forecast system. At present, meteorological services of the Pacific Island Countries largely employ statistical models for seasonal outlooks. Outcomes of the PASAP project enhanced capabilities of the Pacific Island Countries in seasonal prediction providing National Meteorological Services with an additional tool to analyse meteorological variables such as sea surface temperatures, air temperature, pressure and rainfall using POAMA outputs and prepare more accurate seasonal climate outlooks.

Linkages between the Urban Environment and Earth's Climate System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shepherd, J. Marshall; Jin, Menglin

2003-01-01

Urbanization is one of the extreme cases of land use change. Although currently only 1.2% of the land is considered urban, the spatial coverage and density of cities are expected to rapidly increase in the near future. It is estimated that by the year 2025 60% of the world s population will live in cities (UNFP, 1999). Though urban areas are local in scale, human activity in urban environments has impacts at local, to global scale by changing atmospheric composition; impacting components of the water cycle; and modifying the carbon cycle 2nd ecosystems. For example, urban dwellers are undoubtedly familiar with "high" ozone pollution days, flash flooding in city streets, or heat stress on summer days. However, our understanding of urbanization on the total Earth-climate system is incomplete. Better understanding of how the Earth s weather, oceans, and land work together and the influence of the urban environment on this climate system is critical. This paper highlights some of the major and current issues involving interactions between urban environments and the Earth's climate system. It also captures some of the most current thinking and findings of the authors and key experts in the field.

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.

Obstacles facing Africa's young climate scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dike, Victor Nnamdi; Addi, Martin; Andang'o, Hezron Awiti; Attig, Bahar Faten; Barimalala, Rondrotiana; Diasso, Ulrich Jacques; Du Plessis, Marcel; Lamine, Salim; Mongwe, Precious N.; Zaroug, Modathir; Ochanda, Valentine Khasenye

2018-06-01

Current and future climate change poses a substantial threat to the African continent. Young scientists are needed to advance Earth systems science on the continent, but they face significant challenges.

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.

The case for systems thinking about climate change and mental health

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berry, Helen L.; Waite, Thomas D.; Dear, Keith B. G.; Capon, Anthony G.; Murray, Virginia

2018-04-01

It is increasingly necessary to quantify the impacts of climate change on populations, and to quantify the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Despite growing interest in the health effects of climate change, the relationship between mental health and climate change has received little attention in research or policy. Here, we outline current thinking about climate change and mental health, and discuss crucial limitations in modern epidemiology for examining this issue. A systems approach, complemented by a new style of research thinking and leadership, can help align the needs of this emerging field with existing and research policy agendas.

Flow networks for Ocean currents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tupikina, Liubov; Molkenthin, Nora; Marwan, Norbert; Kurths, Jürgen

2014-05-01

Complex networks have been successfully applied to various systems such as society, technology, and recently climate. Links in a climate network are defined between two geographical locations if the correlation between the time series of some climate variable is higher than a threshold. Therefore, network links are considered to imply heat exchange. However, the relationship between the oceanic and atmospheric flows and the climate network's structure is still unclear. Recently, a theoretical approach verifying the correlation between ocean currents and surface air temperature networks has been introduced, where the Pearson correlation networks were constructed from advection-diffusion dynamics on an underlying flow. Since the continuous approach has its limitations, i.e., by its high computational complexity, we here introduce a new, discrete construction of flow-networks, which is then applied to static and dynamic velocity fields. Analyzing the flow-networks of prototypical flows we find that our approach can highlight the zones of high velocity by degree and transition zones by betweenness, while the combination of these network measures can uncover how the flow propagates within time. We also apply the method to time series data of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean Current and the Gulf Stream ocean current for the changing velocity fields, which could not been done before, and analyse the properties of the dynamical system. Flow-networks can be powerful tools to theoretically understand the step from system's dynamics to network's topology that can be analyzed using network measures and is used for shading light on different climatic phenomena.

Is U.S. climatic diversity well represented within the existing federal protection network?

PubMed

Batllori, Enric; Miller, Carol; Parisien, Marc-Andre; Parks, Sean A; Moritz, Max A

Establishing protection networks to ensure that biodiversity and associated ecosystem services persist under changing environments is a major challenge for conservation planning. The potential consequences of altered climates for the structure and function of ecosystems necessitates new and complementary approaches be incorporated into traditional conservation plans. The conterminous United States of America (CONUS) has an extensive system of protected areas managed by federal agencies, but a comprehensive assessment of how this network represents CONUS climate is lacking. We present a quantitative classification of the climate space that is independent from the geographic locations to evaluate the climatic representation of the existing protected area network. We use this classification to evaluate the coverage of each agency's jurisdiction and to identify current conservation deficits. Our findings reveal that the existing network poorly represents CONUS climatic diversity. Although rare climates are generally well represented by the network, the most common climates are particularly underrepresented. Overall, 83% of the area of the CONUS corresponds to climates underrepresented by the network. The addition of some currently unprotected federal lands to the network would enhance the coverage of CONUS climates. However, to fully palliate current conservation deficits, large-scale private-land conservation initiatives will be critical.

Water Resources Management and Hydrologic Design Under Uncertain Climate Change Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teegavarapu, R. S.

2008-05-01

The impact of climate change on hydrologic design and management of water resource systems could be one of the important challenges faced by future practicing hydrologists and water resources managers. Many water resources managers currently rely on the historical hydrological data and adaptive real-time operations without consideration of the impact of climate change on major inputs influencing the behavior of hydrologic systems and the operating rules. Issues such as risk, reliability and robustness of water resources systems under different climate change scenarios were addressed in the past. However, water resources management with the decision maker's preferences attached to climate change has never been dealt with. This presentation discusses issues related to impacts of climate change on water resources management and application of a soft-computing approach, fuzzy set theory, for climate-sensitive management of water resources systems. A real-life case study example is presented to illustrate the applicability of soft-computing approach for handling the decision maker's preferences in accepting or rejecting the magnitude and direction of climate change.

Greenhouse effect of chlorofluorocarbons and other trace gases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hansen, James; Lacis, Andrew; Prather, Michael

1989-01-01

A comparison is made of the radiative (greenhouse) forcing of the climate system due to changes of atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons and other trace gases. It is found that CFCs, defined to include chlorofluorocarbons, chlorocarbons, and fluorocarbons, now provide about one-quater of current annual increases in anthropogenic greenhouse climate forcing. If the growth rates of CFC production in the early 1970s had continued to the present, current annual growth of climate forcing due to CFCs would exceed that due to CO2.

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.

LAMPPOST: A Mnemonic Device for Teaching Climate Variables

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fahrer, Chuck; Harris, Dan

2004-01-01

This article introduces the word "LAMPPOST" as a mnemonic device to aid in the instruction of climate variables. It provides instructors with a framework for discussing climate patterns that is based on eight variables: latitude, altitude, maritime influence and continentality, pressure systems, prevailing winds, ocean currents, storms, and…

AMS Climate Studies: Improving climate literacy through undergraduate education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brey, J. A.; Geer, I. W.; Moran, J. M.; Weinbeck, R. S.; Mills, E. W.; Blair, B. A.; Hopkins, E. J.; Kiley, T. P., Jr.; Ruwe, E. E.

2009-12-01

In working to promote scientific literacy among the public, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) has produced a suite of introductory college-level courses that engage students by investigating relevant topics in Earth science, and utilizing the most current, real-world environmental data. The newest of these courses, AMS Climate Studies, is a turnkey package which will be licensed by individual colleges for local offering in online, blended, or traditional lecture/lab settings. The course will place students in a dynamic learning environment where they will investigate Earth’s climate system using real-world data. This will allow the course to keep a strong focus on the science, while still addressing many of the societal impacts that draw the attention of today’s students. In this way, the course will serve as a great primer in preparing students to become responsible, scientifically-literate participants in discussions of climate science and climate change. Developed with major support from NASA, AMS Climate Studies will encourage students to investigate the atmosphere and world ocean as components of a larger Earth system. More than 500 colleges and universities throughout the United States have already offered AMS Weather Studies and AMS Ocean Studies, after which AMS Climate Studies will be modeled. The learning system will consist of a fully-integrated set of printed and online learning materials focused around a brand new, hardcover 15-chapter textbook, Climate Studies: Introduction to Climate Science and an Investigations Manual with 30 lab-style activities that will emphasize the use of authentic science data. The package will also include a course website providing weekly Current Climate Studies activities along with access to environmental data streams, including an impressive suite of NASA and NOAA images and products. The development and testing of AMS Climate Studies is currently nearing completion. A number of college and university professors have been selected to pilot the program in Spring 2010, with major emphasis placed on representing a diverse array of institution types, degree programs, course delivery methods, academic backgrounds, etc. The materials will be vigorously tested and updated accordingly. AMS Climate Studies will be available for implementation at your institution beginning Fall 2010.

Development of Intensity-Duration-Frequency curves at ungauged sites: risk management under changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liew, San Chuin; Raghavan, Srivatsan V.; Liong, Shie-Yui

2014-12-01

The impact of a changing climate is already being felt on several hydrological systems both on a regional and sub-regional scale of the globe. Southeast Asia is one of the regions strongly affected by climate change. With climate change, one of the anticipated impacts is an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall which further increase the region's flood catastrophes, human casualties and economic loss. Optimal mitigation measures can be undertaken only when stormwater systems are designed using rainfall Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves derived from a long and good quality rainfall data. Developing IDF curves for the future climate can be even more challenging especially for ungauged sites. The current practice to derive current climate's IDF curves for ungauged sites is, for example, to `borrow' or `interpolate' data from regions of climatologically similar characteristics. Recent measures to derive IDF curves for present climate was performed by extracting rainfall data from a high spatial resolution Regional Climate Model driven by ERA-40 reanalysis dataset. This approach has been demonstrated on an ungauged site (Java, Indonesia) and the results were quite promising. In this paper, the authors extend the application of the approach to other ungauged sites particularly in Peninsular Malaysia. The results of the study undoubtedly have significance contribution in terms of local and regional hydrology (Malaysia and Southeast Asian countries). The anticipated impacts of climate change especially increase in rainfall intensity and its frequency appreciates the derivation of future IDF curves in this study. It also provides policy makers better information on the adequacy of storm drainage design, for the current climate at the ungauged sites, and the adequacy of the existing storm drainage to cope with the impacts of climate change.

Analytically tractable climate-carbon cycle feedbacks under 21st century anthropogenic forcing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lade, Steven J.; Donges, Jonathan F.; Fetzer, Ingo; Anderies, John M.; Beer, Christian; Cornell, Sarah E.; Gasser, Thomas; Norberg, Jon; Richardson, Katherine; Rockström, Johan; Steffen, Will

2018-05-01

Changes to climate-carbon cycle feedbacks may significantly affect the Earth system's response to greenhouse gas emissions. These feedbacks are usually analysed from numerical output of complex and arguably opaque Earth system models. Here, we construct a stylised global climate-carbon cycle model, test its output against comprehensive Earth system models, and investigate the strengths of its climate-carbon cycle feedbacks analytically. The analytical expressions we obtain aid understanding of carbon cycle feedbacks and the operation of the carbon cycle. Specific results include that different feedback formalisms measure fundamentally the same climate-carbon cycle processes; temperature dependence of the solubility pump, biological pump, and CO2 solubility all contribute approximately equally to the ocean climate-carbon feedback; and concentration-carbon feedbacks may be more sensitive to future climate change than climate-carbon feedbacks. Simple models such as that developed here also provide workbenches for simple but mechanistically based explorations of Earth system processes, such as interactions and feedbacks between the planetary boundaries, that are currently too uncertain to be included in comprehensive Earth system models.

A New Trans-Disciplinary Approach to Regional Integrated Assessment of Climate Impact and Adaptation in Agricultural Systems (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Antle, J. M.; Valdivia, R. O.; Jones, J.; Rosenzweig, C.; Ruane, A. C.

2013-12-01

This presentation provides an overview of the new methods developed by researchers in the Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) for regional climate impact assessment and analysis of adaptation in agricultural systems. This approach represents a departure from approaches in the literature in several dimensions. First, the approach is based on the analysis of agricultural systems (not individual crops) and is inherently trans-disciplinary: it is based on a deep collaboration among a team of climate scientists, agricultural scientists and economists to design and implement regional integrated assessments of agricultural systems. Second, in contrast to previous approaches that have imposed future climate on models based on current socio-economic conditions, this approach combines bio-physical and economic models with a new type of pathway analysis (Representative Agricultural Pathways) to parameterize models consistent with a plausible future world in which climate change would be occurring. Third, adaptation packages for the agricultural systems in a region are designed by the research team with a level of detail that is useful to decision makers, such as research administrators and donors, who are making agricultural R&D investment decisions. The approach is illustrated with examples from AgMIP's projects currently being carried out in Africa and South Asia.

Social and economic impacts of climate.

PubMed

Carleton, Tamma A; Hsiang, Solomon M

2016-09-09

For centuries, thinkers have considered whether and how climatic conditions-such as temperature, rainfall, and violent storms-influence the nature of societies and the performance of economies. A multidisciplinary renaissance of quantitative empirical research is illuminating important linkages in the coupled climate-human system. We highlight key methodological innovations and results describing effects of climate on health, economics, conflict, migration, and demographics. Because of persistent "adaptation gaps," current climate conditions continue to play a substantial role in shaping modern society, and future climate changes will likely have additional impact. For example, we compute that temperature depresses current U.S. maize yields by ~48%, warming since 1980 elevated conflict risk in Africa by ~11%, and future warming may slow global economic growth rates by ~0.28 percentage points per year. In general, we estimate that the economic and social burden of current climates tends to be comparable in magnitude to the additional projected impact caused by future anthropogenic climate changes. Overall, findings from this literature point to climate as an important influence on the historical evolution of the global economy, they should inform how we respond to modern climatic conditions, and they can guide how we predict the consequences of future climate changes. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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.

Assessing Current State Science Teaching and Learning Standards for Ability to Achieve Climate Science Literacy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Busch, K. C.

2012-12-01

Even though there exists a high degree of consensus among scientists about climate change, doubt has actually increased over the last five years within the general U.S. public. In 2006, 79% of those polled agreed that there is evidence for global warming, while only 59% agreed in 2010 (Pew Research Center, 2010). The source for this doubt can be partially attributed to lack of knowledge. Formal education is one mechanism that potentially can address inadequate public understanding as school is the primary place where students - and future citizens - learn about the climate. In a joint effort, several governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, scientists and educators have created a framework called The Essential Principles of Climate Science Literacy, detailing seven concepts that are deemed vital for individuals and communities to understand Earth's climate system (USGCRP, 2009). Can students reach climate literacy - as defined by these 7 concepts - if they are taught using a curriculum based on the current state standards? To answer this question, the K-12 state science teaching and learning standards for Texas and California - two states that heavily influence nation-wide textbook creation - were compared against the Essential Principles. The data analysis consisted of two stages, looking for: 1) direct reference to "climate" and "climate change" and 2) indirect reference to the 7 Essential Principles through axial coding. The word "climate" appears in the California K-12 science standards 4 times and in the Texas standards 7 times. The word "climate change" appears in the California and Texas standards only 3 times each. Indirect references to the 7 Essential Principles of climate science literacy were more numerous. Broadly, California covered 6 of the principles while Texas covered all 7. In looking at the 7 principles, the second one "Climate is regulated by complex interactions among component of the Earth system" was the most substantively addressed. Least covered were number 6 "Human activities are impacting the climate system" and number 7 "Climate change will have consequences for the Earth system and human lives." Most references, either direct or indirect, occurred in the high school standards for earth science, a class not required for graduation in either state. This research points to the gaps between what the 7 Essential Principles of Climate Literacy defines as essential knowledge and what students may learn in their K-12 science classes. Thus, the formal system does not seem to offer an experience which can potentially develop a more knowledgeable citizenry who will be able to make wise personal and policy decisions about climate change, falling short of the ultimate goal of achieving widespread climate literacy. Especially troubling was the sparse attention to the principles addressing the human connection to the climate - principles number 6 and 7. If climate literate citizens are to make "wise personal and policy decisions" (USGCRP, 2009), these two principles especially are vital. This research, therefore, has been valuable for identifying current shortcomings in state standards.

Analysis of selected photovoltaic systems and storage options for residential applications in hot, humid climates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lau, A. S.; Hill, J. M.; Ball, D. E.

1982-08-01

The relationship is studied between photovoltaic (PV) generated power and its on-site use as a function of total array size for an energy-efficient house in the hot, humid climates of Miami and Houston. Options in addition to be the full-roof system using a direct current (dc) to alternating current (ac) inverter are studied in an effort to identify applications which are less expensive and which rely less on utility sellback. The results show that common residential loads in this climate lead to high on-site utilization. For the various PV applications studied, array sizes are identified which can be fully potential is identified both in the house structure and the domestic water heater. Using projected 1986 costs, the economics of selected systems were studied for Miami. Only one of the system sizes was found to be marginally competitive with utility supplied power.

The Need to Introduce System Thinking in Teaching Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roychoudhury, Anita; Shepardson, Daniel P.; Hirsch, Andrew; Niyogi, Devdutta; Mehta, Jignesh; Top, Sara

2017-01-01

Research related to teaching climate change, system thinking, current reform in science education, and the research on reform-oriented assessment indicate that we need to explore student understanding in greater detail instead of only testing for an incremental gain in disciplinary knowledge. Using open-ended items we assessed details in student…

Climate change predicted to negatively influence surface soil health of dryland cropping systems in the Inland Pacific Northwest

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Soil organic matter (SOM) is a key indicator of agricultural productivity and overall soil health. Currently, dryland cropping systems of the inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW) span a large gradient in mean annual temperature (MAT) and precipitation (MAP). These climatic drivers are major determinants ...

Terrestrial essential climate variables (ECVs) at a glance

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stitt, Susan; Dwyer, John; Dye, Dennis; Josberger, Edward

2011-01-01

The Global Terrestrial Observing System, Global Climate Observing System, World Meteorological Organization, and Committee on Earth Observation Satellites all support consistent global land observations and measurements. To accomplish this goal, the Global Terrestrial Observing System defined 'essential climate variables' as measurements of atmosphere, oceans, and land that are technically and economically feasible for systematic observation and that are needed to meet the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and requirements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The following are the climate variables defined by the Global Terrestrial Observing System that relate to terrestrial measurements. Several of them are currently measured most appropriately by in-place observations, whereas others are suitable for measurement by remote sensing technologies. The U.S. Geological Survey is the steward of the Landsat archive, satellite imagery collected from 1972 to the present, that provides a potential basis for deriving long-term, global-scale, accurate, timely and consistent measurements of many of these essential climate variables.

75 FR 37405 - Notice of Public Review and Comment Period on NOAA's Next Generation Strategic Plan (NGSP)

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-06-29

... Federal role in responding to the Nation's most urgent challenges, ranging from climate change, severe... changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, share knowledge and information with others, and conserve... changing climate system and its impacts. Objective: Integrated assessments of current and future states of...

Using Web GIS "Climate" for Adaptation to Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gordova, Yulia; Martynova, Yulia; Shulgina, Tamara

2015-04-01

A work is devoted to the application of an information-computational Web GIS "Climate" developed by joint team of the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems SB RAS and Tomsk State University to raise awareness about current and future climate change as a basis for further adaptation. Web-GIS "Climate» (http://climate.scert.ru/) based on modern concepts of Web 2.0 provides opportunities to study regional climate change and its consequences by providing access to climate and weather models, a large set of geophysical data and means of processing and visualization. Also, the system is used for the joint development of software applications by distributed research teams, research based on these applications and undergraduate and graduate students training. In addition, the system capabilities allow creating information resources to raise public awareness about climate change, its causes and consequences, which is a necessary step for the subsequent adaptation to these changes. Basic information course on climate change is placed in the public domain and is aimed at local population. Basic concepts and problems of modern climate change and its possible consequences are set out and illustrated in accessible language. Particular attention is paid to regional climate changes. In addition to the information part, the course also includes a selection of links to popular science network resources on current issues in Earth Sciences and a number of practical tasks to consolidate the material. These tasks are performed for a particular territory. Within the tasks users need to analyze the prepared within the "Climate" map layers and answer questions of direct interest to the public: "How did the minimum value of winter temperatures change in your area?", "What are the dynamics of maximum summer temperatures?", etc. Carrying out the analysis of the dynamics of climate change contributes to a better understanding of climate processes and further adaptation. Passing this course raises awareness of the general public, as well as prepares the user for subsequent registration in the system and work with its tools in conducting independent research. This work is partially supported by SB RAS project VIII.80.2.1, RFBR grants 13-05-12034 and 14-05-00502.

Climate Model Diagnostic Analyzer Web Service System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, S.; Pan, L.; Zhai, C.; Tang, B.; Kubar, T. L.; Li, J.; Zhang, J.; Wang, W.

2015-12-01

Both the National Research Council Decadal Survey and the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report stressed the need for the comprehensive and innovative evaluation of climate models with the synergistic use of global satellite observations in order to improve our weather and climate simulation and prediction capabilities. The abundance of satellite observations for fundamental climate parameters and the availability of coordinated model outputs from CMIP5 for the same parameters offer a great opportunity to understand and diagnose model biases in climate models. In addition, the Obs4MIPs efforts have created several key global observational datasets that are readily usable for model evaluations. However, a model diagnostic evaluation process requires physics-based multi-variable comparisons that typically involve large-volume and heterogeneous datasets, making them both computationally- and data-intensive. In response, we have developed a novel methodology to diagnose model biases in contemporary climate models and implementing the methodology as a web-service based, cloud-enabled, provenance-supported climate-model evaluation system. The evaluation system is named Climate Model Diagnostic Analyzer (CMDA), which is the product of the research and technology development investments of several current and past NASA ROSES programs. The current technologies and infrastructure of CMDA are designed and selected to address several technical challenges that the Earth science modeling and model analysis community faces in evaluating and diagnosing climate models. In particular, we have three key technology components: (1) diagnostic analysis methodology; (2) web-service based, cloud-enabled technology; (3) provenance-supported technology. The diagnostic analysis methodology includes random forest feature importance ranking, conditional probability distribution function, conditional sampling, and time-lagged correlation map. We have implemented the new methodology as web services and incorporated the system into the Cloud. We have also developed a provenance management system for CMDA where CMDA service semantics modeling, service search and recommendation, and service execution history management are designed and implemented.

The role of the oceans in changes of the Earth's climate system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

von Schuckmann, K.

2016-12-01

Any changes to the Earth's climate system affect an imbalance of the Earth's energy budget due to natural or human made climate forcing. The current positive Earth's energy imbalance is mostly caused by human activity, and is driving global warming. Variations in the world's ocean heat storage and its associated volume changes are a key factor to gauge global warming, to assess changes in the Earth's energy budget and to estimate contributions to the global sea level budget. Present-day sea-level rise is one of the major symptoms of the current positive Earth Energy Imbalance. Sea level also responds to natural climate variability that is superimposing and altering the global warming signal. The most prominent signature in the global mean sea level interannual variability is caused by El Niño-Southern Oscillation. It has been also shown that sea level variability in other regions of the Indo-Pacific area significantly alters estimates of the rate of sea level rise, i.e. in the Indonesian archipelago. In summary, improving the accuracy of our estimates of global Earth's climate state and variability is critical for advancing the understanding and prediction of the evolution of our climate, and an overview on recent findings on the role of the global ocean in changes of the Earth's climate system with particular focus on sea level variability in the Indo-Pacific region will be given in this contribution.

Climate-smart conservation: putting adaption principles into practice

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stein, Bruce A.; Glick, Patty; Edelson, Naomi; Staudt, Amanda

2014-01-01

Climate change already is having significant impacts on the nation’s species and ecosystems, and these effects are projected to increase considerably over time. As a result, climate change is now a primary lens through which conservation and natural resource management must be viewed. How should we prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change on wildlife and their habitats? What should we be doing differently in light of these climatic shifts, and what actions continue to make sense? Climate-Smart Conservation: Putting Adaptation Principles into Practice offers guidance for designing and carrying out conservation in the face of a rapidly changing climate. Addressing the growing threats brought about or accentuated by rapid climate change requires a fundamental shift in the practice of natural resource management and conservation. Traditionally, conservationists have focused their efforts on protecting and managing systems to maintain their current state, or to restore degraded systems back to a historical state regarded as more desirable. Conservation planners and practitioners will need to adopt forward-looking goals and implement strategies specifically designed to prepare for and adjust to current and future climatic changes, and the associated impacts on natural systems and human communities—an emerging discipline known as climate change adaptation. The field of climate change adaptation is still in its infancy. Although there is increasing attention focused on the subject, much of the guidance developed to date has been general in nature, concentrating on high-level principles rather than specific actions. It is against this backdrop that this guide was prepared as a means for helping put adaptation principles into practice, and for moving adaptation from planning to action.

The response of land-falling tropical cyclone characteristics to projected climate change in northeast Australia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parker, Chelsea L.; Bruyère, Cindy L.; Mooney, Priscilla A.; Lynch, Amanda H.

2018-01-01

Land-falling tropical cyclones along the Queensland coastline can result in serious and widespread damage. However, the effects of climate change on cyclone characteristics such as intensity, trajectory, rainfall, and especially translation speed and size are not well-understood. This study explores the relative change in the characteristics of three case studies by comparing the simulated tropical cyclones under current climate conditions with simulations of the same systems under future climate conditions. Simulations are performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting Model and environmental conditions for the future climate are obtained from the Community Earth System Model using a pseudo global warming technique. Results demonstrate a consistent response of increasing intensity through reduced central pressure (by up to 11 hPa), increased wind speeds (by 5-10% on average), and increased rainfall (by up to 27% for average hourly rainfall rates). The responses of other characteristics were variable and governed by either the location and trajectory of the current climate cyclone or the change in the steering flow. The cyclone that traveled furthest poleward encountered a larger climate perturbation, resulting in a larger proportional increase in size, rainfall rate, and wind speeds. The projected monthly average change in the 500 mb winds with climate change governed the alteration in the both the trajectory and translation speed for each case. The simulated changes have serious implications for damage to coastal settlements, infrastructure, and ecosystems through increased wind speeds, storm surge, rainfall, and potentially increased size of some systems.

Climate Informatics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Monteleoni, Claire; Schmidt, Gavin A.; Alexander, Francis J.; Niculescu-Mizil, Alexandru; Steinhaeuser, Karsten; Tippett, Michael; Banerjee, Arindam; Blumenthal, M. Benno; Ganguly, Auroop R.; Smerdon, Jason E.;

The sociological imagination in a time of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Norgaard, Kari Marie

2018-04-01

Despite rising calls for social science knowledge in the face of climate change, too few sociologists have been engaged in the conversations about how we have arrived at such perilous climatic circumstances, or how society can change course. With its attention to the interactive dimensions of social order between individuals, social norms, cultural systems and political economy, the discipline of sociology is uniquely positioned to be an important leader in this conversation. In this paper I suggest that in order to understand and respond to climate change we need two kinds of imagination: 1) to see the relationships between human actions and their impacts on earth's biophysical system (ecological imagination) and 2) to see the relationships within society that make up this environmentally damaging social structure (sociological imagination). The scientific community has made good progress in developing our ecological imagination but still need to develop a sociological imagination. The application of a sociological imagination allows for a powerfully reframing of four key problems in the current interdisciplinary conversation on climate change: why climate change is happening, how we are being impacted, why we have failed to successfully respond so far, and how we might be able to effectively do so. I visit each of these four questions describing the current understanding and show the importance of the sociological imagination and other insights from the field of sociology. I close with reflections on current limitations in sociology's potential to engage climate change and the Anthropocene.

Modelling Bambara Groundnut Yield in Southern Africa: Towards a Climate-Resilient Future

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Karunaratne, A. S.; Walker, S.; Ruane, A. C.

2015-01-01

Current agriculture depends on a few major species grown as monocultures that are supported by global research underpinning current productivity. However, many hundreds of alternative crops have the potential to meet real world challenges by sustaining humanity, diversifying agricultural systems for food and nutritional security, and especially responding to climate change through their resilience to certain climate conditions. Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc.), an underutilised African legume, is an exemplar crop for climate resilience. Predicted yield performances of Bambara groundnut by AquaCrop (a crop-water productivity model) were evaluated for baseline (1980-2009) and mid-century climates (2040-2069) under 20 downscaled Global Climate Models (CMIP5-RCP8.5), as well as for climate sensitivities (AgMIPC3MP) across 3 locations in Southern Africa (Botswana, South Africa, Namibia). Different land - races of Bambara groundnut originating from various semi-arid African locations showed diverse yield performances with diverse sensitivities to climate. S19 originating from hot-dry conditions in Namibia has greater future yield potential compared to the Swaziland landrace Uniswa Red-UN across study sites. South Africa has the lowest yield under the current climate, indicating positive future yield trends. Namibia reported the highest baseline yield at optimum current temperatures, indicating less yield potential in future climates. Bambara groundnut shows positive yield potential at temperatures of up to 31degC, with further warming pushing yields down. Thus, many regions in Southern Africa can utilize Bambara groundnut successfully in the coming decades. This modelling exercise supports decisions on genotypic suitability for present and future climates at specific locations.

Climate change predicted to negatively influence surface soil organic matter of dryland cropping systems in the Inland Pacific Northwest, USA

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Soil organic matter (SOM) is a key indicator of agricultural productivity and overall soil health. Currently, dryland cropping systems of the inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW) span a large gradient in mean annual temperature (MAT) and precipitation (MAP).These climatic drivers are major determinants o...

Climate Change and Agriculture in the U.S.: Effects and Adaptation (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walsh, M. K.; Rippey, B.; Walthall, C. L.; Hatfield, J.; Backlund, P. W.; Lengnick, L.; Marshall, E.

2013-12-01

Agriculture in the United States has followed a path of continual adaptation to a wide range of factors throughout its history. However, observational evidence, supported by an understanding of the physical climate system, shows that human-induced climate change is underway in the U.S. and even now causing changes for which there is no historical reference for producers. Temperatures have increased and precipitation patterns have changed; the incidence, frequency, and extent of pest infestations have been altered, as well as the natural resource base (water, air, and soils) upon which production depends. Each factor challenges agricultural management as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases rise. These trends are likely to continue over the next century. Importantly, a gap exists between U.S. agricultural producers and managers' needs related to climate-driven problems and the information that research currently offers them. In the past, agricultural research into climate change effects has largely focused on mean values of precipitation and temperature. Today's management requirements, however, often demand immediate response on shorter time scales to address abrupt, often novel needs. Further complicating this reality, future decisions will likely require even greater emphasis on managing under increasing levels of uncertainty, and planning for and adjusting to the extremes. Research is moving to better address these emerging issues for the relevant timescales and parameters in order to allow the formulation of improved and resilient management strategies that apply to a future in which past experience has become less applicable. A climate-ready U.S. agricultural system requires easy access to useable climate knowledge and technical resources, improved climate risk management strategies, new processes to support effective adaptive actions, and the development of sustainable production systems resilient to climate effects. Mainstreaming climate knowledge improves adaptive capacity of the agricultural system by ensuring that land managers, technical advisors, researchers, private businesspeople, government program managers, and policymakers are aware of current and projected climate impacts and can access best management practices to reduce risks and capture opportunities.

Applications of geographic information systems (GIS) for transportation and climate change

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2011-08-31

This report describes the current practice and application of GIS technologies for integrating climate change into the transportation decision-making process. It examines how select state, regional, and local agencies are using GIS to analyze, mitiga...

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ECOSYSTEMS OF THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION

EPA Science Inventory

This paper discusses the current status of forested, wetland, freshwater and coastal ecosystems; the combined impacts of habitat alteration, pollution and non-native invasive species on those systems; how climatic changes could interact with existing stresses; potential managemen...

Current State of Climate Education in the United States: Are Graduate Students being Adequately Prepared to Address Climate Issues?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuster, E.; Fox, G.

2016-12-01

Climate change is happening; scientists have already observed changes in sea level, increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and declining polar ice. The students of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and it is our duty to make sure they are well equipped and they understand the implications of climate change as part of their research and professional careers. Graduate students, in particular, are gaining valuable and necessary research, leadership, and critical thinking skills, but we need to ensure that they are receiving the appropriate climate education in their graduate training. Previous studies have primarily focused on capturing the K-12, college level, and general publics' knowledge of the climate system, concluding with recommendations on how to improve climate literacy in the classroom. While this is extremely important to study, very few studies have captured the current perception that graduate students hold regarding the amount of climate education being offered to them. This information is important to capture, as it can inform future curriculum development. We developed and distributed a nationwide survey (495 respondents) for graduate students to capture their perception on the level of climate system education being offered and their view on the importance of having climate education. We also investigated differences in the responses based on either geographic area or discipline. We compared how important graduate students felt it was to include climate education in their own discipline versus outside disciplines. The authors will discuss key findings from this ongoing research.

NASA climate data catalog

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reph, M. G.

1984-01-01

This document provides a summary of information available in the NASA Climate Data Catalog. The catalog provides scientific users with technical information about selected climate parameter data sets and the associated sensor measurements from which they are derived. It is an integral part of the Pilot Climate Data System (PCDS), an interactive, scientific management system for locating, obtaining, manipulating, and displaying climate research data. The catalog is maintained in a machine readable representation which can easily be accessed via the PCDS. The purposes, format and content of the catalog are discussed. Summarized information is provided about each of the data sets currently described in the catalog. Sample detailed descriptions are included for individual data sets or families of related data sets.

A Data-Driven Assessment of the Sensitivity of Global Ecosystems to Climate Anomalies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miralles, D. G.; Papagiannopoulou, C.; Demuzere, M.; Decubber, S.; Waegeman, W.; Verhoest, N.; Dorigo, W.

2017-12-01

Vegetation is a central player in the climate system, constraining atmospheric conditions through a series of feedbacks. This fundamental role highlights the importance of understanding regional drivers of ecological sensitivity and the response of vegetation to climatic changes. While nutrient availability and short-term disturbances can be crucial for vegetation at various spatiotemporal scales, natural vegetation dynamics are overall driven by climate. At monthly scales, the interactions between vegetation and climate become complex: some vegetation types react preferentially to specific climatic changes, with different levels of intensity, resilience and lagged response. For our current Earth System Models (ESMs) being able to capture this complexity is crucial but extremely challenging. This adds uncertainty to our projections of future climate and the fate of global ecosystems. Here, following a Granger causality framework based on a non-linear random forest predictive model, we exploit the current wealth of satellite data records to uncover the main climatic drivers of monthly vegetation variability globally. Results based on three decades of satellite data indicate that water availability is the most dominant factor driving vegetation in over 60% of the vegetated land. This overall dependency of ecosystems on water availability is larger than previously reported, partly owed to the ability of our machine-learning framework to disentangle the co-linearites between climatic drivers, and to quantify non-linear impacts of climate on vegetation. Our observation-based results are then used to benchmark ESMs on their representation of vegetation sensitivity to climate and climatic extremes. Our findings indicate that the sensitivity of vegetation to climatic anomalies is ill-reproduced by some widely-used ESMs.

Future changes in coastal upwelling ecosystems with global warming: The case of the California Current System.

PubMed

Xiu, Peng; Chai, Fei; Curchitser, Enrique N; Castruccio, Frederic S

2018-02-12

Coastal upwelling ecosystems are among the most productive ecosystems in the world, meaning that their response to climate change is of critical importance. Our understanding of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems is largely limited to the open ocean, mainly because coastal upwelling is poorly reproduced by current earth system models. Here, a high-resolution model is used to examine the response of nutrients and plankton dynamics to future climate change in the California Current System (CCS). The results show increased upwelling intensity associated with stronger alongshore winds in the coastal region, and enhanced upper-ocean stratification in both the CCS and open ocean. Warming of the open ocean forces isotherms downwards, where they make contact with water masses with higher nutrient concentrations, thereby enhancing the nutrient flux to the deep source waters of the CCS. Increased winds and eddy activity further facilitate upward nutrient transport to the euphotic zone. However, the plankton community exhibits a complex and nonlinear response to increased nutrient input, as the food web dynamics tend to interact differently. This analysis highlights the difficulty in understanding how the marine ecosystem responds to a future warming climate, given to range of relevant processes operating at different scales.

The Earth System Model

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schoeberl, Mark; Rood, Richard B.; Hildebrand, Peter; Raymond, Carol

2003-01-01

The Earth System Model is the natural evolution of current climate models and will be the ultimate embodiment of our geophysical understanding of the planet. These models are constructed from components - atmosphere, ocean, ice, land, chemistry, solid earth, etc. models and merged together through a coupling program which is responsible for the exchange of data from the components. Climate models and future earth system models will have standardized modules, and these standards are now being developed by the ESMF project funded by NASA. The Earth System Model will have a variety of uses beyond climate prediction. The model can be used to build climate data records making it the core of an assimilation system, and it can be used in OSSE experiments to evaluate. The computing and storage requirements for the ESM appear to be daunting. However, the Japanese ES theoretical computing capability is already within 20% of the minimum requirements needed for some 2010 climate model applications. Thus it seems very possible that a focused effort to build an Earth System Model will achieve succcss.

Marine Aerosol Precursor Emissions for Earth System Models

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

Maltrud, Mathew Einar

2016-07-25

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is generated by marine ecosystems and plays a major role in cloud formation over the ocean. Currently, Earth System Models use imposed flux of DMS from the ocean to the atmosphere that is independent of the climate state. We have added DMS as a prognostic variable to the Community Earth System Model (CESM) that depends on the distribution of phytoplankton species, and thus changes with climate.

Systematic Conservation Planning in the Face of Climate Change: Bet-Hedging on the Columbia Plateau

PubMed Central

Schloss, Carrie A.; Lawler, Joshua J.; Larson, Eric R.; Papendick, Hilary L.; Case, Michael J.; Evans, Daniel M.; DeLap, Jack H.; Langdon, Jesse G. R.; Hall, Sonia A.; McRae, Brad H.

2011-01-01

Systematic conservation planning efforts typically focus on protecting current patterns of biodiversity. Climate change is poised to shift species distributions, reshuffle communities, and alter ecosystem functioning. In such a dynamic environment, lands selected to protect today's biodiversity may fail to do so in the future. One proposed approach to designing reserve networks that are robust to climate change involves protecting the diversity of abiotic conditions that in part determine species distributions and ecological processes. A set of abiotically diverse areas will likely support a diversity of ecological systems both today and into the future, although those two sets of systems might be dramatically different. Here, we demonstrate a conservation planning approach based on representing unique combinations of abiotic factors. We prioritize sites that represent the diversity of soils, topographies, and current climates of the Columbia Plateau. We then compare these sites to sites prioritized to protect current biodiversity. This comparison highlights places that are important for protecting both today's biodiversity and the diversity of abiotic factors that will likely determine biodiversity patterns in the future. It also highlights places where a reserve network designed solely to protect today's biodiversity would fail to capture the diversity of abiotic conditions and where such a network could be augmented to be more robust to climate-change impacts. PMID:22174897

A seasonal hydrologic ensemble prediction system for water resource management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luo, L.; Wood, E. F.

2006-12-01

A seasonal hydrologic ensemble prediction system, developed for the Ohio River basin, has been improved and expanded to several other regions including the Eastern U.S., Africa and East Asia. The prediction system adopts the traditional Extended Streamflow Prediction (ESP) approach, utilizing the VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) hydrological model as the central tool for producing ensemble prediction of soil moisture, snow and streamflow with lead times up to 6-month. VIC is forced by observed meteorology to estimate the hydrological initial condition prior to the forecast, but during the forecast period the atmospheric forcing comes from statistically downscaled, seasonal forecast from dynamic climate models. The seasonal hydrologic ensemble prediction system is currently producing realtime seasonal hydrologic forecast for these regions on a monthly basis. Using hindcasts from a 19-year period (1981-1999), during which seasonal hindcasts from NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS) and European Union DEMETER project are available, we evaluate the performance of the forecast system over our forecast regions. The evaluation shows that the prediction system using the current forecast approach is able to produce reliable and accurate precipitation, soil moisture and streamflow predictions. The overall skill is much higher then the traditional ESP. In particular, forecasts based on multiple climate model forecast are more skillful than single model-based forecast. This emphasizes the significant need for producing seasonal climate forecast with multiple climate models for hydrologic applications. Forecast from this system is expected to provide very valuable information about future hydrologic states and associated risks for end users, including water resource management and financial sectors.

Algorithm of dynamic regulation of a system of duct, for a high accuracy climatic system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arbatskiy, A. A.; Afonina, G. N.; Glazov, V. S.

2017-11-01

Currently, major part of climatic system, are stationary in projected mode only. At the same time, many modern industrial sites, require constant or periodical changes in technological process. That is 80% of the time, the industrial site is not require ventilation system in projected mode and high precision of climatic parameters must maintain. While that not constantly is in use for climatic systems, which use in parallel for different rooms, we will be have a problem for balance of duct system. For this problem, was created the algorithm for quantity regulation, with minimal changes. Dynamic duct system: Developed of parallel control system of air balance, with high precision of climatic parameters. The Algorithm provide a permanent pressure in main duct, in different a flow of air. Therefore, the ending devises air flow have only one parameter for regulation - flaps open area. Precision of regulation increase and the climatic system provide high precision for temperature and humidity (0,5C for temperature, 5% for relative humidity). Result: The research has been made in CFD-system - PHOENICS. Results for velocity of air in duct, for pressure of air in duct for different operation mode, has been obtained. Equation for air valves positions, with different parameters for climate in room’s, has been obtained. Energy saving potential for dynamic duct system, for different types of a rooms, has been calculated.

Identifying Decision Support Tools to Bridge Climate and Agricultural Needs in the Midwest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hall, B. L.; Kluck, D. R.; Hatfield, J.; Black, C.; Kellner, O.; Woloszyn, M.; Timlin, M. S.

2015-12-01

Climate monitoring tools designed to help stakeholders reduce climate impacts have been developed for the primary Midwest field crops of corn and soybean. However, the region also produces vital livestock and specialty crops that currently lack similar climate monitoring and projection tools. In autumn 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) partnered with the US Department of Agriculture's Midwest Climate Hub to convene agriculture stakeholders, climate scientists, and climate service specialists to discuss climate impacts and needs for these two, often under-represented, sectors. The goals of this workshop were to (1) identify climate impacts that specialty crops and livestock producers face within the Midwest, (2) develop an understanding of the types of climate and weather information and tools currently available in the Midwest that could be applied to decision making, and (3) discover the types of climate and weather information and tools needed to address concerns of specialty crop and livestock commodities across the Midwest. This presentation will discuss the workshop and provide highlights of the outcomes that developed into strategic plans for the future to better serve these sectors of agriculture in the Midwest.

Observing Human-induced Linkages between Urbanization and Earth's Climate System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shepherd, J. Marshall; Jin, Menglin

2004-01-01

Urbanization is one of the extreme cases of land use change. Most of world s population has moved to urban areas. Although currently only 1.2% of the land is considered urban, the spatial coverage and density of cities are expected to rapidly increase in the near future. It is estimated that by the year 2025, 60% of the world s population will live in cities. Human activity in urban environments also alters atmospheric composition; impacts components of the water cycle; and modifies the carbon cycle and ecosystems. However, our understanding of urbanization on the total Earth-climate system is incomplete. Better understanding of how the Earth s atmosphere-ocean-land-biosphere components interact as a coupled system and the influence of the urban environment on this climate system is critical. The goal of the 2003 AGU Union session Human-induced climate variations on urban areas: From observations to modeling was to bring together scientists from interdisciplinary backgrounds to discuss the data, scientific approaches and recent results on observing and modeling components of the urban environment with the intent of sampling our current stand and discussing future direction on this topic. Herein, a summary and discussion of the observations component of the session are presented.

Identifying legal, ecological and governance obstacles and opportunities for adapting to climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cosens, Barbara; Gunderson, Lance; Allen, Craig R.; Benson, Melinda H.

2014-01-01

Current governance of regional scale water management systems in the United States has not placed them on a path toward sustainability, as conflict and gridlock characterize the social arena and ecosystem services continue to erode. Changing climate may continue this trajectory, but it also provides a catalyst for renewal of ecosystems and a window of opportunity for change in institutions. Resilience provides a bridging concept that predicts that change in ecological and social systems is often dramatic, abrupt, and surprising. Adapting to the uncertainty of climate driven change must be done in a manner perceived as legitimate by the participants in a democratic society. Adaptation must begin with the current hierarchical and fragmented social-ecological system as a baseline from which new approaches must be applied. Achieving a level of integration between ecological concepts and governance requires a dialogue across multiple disciplines, including ecologists with expertise in ecological resilience, hydrologists and climate experts, with social scientists and legal scholars. Criteria and models that link ecological dynamics with policies in complex, multi-jurisdictional water basins with adaptive management and governance frameworks may move these social-ecological systems toward greater sustainability.

Relationships among climate, forests, and insects in North America: Examples of the importance of long-term and broad-scale perspectives

Treesearch

Talbot Trotter

2013-01-01

Forest structure is strongly influenced by disturbance, agents of which can include fire, weather, mammals, annelids, fungi, insects, and increasingly with the advent of the Anthropocene, climate. Currently, climate change represents one of the broadest threats to natural systems, including forests, with the potential to directly alter forest structure and function...

Holocene environmental changes recorded in Dicksonfjorden and Woodfjorden, Svalbard: impacts of global climate changes in a glacial-marine system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Joo, Y. J.; Nam, S. I.; Son, Y. J.; Forwick, M.

2017-12-01

Fjords in the Svalbard archipelago are characterized by an extreme environmental gradient between 1) the glacial system affected by tidewater glaciers and seasonal sea ice inside the fjords and 2) the warm Atlantic Water intrusion by the West Spitsbergen Current from open ocean. As sediment is largely supplied from the terrestrial source area exposed along the steep slopes of the fjords, the changes in the surface processes affected by glaciers are likely preserved in the sediments in the inner fjords. On the other hand, variations in the influence of the warm Atlantic Water in the marine realm (e.g. marine productivity) can be archived in the sediment deposited in the vicinity of the entrance to the fjords. Since the last deglaciation of the Svalbard-Barents ice sheet ( 13000 yrs BP), the Svalbard fjords have faced dramatic climate changes including the early Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO) and subsequent cooling that eventually led to the current cold and dry climate. We investigate the Holocene environmental changes in both terrestrial and marine realms based on stable isotopic and inorganic geochemical analyses of sediments deposited in Dicksonfjorden and Woodfjorden in the western and northern Spitsbergen, respectively. The two fjords are expected to provide intriguing information regarding how terrestrial and marine realms of the Arctic fjords system responded to regional and global climate changes. Being a branch of the larger Isfjorden, Dicksonfjorden penetrates deeply to the land, whereas Woodfjorden is rather directly connected to the open ocean. Accordingly, the results suggest that the Dicksonfjorden sediment records mainly terrestrial signals with marked fluctuations in sediment composition that coincide with major climate changes (e.g. HCO). On the contrary, the two Woodfjorden cores collected from different parts of the fjord exhibit contrasting results, likely illustrating differing response of terrestrial and marine realms to the climate changes in terms of behavior of tidewater glaciers and inflow of the warm West Spitsbergen Current and their possible interactions. This study aims to disentangle the interaction between the fjords and the global climate changes and provide a holistic view to the Arctic fjords system with strong environmental gradients.

Pacific western boundary currents and their roles in climate.

PubMed

Hu, Dunxin; Wu, Lixin; Cai, Wenju; Gupta, Alex Sen; Ganachaud, Alexandre; Qiu, Bo; Gordon, Arnold L; Lin, Xiaopei; Chen, Zhaohui; Hu, Shijian; Wang, Guojian; Wang, Qingye; Sprintall, Janet; Qu, Tangdong; Kashino, Yuji; Wang, Fan; Kessler, William S

2015-06-18

Pacific Ocean western boundary currents and the interlinked equatorial Pacific circulation system were among the first currents of these types to be explored by pioneering oceanographers. The widely accepted but poorly quantified importance of these currents-in processes such as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Indonesian Throughflow-has triggered renewed interest. Ongoing efforts are seeking to understand the heat and mass balances of the equatorial Pacific, and possible changes associated with greenhouse-gas-induced climate change. Only a concerted international effort will close the observational, theoretical and technical gaps currently limiting a robust answer to these elusive questions.

Climate Change Adaptation in the Western U.S.: the Case for Dynamic Rule Curves in Water Resources Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, S.; Hamlet, A. F.; Burges, S. J.

2008-12-01

Climate change in the Western U.S. will bring systematic hydrologic changes affecting many water resources systems. Successful adaptation to these changes, which will be ongoing through the 21st century, will require the 'rebalancing' of competing system objectives such as water supply, flood control, hydropower production, and environmental services in response to hydrologic (and other) changes. Although fixed operating policies for the operation of reservoirs has been a traditional approach to water management in the 20th century, the rapid pace of projected climate shifts (~0.5 F per decade), and the prohibitive costs of recursive policy intervention to mitigate impacts, suggest that more sophisticated approaches will be needed to cope with climate change on a long term basis. The use of 'dynamic rule curves' is an approach that maintains some of the key characteristics of current water management practice (reservoir rule curves) while avoiding many of the fundamental drawbacks of traditional water resources management strategies in a non-stationary climate. In this approach, water resources systems are optimized for each operational period using ensemble streamflow and/or water demand forecasts. The ensemble of optimized reservoir storage traces are then analyzed to produce a set of unique reservoir rule curves for each operational period reflecting the current state of the system. The potential advantage of this approach is that hydrologic changes associated with climate change (such as systematically warmer temperatures) can be captured explicitly in operational hydrologic forecasts, which would in turn inform the optimized reservoir management solutions, creating water resources systems that are largely 'self tending' as the climate system evolves. Furthermore, as hydrologic forecasting systems improve (e.g. in response to improved ENSO forecasting or other scientific advances), so does the performance of reservoir operations. An example of the approach is given for flood control in the Columbia River basin.

Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gerhard, L.C.

2004-01-01

Debate over whether human activity causes Earth climate change obscures the immensity of the dynamic systems that create and maintain climate on the planet. Anthropocentric debate leads people to believe that they can alter these planetary dynamic systems to prevent that they perceive as negative climate impacts on human civilization. Although politicians offer simplistic remedies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, global climate continues to change naturally. Better planning for the inevitable dislocations that have followed natural global climate changes throughout human history requires us to accept the fact that climate will change, and that human society must adapt to the changes. Over the last decade, the scientific literature reported a shift in emphasis from attempting to build theoretical models of putative human impacts on climate to understanding the planetwide dynamic processes that are the natural climate drivers. The current scientific literature is beginning to report the history of past climate change, the extent of natural climate variability, natural system drivers, and the episodicity of many climate changes. The scientific arguments have broadened from focus upon human effects on climate to include the array of natural phenomena that have driven global climate change for eons. However, significant political issues with long-term social consequences continue their advance. This paper summarizes recent scientific progress in climate science and arguments about human influence on climate. ?? 2004. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

Range-wide reproductive consequences of ocean climate variability for the seabird Cassin's Auklet.

PubMed

Wolf, Shaye G; Sydeman, William J; Hipfner, J Mark; Abraham, Christine L; Tershy, Bernie R; Croll, Donald A

2009-03-01

We examine how ocean climate variability influences the reproductive phenology and demography of the seabird Cassin's Auklet (Ptychoramphus aleuticus) across approximately 2500 km of its breeding range in the oceanographically dynamic California Current System along the west coast of North America. Specifically, we determine the extent to which ocean climate conditions and Cassin's Auklet timing of breeding and breeding success covary across populations in British Columbia, central California, and northern Mexico over six years (2000-2005) and test whether auklet timing of breeding and breeding success are similarly related to local and large-scale ocean climate indices across populations. Local ocean foraging environments ranged from seasonally variable, high-productivity environments in the north to aseasonal, low-productivity environments to the south, but covaried similarly due to the synchronizing effects of large-scale climate processes. Auklet timing of breeding in the southern population did not covary with populations to the north and was not significantly related to local oceanographic conditions, in contrast to northern populations, where timing of breeding appears to be influenced by oceanographic cues that signal peaks in prey availability. Annual breeding success covaried similarly across populations and was consistently related to local ocean climate conditions across this system. Overall, local ocean climate indices, particularly sea surface height, better explained timing of breeding and breeding success than a large-scale climate index by better representing heterogeneity in physical processes important to auklets and their prey. The significant, consistent relationships we detected between Cassin's Auklet breeding success and ocean climate conditions across widely spaced populations indicate that Cassin's Auklets are susceptible to climate change across the California Current System, especially by the strengthening of climate processes that synchronize oceanographic conditions. Auklet populations in the northern and central regions of this ecosystem may be more sensitive to changes in the timing and variability of ocean climate conditions since they appear to time breeding to take advantage of seasonal productivity peaks.

Impacts of climate change on rainfall extremes and urban drainage systems: a review.

PubMed

Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K; Willems, P; Olsson, J; Beecham, S; Pathirana, A; Bülow Gregersen, I; Madsen, H; Nguyen, V-T-V

2013-01-01

A review is made of current methods for assessing future changes in urban rainfall extremes and their effects on urban drainage systems, due to anthropogenic-induced climate change. The review concludes that in spite of significant advances there are still many limitations in our understanding of how to describe precipitation patterns in a changing climate in order to design and operate urban drainage infrastructure. Climate change may well be the driver that ensures that changes in urban drainage paradigms are identified and suitable solutions implemented. Design and optimization of urban drainage infrastructure considering climate change impacts and co-optimizing these with other objectives will become ever more important to keep our cities habitable into the future.

Multiclass Classification of Agro-Ecological Zones for Arabica Coffee: An Improved Understanding of the Impacts of Climate Change.

PubMed

Bunn, Christian; Läderach, Peter; Pérez Jimenez, Juan Guillermo; Montagnon, Christophe; Schilling, Timothy

2015-01-01

Cultivation of Coffea arabica is highly sensitive to and has been shown to be negatively impacted by progressive climatic changes. Previous research contributed little to support forward-looking adaptation. Agro-ecological zoning is a common tool to identify homologous environments and prioritize research. We demonstrate here a pragmatic approach to describe spatial changes in agro-climatic zones suitable for coffee under current and future climates. We defined agro-ecological zones suitable to produce arabica coffee by clustering geo-referenced coffee occurrence locations based on bio-climatic variables. We used random forest classification of climate data layers to model the spatial distribution of these agro-ecological zones. We used these zones to identify spatially explicit impact scenarios and to choose locations for the long-term evaluation of adaptation measures as climate changes. We found that in zones currently classified as hot and dry, climate change will impact arabica more than those that are better suited to it. Research in these zones should therefore focus on expanding arabica's environmental limits. Zones that currently have climates better suited for arabica will migrate upwards by about 500m in elevation. In these zones the up-slope migration will be gradual, but will likely have negative ecosystem impacts. Additionally, we identified locations that with high probability will not change their climatic characteristics and are suitable to evaluate C. arabica germplasm in the face of climate change. These locations should be used to investigate long term adaptation strategies to production systems.

A bottom-up approach to identifying the maximum operational adaptive capacity of water resource systems to a changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Culley, S.; Noble, S.; Yates, A.; Timbs, M.; Westra, S.; Maier, H. R.; Giuliani, M.; Castelletti, A.

2016-09-01

Many water resource systems have been designed assuming that the statistical characteristics of future inflows are similar to those of the historical record. This assumption is no longer valid due to large-scale changes in the global climate, potentially causing declines in water resource system performance, or even complete system failure. Upgrading system infrastructure to cope with climate change can require substantial financial outlay, so it might be preferable to optimize existing system performance when possible. This paper builds on decision scaling theory by proposing a bottom-up approach to designing optimal feedback control policies for a water system exposed to a changing climate. This approach not only describes optimal operational policies for a range of potential climatic changes but also enables an assessment of a system's upper limit of its operational adaptive capacity, beyond which upgrades to infrastructure become unavoidable. The approach is illustrated using the Lake Como system in Northern Italy—a regulated system with a complex relationship between climate and system performance. By optimizing system operation under different hydrometeorological states, it is shown that the system can continue to meet its minimum performance requirements for more than three times as many states as it can under current operations. Importantly, a single management policy, no matter how robust, cannot fully utilize existing infrastructure as effectively as an ensemble of flexible management policies that are updated as the climate changes.

Climate Change: The Physical Basis and Latest Results

ScienceCinema

Stocker, Thomas

2018-05-18

The 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes: "Warming in the climate system is unequivocal." Without the contribution of Physics to climate science over many decades, such a statement would not have been possible. Experimental physics enables us to read climate archives such as polar ice cores and so provides the context for the current changes. For example, today the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the second most important greenhouse gas, is 28% higher than any time during the last 800,000 years. Classical fluid mechanics and numerical mathematics are the basis of climate models from which estimates of future climate change are obtained. But major instabilities and surprises in the Earth System are still unknown. These are also to be considered when the climatic consequences of proposals for geo-engineering are estimated. Only Physics will permit us to further improve our understanding in order to provide the foundation for policy decisions facing the global climate change challenge.

Climate change impacts on global food security.

PubMed

Wheeler, Tim; von Braun, Joachim

2013-08-02

Climate change could potentially interrupt progress toward a world without hunger. A robust and coherent global pattern is discernible of the impacts of climate change on crop productivity that could have consequences for food availability. The stability of whole food systems may be at risk under climate change because of short-term variability in supply. However, the potential impact is less clear at regional scales, but it is likely that climate variability and change will exacerbate food insecurity in areas currently vulnerable to hunger and undernutrition. Likewise, it can be anticipated that food access and utilization will be affected indirectly via collateral effects on household and individual incomes, and food utilization could be impaired by loss of access to drinking water and damage to health. The evidence supports the need for considerable investment in adaptation and mitigation actions toward a "climate-smart food system" that is more resilient to climate change influences on food security.

Collaborative Research: Improving Decadal Prediction of Arctic Climate Variability and Change Using a Regional Arctic

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

Gutowski, William J.

This project developed and applied a regional Arctic System model for enhanced decadal predictions. It built on successful research by four of the current PIs with support from the DOE Climate Change Prediction Program, which has resulted in the development of a fully coupled Regional Arctic Climate Model (RACM) consisting of atmosphere, land-hydrology, ocean and sea ice components. An expanded RACM, a Regional Arctic System Model (RASM), has been set up to include ice sheets, ice caps, mountain glaciers, and dynamic vegetation to allow investigation of coupled physical processes responsible for decadal-scale climate change and variability in the Arctic. RASMmore » can have high spatial resolution (~4-20 times higher than currently practical in global models) to advance modeling of critical processes and determine the need for their explicit representation in Global Earth System Models (GESMs). The pan-Arctic region is a key indicator of the state of global climate through polar amplification. However, a system-level understanding of critical arctic processes and feedbacks needs further development. Rapid climate change has occurred in a number of Arctic System components during the past few decades, including retreat of the perennial sea ice cover, increased surface melting of the Greenland ice sheet, acceleration and thinning of outlet glaciers, reduced snow cover, thawing permafrost, and shifts in vegetation. Such changes could have significant ramifications for global sea level, the ocean thermohaline circulation and heat budget, ecosystems, native communities, natural resource exploration, and commercial transportation. The overarching goal of the RASM project has been to advance understanding of past and present states of arctic climate and to improve seasonal to decadal predictions. To do this the project has focused on variability and long-term change of energy and freshwater flows through the arctic climate system. The three foci of this research are: - Changes in the freshwater flux between arctic climate system components resulting from decadal changes in land and sea ice, seasonal snow, vegetation, and ocean circulation. - Changing energetics due to decadal changes in ice mass, vegetation, and air-sea interactions. - The role of small-scale atmospheric and oceanic processes that influence decadal variability. This research has been addressing modes of natural climate variability as well as extreme and rapid climate change. RASM can facilitate studies of climate impacts (e.g., droughts and fires) and of ecosystem adaptations to these impacts.« less

[Development of APSIM (agricultural production systems simulator) and its application].

PubMed

Shen, Yuying; Nan, Zhibiao; Bellotti, Bill; Robertson, Michael; Chen, Wen; Shao, Xinqing

2002-08-01

Soil-crop simulator model is an effective tool for providing decision on agricultural management. APSIM (Agricultural Production Systems Simulator) was developed to simulate the biophysical process in farming system, and particularly in the economic and ecological features of the systems under climatic risk. The current literatures revealed that APSIM could be applied in wide zone, including temperate continental, temperate maritime, sub-tropic and arid climate, and Mediterranean climates, with the soil type of clay, duplex soil, vertisol, silt sandy, silt loam and silt clay loam. More than 20 crops have been simulated well. APSIM is powerful on describing crop structure, crop sequence, yield prediction, and quality control as well as erosion estimation under different planting pattern.

Tectonics of the central Andes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bloom, Arthur L.; Isacks, Bryan L.; Fielding, Eric J.; Fox, Andrew N.; Gubbels, Timothy L.

1989-01-01

Acquisition of nearly complete coverage of Thematic Mapper data for the central Andes between about 15 to 34 degrees S has stimulated a comprehensive and unprecedented study of the interaction of tectonics and climate in a young and actively developing major continental mountain belt. The current state of the synoptic mapping of key physiographic, tectonic, and climatic indicators of the dynamics of the mountain/climate system are briefly reviewed.

A probabilistic framework for assessing vulnerability to climate variability and change: The case of the US water supply system

Treesearch

Romano Foti; Jorge A. Ramirez; Thomas C. Brown

2014-01-01

We introduce a probabilistic framework for vulnerability analysis and use it to quantify current and future vulnerability of the US water supply system. We also determine the contributions of hydro-climatic and socio-economic drivers to the changes in projected vulnerability. For all scenarios and global climatemodels examined, the US Southwest including California and...

Incorporating Climate Change Effects into Next-Generation Coastal Inundation Decision Support Systems: An Integrated and Community-Based Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sheng, Y.; Davis, J. R.; Paramygin, V. A.; LaRow, T.; Chassignet, E.; Stefanova, L. B.; Lu, J.; Xie, L.; Montalvo, S.; Liu, J.; Liu, B.

2012-12-01

75% of the world population lives within 100 km from the coastline. Coastal communities are subject to increasing coastal inundation risk due to the combined effects of hurricane-induced storm surge, tsunami, climate change, and sea level rise. This study is developing the next generation decision support systems (DSS) for storm surge and coastal inundation by incorporating the climate change impacts on hurricanes and sea level rise (SLR) along the Florida and North Carolina coast. Using a new methodology (instead of the "bath tub" approach) enhanced by the Institute for Sustainable Coastal Environment and Infrastructure (InSCEI) at University of Florida (UF), highly accurate and efficient coastal inundation maps (Base Flood Elevations and Surge Atlas) are being produced for current climate conditions. Atmospheric and climate scientists at Florida State University (FSU) and North Carolina State University (NCSU) are using global (FSU/COAPS) and regional (WRF) atmospheric models to estimate the range in hurricane activities during 2020-2040 and 2080-2100, using projected SSTs from the IPCC CMIP5 climate scenarios as lower boundary conditions. SLR experts at NCSU and FSU are analyzing historical sea level data and conducting numerical modeling to estimate the SLR at the coastal boundaries for the same IPCC scenarios. UF and NCSU are using the hurricane ensembles and the SLR scenarios provided by FSU and NCSU as input to storm surge and inundation models (CH3D-SSMS and CMAEPS, respectively) to produce high resolution inundation maps which include climate change effects. These future-climate coastal inundation maps will be much more accurate than the current ones and greatly improve the stakeholders' ability to mitigate coastal inundation risk throughout the U.S. and the world. These inundation maps for current and future climates will be communicated to a wide spectrum of stakeholders for feedback and further improvement. A national workshop will be held in January 2013 to engage stakeholders, researchers, and managers (federal, state, and local) of coastal inundation to develop strategies to improve communications among the various entities and to gather inputs on the development of the next -generation coastal inundation decision support system.

Risk Assessment in Relation to the Effect of Climate Change on Water Shortage in the Taichung Area

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsiao, J.; Chang, L.; Ho, C.; Niu, M.

2010-12-01

Rapid economic development has stimulated a worldwide greenhouse effect and induced global climate change. Global climate change has increased the range of variation in the quantity of regional river flows between wet and dry seasons, which effects the management of regional water resources. Consequently, the influence of climate change has become an important issue in the management of regional water resources. In this study, the Monte Carlo simulation method was applied to risk analysis of shortage of water supply in the Taichung area. This study proposed a simulation model that integrated three models: weather generator model, surface runoff model, and water distribution model. The proposed model was used to evaluate the efficiency of the current water supply system and the potential effectiveness of two additional plans for water supply: the “artificial lakes” plan and the “cross-basin water transport” plan. A first-order Markov Chain method and two probability distribution models, exponential distribution and normal distribution, were used in the weather generator model. In the surface runoff model, researchers selected the Generalized Watershed Loading Function model (GWLF) to simulate the relationship between quantity of rainfall and basin outflow. A system dynamics model (SD) was applied to the water distribution model. Results of the simulation indicated that climate change could increase the annual quantity of river flow in the Dachia River and Daan River basins. However, climate change could also increase the difference in the quantity of river flow between wet and dry seasons. Simulation results showed that in current system case or in the additional plan cases, shortage status of water for both public and agricultural uses with conditions of climate change will be mostly worse than that without conditions of climate change except for the shortage status for the public use in the current system case. With or without considering the effect of climate change, the additional plans, especially the “cross-basin water transport” plan, for water supply could significantly increase the supply of water for public use. The proposed simulation model and results of analysis in this study could provide valuable reference for decision-makers in regards to risk analysis of regional water supply.

The Hydrological Response of Snowmelt Dominated Catchments to Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arrigoni, A. S.; Moore, J. N.

2007-12-01

Hydrological systems dominated by snowmelt discharge contribute greater than half the freshwater resource available to the western United States. Globally, the contribution of mountain discharge to total runoff is twice the expected for their geographical coverage. Therefore, snowmelt dominated mountain catchments have proportionally a more prominent role than other systems to our freshwater resource. A changing climate, or even a more variable climate, could have a significant impact on these systems, and consequently on our freshwater resource. Ergo, a better understanding of how changes and variations in climate will influence mountain catchments is a necessity for improving future water management under predicted/proposed climate change. The research presented here is a first order analysis to improve our understanding of these systems by monitoring and analyzing high mountain catchments along the entirety of the Mission Mountain Front, Montana USA. The Mission Mountain Range is an ideal location for conducting this research as it runs directly north to south with elevations progressively increasing from 7600 feet in the northern section, to over 9700 feet at the southern end. The lower elevation catchments will be used as surrogates for variable climate change, while the high elevation catchments will be used as surrogates for a more stable, cooler, climate regime. We use a combination of USGS and Tribal stream gauges, as well as stage gauge loggers in the headwaters of the catchments, SNOTEL datasets, and weather station datasets. This information is used to determine if, how, and why the snowmelt hydrographs vary between catchments, within the catchments between the upper and lower segments, and the dominant driver or drivers of the hydrograph form in relation to changing climatic variables such as temperature and precipitation. This research will improve current comprehension of how mountain catchments respond to climatic variables, and additionally will expand upon the current understanding of general catchment hydrology.

Approaches to monitoring changes in carbon stocks for REDD+

Treesearch

Richard Birdsey; Gregorio Angeles-Perez; Werner A Kurz; Andrew Lister; Marcela Olguin; Yude Pan; Craig Wayson; Barry Wilson; Kristofer Johnson

2013-01-01

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus improving forest-management (REDD+) is a mechanism to facilitate tropical countries' participation in climate change mitigation. In this review we focus on the current state of monitoring systems to support implementing REDD+. The main elements of current monitoring systems - Landsat satellites and...

Western water and climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Dettinger, Michael; Udall, Bradley; Georgakakos, Aris P.

2015-01-01

In this context, four iconic river basins offer glimpses into specific challenges that climate change may bring to the West. The Colorado River is a system in which overuse and growing demands are projected to be even more challenging than climate-change-induced flow reductions. The Rio Grande offers the best example of how climate-change-induced flow declines might sink a major system into permanent drought. The Klamath is currently projected to face the more benign precipitation future, but fisheries and irrigation management may face dire straits due to warming air temperatures, rising irrigation demands, and warming waters in a basin already hobbled by tensions between endangered fisheries and agricultural demands. Finally, California's Bay-Delta system is a remarkably localized and severe weakness at the heart of the region's trillion-dollar economy. It is threatened by the full range of potential climate-change impacts expected across the West, along with major vulnerabilities to increased flooding and rising sea levels.

Fire risk and adaptation strategies in Northern Eurasian forests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shvidenko, Anatoly; Schepaschenko, Dmitry

2013-04-01

On-going climatic changes substantially accelerate current fire regimes in Northern Eurasian ecosystems, particularly in forests. During 1998-2012, wildfires enveloped on average ~10.5 M ha year-1 in Russia with a large annual variation (between 3 and 30 M ha) and average direct carbon emissions at ~150 Tg C year-1. Catastrophic fires, which envelope large areas, spread in usually incombustible wetlands, escape from control and provide extraordinary negative impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, economics, infrastructure, environment, and health of population, become a typical feature of the current fire regimes. There are new evidences of correlation between catastrophic fires and large-scale climatic anomalies at a continental scale. While current climatic predictions suggest the dramatic warming (at the average at 6-7 °C for the country and up to 10-12°C in some northern continental regions), any substantial increase of summer precipitation does not expected. Increase of dryness and instability of climate will impact fire risk and severity of consequences. Current models suggest a 2-3 fold increase of the number of fires by the end of this century in the boreal zone. They predict increases of the number of catastrophic fires; a significant increase in the intensity of fire and amount of consumed fuel; synergies between different types of disturbances (outbreaks of insects, unregulated anthropogenic impacts); acceleration of composition of the gas emissions due to enhanced soil burning. If boreal forests would become a typing element, the mass mortality of trees would increase fire risk and severity. Permafrost melting and subsequent change of hydrological regimes very likely will lead to the degradation and destruction of boreal forests, as well as to the widespread irreversible replacement of forests by other underproductive vegetation types. A significant feedback between warming and escalating fire regimes is very probable in Russia and particularly in the permafrost areas. Overall, Russia should expect a disproportionate escalation of fire regimes compared to increasing climatic fire danger. Thus, development and implementation of an efficient adaptation strategy is a pressing problem of current forest management of the country. An appropriate system of forest fire protection which would be able to meet challenges of future climates is a corner stone of such a strategy. We consider possible systems solutions of this complex problem including (1) integrated ecological and socio-economic analysis of current and future fire regimes; (2) regional requirements to and specific features of a new paradigm of forest fire protection in the boreal zone of Northern Eurasia; (3) anticipatory strategy of the prevention of large-scale disturbances in forests, including adaptation of forest landscapes to the future climates (regulation of tree composition; setup of relevant spatial structure of forest landscapes; etc.); (4) implementation of an effective system of forest monitoring as part of integrated observing systems; (5) transition to ecologically-friendly systems of industrial development of northern territories; (6) development of new/ improvement of existing legislation and institutional frameworks of forest management which would be satisfactory to react on challenges of climate change; and (6) international cooperation.

Evaluation of Climate Change Impact on Drinking Water Treatment Plant Operation

EPA Science Inventory

It is anticipated that global climate change will adversely impact source water quality in many areas of the United States and, therefore, will influence the design and operation of current and future drinking water treatment systems. Some of these impacts may lead to violations ...

Human-Induced Climate Variations Linked to Urbanization: From Observations to Modeling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shepherd, J. Marshall; Jin, Menglin

2004-01-01

The goal of this session is to bring together scientists from interdisciplinary backgrounds to discuss the data, scientific approaches and recent results focusing on the impact of urbanization on the climate. The discussion will highlight current observational and modeling capabilities being employed for investigating the urban environment and its linkage to the change in the Earth's climate system. The goal of the session is to identify our current stand and the future direction on the topic. Urbanization is one of the extreme cases of land use change. Most of population of the world has moved to urban areas. By 1995, more than 70% of population of North America and Europe were living in cities. By 2025, the United Nations estimates that 60% of the worlds population will live in cities. Although currently only 1.2% of the land is urban, better understanding of how the atmosphere-ocean-land-biosphere components interact as a coupled system and the influence of human activities on this system is critical. Our understanding of urbanization effect is incomplete, partly because human activities induce new changes on climate in addition to the original natural variations, and partly because previously few data available for study urban effect globally. Urban construction changes surface roughness, albedo, heat capacity and vegetation coverage. Traffic and industry increase atmospheric aerosol. It is suggested that urbanization may modify rainfall processes through aerosol-cloud interactions or dynamic feedbacks. Because urbanization effect on climate is determined by many factors including land cover, the city's microscale features, population density, and human lifestyle patterns, it is necessary to study urban areas over globe.

System Dynamics to Climate-Driven Water Budget Analysis in the Eastern Snake Plains Aquifer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ryu, J.; Contor, B.; Wylie, A.; Johnson, G.; Allen, R. G.

2010-12-01

Climate variability, weather extremes and climate change continue to threaten the sustainability of water resources in the western United States. Given current climate change projections, increasing temperature is likely to modify the timing, form, and intensity of precipitation events, which consequently affect regional and local hydrologic cycles. As a result, drought, water shortage, and subsequent water conflicts may become an increasing threat in monotone hydrologic systems in arid lands, such as the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer (ESPA). The ESPA, in particular, is a critical asset in the state of Idaho. It is known as the economic lifeblood for more than half of Idaho’s population so that water resources availability and aquifer management due to climate change is of great interest, especially over the next few decades. In this study, we apply system dynamics as a methodology with which to address dynamically complex problems in ESPA’s water resources management. Aquifer recharge and discharge dynamics are coded in STELLA modeling system as input and output, respectively to identify long-term behavior of aquifer responses to climate-driven hydrological changes.

Integrated modeling for assessment of energy-water system resilience under changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, E.; Veselka, T.; Zhou, Z.; Koritarov, V.; Mahalik, M.; Qiu, F.; Mahat, V.; Betrie, G.; Clark, C.

2016-12-01

Energy and water systems are intrinsically interconnected. Due to an increase in climate variability and extreme weather events, interdependency between these two systems has been recently intensified resulting significant impacts on both systems and energy output. To address this challenge, an Integrated Water-Energy Systems Assessment Framework (IWESAF) is being developed to integrate multiple existing or developed models from various sectors. The IWESAF currently includes an extreme climate event generator to predict future extreme weather events, hydrologic and reservoir models, riverine temperature model, power plant water use simulator, and power grid operation and cost optimization model. The IWESAF can facilitate the interaction among the modeling systems and provide insights of the sustainability and resilience of the energy-water system under extreme climate events and economic consequence. The regional case demonstration in the Midwest region will be presented. The detailed information on some of individual modeling components will also be presented in several other abstracts submitted to AGU this year.

Detecting changes in forced climate attractors with Wasserstein distance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robin, Yoann; Yiou, Pascal; Naveau, Philippe

2017-07-01

The climate system can been described by a dynamical system and its associated attractor. The dynamics of this attractor depends on the external forcings that influence the climate. Such forcings can affect the mean values or variances, but regions of the attractor that are seldom visited can also be affected. It is an important challenge to measure how the climate attractor responds to different forcings. Currently, the Euclidean distance or similar measures like the Mahalanobis distance have been favored to measure discrepancies between two climatic situations. Those distances do not have a natural building mechanism to take into account the attractor dynamics. In this paper, we argue that a Wasserstein distance, stemming from optimal transport theory, offers an efficient and practical way to discriminate between dynamical systems. After treating a toy example, we explore how the Wasserstein distance can be applied and interpreted to detect non-autonomous dynamics from a Lorenz system driven by seasonal cycles and a warming trend.

[Medication error management climate and perception for system use according to construction of medication error prevention system].

PubMed

Kim, Myoung Soo

2012-08-01

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine current status of IT-based medication error prevention system construction and the relationships among system construction, medication error management climate and perception for system use. The participants were 124 patient safety chief managers working for 124 hospitals with over 300 beds in Korea. The characteristics of the participants, construction status and perception of systems (electric pharmacopoeia, electric drug dosage calculation system, computer-based patient safety reporting and bar-code system) and medication error management climate were measured in this study. The data were collected between June and August 2011. Descriptive statistics, partial Pearson correlation and MANCOVA were used for data analysis. Electric pharmacopoeia were constructed in 67.7% of participating hospitals, computer-based patient safety reporting systems were constructed in 50.8%, electric drug dosage calculation systems were in use in 32.3%. Bar-code systems showed up the lowest construction rate at 16.1% of Korean hospitals. Higher rates of construction of IT-based medication error prevention systems resulted in greater safety and a more positive error management climate prevailed. The supportive strategies for improving perception for use of IT-based systems would add to system construction, and positive error management climate would be more easily promoted.

The Climate Services Partnership (CSP): Working Together to Improve Climate Services Worldwide

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zebiak, S.; Brasseur, G.; Members of the CSP Coordinating Group

2012-04-01

Throughout the world, climate services are required to address urgent needs for climate-informed decision-making, policy and planning. These needs were explored in detail at the first International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS), held in New York in October 2011. After lengthy discussions of needs and capabilities, the conference culminated in the creation of the Climate Services Partnership (CSP). The CSP is an informal interdisciplinary network of climate information users, providers, donors and researchers interested in improving the provision and development of climate services worldwide. Members of the Climate Services Partnership work together to share knowledge, accelerate learning, develop new capacities, and establish good practices. These collaborative efforts will inform and support the evolution and implementation of the Global Framework for Climate Services. The Climate Services Partnership focuses its efforts on three levels. These include: 1. encouraging and sustaining connections between climate information providers, users, donors, and researchers 2. gathering, synthesizing and disseminating current knowledge on climate services by way of an online knowledge management platform 3. generating new knowledge on critical topics in climate service development and provision, through the creation of focused working groups on specific topics To date, the Climate Services Partnership has made progress on all three fronts. Connections have been fostered through outreach at major international conferences and professional societies. The CSP also maintains a website and a monthly newsletter, which serves as a resource for those interested in climate services. The second International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS2) will be held in Berlin in September. The CSP has also created a knowledge capture system that gathers and disseminates a wide range of information related to the development and provision of climate services. This includes an online-searchable database that allows users to see what climate services activities are underway in what locations, to gather and analyze information. As part of the knowledge capture system, more than 10 CSP members are currently developing case studies to describe specific climate services activities; in a few cases, this involves in-depth evaluations of the service in question. Finally, the Economics Working Group of the Climate Services Partnership is analyzing previous methods to economically value climate services in hopes of generating knew knowledge regarding the methods are best suited to assessing the benefits associated with various climate services. Other groups are working to develop guidance materials for the development and use of climate information to support decision and policy-making. The Climate Services Partnership is an open, informal network that builds on activities that are already underway and works to create synergies to improve the provision and development for climate services. Its members currently number more than 50 organizations; it seeks new participants and new initiatives.

Climate impact of beef: an analysis considering multiple time scales and production methods without use of global warming potentials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pierrehumbert, R. T.; Eshel, G.

2015-08-01

An analysis of the climate impact of various forms of beef production is carried out, with a particular eye to the comparison between systems relying primarily on grasses grown in pasture (‘grass-fed’ or ‘pastured’ beef) and systems involving substantial use of manufactured feed requiring significant external inputs in the form of synthetic fertilizer and mechanized agriculture (‘feedlot’ beef). The climate impact is evaluated without employing metrics such as {{CO}}2{{e}} or global warming potentials. The analysis evaluates the impact at all time scales out to 1000 years. It is concluded that certain forms of pastured beef production have substantially lower climate impact than feedlot systems. However, pastured systems that require significant synthetic fertilization, inputs from supplemental feed, or deforestation to create pasture, have substantially greater climate impact at all time scales than the feedlot and dairy-associated systems analyzed. Even the best pastured system analyzed has enough climate impact to justify efforts to limit future growth of beef production, which in any event would be necessary if climate and other ecological concerns were met by a transition to primarily pasture-based systems. Alternate mitigation options are discussed, but barring unforseen technological breakthroughs worldwide consumption at current North American per capita rates appears incompatible with a 2 °C warming target.

Impacts of Climatic Variability on Vibrio parahaemolyticus Outbreaks in Taiwan

PubMed Central

Hsiao, Hsin-I; Jan, Man-Ser; Chi, Hui-Ju

2016-01-01

This study aimed to investigate and quantify the relationship between climate variation and incidence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Taiwan. Specifically, seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models (including autoregression, seasonality, and a lag-time effect) were employed to predict the role of climatic factors (including temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, ocean temperature and ocean salinity) on the incidence of V. parahaemolyticus in Taiwan between 2000 and 2011. The results indicated that average temperature (+), ocean temperature (+), ocean salinity of 6 months ago (+), maximum daily rainfall (current (−) and one month ago (−)), and average relative humidity (current and 9 months ago (−)) had significant impacts on the incidence of V. parahaemolyticus. Our findings offer a novel view of the quantitative relationship between climate change and food poisoning by V. parahaemolyticus in Taiwan. An early warning system based on climate change information for the disease control management is required in future. PMID:26848675

Impacts of Climatic Variability on Vibrio parahaemolyticus Outbreaks in Taiwan.

PubMed

Hsiao, Hsin-I; Jan, Man-Ser; Chi, Hui-Ju

2016-02-03

This study aimed to investigate and quantify the relationship between climate variation and incidence of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Taiwan. Specifically, seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models (including autoregression, seasonality, and a lag-time effect) were employed to predict the role of climatic factors (including temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, ocean temperature and ocean salinity) on the incidence of V. parahaemolyticus in Taiwan between 2000 and 2011. The results indicated that average temperature (+), ocean temperature (+), ocean salinity of 6 months ago (+), maximum daily rainfall (current (-) and one month ago (-)), and average relative humidity (current and 9 months ago (-)) had significant impacts on the incidence of V. parahaemolyticus. Our findings offer a novel view of the quantitative relationship between climate change and food poisoning by V. parahaemolyticus in Taiwan. An early warning system based on climate change information for the disease control management is required in future.

Multi crop model climate risk country-level management design: case study on the Tanzanian maize production system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chavez, E.

2015-12-01

Future climate projections indicate that a very serious consequence of post-industrial anthropogenic global warming is the likelihood of the greater frequency and intensity of extreme hydrometeorological events such as heat waves, droughts, storms, and floods. The design of national and international policies targeted at building more resilient and environmentally sustainable food systems needs to rely on access to robust and reliable data which is largely absent. In this context, the improvement of the modelling of current and future agricultural production losses using the unifying language of risk is paramount. In this study, we use a methodology that allows the integration of the current understanding of the various interacting systems of climate, agro-environment, crops, and the economy to determine short to long-term risk estimates of crop production loss, in different environmental, climate, and adaptation scenarios. This methodology is applied to Tanzania to assess optimum risk reduction and maize production increase paths in different climate scenarios. The simulations carried out use inputs from three different crop models (DSSAT, APSIM, WRSI) run in different technological scenarios and thus allowing to estimate crop model-driven risk exposure estimation bias. The results obtained also allow distinguishing different region-specific optimum climate risk reduction policies subject to historical as well as RCP2.5 and RCP8.5 climate scenarios. The region-specific risk profiles obtained provide a simple framework to determine cost-effective risk management policies for Tanzania and allow to optimally combine investments in risk reduction and risk transfer.

Planning for climate change: the need for mechanistic systems-based approaches to study climate change impacts on diarrheal diseases

PubMed Central

Levy, Karen; Zimmerman, Julie; Elliott, Mark; Bartram, Jamie; Carlton, Elizabeth; Clasen, Thomas; Dillingham, Rebecca; Eisenberg, Joseph; Guerrant, Richard; Lantagne, Daniele; Mihelcic, James; Nelson, Kara

2016-01-01

Increased precipitation and temperature variability as well as extreme events related to climate change are predicted to affect the availability and quality of water globally. Already heavily burdened with diarrheal diseases due to poor access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, communities throughout the developing world lack the adaptive capacity to sufficiently respond to the additional adversity caused by climate change. Studies suggest that diarrhea rates are positively correlated with increased temperature, and show a complex relationship with precipitation. Although climate change will likely increase rates of diarrheal diseases on average, there is a poor mechanistic understanding of the underlying disease transmission processes and substantial uncertainty surrounding current estimates. This makes it difficult to recommend appropriate adaptation strategies. We review the relevant climate-related mechanisms behind transmission of diarrheal disease pathogens and argue that systems-based mechanistic approaches incorporating human, engineered and environmental components are urgently needed. We then review successful systems-based approaches used in other environmental health fields and detail one modeling framework to predict climate change impacts on diarrheal diseases and design adaptation strategies. PMID:26799810

Organizational climate, services, and outcomes in child welfare systems.

PubMed

Glisson, Charles; Green, Philip

2011-08-01

This study examines the association of organizational climate, casework services, and youth outcomes in child welfare systems. Building on preliminary findings linking organizational climate to youth outcomes over a 3-year follow-up period, the current study extends the follow-up period to 7 years and tests main, moderating and mediating effects of organizational climate and casework services on outcomes. The study applies hierarchical linear models (HLMs) analyses to all 5 waves of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSCAW) with a US nationwide sample of 1,678 maltreated youth aged 4-16 years and 1,696 caseworkers from 88 child welfare systems. Organizational climate is assessed on 2 dimensions, Engagement and Stress, with scales from the well established measure, Organizational Social Context (OSC); youth outcomes are measured as problems in psychosocial functioning with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL); and casework services are assessed with original scales developed for the study and completed by the maltreated youths' primary caregivers and caseworkers. Maltreated youth served by child welfare systems with more engaged organizational climates have significantly better outcomes. Moreover, the quantity and quality of casework services neither mediate nor interact with the effects of organizational climate on youth outcomes. Organizational climate is associated with youth outcomes in child welfare systems, but a better understanding is needed of the mechanisms that link organizational climate to outcomes. In addition, there is a need for evidence-based organizational interventions that can improve the organizational climates and effectiveness of child welfare systems. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Subsurface Thermal Energy Storage for Improved Air Conditioning Efficiency

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-11-01

current cost liability is the potential for several significant structural changes at DoD facilities around the world. These challenges include... climate , with an average high temperature of 90 degrees in July, and an average low temperature of 39 in January. The annual average temperature is 65.6...in new systems. The first three steps are recommended for every geothermal system installed in cooling dominated areas ( climatically hot areas such

EFFECTS OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY ON NITROGEN FLUXES FROM SELECTED WATERSHEDS ALONG THE US EAST COAST

EPA Science Inventory

To anticipate vulnerabilities of coastal ecosystems to global climate change, a better understanding is needed of factors affecting current and past nitrogen fluxes from watersheds to coastal systems. This study undertook a statistical examination of long-term data sets of nutrie...

Working Group on Virtual Data Integration

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

Williams, Dean N.

2016-03-07

This report is the outcome of a workshop commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) to examine current and future data infrastructure requirements foundational for achieving CESD scientific mission goals in advancing a robust, predictive understanding of Earth’s climate and environmental systems.

Hemispheric symmetry of the Earth's Energy Balance as a fundamental constraint on the Earth's climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stephens, G. L.; Webster, P. J.; OBrien, D. M.

2013-12-01

We currently lack a quantitative understanding of how the Earth's energy balance and the poleward energy transport adjust to different forcings that determine climate change. Currently, there are no constraints that guide this understanding. We will demonstrate that the Earth's energy balance exhibits a remarkable symmetry about the equator, and that this symmetry is a necessary condition of a steady state climate. Our analysis points to clouds as the principal agent that highly regulates this symmetry and sets the steady state. The existence of this thermodynamic steady-state constraint on climate and the symmetry required to sustain it leads to important inferences about the synchronous nature of climate changes between hemispheres, offering for example insights on mechanisms that can sustain global ice ages forced by asymmetric hemispheric solar radiation variations or how climate may respond to increases in greenhouse gas concentration. Further inferences regarding cloud effects on climate can also be deduced without resorting to the complex and intricate processes of cloud formation, whose representation continues to challenge the climate modeling community. The constraint suggests cloud feedbacks must be negative buffering the system against change. We will show that this constraint doesn't exist in the current CMIP5 model experiments and the lack of such a constraint suggests there is insufficient buffering in models in response to external forcings

Multiclass Classification of Agro-Ecological Zones for Arabica Coffee: An Improved Understanding of the Impacts of Climate Change

PubMed Central

Bunn, Christian; Läderach, Peter; Pérez Jimenez, Juan Guillermo; Montagnon, Christophe; Schilling, Timothy

2015-01-01

Cultivation of Coffea arabica is highly sensitive to and has been shown to be negatively impacted by progressive climatic changes. Previous research contributed little to support forward-looking adaptation. Agro-ecological zoning is a common tool to identify homologous environments and prioritize research. We demonstrate here a pragmatic approach to describe spatial changes in agro-climatic zones suitable for coffee under current and future climates. We defined agro-ecological zones suitable to produce arabica coffee by clustering geo-referenced coffee occurrence locations based on bio-climatic variables. We used random forest classification of climate data layers to model the spatial distribution of these agro-ecological zones. We used these zones to identify spatially explicit impact scenarios and to choose locations for the long-term evaluation of adaptation measures as climate changes. We found that in zones currently classified as hot and dry, climate change will impact arabica more than those that are better suited to it. Research in these zones should therefore focus on expanding arabica's environmental limits. Zones that currently have climates better suited for arabica will migrate upwards by about 500m in elevation. In these zones the up-slope migration will be gradual, but will likely have negative ecosystem impacts. Additionally, we identified locations that with high probability will not change their climatic characteristics and are suitable to evaluate C. arabica germplasm in the face of climate change. These locations should be used to investigate long term adaptation strategies to production systems. PMID:26505637

Emerging Methane Sources: A Bang or Whimper? (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harriss, R. C.

2013-12-01

In this presentation we examine two emerging methane emission sources that may further accelerate climate change in the 21st century: 1) Will fugitive methane emissions associated with the development of unconventional natural gas resources pose a significant threat of accelerating climate change? 2) Will continued warming of Arctic regions destabilize permafrost and methane hydrates rapidly increasing global atmospheric methane that results in a catastrophic climate change emergency? These risks are currently described in two different guises, with unconventional gas as persistent and gradually unfolding threat and Arctic rapid warming and release of methane as a low-probability event that could in an instant change everything. Current research is far from answering the question of whether these emerging methane sources will lead to a climate change bang or whimper. Both issues reflect the need to understand complex environmental and engineered systems as they interact with social and economic forces. While the evolution of energy systems favors methane as a contemporary transition fuel, researchers and practitioners need to address the fugitive methane leakage, reliability, and safety of natural gas systems. The concept of a methane bridge as a viable direction to decarbonization is appealing; it's just not as big or fast a step as many scientists want.

Diminished Wastewater Treatment: Evaluation of Septic System Performance Under a Climate Change Scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cooper, J.; Loomis, G.; Kalen, D.; Boving, T. B.; Morales, I.; Amador, J.

2015-12-01

The effects of climate change are expected to reduce the ability of soil-based onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS), to treat domestic wastewater. In the northeastern U.S., the projected increase in atmospheric temperature, elevation of water tables from rising sea levels, and heightened precipitation will reduce the volume of unsaturated soil and oxygen available for treatment. Incomplete removal of contaminants may lead to transport of pathogens, nutrients, and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) to groundwater, increasing the risk to public health and likelihood of eutrophying aquatic ecosystems. Advanced OWTS, which include pre-treatment steps and provide unsaturated drainfields of greater volume relative to conventional OWTS, are expected to be more resilient to climate change. We used intact soil mesocosms to quantify water quality functions for two advanced shallow narrow drainfield types and a conventional drainfield under a current climate scenario and a moderate climate change scenario of 30 cm rise in water table and 5°C increase in soil temperature. While no fecal coliform bacteria (FCB) was released under the current climate scenario, up to 109 CFU FCB/mL (conventional) and up to 20 CFU FCB/mL (shallow narrow) were released under the climate change scenario. Total P removal rates dropped from 100% to 54% (conventional) and 71% (shallow narrow) under the climate change scenario. Total N removal averaged 17% under both climate scenarios in the conventional, but dropped from 5.4% to 0% in the shallow narrow under the climate change scenario, with additional leaching of N in excess of inputs indicating release of previously held N. No significant difference was observed between scenarios for BOD removal. The initial data indicate that while advanced OWTS retain more function under the climate change scenario, all three drainfield types experience some diminished treatment capacity.

Energy Switching Threshold for Climatic Benefits

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, X.; Cao, L.; Caldeira, K.

2013-12-01

Climate change is one of the great challenges facing humanity currently and in the future. Its most severe impacts may still be avoided if efforts are made to transform current energy systems (1). A transition from the global system of high Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission electricity generation to low GHG emission energy technologies is required to mitigate climate change (2). Natural gas is increasingly seen as a choice for transitions to renewable sources. However, recent researches in energy and climate puzzled about the climate implications of relying more energy on natural gas. On one hand, a shift to natural gas is promoted as climate mitigation because it has lower carbon per unit energy than coal (3). On the other hand, the effect of switching to natural gas on nuclear-power and other renewable energies development may offset benefits from fuel-switching (4). Cheap natural gas is causing both coal plants and nuclear plants to close in the US. The objective of this study is to measure and evaluate the threshold of energy switching for climatic benefits. We hypothesized that the threshold ratio of energy switching for climatic benefits is related to GHGs emission factors of energy technologies, but the relation is not linear. A model was developed to study the fuel switching threshold for greenhouse gas emission reduction, and transition from coal and nuclear electricity generation to natural gas electricity generation was analyzed as a case study. The results showed that: (i) the threshold ratio of multi-energy switching for climatic benefits changes with GHGs emission factors of energy technologies. (ii)The mathematical relation between the threshold ratio of energy switching and GHGs emission factors of energies is a curved surface function. (iii) The analysis of energy switching threshold for climatic benefits can be used for energy and climate policy decision support.

Climate-driven polar motion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Celaya, Michael A.; Wahr, John M.; Bryan, Frank O.

1999-06-01

The output of a coupled climate system model provides a synthetic climate record with temporal and spatial coverage not attainable with observational data, allowing evaluation of climatic excitation of polar motion on timescales of months to decades. Analysis of the geodetically inferred Chandler excitation power shows that it has fluctuated by up to 90% since 1900 and that it has characteristics representative of a stationary Gaussian process. Our model-predicted climate excitation of the Chandler wobble also exhibits variable power comparable to the observed. Ocean currents and bottom pressure shifts acting together can alone drive the 14-month wobble. The same is true of the excitation generated by the combined effects of barometric pressure and winds. The oceanic and atmospheric contributions are this large because of a relatively high degree of constructive interference between seafloor pressure and currents and between atmospheric pressure and winds. In contrast, excitation by the redistribution of water on land appears largely insignificant. Not surprisingly, the full climate effect is even more capable of driving the wobble than the effects of the oceans or atmosphere alone are. Our match to the observed annual excitation is also improved, by about 17%, over previous estimates made with historical climate data. Efforts to explain the 30-year Markowitz wobble meet with less success. Even so, at periods ranging from months to decades, excitation generated by a model of a coupled climate system makes a close approximation to the amplitude of what is geodetically observed.

Predicting the Impacts of Climate Change on Central American Agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winter, J. M.; Ruane, A. C.; Rosenzweig, C.

2011-12-01

Agriculture is a vital component of Central America's economy. Poor crop yields and harvest reliability can produce food insecurity, malnutrition, and conflict. Regional climate models (RCMs) and agricultural models have the potential to greatly enhance the efficiency of Central American agriculture and water resources management under both current and future climates. A series of numerical experiments was conducted using Regional Climate Model Version 3 (RegCM3) and the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) to evaluate the ability of RCMs to reproduce the current climate of Central America and assess changes in temperature and precipitation under multiple future climate scenarios. Control simulations were thoroughly compared to a variety of observational datasets, including local weather station data, gridded meteorological data, and high-resolution satellite-based precipitation products. Future climate simulations were analyzed for both mean shifts in climate and changes in climate variability, including extreme events (droughts, heat waves, floods). To explore the impacts of changing climate on maize, bean, and rice yields in Central America, RCM output was used to force the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer Model (DSSAT). These results were synthesized to create climate change impacts predictions for Central American agriculture that explicitly account for evolving distributions of precipitation and temperature extremes.

Assessing the Robustness of Green Infrastructure under Stochastic Design Storms and Climate Change Scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chui, T. F. M.; Yang, Y.

2017-12-01

Green infrastructures (GI) have been widely used to mitigate flood risk, improve surface water quality, and to restore predevelopment hydrologic regimes. Commonly-used GI include, bioretention system, porous pavement and green roof, etc. They are normally sized to fulfil different design criteria (e.g. providing certain storage depths, limiting peak surface flow rates) that are formulated for current climate conditions. While GI commonly have long lifespan, the sensitivity of their performance to climate change is however unclear. This study first proposes a method to formulate suitable design criteria to meet different management interests (e.g. different levels of first flush reduction and peak flow reduction). Then typical designs of GI are proposed. In addition, a high resolution stochastic design storm generator using copulas and random cascade model is developed, which is calibrated using recorded rainfall time series. Then, few climate change scenarios are generated by varying the duration and depth of design storms, and changing the parameters of the calibrated storm generator. Finally, the performance of GI with typical designs under the random synthesized design storms are then assessed using numerical modeling. The robustness of the designs is obtained by the comparing their performance in the future scenarios to the current one. This study overall examines the robustness of the current GI design criteria under uncertain future climate conditions, demonstrating whether current GI design criteria should be modified to account for climate change.

A Case Study: Climate Change Decision Support for the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, Flint Basins

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Day, G. N.; McMahon, G.; Friesen, N.; Carney, S.

2011-12-01

Riverside Technology, inc. has developed a Climate Change Decision Support System (DSS) to provide water managers with a tool to explore a range of current Global Climate Model (GCM) projections to evaluate their potential impacts on streamflow and the reliability of future water supplies. The system was developed as part of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project. The DSS uses downscaled GCM data as input to small-scale watershed models to produce time series of projected undepleted streamflow for various emission scenarios and GCM simulations. Until recently, water managers relied on historical streamflow data for water resources planning. In many parts of the country, great effort has been put into estimating long-term historical undepleted streamflow accounting for regulation, diversions, and return flows to support planning and water rights administration. In some cases, longer flow records have been constructed using paleohydrologic data in an attempt to capture climate variability beyond what is evident during the observed historical record. Now, many water managers are recognizing that historical data may not be representative of an uncertain climate future, and they have begun to explore the use of climate projections in their water resources planning. The Climate Change DSS was developed to support water managers in planning by accounting for both climate variability and potential climate change. In order to use the information for impact analysis, the projected streamflow time series can be exported and substituted for the historical streamflow data traditionally applied in their system operations models for water supply planning. This paper presents a case study in which climate-adjusted flows are coupled with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) ResSim model for the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Flint (ACF) River basins. The study demonstrates how climate scenarios can be used with existing or proposed operating rules to explore the range of potential climate impacts on lake levels, drought trigger frequency, hydropower generation, and low-flow statistics. Initial system implementation of the Climate Change DSS was focused in the State of Colorado working with water supply agencies in the Front Range to assess local water supply vulnerability to climate change. To facilitate national implementation, the system capitalizes on National Weather Service (NWS) watershed models currently used for operational river forecasting. These models are well calibrated and available for the entire country. The system has been extended to include the ACF and the Sacramento River basins because of the importance of the water resources in these basins. Plans are now being made to expand coverage to include the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. water supply area. The DSS is operational and publicly available (www.climatechangedss.com).

Using the CLEAN educational resource collection for building three-dimensional lessons to teach the climate system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gold, A. U.; Sullivan, S. M.; Manning, C. L. B.; Ledley, T. S.; Youngman, E.; Taylor, J.; Niepold, F., III; Kirk, K.; Lockwood, J.; Bruckner, M. Z.; Fox, S.

2017-12-01

The impacts of climate change are a critical societal challenge of the 21st century. Educating students about the globally connected climate system is key in supporting the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies. Systems thinking is required for students to understand the complex, dynamic climate systems and the role that humans play within them. The interdisciplinary nature of climate science challenges educators, who often don't have formal training in climate science, to identify resources that are scientifically accurate before weaving them together into units that teach about the climate system. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) supports this work by providing over 700 peer-reviewed, classroom-ready resources on climate and energy topics. The resource collection itself provide only limited instructional guidance, so educators need to weave the resources together to build multi-dimensional lessons that develop systems thinking skills. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science standards encourage educators to teach science in a 3-dimensional approach that trains students in systems thinking. The CLEAN project strives to help educators design NGSS-style, three-dimensional lessons about the climate system. Two approaches are currently being modeled on the CLEAN web portal. The first is described in the CLEAN NGSS "Get Started Guide" which follows a step-by-step process starting with the Disciplinary Core Idea and then interweaves the Cross-Cutting Concepts (CCC) and the Science and Engineering Practices (SEP) based on the teaching strategy chosen for the lesson or unit topic. The second model uses a climate topic as a starting place and the SEP as the guide through a four-step lesson sequence called "Earth Systems Investigations". Both models use CLEAN reviewed lessons as the core activity but provide the necessary framework for classroom implementation. Sample lessons that were developed following these two approaches are provided on the CLEAN web portal (cleanet.org).

The changing effects of Alaska’s boreal forests on the climate system

USGS Publications Warehouse

Euskirchen, E.S.; McGuire, A. David; Chapin, F.S.; Rupp, T.S.

2010-01-01

In the boreal forests of Alaska, recent changes in climate have influenced the exchange of trace gases, water, and energy between these forests and the atmosphere. These changes in the structure and function of boreal forests can then feed back to impact regional and global climates. In this manuscript, we examine the type and magnitude of the climate feedbacks from boreal forests in Alaska. Research generally suggests that the net effect of a warming climate is a positive regional feedback to warming. Currently, the primary positive climate feedbacks are likely related to decreases in surface albedo due to decreases in snow cover. Fewer negative feedbacks have been identified, and they may not be large enough to counterbalance the large positive feedbacks. These positive feedbacks are most pronounced at the regional scale and reduce the resilience of the boreal vegetation – climate system by amplifying the rate of regional warming. Given the recent warming in this region, the large variety of associated mechanisms that can alter terrestrial ecosystems and influence the climate system, and a reduction in the boreal forest resilience, there is a strong need to continue to quantify and evaluate the feedback pathways.

Research on Climate and Dengue in Malaysia: A Systematic Review.

PubMed

Hii, Yien Ling; Zaki, Rafdzah Ahmad; Aghamohammadi, Nasrin; Rocklöv, Joacim

2016-03-01

Dengue is a climate-sensitive infectious disease. Climate-based dengue early warning may be a simple, low-cost, and effective tool for enhancing surveillance and control. Scientific studies on climate and dengue in local context form the basis for advancing the development of a climate-based early warning system. This study aims to review the current status of scientific studies in climate and dengue and the prospect or challenges of such research on a climate-based dengue early warning system in a dengue-endemic country, taking Malaysia as a case study. We reviewed the relationship between climate and dengue derived from statistical modeling, laboratory tests, and field studies. We searched electronic databases including PubMed, Scopus, EBSCO (MEDLINE), Web of Science, and the World Health Organization publications, and assessed climate factors and their influence on dengue cases, mosquitoes, and virus and recent development in the field of climate and dengue. Few studies in Malaysia have emphasized the relationship between climate and dengue. Climatic factors such as temperature, rainfall, and humidity are associated with dengue; however, these relationships were not consistent. Climate change projections for Malaysia show a mounting risk for dengue in the future. Scientific studies on climate and dengue enhance dengue surveillance in the long run. It is essential for institutions in Malaysia to promote research on climate and vector-borne diseases to advance the development of climate-based early warning systems. Together, effective strategies that improve existing research capacity, maximize the use of limited resources, and promote local-international partnership are crucial for sustaining research on climate and health.

Urban climate and energy demand interaction in Northern Eurasia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kasilova, E. V.; Ginzburg, A. S.; Demchenko, P. F.

2017-11-01

The regional and urban climate change in Northern Eurasia is one of the main challenges for sustainable development of human habitats situated in boreal and temperate areas. The half of primary energy is spent for space heating even under quite a mild European climate. Implementation of the district heating in urban areas is currently seen as one of the key conditions of sustainable development. The clear understanding of main problems of the urban climateenergy demand interaction is crucial for both small towns and megacities. The specific features of the urban energy systems in Finland, Russia and China under the changing climate conditions were studied. Regional manifestations of the climate change were examined. The climate projections were established for urban regions of the Northern Eurasia. It was shown that the climate warming is likely to continue intensively there. History and actual development trends were discussed for the urban district heating systems in Russia, China and Finland. Common challenges linked with the climate change have been identified for the considered areas. Adaptation possibilities were discussed taking into account climate-energy interactions.

Detecting climate variations and change: New challenges for observing and data management systems

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

Karl, T.R.; Quayle, R.G.; Groisman, P.Ya.

1993-08-01

Several essential aspects of weather observing and the management of weather data related to improving knowledge of climate variations and change in the surface boundary layer and the consequences for socioeconomic and biogeophysical systems, are discussed. The issues include long-term homogeneous time series of routine weather observations; time- and space-scale resolution of datasets derived from the observations; information about observing systems, data collection systems, and data reduction algorithms; and the enhancement of weather observing systems to serve as climate observing systems. Although much has been learned from existing weather networks and methods of data management, the system is far frommore » perfect. Several vital areas have not received adequate attention. Particular improvements are needed in the interaction between network designers and climatologists; operational analyses that focus on detecting and documenting outliers and time-dependent biases within datasets; developing the means to cope with and minimize potential inhomogeneities in weather observing systems; and authoritative documentation of how various aspects of climate have or have not changed. In this last area, close attention must be given to time and space resolution of the data. In many instances the time and space resolution requirements for understanding why the climate changes are not synonymous with understanding how it has changed or varied. This is particularly true within the surface boundary layer. A standard global daily/monthly climate message should also be introduced to supplement current Global Telecommunication System's CLIMAT data. Overall, a call is made for improvements in routine weather observing, data management, and analysis systems. Routine observations have provided (and will continue to provide) most of the information regarding how the climate has changed during the last 100 years affecting where we live, work, and grow our food. 58 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab.« less

CERA - the technical basis for WDCC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thiemann, Hannes; Lautenschlager, Michael

2010-05-01

The World Data Centre for Climate (WDCC) is hosted by the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ). It collects, stores and disseminates data for climate research in order to serve the scientific community. Emphasis hereby is spent on climate modelling and related data products. CERA (Climate and environmental retrieval and archive) is the infrastructure hosting data and metadata from WDCC. Data originates from projects like IPCC (and IPCC-DDC), ENSEMBLES, COPS and several others. Currently more than 400 terabytes of data are managed within CERA. Even more data is addressed through metadata. Data stored inline in CERA is currently archived in an Oracle Database which itself is transparently linked to a sophisticated HSM system. Within this HSM system a wide range of storage systems like different RAID and tape devices are used. HSM for CERA is configured in such a way, that a unique media failure may not cause any data loss. Correct and complete metadata are an important ingredient for relevant archiving procedures. Within CERA special care is taken to assure these goals. As a high end service DOIs can be assigned to data entities as they make the management of intellectual property easier and more convenient. Any data format can be served from within CERA although most of the data stored in CERA is in either GRIB or netCDF format. Out of the box CERA provides several data reduction mechanisms like time-slicing or regional selection. More elaborate functions like format conversion or diverse processing is attached either in- our outline. Fine-grained access control allows data to be distributed under divers data policies. Currently up to 800 users are registered within CERA. More than 600.000 downloads (255 terabytes) have been served from CERA within 2009. At present CERA is restructured, more specific details of the current implementation and the future development will be given in the presentation.

Variance decomposition shows the importance of human-climate feedbacks in the Earth system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calvin, K. V.; Bond-Lamberty, B. P.; Jones, A. D.; Shi, X.; Di Vittorio, A. V.; Thornton, P. E.

2017-12-01

The human and Earth systems are intricately linked: climate influences agricultural production, renewable energy potential, and water availability, for example, while anthropogenic emissions from industry and land use change alter temperature and precipitation. Such feedbacks have the potential to significantly alter future climate change. Current climate change projections contain significant uncertainties, however, and because Earth System Models do not generally include dynamic human (demography, economy, energy, water, land use) components, little is known about how climate feedbacks contribute to that uncertainty. Here we use variance decomposition of a novel coupled human-earth system model to show that the influence of human-climate feedbacks can be as large as 17% of the total variance in the near term for global mean temperature rise, and 11% in the long term for cropland area. The near-term contribution of energy and land use feedbacks to the climate on global mean temperature rise is as large as that from model internal variability, a factor typically considered in modeling studies. Conversely, the contribution of climate feedbacks to cropland extent, while non-negligible, is less than that from socioeconomics, policy, or model. Previous assessments have largely excluded these feedbacks, with the climate community focusing on uncertainty due to internal variability, scenario, and model and the integrated assessment community focusing on uncertainty due to socioeconomics, technology, policy, and model. Our results set the stage for a new generation of models and hypothesis testing to determine when and how bidirectional feedbacks between human and Earth systems should be considered in future assessments of climate change.

An observational and modeling study of the August 2017 Florida climate extreme event.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Konduru, R.; Singh, V.; Routray, A.

2017-12-01

A special report on the climate extremes by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) elucidates that the sole cause of disasters is due to the exposure and vulnerability of the human and natural system to the climate extremes. The cause of such a climate extreme could be anthropogenic or non-anthropogenic. Therefore, it is challenging to discern the critical factor of influence for a particular climate extreme. Such kind of perceptive study with reasonable confidence on climate extreme events is possible only if there exist any past case studies. A similar rarest climate extreme problem encountered in the case of Houston floods and extreme rainfall over Florida in August 2017. A continuum of hurricanes like Harvey and Irma targeted the Florida region and caused catastrophe. Due to the rarity of August 2017 Florida climate extreme event, it requires the in-depth study on this case. To understand the multi-faceted nature of the event, a study on the development of the Harvey hurricane and its progression and dynamics is significant. Current article focus on the observational and modeling study on the Harvey hurricane. A global model named as NCUM (The global UK Met office Unified Model (UM) operational at National Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, India, was utilized to simulate the Harvey hurricane. The simulated rainfall and wind fields were compared with the observational datasets like Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission rainfall datasets and Era-Interim wind fields. The National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) automated tracking system was utilized to track the Harvey hurricane, and the tracks were analyzed statistically for different forecasts concerning the Harvey hurricane track of Joint Typhon Warning Centre. Further, the current study will be continued to investigate the atmospheric processes involved in the August 2017 Florida climate extreme event.

A New Paradigm for Assessing the Role of Agriculture in the Climate System and in Climate Change

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pielke, Roger A., Sr.; Adegoke, Jimmy O.; Chase, Thomas N.; Marshall, Curtis H.; Matsui, Toshihisa; Niyogi, Dev

2007-01-01

This paper discusses the diverse climate forcings that impact agricultural systems, and contrasts the current paradigm of using global models downscaled to agricultural areas (a top-down approach) with a new paradigm that first assesses the vulnerability of agricultural activities to the spectrum of environmental risk including climate (a bottom-up approach). To illustrate the wide spectrum of climate forcings, regional climate forcings are presented including land-use/land-cover change and the influence of aerosols on radiative and biogeochemical fluxes and cloud/precipitation processes, as well as how these effects can be teleconnected globally. Examples are presented of the vulnerability perspective, along with a small survey of the perceived drought impacts in a local area, in which a wide range of impacts for the same precipitation deficits are found. This example illustrates why agricultural assessments of risk to climate change and variability and of other environmental risks should start with a bottom-up perspective.

Climate change and malaria in Canada: a systems approach.

PubMed

Berrang-Ford, L; Maclean, J D; Gyorkos, Theresa W; Ford, J D; Ogden, N H

2009-01-01

This article examines the potential for changes in imported and autochthonous malaria incidence in Canada as a consequence of climate change. Drawing on a systems framework, we qualitatively characterize and assess the potential direct and indirect impact of climate change on malaria in Canada within the context of other concurrent ecological and social trends. Competent malaria vectors currently exist in southern Canada, including within this range several major urban centres, and conditions here have historically supported endemic malaria transmission. Climate change will increase the occurrence of temperature conditions suitable for malaria transmission in Canada, which, combined with trends in international travel, immigration, drug resistance, and inexperience in both clinical and laboratory diagnosis, may increase malaria incidence in Canada and permit sporadic autochthonous cases. This conclusion challenges the general assumption of negligible malaria risk in Canada with climate change.

Climate Change and Malaria in Canada: A Systems Approach

PubMed Central

Berrang-Ford, L.; MacLean, J. D.; Gyorkos, Theresa W.; Ford, J. D.; Ogden, N. H.

2009-01-01

This article examines the potential for changes in imported and autochthonous malaria incidence in Canada as a consequence of climate change. Drawing on a systems framework, we qualitatively characterize and assess the potential direct and indirect impact of climate change on malaria in Canada within the context of other concurrent ecological and social trends. Competent malaria vectors currently exist in southern Canada, including within this range several major urban centres, and conditions here have historically supported endemic malaria transmission. Climate change will increase the occurrence of temperature conditions suitable for malaria transmission in Canada, which, combined with trends in international travel, immigration, drug resistance, and inexperience in both clinical and laboratory diagnosis, may increase malaria incidence in Canada and permit sporadic autochthonous cases. This conclusion challenges the general assumption of negligible malaria risk in Canada with climate change. PMID:19277107

Dryland ecohydrology and climate change: critical issues and technical advances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, L.; D'Odorico, P.; Evans, J. P.; Eldridge, D.; McCabe, M. F.; Caylor, K. K.; King, E. G.

2012-04-01

Drylands cover about 40% of the terrestrial land surface and account for approximately 40% of global net primary productivity. Water is fundamental to the biophysical processes that sustain ecosystem function and food production, particularly in drylands, where a tight coupling exists between water resource availability and ecosystem productivity, surface energy balance, and biogeochemical cycles. Currently, drylands support at least 2 billion people and comprise both natural and managed ecosystems. In this synthesis, we identify some current critical issues in the understanding of dryland systems and discuss how arid and semiarid environments are responding to the changes in climate and land use. Specifically, we focus on dryland agriculture and food security, dryland population growth, desertification, shrub encroachment and dryland development issues as factors of change requiring increased understanding and management. We also review recent technical advances in the quantitative assessment of human versus climate change related drivers of desertification, evapotranspiration partitioning using field deployable stable water isotope systems and the remote sensing of key ecohydrological processes. These technological advances provide new tools that assist in addressing major critical issues in dryland ecohydrology under climate change

Climate change and mosquito-borne diseases in China: a review.

PubMed

Bai, Li; Morton, Lindsay Carol; Liu, Qiyong

2013-03-09

China has experienced noticeable changes in climate over the past 100 years and the potential impact climate change has on transmission of mosquito-borne infectious diseases poses a risk to Chinese populations. The aims of this paper are to summarize what is known about the impact of climate change on the incidence and prevalence of malaria, dengue fever and Japanese encephalitis in China and to provide important information and direction for adaptation policy making. Fifty-five papers met the inclusion criteria for this study. Examination of these studies indicates that variability in temperature, precipitation, wind, and extreme weather events is linked to transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in some regions of China. However, study findings are inconsistent across geographical locations and this requires strengthening current evidence for timely development of adaptive options. After synthesis of available information we make several key adaptation recommendations including: improving current surveillance and monitoring systems; concentrating adaptation strategies and policies on vulnerable communities; strengthening adaptive capacity of public health systems; developing multidisciplinary approaches sustained by an new mechanism of inter-sectional coordination; and increasing awareness and mobilization of the general public.

Climate change and mosquito-borne diseases in China: a review

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

China has experienced noticeable changes in climate over the past 100 years and the potential impact climate change has on transmission of mosquito-borne infectious diseases poses a risk to Chinese populations. The aims of this paper are to summarize what is known about the impact of climate change on the incidence and prevalence of malaria, dengue fever and Japanese encephalitis in China and to provide important information and direction for adaptation policy making. Fifty-five papers met the inclusion criteria for this study. Examination of these studies indicates that variability in temperature, precipitation, wind, and extreme weather events is linked to transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in some regions of China. However, study findings are inconsistent across geographical locations and this requires strengthening current evidence for timely development of adaptive options. After synthesis of available information we make several key adaptation recommendations including: improving current surveillance and monitoring systems; concentrating adaptation strategies and policies on vulnerable communities; strengthening adaptive capacity of public health systems; developing multidisciplinary approaches sustained by an new mechanism of inter-sectional coordination; and increasing awareness and mobilization of the general public. PMID:23497420

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.

Considerations of Socio-Economic and Global Change Effects on Eurasian Steppes Ecosystem and Land-Atmosphere Interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ojima, D. S.; Chuluun, T.; Temirbekov, S. S.; Mahowald, N.; Hicke, J.

2004-12-01

Dramatic changes occurred in pastoral systems of Eurasia ranging from Mongolia, China and Central Asia for the past decades. Recently, evaluation of the pastoral systems has been conducted in the region. Pastoral systems, where humans depend on livestock, exist largely in arid or semi-arid ecosystems where climate is highly variable. Interaction between ecosystems and nomadic land use systems co-shaped them in mutual adaptive ways for hundreds of years, thus making both the Mongolian rangeland ecosystem and nomadic pastoral system resilient and sustainable. Current changes in environmental conditions are affecting land-atmosphere interactions. Regional dust events, changes in hydrological cycle, and land use changes contribute to changing interactions between ecosystem and landscape processes which affect regional climate. The general trend involves greater intensification of resource exploitation at the expense of traditional patterns of extensive range utilization. This set of drivers is orthogonal to the above described climate drivers. Thus we expect climate-land use-land cover relationships to be crucially modified by the socio-economic forces.

How can crop intra-specific biodiversity mitigate the vulnerability of agricultural systems to climate change? A case study on durum wheat in Southern Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Monaco, Eugenia; Alfieri, Silvia Maria; Basile, Angelo; Menenti, Massimo; Bonfante, Antonello; De Lorenzi, Fracesca

2014-05-01

Climate evolution may lead to changes in the amount and distribution of precipitations and to reduced water availability, with constraints on the cultivation of some crops. Recently, foreseen crop responses to climate change raise a crucial question for the agricultural stakeholders: are the current production systems resilient to this change? An active debate is in progress about the definition of adaptation of agricultural systems, particularly about the integrated assessment of climate stressors, vulnerability and resilece towards the evaluation of climate impact on agricultural systems. Climate change represents a risk for rain-fed agricultural systems, where irrigations cannot compensate reductions in precipitations. The intra-specific biodiversity of crops can be a resource towards adaptation. The knowledge of the responses to environmental conditions (temperature and water availability) of different cultivars can allow to identify options for adaptation to future climate. Simulation models of water flow in the soil-plant-atmosphere system, driven by different climate scenarios, can describe present and foreseen soil water regime. The present work deals with a case-study on the adaptive capacity of durum wheat to climate change. The selected study area is a hilly region in Southern Italy (Fortore Beneventano, Campania Region). Two climate cases were studied: "reference" (1961-1990) and "future" (2021-2050). A mechanistic model of water flow in the soil-plant-atmosphere system (SWAP) was run to determine the water regime in some soil units, representative of the soil variability in the study area. From model output, the Relative Evapotranspiration Deficit (RETD) was determined as an indicator of hydrological conditions during the crop growing period for each year and climate case; and periods with higher frequencies of soil water deficits were identified. The timing of main crop development stages was calculated. The occurrence of water deficit at different development stages was thus assessed. Moreover, the yield response functions to water availability of several durum wheat cultivars were determined; cultivars' hydrologic requirements were thus defined and compared with the simulated values of RETD. The latter was evaluated against requirements for each soil unit, cultivar and year in both climate cases to assess adaptability. In the future climate scenario a significant reduction (about 80 mm) of rainfall is foreseen. The analyses of inter- and intra-annual courses of the indicator (RETD) showed higher RETD in one soil unit, which resulted less suitable for durum wheat cultivation. According to the soils' water regime and to the cultivar-specific yield responses, the adaptability of durum wheat cultivars was assessed. The difference between the two climate cases was significant; the adaptability of the cultivars was strongly influenced by the different rainfall regime and by the soil physical properties, which strongly affected the soil water balance. The case study showed how in the future climate case, for rainfed durum wheat, the intra-specific variability will allow to maintain the current crop production system. The work was carried out within the Italian national project AGROSCENARI funded by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies (MIPAAF, D.M. 8608/7303/2008)

Forest ecosystems: Vegetation, disturbance, and economics: Chapter 5

USGS Publications Warehouse

Littell, Jeremy S.; Hicke, Jeffrey A.; Shafer, Sarah L.; Capalbo, Susan M.; Houston, Laurie L.; Glick, Patty

2013-01-01

Forests cover about 47% of the Northwest (NW–Washington, Oregon, and Idaho) (Smith et al. 2009, fig. 5.1, table 5.1). The impacts of current and future climate change on NW forest ecosystems are a product of the sensitivities of ecosystem processes to climate and the degree to which humans depend on and interact with those systems. Forest ecosystem structure and function, particularly in relatively unmanaged forests where timber harvest and other land use have smaller effects, is sensitive to climate change because climate has a strong influence on ecosystem processes. Climate can affect forest structure directly through its control of plan physiology and life history (establishment, individual growth, productivity, and morality) or indirectly through its control of disturbance (fire, insects, disease). As climate changes, many forest processes will be affected, altering ecosystem services such as timber production and recreation. These changes have socioeconomic implications (e.g. for timber economies) and will require changes to current management of forests. Climate and management will interact to determine the forests of the future, and the scientific basis for adaptation to climate change in forests thus depends significantly on how forests will be affected.

Climate Change Effects of Forest Management and Substitution of Carbon-Intensive Materials and Fossil Fuels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sathre, R.; Gustavsson, L.; Haus, S.; Lundblad, M.; Lundström, A.; Ortiz, C.; Truong, N.; Wikberg, P. E.

2016-12-01

Forests can play several roles in climate change mitigation strategies, for example as a reservoir for storing carbon and as a source of renewable materials and energy. To better understand the linkages and possible trade-offs between different forest management strategies, we conduct an integrated analysis where both sequestration of carbon in growing forests and the effects of substituting carbon intensive products within society are considered. We estimate the climate effects of directing forest management in Sweden towards increased carbon storage in forests, with more land set-aside for protection, or towards increased forest production for the substitution of carbon-intensive materials and fossil fuels, relative to a reference case of current forest management. We develop various scenarios of forest management and biomass use to estimate the carbon balances of the forest systems, including ecological and technological components, and their impacts on the climate in terms of cumulative radiative forcing over a 100-year period. For the reference case of current forest management, increasing the harvest of forest residues is found to give increased climate benefits. A scenario with increased set-aside area and the current level of forest residue harvest begins with climate benefits compared to the reference scenario, but the benefits cannot be sustained for 100 years because the rate of carbon storage in set-aside forests diminishes over time as the forests mature, but the demand for products and fuels remains. The most climatically beneficial scenario, expressed as reduced cumulative radiative forcing, in both the short and long terms is a strategy aimed at high forest production, high residue recovery rate, and high efficiency utilization of harvested biomass. Active forest management with high harvest level and efficient forest product utilization will provide more climate benefit, compared to reducing harvest and storing more carbon in the forest. Figure. Schematic diagram of complete modelled forest system including ecological and technological components, showing major flows of carbon.

Influence of Geographic Factors on the Life Cycle Climate Change Impacts of Renewable Energy Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fortier, M. O. P.

2017-12-01

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a valuable tool to measure the cradle-to-grave climate change impacts of the sustainable energy systems that are planned to replace conventional fossil energy-based systems. The recent inclusion of geographic specificity in bioenergy LCAs has shown that the relative sustainability of these energy sources is often dependent on geographic factors, such as the climate change impact of changing the land cover and local resource availability. However, this development has not yet been implemented to most LCAs of energy systems that do not have biological feedstocks, such as wind, water, and solar-based energy systems. For example, the tidal velocity where tidal rotors are installed can significantly alter the life cycle climate change impacts of electricity generated using the same technology in different locations. For LCAs of solar updraft towers, the albedo change impacts arising from changing the reflectivity of the land that would be converted can be of the same magnitude as other life cycle process climate change impacts. Improvements to determining the life cycle climate change impacts of renewable energy technologies can be made by utilizing GIS and satellite data and by conducting site-specific analyses. This practice can enhance our understanding of the life cycle environmental impacts of technologies that are aimed to reduce the impacts of our current energy systems, and it can improve the siting of new systems to optimize a reduction in climate change impacts.

Improving the interpretability of climate landscape metrics: An ecological risk analysis of Japan's Marine Protected Areas.

PubMed

García Molinos, Jorge; Takao, Shintaro; Kumagai, Naoki H; Poloczanska, Elvira S; Burrows, Michael T; Fujii, Masahiko; Yamano, Hiroya

2017-10-01

Conservation efforts strive to protect significant swaths of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems from a range of threats. As climate change becomes an increasing concern, these efforts must take into account how resilient-protected spaces will be in the face of future drivers of change such as warming temperatures. Climate landscape metrics, which signal the spatial magnitude and direction of climate change, support a convenient initial assessment of potential threats to and opportunities within ecosystems to inform conservation and policy efforts where biological data are not available. However, inference of risk from purely physical climatic changes is difficult unless set in a meaningful ecological context. Here, we aim to establish this context using historical climatic variability, as a proxy for local adaptation by resident biota, to identify areas where current local climate conditions will remain extant and future regional climate analogues will emerge. This information is then related to the processes governing species' climate-driven range edge dynamics, differentiating changes in local climate conditions as promoters of species range contractions from those in neighbouring locations facilitating range expansions. We applied this approach to assess the future climatic stability and connectivity of Japanese waters and its network of marine protected areas (MPAs). We find 88% of Japanese waters transitioning to climates outside their historical variability bounds by 2035, resulting in large reductions in the amount of available climatic space potentially promoting widespread range contractions and expansions. Areas of high connectivity, where shifting climates converge, are present along sections of the coast facilitated by the strong latitudinal gradient of the Japanese archipelago and its ocean current system. While these areas overlap significantly with areas currently under significant anthropogenic pressures, they also include much of the MPA network that may provide stepping-stone protection for species that must shift their distribution because of climate change. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Improving Climate Projections Using "Intelligent" Ensembles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baker, Noel C.; Taylor, Patrick C.

2015-01-01

Recent changes in the climate system have led to growing concern, especially in communities which are highly vulnerable to resource shortages and weather extremes. There is an urgent need for better climate information to develop solutions and strategies for adapting to a changing climate. Climate models provide excellent tools for studying the current state of climate and making future projections. However, these models are subject to biases created by structural uncertainties. Performance metrics-or the systematic determination of model biases-succinctly quantify aspects of climate model behavior. Efforts to standardize climate model experiments and collect simulation data-such as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)-provide the means to directly compare and assess model performance. Performance metrics have been used to show that some models reproduce present-day climate better than others. Simulation data from multiple models are often used to add value to projections by creating a consensus projection from the model ensemble, in which each model is given an equal weight. It has been shown that the ensemble mean generally outperforms any single model. It is possible to use unequal weights to produce ensemble means, in which models are weighted based on performance (called "intelligent" ensembles). Can performance metrics be used to improve climate projections? Previous work introduced a framework for comparing the utility of model performance metrics, showing that the best metrics are related to the variance of top-of-atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation. These metrics improve present-day climate simulations of Earth's energy budget using the "intelligent" ensemble method. The current project identifies several approaches for testing whether performance metrics can be applied to future simulations to create "intelligent" ensemble-mean climate projections. It is shown that certain performance metrics test key climate processes in the models, and that these metrics can be used to evaluate model quality in both current and future climate states. This information will be used to produce new consensus projections and provide communities with improved climate projections for urgent decision-making.

Next-Generation Climate Modeling Science Challenges for Simulation, Workflow and Analysis Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koch, D. M.; Anantharaj, V. G.; Bader, D. C.; Krishnan, H.; Leung, L. R.; Ringler, T.; Taylor, M.; Wehner, M. F.; Williams, D. N.

2016-12-01

We will present two examples of current and future high-resolution climate-modeling research that are challenging existing simulation run-time I/O, model-data movement, storage and publishing, and analysis. In each case, we will consider lessons learned as current workflow systems are broken by these large-data science challenges, as well as strategies to repair or rebuild the systems. First we consider the science and workflow challenges to be posed by the CMIP6 multi-model HighResMIP, involving around a dozen modeling groups performing quarter-degree simulations, in 3-member ensembles for 100 years, with high-frequency (1-6 hourly) diagnostics, which is expected to generate over 4PB of data. An example of science derived from these experiments will be to study how resolution affects the ability of models to capture extreme-events such as hurricanes or atmospheric rivers. Expected methods to transfer (using parallel Globus) and analyze (using parallel "TECA" software tools) HighResMIP data for such feature-tracking by the DOE CASCADE project will be presented. A second example will be from the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project, which is currently addressing challenges involving multiple century-scale coupled high resolution (quarter-degree) climate simulations on DOE Leadership Class computers. ACME is anticipating production of over 5PB of data during the next 2 years of simulations, in order to investigate the drivers of water cycle changes, sea-level-rise, and carbon cycle evolution. The ACME workflow, from simulation to data transfer, storage, analysis and publication will be presented. Current and planned methods to accelerate the workflow, including implementing run-time diagnostics, and implementing server-side analysis to avoid moving large datasets will be presented.

Using an improved understanding of current climate variability to develop increased drought resilience in UK irrigated agriculture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holman, I.; Rey Vicario, D.

2016-12-01

Improving community preparedness for climate change can be supported by developing resilience to past events, focused on those changes of particular relevance (such as floods and droughts). However, communities' perceptions of impacts and risk can be influenced by an incomplete appreciation of historical baseline climate variability. This can arise from a number of factors including individual's age, access to long term data records and availability of local knowledge. For example, the most significant recent drought in the UK occurred in 1976/77 but does it represent the worst drought that did occur (or could have occurred) without climate change? We focus on the east of England where most irrigated agriculture is located and where many local farmers interviewed were either not in business then or have an incomplete memory of the impacts of the drought. This paper describes a comparison of an annual agroclimatic indicator closely linked to irrigation demand (maximum Potential Soil Moisture Deficit) calculated from three sources of long term observational and simulated historical weather data with recent data. These long term datasets include gridded measured / calculated datasets of precipitation and reference evapotranspiration; a dynamically downscaled 20th Century Re-analysis dataset, and two Regional Climate Model ensemble datasets (FutureFlows and the MaRIUS event set) which each provide between 110 and 3000 years of baseline weather. The comparison shows that the long term datasets provide a wider characterisation of current climate variability and affect the perception of current drought frequency and severity. The paper will show that using a more comprehensive understanding of current climate variability and drought risk as a basis for adapting irrigated systems to droughts can provide substantial increased resilience to (uncertain) climate change.

Climate Science Performance, Data and Productivity on Titan

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

Mayer, Benjamin W; Worley, Patrick H; Gaddis, Abigail L

2015-01-01

Climate Science models are flagship codes for the largest of high performance computing (HPC) resources, both in visibility, with the newly launched Department of Energy (DOE) Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) effort, and in terms of significant fractions of system usage. The performance of the DOE ACME model is captured with application level timers and examined through a sizeable run archive. Performance and variability of compute, queue time and ancillary services are examined. As Climate Science advances in the use of HPC resources there has been an increase in the required human and data systems to achieve programs goals.more » A description of current workflow processes (hardware, software, human) and planned automation of the workflow, along with historical and projected data in motion and at rest data usage, are detailed. The combination of these two topics motivates a description of future systems requirements for DOE Climate Modeling efforts, focusing on the growth of data storage and network and disk bandwidth required to handle data at an acceptable rate.« less

A New Time-varying Concept of Risk in a Changing Climate.

PubMed

Sarhadi, Ali; Ausín, María Concepción; Wiper, Michael P

2016-10-20

In a changing climate arising from anthropogenic global warming, the nature of extreme climatic events is changing over time. Existing analytical stationary-based risk methods, however, assume multi-dimensional extreme climate phenomena will not significantly vary over time. To strengthen the reliability of infrastructure designs and the management of water systems in the changing environment, multidimensional stationary risk studies should be replaced with a new adaptive perspective. The results of a comparison indicate that current multi-dimensional stationary risk frameworks are no longer applicable to projecting the changing behaviour of multi-dimensional extreme climate processes. Using static stationary-based multivariate risk methods may lead to undesirable consequences in designing water system infrastructures. The static stationary concept should be replaced with a flexible multi-dimensional time-varying risk framework. The present study introduces a new multi-dimensional time-varying risk concept to be incorporated in updating infrastructure design strategies under changing environments arising from human-induced climate change. The proposed generalized time-varying risk concept can be applied for all stochastic multi-dimensional systems that are under the influence of changing environments.

A perspective on sustained marine observations for climate modelling and prediction

PubMed Central

Dunstone, Nick J.

2014-01-01

Here, I examine some of the many varied ways in which sustained global ocean observations are used in numerical modelling activities. In particular, I focus on the use of ocean observations to initialize predictions in ocean and climate models. Examples are also shown of how models can be used to assess the impact of both current ocean observations and to simulate that of potential new ocean observing platforms. The ocean has never been better observed than it is today and similarly ocean models have never been as capable at representing the real ocean as they are now. However, there remain important unanswered questions that can likely only be addressed via future improvements in ocean observations. In particular, ocean observing systems need to respond to the needs of the burgeoning field of near-term climate predictions. Although new ocean observing platforms promise exciting new discoveries, there is a delicate balance to be made between their funding and that of the current ocean observing system. Here, I identify the need to secure long-term funding for ocean observing platforms as they mature, from a mainly research exercise to an operational system for sustained observation over climate change time scales. At the same time, considerable progress continues to be made via ship-based observing campaigns and I highlight some that are dedicated to addressing uncertainties in key ocean model parametrizations. The use of ocean observations to understand the prominent long time scale changes observed in the North Atlantic is another focus of this paper. The exciting first decade of monitoring of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation by the RAPID-MOCHA array is highlighted. The use of ocean and climate models as tools to further probe the drivers of variability seen in such time series is another exciting development. I also discuss the need for a concerted combined effort from climate models and ocean observations in order to understand the current slow-down in surface global warming. PMID:25157195

Global change impacts on wheat production along an environmental gradient in south Australia.

PubMed

Reyenga, P J; Howden, S M; Meinke, H; Hall, W B

2001-09-01

Crop production is likely to change in the future as a result of global changes in CO2 levels in the atmosphere and climate. APSIM, a cropping system model, was used to investigate the potential impact of these changes on the distribution of cropping along an environmental transect in south Australia. The effects of several global change scenarios were studied, including: (1) historical climate and CO2 levels, (2) historic climate with elevated CO2 (700 ppm), (3) warmer climate (+2.4 degrees C) +700 ppm CO2, (4) drier climate (-15% summer, -20% winter rainfall) +2.4 degrees C +700 ppm CO2, (5) wetter climate (+10% summer rainfall) +2.4 degrees C +700 ppm CO2 and (6) most likely climate changes (+1.8 degrees C, -8% annual rainfall) +700 ppm CO2. Based on an analysis of the current cropping boundary, a criterion of 1 t/ha was used to assess potential changes in the boundary under global change. Under most scenarios, the cropping boundary moved northwards with a further 240,000 ha potentially being available for cropping. The exception was the reduced rainfall scenario (4), which resulted in a small retreat of cropping from its current extent. However, the impact of this scenario may only be small (in the order of 10,000-20,000 ha reduction in cropping area). Increases in CO2 levels over the current climate record have resulted in small but significant increases in simulated yields. Model limitations are discussed.

International Collaboration in the field of GNSS-Meteorology and Climate Monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jones, J.; Guerova, G.; Dousa, J.; Bock, O.; Elgered, G.; Vedel, H.; Pottiaux, E.; de Haan, S.; Pacione, R.; Dick, G.; Wang, J.; Gutman, S. I.; Wickert, J.; Rannat, K.; Liu, G.; Braun, J. J.; Shoji, Y.

2012-12-01

International collaboration in the field of GNSS-meteorology and climate monitoring is essential, as severe weather and climate change have no respect for national boundaries. The use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for meteorological purposes is an established atmospheric observing technique, which can accurately sense water vapour, the most abundant greenhouse gas, accounting for 60-70% of atmospheric warming. Severe weather forecasting is challenging, in part due to the high temporal and spatial variation of atmospheric water vapour. Water vapour is currently under-sampled and obtaining and exploiting more high-quality humidity observations is essential to severe weather forecasting and climate monitoring. A proposed EU COST Action (http://www.cost.eu) will address new and improved capabilities from concurrent developments in both GNSS and atmospheric communities to improve (short-range) weather forecasts and climate projections. For the first time, the synergy of the three GNSS systems, GPS, GLONASS and Galileo, will be used to develop new, advanced tropospheric products, stimulating the full potential exploitation of multi-GNSS water vapour estimates on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from real-time severe weather monitoring and forecasting to climate research. The Action will work in close collaboration with the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper Air Network (GRUAN), GNSS Precipitable Water Task Team (TT). GRUAN is a global reference observing network, designed to meet climate requirements and to fill a major void in the current global observing system. GRUAN observations will provide long-term, high-quality data to determine climatic trends and to constrain and validate data from space-based remote sensors. Ground-based GNSS PW was identified as a Priority 1 measurement for GRUAN, and the GNSS-PW TT's goal is to develop explicit guidance on hardware, software and data management practices to obtain GNSS PW measurements of consistent quality at all GRUAN sites. The GRUAN GNSS-PW TT and the proposed COST Action will look to expand the international framework already in place with the European E-GVAP programme to facilitate global collaboration to facilitate knowledge and data exchange.

Physical climate response to a reduction of anthropogenic climate forcing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Myneni, R. B.; Samanta, A.; Anderson, B. T.; Ganguly, S.; Knyazikhin, Y.; Nemani, R. R.

2009-12-01

Recent research indicates that the warming of the climate system resulting from increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next century will persist for many centuries after the cessation of these emissions, due principally to the persistence of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and their attendant radiative forcing. However, it is unknown whether the responses of other components of the climate system—including those related to Greenland and Antarctic ice cover, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, the West African monsoon, and ecosystems and human welfare—would be reversed even if atmospheric CO2 concentrations were to recover to 1990 levels. Here, using a simple set of experiments employing a current-generation numerical climate model, we show that many physical characteristics of the climate system, including global temperatures, precipitation, soil moisture and sea ice, recover as CO2 concentrations decrease. In contrast, stratospheric water vapor, especially in the high latitudes, exhibits non-linear hysteresis. In these regions, increases in water vapor, which initially result from increased CO2 concentrations, remain present even as CO2 concentrations recover. This result has implications for the sensitivity of the global climate system, the evolution and recovery of stratospheric ozone, and the persistence of weather patterns in the high latitudes. Our work also demonstrates that further identification of threshold behavior in response to human-induced global climate change requires an examination of the full Earth system, including cryosphere, biosphere, and chemistry.

Planning for climate change: The need for mechanistic systems-based approaches to study climate change impacts on diarrheal diseases.

PubMed

Mellor, Jonathan E; Levy, Karen; Zimmerman, Julie; Elliott, Mark; Bartram, Jamie; Carlton, Elizabeth; Clasen, Thomas; Dillingham, Rebecca; Eisenberg, Joseph; Guerrant, Richard; Lantagne, Daniele; Mihelcic, James; Nelson, Kara

2016-04-01

Increased precipitation and temperature variability as well as extreme events related to climate change are predicted to affect the availability and quality of water globally. Already heavily burdened with diarrheal diseases due to poor access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, communities throughout the developing world lack the adaptive capacity to sufficiently respond to the additional adversity caused by climate change. Studies suggest that diarrhea rates are positively correlated with increased temperature, and show a complex relationship with precipitation. Although climate change will likely increase rates of diarrheal diseases on average, there is a poor mechanistic understanding of the underlying disease transmission processes and substantial uncertainty surrounding current estimates. This makes it difficult to recommend appropriate adaptation strategies. We review the relevant climate-related mechanisms behind transmission of diarrheal disease pathogens and argue that systems-based mechanistic approaches incorporating human, engineered and environmental components are urgently needed. We then review successful systems-based approaches used in other environmental health fields and detail one modeling framework to predict climate change impacts on diarrheal diseases and design adaptation strategies. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

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

Thornton, Peter E.; Calvin, Katherine; Jones, Andrew D.

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical datasets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns, and socio-economic development trajectories. We show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drives significant feedbacks inmore » energy, agriculture, land-use, and carbon cycle projections for the 21st century. We also find that exposure of human appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid range forcing scenario. Furthermore, the feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system demonstrated here are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy economic models to ESMs used to date.« less

Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thornton, Peter E.; Calvin, Katherine; Jones, Andrew D.; di Vittorio, Alan V.; Bond-Lamberty, Ben; Chini, Louise; Shi, Xiaoying; Mao, Jiafu; Collins, William D.; Edmonds, Jae; Thomson, Allison; Truesdale, John; Craig, Anthony; Branstetter, Marcia L.; Hurtt, George

2017-07-01

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical data sets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy-economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns and socio-economic development trajectories. Here we show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drive significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land use and carbon cycle projections for the twenty-first century. We find that exposure of human-appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid-range forcing scenario. The feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system--demonstrated here--are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy-economic models to ESMs used to date.

Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

DOE PAGES

Thornton, Peter E.; Calvin, Katherine; Jones, Andrew D.; ...

2017-06-12

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical datasets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns, and socio-economic development trajectories. We show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drives significant feedbacks inmore » energy, agriculture, land-use, and carbon cycle projections for the 21st century. We also find that exposure of human appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid range forcing scenario. Furthermore, the feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system demonstrated here are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy economic models to ESMs used to date.« less

The evaluation of the climate change effects on maize and fennel cultivation by means of an hydrological physically based model: the case study of an irrigated district of southern Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonfante, A.; Alfieri, M. S.; Basile, A.; De Lorenzi, F.; Fiorentino, N.; Menenti, M.

2012-04-01

The effect of climate change on irrigated agricultural systems will be different from area to area depending on some factors as: (i) water availability, (ii) crop water demand (iii) soil hydrological behavior and (iv) irrigation management strategy. The adaptation of irrigated crop systems to future climate change can be supported by physically based model which simulate the water and heat fluxes in the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system. The aim of this work is to evaluate the effects of climate change on the heat and water balance of a maize-fennel rotation. This was applied to a on-demand irrigation district of Southern Italy ("Destra Sele", Campania Region, 22.645 ha). Two climate scenarios were considered, current climate (1961-1990) and future climate (2021-2050), the latter constructed by applying statistical downscaling to GCMs scenarios. For each climate scenario the soil moisture regime of the selected study area was calculated by means of a simulation model of the soil-water-atmosphere system (SWAP). Synthetic indicators of the soil water regimes (e.g., crop water stress index - CWSI, available water content) have been calculated and impacts evaluated taking into account the yield response functions to water availability of different cultivars. Different irrigation delivering strategies were also simulated. The hydrological model SWAP was applied to the representative soils of the whole area (20 soil units) for which the soil hydraulic properties were derived by means of pedo-transfer function (HYPRES) tested and validated on the typical soils in the study area. Upper boundary conditions were derived from two climate scenarios, i.e. current and future. Unit gradient in soil water potential was set as lower boundary condition. Crop-specific input data and model parameters were derived from field experiments, in the same area, where the SWAP model was calibrated and validated. The results obtained have shown a significant increase of CWSI in the future climate scenario, and some spatial patterns strongly influenced by the soils characteristics. Adaptability of different maize cultivars has been evaluated. The work was carried out within the Italian national project AGROSCENARI funded by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies (MIPAAF, D.M. 8608/7303/2008) Keywords: Plant Adaptative capacity, SWAP, Climate changes, Maize, Fennel

A tool to assess potential for alien plant establishment and expansion under climate change.

PubMed

Roger, Erin; Duursma, Daisy Englert; Downey, Paul O; Gallagher, Rachael V; Hughes, Lesley; Steel, Jackie; Johnson, Stephen B; Leishman, Michelle R

2015-08-15

Predicting the influence of climate change on the potential distribution of naturalised alien plant species is an important and challenging task. While prioritisation of management actions for alien plants under current climatic conditions has been widely adopted, very few systems explicitly incorporate the potential of future changes in climate conditions to influence the distribution of alien plant species. Here, we develop an Australia-wide screening tool to assess the potential of naturalised alien plants to establish and spread under both current and future climatic conditions. The screening tool developed uses five spatially explicit criteria to establish the likelihood of alien plant population establishment and expansion under baseline climate conditions and future climates for the decades 2035 and 2065. Alien plants are then given a threat rating according to current and future threat to enable natural resource managers to focus on those species that pose the largest potential threat now and in the future. To demonstrate the screening tool, we present results for a representative sample of approximately 10% (n = 292) of Australia's known, naturalised alien plant species. Overall, most alien plant species showed decreases in area of habitat suitability under future conditions compared to current conditions and therefore the threat rating of most alien plant species declined between current and future conditions. Use of the screening tool is intended to assist natural resource managers in assessing the threat of alien plant establishment and spread under current and future conditions and thus prioritise detailed weed risk assessments for those species that pose the greatest threat. The screening tool is associated with a searchable database for all 292 alien plant species across a range of spatial scales, available through an interactive web-based portal at http://weedfutures.net/. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The GCOS Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vömel, H.; Berger, F. H.; Immler, F. J.; Seidel, D.; Thorne, P.

2009-04-01

While the global upper-air observing network has provided useful observations for operational weather forecasting for decades, its measurements lack the accuracy and long-term continuity needed for understanding climate change. Consequently, the scientific community faces uncertainty on such key issues as the trends of temperature in the upper troposphere and stratosphere or the variability and trends of stratospheric water vapour. To address these shortcomings, and to ensure that future climate records will be more useful than the records to date, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) program initiated the GCOS Reference Upper Air Network (GRUAN). GRUAN will be a network of about 30-40 observatories with a representative sampling of geographic regions and surface types. These stations will provide upper-air reference observations of the essential climate variables, i.e. temperature, geopotential, humidity, wind, radiation and cloud properties using specialized radiosondes and complementary remote sensing profiling instrumentation. Long-term stability, quality assurance / quality control, and a detailed assessment of measurement uncertainties will be the key aspects of GRUAN observations. The network will not be globally complete but will serve to constrain and adjust data from more spatially comprehensive global observing systems including satellites and the current radiosonde networks. This paper outlines the scientific rationale for GRUAN, its role in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, network requirements and likely instrumentation, management structure, current status and future plans.

Bridging the Divide Between Climate and Global Change Science and Education of Public and K-12 Visitors at the National Center for Atmospheric Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foster, S. Q.; Johnson, R. M.; Carbone, L.; Munoz, R.; Eastburn, T.; Ammann, C.; Lu, G.; Richmond, A.; Committee, S.

2004-12-01

The study of climate and global change is an important on-going focus for scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Programs overseen by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Office of Education and Outreach (UCAR-EO) help to translate NCAR's scientific programs, methodologies, and technologies and their societal benefits to over 80,000 visitors to the NCAR Mesa Laboratory each year, including about 10,000 K-12 students. This is currently accomplished through the implementation of an increasingly integrated system of exhibits, guided tours, an audiotour, programs for school groups, and a teachers' guide to the exhibits, which is currently in development. The Climate Discovery Exhibit unveiled in July 2003 and expanded in 2004 offers visitors visually engaging and informative text panels, graphics, artifacts, and interactives describing Sun-Earth connections, dynamic processes that contribute to and mediate climate change, and the Earth's climate history. The exhibit seeks to help visitors to understand why scientists model the global climate system and how information about past and current climate is used to validate models and build scenarios for Earth's future climate. Exhibit-viewers are challenged to ask questions and reflect upon decision making challenges while considering the roles various natural and human-induced factors play in shaping these predictions. With support from NASA and NCAR, a K-12 Teacher's Guide has been developed corresponding the Climate Discovery exhibit's sections addressing the Sun-Earth connection and past climates (the Little Ice Age, in particular). This presentation will review efforts to identify the challenges of communicating with the public and school groups about climate change, while also describing several successful strategies for utilizing visitor questionnaires and interviews to learn how to develop and refine educational resources that will target their interests, bolster their knowledge, and address their misconceptions. Visitors view the exhibit every day of the year on their own, using an audiotour, or with a tour guide. NCAR/UCAR's educational content about climate change is increasingly available to national audiences through the new NCAR EO web site (www.ncar.ucar.edu/eo), Windows to the Universe (www.windows.ucar.edu), UCAR-EO's summer teachers workshops, and sessions at the National Science Teacher Association meetings and other professional education venues.

Unexpectedly large impact of forest management and grazing on global vegetation biomass

PubMed Central

Erb, K.-H.; Bais, A.L.S.; Carvalhais, N.; Fetzel, T.; Gingrich, S.; Haberl, H.; Lauk, C.; Niedertscheider, M.; Pongratz, J.; Thurner, M.; Luyssaert, S.

2017-01-01

Carbon stocks in vegetation play a key role in the climate system1–4, but their magnitude and patterns, their uncertainties, and the impact of land use on them remain poorly quantified. Based on a consistent integration of state-of-the art datasets, we show that vegetation currently stores ~450 PgC. In the hypothetical absence of land use, potential vegetation would store ~916 PgC, under current climate. This difference singles out the massive effect land use has on biomass stocks. Deforestation and other land-cover changes are responsible for 53-58% of the difference between current and potential biomass stocks. Land management effects, i.e. land-use induced biomass stock changes within the same land cover, contribute 42-47% but are underappreciated in the current literature. Avoiding deforestation hence is necessary but not sufficient for climate-change mitigation. Our results imply that trade-offs exist between conserving carbon stocks on managed land and raising the contribution of biomass to raw material and energy supply for climate change mitigation. Efforts to raise biomass stocks are currently only verifiable in temperate forests, where potentials are limited. In contrast, large uncertainties hamper verification in the tropical forest where the largest potentials are located, pointing to challenges for the upcoming stocktaking exercises under the Paris agreement. PMID:29258288

Utility of AIRS Retrievals for Climate Studies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Molnar, Guyla I.; Susskind, Joel

2007-01-01

Satellites provide an ideal platform to study the Earth-atmosphere system on practically all spatial and temporal scales. Thus, one may expect that their rapidly growing datasets could provide crucial insights not only for short-term weather processes/predictions but into ongoing and future climate change processes as well. Though Earth-observing satellites have been around for decades, extracting climatically reliable information from their widely varying datasets faces rather formidable challenges. AIRS/AMSU is a state of the art infrared/microwave sounding system that was launched on the EOS Aqua platform on May 4, 2002, and has been providing operational quality measurements since September 2002. In addition to temperature and atmospheric constituent profiles, outgoing longwave radiation and basic cloud parameters are also derived from the AIRS/AMSU observations. However, so far the AIRS products have not been rigorously evaluated and/or validated on a large scale. Here we present preliminary assessments of monthly and 8-day mean AIRS "Version 4.0" retrieved products (available to the public through the DAAC at NASA/GSFC) to assess their utility for climate studies. First we present "consistency checks" by evaluating the time series of means, and "anomalies" (relative to the first 4 full years' worth of AIRS "climate statistics") of several climatically important retrieved parameters. Finally, we also present preliminary results regarding interrelationships of some of these geophysical variables, to assess to what extent they are consistent with the known physics of climate variability/change. In particular, we find at least one observed relationship which contradicts current general circulation climate (GCM) model results: the global water vapor climate feedback which is expected to be strongly positive is deduced to be slightly negative (shades of the "Lindzen effect"?). Though the current AIRS climatology covers only -4.5 years, it will hopefully extend much further into the future.

Improved spectral comparisons of paleoclimate models and observations via proxy system modeling: Implications for multi-decadal variability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dee, S. G.; Parsons, L. A.; Loope, G. R.; Overpeck, J. T.; Ault, T. R.; Emile-Geay, J.

2017-10-01

The spectral characteristics of paleoclimate observations spanning the last millennium suggest the presence of significant low-frequency (multi-decadal to centennial scale) variability in the climate system. Since this low-frequency climate variability is critical for climate predictions on societally-relevant scales, it is essential to establish whether General Circulation models (GCMs) are able to simulate it faithfully. Recent studies find large discrepancies between models and paleoclimate data at low frequencies, prompting concerns surrounding the ability of GCMs to predict long-term, high-magnitude variability under greenhouse forcing (Laepple and Huybers, 2014a, 2014b). However, efforts to ground climate model simulations directly in paleoclimate observations are impeded by fundamental differences between models and the proxy data: proxy systems often record a multivariate and/or nonlinear response to climate, precluding a direct comparison to GCM output. In this paper we bridge this gap via a forward proxy modeling approach, coupled to an isotope-enabled GCM. This allows us to disentangle the various contributions to signals embedded in ice cores, speleothem calcite, coral aragonite, tree-ring width, and tree-ring cellulose. The paper addresses the following questions: (1) do forward-modeled ;pseudoproxies; exhibit variability comparable to proxy data? (2) if not, which processes alter the shape of the spectrum of simulated climate variability, and are these processes broadly distinguishable from climate? We apply our method to representative case studies, and broaden these insights with an analysis of the PAGES2k database (PAGES2K Consortium, 2013). We find that current proxy system models (PSMs) can help resolve model-data discrepancies on interannual to decadal timescales, but cannot account for the mismatch in variance on multi-decadal to centennial timescales. We conclude that, specific to this set of PSMs and isotope-enabled model, the paleoclimate record may exhibit larger low-frequency variability than GCMs currently simulate, indicative of incomplete physics and/or forcings.

Response of the Vegetation-Climate System to High Temperature (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berry, J. A.

2009-12-01

High temperature extremes may lead to inhibition of photosynthesis and stomatal closure at the leaf scale. When these responses occur over regional scales, they can initiate a positive feedback loop in the coupled vegetation-climate system. The fraction of net radiation that is used by the land surface to evaporate water decreases leading to deeper, drier boundary layers, fewer clouds, increased solar radiation reaching the surface, and possibility reduced precipitation. These interactions within the vegetation-climate system may amplify natural (or greenhouse gas forced) variations in temperature and further stress the vegetation. Properly modeling of this system depends, among other things, on getting the plant responses to high temperature correct. I will review the current state of this problem and present some studies of rain forest trees to high temperature and drought conducted in the Biosphere 2 enclosure that illustrate how experiments in controlled systems can contribute to our understanding of complex systems to extreme events.

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.

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.

ARCAS (ACACIA Regional Climate-data Access System) -- a Web Access System for Climate Model Data Access, Visualization and Comparison

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hakkarinen, C.; Brown, D.; Callahan, J.; hankin, S.; de Koningh, M.; Middleton-Link, D.; Wigley, T.

2001-05-01

A Web-based access system to climate model output data sets for intercomparison and analysis has been produced, using the NOAA-PMEL developed Live Access Server software as host server and Ferret as the data serving and visualization engine. Called ARCAS ("ACACIA Regional Climate-data Access System"), and publicly accessible at http://dataserver.ucar.edu/arcas, the site currently serves climate model outputs from runs of the NCAR Climate System Model for the 21st century, for Business as Usual and Stabilization of Greenhouse Gas Emission scenarios. Users can select, download, and graphically display single variables or comparisons of two variables from either or both of the CSM model runs, averaged for monthly, seasonal, or annual time resolutions. The time length of the averaging period, and the geographical domain for download and display, are fully selectable by the user. A variety of arithmetic operations on the data variables can be computed "on-the-fly", as defined by the user. Expansions of the user-selectable options for defining analysis options, and for accessing other DOD-compatible ("Distributed Ocean Data System-compatible") data sets, residing at locations other than the NCAR hardware server on which ARCAS operates, are planned for this year. These expansions are designed to allow users quick and easy-to-operate web-based access to the largest possible selection of climate model output data sets available throughout the world.

Climate Model Diagnostic Analyzer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Seungwon; Pan, Lei; Zhai, Chengxing; Tang, Benyang; Kubar, Terry; Zhang, Zia; Wang, Wei

2015-01-01

The comprehensive and innovative evaluation of climate models with newly available global observations is critically needed for the improvement of climate model current-state representation and future-state predictability. A climate model diagnostic evaluation process requires physics-based multi-variable analyses that typically involve large-volume and heterogeneous datasets, making them both computation- and data-intensive. With an exploratory nature of climate data analyses and an explosive growth of datasets and service tools, scientists are struggling to keep track of their datasets, tools, and execution/study history, let alone sharing them with others. In response, we have developed a cloud-enabled, provenance-supported, web-service system called Climate Model Diagnostic Analyzer (CMDA). CMDA enables the physics-based, multivariable model performance evaluations and diagnoses through the comprehensive and synergistic use of multiple observational data, reanalysis data, and model outputs. At the same time, CMDA provides a crowd-sourcing space where scientists can organize their work efficiently and share their work with others. CMDA is empowered by many current state-of-the-art software packages in web service, provenance, and semantic search.

Enabling the use of climate model data in the Dutch climate effect community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Som de Cerff, Wim; Plieger, Maarten

2010-05-01

Within the climate effect community the usage of climate model data is emerging. Where mostly climate time series and weather generators were used, there is a shift to incorporate climate model data into climate effect models. The use of climate model data within the climate effect models is difficult, due to missing metadata, resolution and projection issues, data formats and availability of the parameters of interest. Often the climate effect modelers are not aware of available climate model data or are not aware of how they can use it. Together with seven other partners (CERFACS, CNR-IPSL, SMHI, INHGA, CMCC, WUR, MF-CNRM), KNMI is involved in the FP7 IS ENES (http://www.enes.org) project work package 10/JRA5 ‘Bridging Climate Research Data and the Needs of the Impact Community. The aims of this work package are to enhance the use of Climate Research Data and to enhance the interaction with climate effect/impact communities. Phase one is to define use cases together with the Dutch climate effect community, which describe the intended use of climate model data in climate effect models. We defined four use cases: 1) FEWS hydrological Framework (Deltares) 2) METAPHOR, a plants and species dispersion model (Wageningen University) 3) Natuurplanner, an Ecological model suite (Wageningen University) 4) Land use models (Free University/JRC). Also the other partners in JRA5 have defined use cases, which are representative for the climate effect and impact communities in their country. Goal is to find commonalities between all defined use cases. The common functionality will be implemented as e-tools and incorporated in the IS-ENES data portal. Common issues relate to e.g., need for high resolution: downscaling from GCM to local scale (also involves interpolation); parameter selection; finding extremes; averaging methods. At the conference we will describe the FEWS case in more detail: Delft FEWS is an open shell system (in development since 1995) for performing hydrological predictions and the handling of time series data. The most important capabilities of FEWS are importing of meteorological and hydrological data and organizing the workflows of the different models which can be used within FEWS, like the Netherlands Hydrological Instrumentarium (NHI). Besides predictions, the system is currently being used for hydrological climate effects studies. Currently regionally downscaled data are used, but using model data will be the next step. This coupling of climate model data to FEWS will open a wider rage of climate impact and effect research, but it is a difficult task to accomplish. Issues to be dealt with are: regridding, downscaling, format conversion, extraction of required data and addition of descriptive metadata, including quality and uncertainty parameters. Finding an appropriate solution involves several iterations: first, the use case was defined, then we just provided a single data file containing some data of interest provided via FTP, next this data was offered through OGC services. Currently we are working on providing larger datasets and improving on the parameters and metadata. We will present the results (e-tools/data) and experiences gained on implementing the described use cases. Note that we are currently using experimental data, as the official climate model runs are not available yet.

Heinrich Events as an integral part of glacial-interglacial climate dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barker, S.; Knorr, G.; Zhang, X.; Gong, X.; Lohmann, G.; Bazin, L.

2017-12-01

Since their discovery in the 1980s Heinrich Events have provided a playground for climate scientists trying to understand the interactions between ice sheets and the ocean. Subsequently it has become clear that these interactions extend to almost all parts of the global climate system, from temperature, winds and rainfall to deep ocean currents and atmospheric CO2. Furthermore it remains unclear as to whether these dramatic events are a cause or consequence (or both) of regional to global perturbations in a range of parameters, including meridional overturning circulation within the Atlantic. Here we will discuss some of these aspects to highlight ongoing and future research related to Heinrich events and abrupt change more generally. We will discuss some of the possible triggers for H-events, including abrupt versus more gradual forcing mechanisms and conversely the potential influence of such events on the wider climate system, including deglacial climate change.

Uncertainty quantification and validation of combined hydrological and macroeconomic analyses.

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

Hernandez, Jacquelynne; Parks, Mancel Jordan; Jennings, Barbara Joan

2010-09-01

Changes in climate can lead to instabilities in physical and economic systems, particularly in regions with marginal resources. Global climate models indicate increasing global mean temperatures over the decades to come and uncertainty in the local to national impacts means perceived risks will drive planning decisions. Agent-based models provide one of the few ways to evaluate the potential changes in behavior in coupled social-physical systems and to quantify and compare risks. The current generation of climate impact analyses provides estimates of the economic cost of climate change for a limited set of climate scenarios that account for a small subsetmore » of the dynamics and uncertainties. To better understand the risk to national security, the next generation of risk assessment models must represent global stresses, population vulnerability to those stresses, and the uncertainty in population responses and outcomes that could have a significant impact on U.S. national security.« less

Regional analysis of drought and heat impacts on forests: current and future science directions.

PubMed

Law, Beverly E

2014-12-01

Accurate assessments of forest response to current and future climate and human actions are needed at regional scales. Predicting future impacts on forests will require improved analysis of species-level adaptation, resilience, and vulnerability to mortality. Land system models can be enhanced by creating trait-based groupings of species that better represent climate sensitivity, such as risk of hydraulic failure from drought. This emphasizes the need for more coordinated in situ and remote sensing observations to track changes in ecosystem function, and to improve model inputs, spatio-temporal diagnosis, and predictions of future conditions, including implications of actions to mitigate climate change. © 2014 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Potential climatic impacts of vegetation change: A regional modeling study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Copeland, Jeffrey H.; Pielke, Roger A.; Kittel, Timothy G. F.

1996-03-01

The human species has been modifying the landscape long before the development of modern agrarian techniques. Much of the land area of the conterminous United States is currently used for agricultural production. In certain regions this change in vegetative cover from its natural state may have led to local climatic change. A regional climate version of the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System was used to assess the impact of a natural versus current vegetation distribution on the weather and climate of July 1989. The results indicate that coherent regions of substantial changes, of both positive and negative sign, in screen height temperature, humidity, wind speed, and precipitation are a possible consequence of land use change throughout the United States. The simulated changes in the screen height quantities were closely related to changes in the vegetation parameters of albedo, roughness length, leaf area index, and fractional coverage.

Potential climatic impacts of vegetation change: A regional modeling study

USGS Publications Warehouse

Copeland, J.H.; Pielke, R.A.; Kittel, T.G.F.

1996-01-01

The human species has been modifying the landscape long before the development of modern agrarian techniques. Much of the land area of the conterminous United States is currently used for agricultural production. In certain regions this change in vegetative cover from its natural state may have led to local climatic change. A regional climate version of the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System was used to assess the impact of a natural versus current vegetation distribution on the weather and climate of July 1989. The results indicate that coherent regions of substantial changes, of both positive and negative sign, in screen height temperature, humidity, wind speed, and precipitation are a possible consequence of land use change throughout the United States. The simulated changes in the screen height quantities were closely related to changes in the vegetation parameters of albedo, roughness length, leaf area index, and fractional coverage. Copyright 1996 by the American Geophysical Union.

2000 years of cultural adaptation to climate change in the Southwestern United States.

PubMed

Blinman, Eric

2008-11-01

Modern concerns with climate change often overlook the extensive history of both climate change and human adaptation over the millennia. While questions of human-climate system causation are important, especially to the extent that our current behavior is driving environmental change, human societies have experienced multiple climate changes in the past, independent of causation. The histories of cultural adaptation to those changes can help us understand the dynamic interaction between climate and society, expanding the possibilities for "proactive adaptation" that may be available to us today. The underlying principles of cultural adaptation are generally independent of the source of the climate change, and the lessons of the past can suggest social and economic paths that can lead toward sustainability and away from collapse.

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.

Exploring current and projected tradeoffs between hydropower profitability and reliability of supply in the Alps

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anghileri, D.; Castelletti, A.; Burlando, P.

2015-12-01

The recent spreading of renewable energy across Europe and the associated production variability and uncertainty are emerging challenges for hydropower system operation. Widely distributed and highly intermittent solar and wind power generation systems, along with feed-in-tariffs, at which they are remunerated, are threating the operation of traditional hydropower systems. For instance, in countries where the transition to a larger production by means of renewable power systems is a novel process, e.g. Switzerland, many hydropower companies are operating their reservoirs with low or no profits, claiming for a revision of the entire energy market system. This situation goes along with the problem of ensuring energy supply both nowadays and in the future, with changing energy demand and available water resources. In this work, we focus on a hydropower system in the Swiss Alps to explore how different operating policies can cope with both adequate energy supply and profitable operation under current and future climate and socio-economic conditions. We investigate the operation of the Mattmark reservoir in South-West Switzerland. Mattmark is a pumped reservoir of 98 106 m3 fed by a natural catchment of 37 km2 and contributing catchments, summing up to 51 km2, connected by several diversion channels. The hydrological regime, snow- and ice-melt dominated, has already experienced changes in the last decades due to glacier retreat and is expected to be strongly impacted by climate change in the future. We use Multi-Objective optimization techniques to explore current tradeoffs between profitability and secure supply. We then investigate how tradeoffs may evolve in time under different climate change projections and energy market scenarios. Results inform on the co-evolution of climate- and socio-economic induced variations, thus unveiling potential co-benefit situations to hydropower generation and providing insights to future energy market design.

Climate change and human health: a One Health approach.

PubMed

Patz, Jonathan A; Hahn, Micah B

2013-01-01

Climate change adds complexity and uncertainty to human health issues such as emerging infectious diseases, food security, and national sustainability planning that intensify the importance of interdisciplinary and collaborative research. Collaboration between veterinary, medical, and public health professionals to understand the ecological interactions and reactions to flux in a system can facilitate clearer understanding of climate change impacts on environmental, animal, and human health. Here we present a brief introduction to climate science and projections for the next century and a review of current knowledge on the impacts of climate-driven environmental change on human health. We then turn to the links between ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change and health. The literature on climate impacts on biological systems is rich in both content and historical data, but the connections between these changes and human health is less understood. We discuss five mechanisms by which climate changes impacts on biological systems will be felt by the human population: Modifications in Vector, Reservoir, and Pathogen Lifecycles; Diseases of Domestic and Wild Animals and Plants; Disruption of Synchrony Between Interacting Species; Trophic Cascades; and Alteration or Destruction of Habitat. Each species responds to environmental changes differently, and in order to predict the movement of disease through ecosystems, we have to rely on expertise from the fields of veterinary, medical, and public health, and these health professionals must take into account the dynamic nature of ecosystems in a changing climate.

Groundwater nitrate concentration evolution under climate change and agricultural adaptation scenarios: Prince Edward Island, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paradis, Daniel; Vigneault, Harold; Lefebvre, René; Savard, Martine M.; Ballard, Jean-Marc; Qian, Budong

2016-03-01

Nitrate (N-NO3) concentration in groundwater, the sole source of potable water in Prince Edward Island (PEI, Canada), currently exceeds the 10 mg L-1 (N-NO3) health threshold for drinking water in 6 % of domestic wells. Increasing climatic and socio-economic pressures on PEI agriculture may further deteriorate groundwater quality. This study assesses how groundwater nitrate concentration could evolve due to the forecasted climate change and its related potential changes in agricultural practices. For this purpose, a tridimensional numerical groundwater flow and mass transport model was developed for the aquifer system of the entire Island (5660 km2). A number of different groundwater flow and mass transport simulations were made to evaluate the potential impact of the projected climate change and agricultural adaptation. According to the simulations for year 2050, N-NO3 concentration would increase due to two main causes: (1) the progressive attainment of steady-state conditions related to present-day nitrogen loadings, and (2) the increase in nitrogen loadings due to changes in agricultural practices provoked by future climatic conditions. The combined effects of equilibration with loadings, climate and agricultural adaptation would lead to a 25 to 32 % increase in N-NO3 concentration over the Island aquifer system. The change in groundwater recharge regime induced by climate change (with current agricultural practices) would only contribute 0 to 6 % of that increase for the various climate scenarios. Moreover, simulated trends in groundwater N-NO3 concentration suggest that an increased number of domestic wells (more than doubling) would exceed the nitrate drinking water criteria. This study underlines the need to develop and apply better agricultural management practices to ensure sustainability of long-term groundwater resources. The simulations also show that observable benefits from positive changes in agricultural practices would be delayed in time due to the slow dynamics of nitrate transport within the aquifer system.

Groundwater nitrate concentration evolution under climate change and agricultural adaptation scenarios: Prince Edward Island, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paradis, D.; Vigneault, H.; Lefebvre, R.; Savard, M. M.; Ballard, J.-M.; Qian, B.

2015-08-01

Nitrate (N-NO3) concentration in groundwater, the sole source of potable water in Prince Edward Island (PEI, Canada), currently exceeds the 10 mg L-1 (N-NO3) health threshold for drinking water in 6 % of domestic wells. Increasing climatic and socio-economic pressures on PEI agriculture may further deteriorate groundwater quality. This study assesses how groundwater nitrate concentrations could evolve due to the forecasted climate change and its related potential changes in agricultural practices. For this purpose, a tridimensional numerical groundwater flow and mass transport model was developed for the aquifer system of the entire Island (5660 km2). A number of different groundwater flow and mass transport simulations were made to evaluate the potential impact of the projected climate change and agricultural adaptation. According to the simulations for year 2050, N-NO3 concentration would increase due to two main causes: (1) the progressive attainment of steady-state conditions related to present-day nitrogen loadings, and (2) the increase in nitrogen loadings due to changes in agricultural practices provoked by future climatic conditions. The combined effects of equilibration with loadings, climate and agricultural adaptation would lead to a 25 to 32 % increase in N-NO3 concentration over the Island aquifer system. Climate change alone (practices maintained at their current level) would contribute only 0 to 6 % to that increase according to the various climate scenarios. Moreover, simulated trends in groundwater N-NO3 concentration suggest that an increased number of domestic wells (more than doubling) would exceed the nitrate drinking water criteria. This study underlines the need to develop and apply better agricultural management practices to ensure sustainability of long-term groundwater resources. The simulations also show that observable benefits from positive changes in agricultural practices would be delayed in time due to the slow dynamics of nitrate transport within the aquifer system.

A National Energy-Water System Assessment Framework (NEWS): Synopsis of Stage 1 Research Strategy and Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vorosmarty, C. J.; Miara, A.; Macknick, J.; Newmark, R. L.; Cohen, S.; Sun, Y.; Tidwell, V. C.; Corsi, F.; Melillo, J. M.; Fekete, B. M.; Proussevitch, A. A.; Glidden, S.; Suh, S.

2017-12-01

The focus of this talk is on climate adaptation and the reliability of power supply infrastructure when viewed through the lens of strategic water issues. Power supply is critically dependent upon water resources, particularly to cool thermoelectric plants, making the sector particularly sensitive to any shifts in the geography or seasonality of water supply. We report on results from an NSF-Funded Water Sustainability and Climate effort aimed at uncovering key energy and economic system vulnerabilities. We have developed the National Energy-Water System assessment framework (NEWS) to systematically evaluate: a) the performance of the nation's electricity sector under multiple climate scenarios; b) the feasibility of alternative pathways to improve climate adaptation; and, c) the impacts of energy technology and investment tradeoffs on the economic productivity, water availability and aquatic ecosystem condition. Our project combines core engineering and geophysical models (ReEDS [Regional Energy Deployment System], TP2M [Thermoelectric Power and Thermal Pollution], and WBM [Water Balance]) through unique digital "handshake" protocols that operate across different institutions and modeling platforms. Combined system outputs are fed into a regional-to-national scale economic input/output model to evaluate economic consequences of climate constraints, technology choices, and environmental regulation. The impact assessments in NEWS are carried out through a series of climate/energy policy scenario studies to 2050. We find that despite significant climate-water impacts on individual plants, the current US power supply infrastructure shows potential for adaptation to future climates by capitalizing on the size of regional power systems, grid configuration and improvements in thermal efficiencies. However, the magnitude and implications of climate-water impacts vary depending on the configuration of the future power sector. To evaluate future power supply performance, we model alternative electricity sector pathways in combination with varying climate-water conditions. Further, water-linked disruptions in electricity supply yield substantial impacts on regional economies yet system-level shocks can be attenuated through different technology mixes and infrastructure.

Building climate adaptation capabilities through technology and community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murray, D.; McWhirter, J.; Intsiful, J. D.; Cozzini, S.

2011-12-01

To effectively plan for adaptation to changes in climate, decision makers require infrastructure and tools that will provide them with timely access to current and future climate information. For example, climate scientists and operational forecasters need to access global and regional model projections and current climate information that they can use to prepare monitoring products and reports and then publish these for the decision makers. Through the UNDP African Adaption Programme, an infrastructure is being built across Africa that will provide multi-tiered access to such information. Web accessible servers running RAMADDA, an open source content management system for geoscience information, will provide access to the information at many levels: from the raw and processed climate model output to real-time climate conditions and predictions to documents and presentation for government officials. Output from regional climate models (e.g. RegCM4) and downscaled global climate models will be accessible through RAMADDA. The Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) is being used by scientists to create visualizations that assist the understanding of climate processes and projections, using the data on these as well as external servers. Since RAMADDA is more than a data server, it is also being used as a publishing platform for the generated material that will be available and searchable by the decision makers. Users can wade through the enormous volumes of information and extract subsets for their region or project of interest. Participants from 20 countries attended workshops at ICTP during 2011. They received training on setting up and installing the servers and necessary software and are now working on deploying the systems in their respective countries. This is the first time an integrated and comprehensive approach to climate change adaptation has been widely applied in Africa. It is expected that this infrastructure will enhance North-South collaboration and improve the delivery of technical support and services. This improved infrastructure will enhance the capacity of countries to provide a wide range of robust products and services in a timely manner.

Identifying and Assessing Gaps in Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction Skill using the North American Multi-model Ensemble

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pegion, K.; DelSole, T. M.; Becker, E.; Cicerone, T.

2016-12-01

Predictability represents the upper limit of prediction skill if we had an infinite member ensemble and a perfect model. It is an intrinsic limit of the climate system associated with the chaotic nature of the atmosphere. Producing a forecast system that can make predictions very near to this limit is the ultimate goal of forecast system development. Estimates of predictability together with calculations of current prediction skill are often used to define the gaps in our prediction capabilities on subseasonal to seasonal timescales and to inform the scientific issues that must be addressed to build the next forecast system. Quantification of the predictability is also important for providing a scientific basis for relaying to stakeholders what kind of climate information can be provided to inform decision-making and what kind of information is not possible given the intrinsic predictability of the climate system. One challenge with predictability estimates is that different prediction systems can give different estimates of the upper limit of skill. How do we know which estimate of predictability is most representative of the true predictability of the climate system? Previous studies have used the spread-error relationship and the autocorrelation to evaluate the fidelity of the signal and noise estimates. Using a multi-model ensemble prediction system, we can quantify whether these metrics accurately indicate an individual model's ability to properly estimate the signal, noise, and predictability. We use this information to identify the best estimates of predictability for 2-meter temperature, precipitation, and sea surface temperature from the North American Multi-model Ensemble and compare with current skill to indicate the regions with potential for improving skill.

Putting the Weather Back Into Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Leonard A.; Stainforth, David A.

2014-05-01

The literature contains a variety of definitions of climate, and the emphasis in these definitions has changed over time. Defining climate as a mean value is, of course, both limiting and misleading; definitions of climate based on averages have been deprecated as far back as 1931 [1]. In the context of current efforts to produce climate predictions for use in climate adaptation, it is timely to consider how well various definitions of climate serve the research for applications community. From a nonlinear dynamical systems perspective it is common to associate climate with a system's natural measure (or "attractor" if such an object exists). Such a definition is not easily applied to physical systems where we have limited observations over a restricted period of time; the duration of 30 years is often mentioned today and the origin of this period is discussed. Given a dynamic system in which parameters are evolving in time, the view of climate as a natural measure becomes problematic as, by definition, there may be no attractor per se. Attractors defined for particular parameter values cannot be expected to have any association with the probability of states under transient changes in the values of that parameter. Alternatively, distributions may be determined which reflect the transient situation, based on (rather broad) additional assumptions regarding the state of the system at some point in the past (say, an ice age planet vs an interglacial planet). Such distributions reflect many of the properties one would hope to be represented in a generalised definition of the system's climate. Here we trace how definitions of climate have changed over time and highlight a number of properties of definitions of climate which would facilitate common use across researchers, from observers to theoreticians, from climate modellers to mathematicians. We show while periodic changes in parameter values (such as those found in an annual cycle or a diurnal cycle) are easily incorporated within the traditional nonlinear dynamical systems view, non-periodic or secular changes (such as those due to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations) yield an open challenge. We argue the need both for clarifying and for clearly meeting the open challenges of defining climate in relation to the state of an evolving system, and suggest a path forward. [1] Miller, A.A., 1931: Climatology. First Ed. Methuen.

The combined and separate impacts of climate extremes on the current and future US rainfed maize and soybean production under elevated CO2.

PubMed

Jin, Zhenong; Zhuang, Qianlai; Wang, Jiali; Archontoulis, Sotirios V; Zobel, Zachary; Kotamarthi, Veerabhadra R

2017-07-01

Heat and drought are two emerging climatic threats to the US maize and soybean production, yet their impacts on yields are collectively determined by the magnitude of climate change and rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. This study quantifies the combined and separate impacts of high temperature, heat and drought stresses on the current and future US rainfed maize and soybean production and for the first time characterizes spatial shifts in the relative importance of individual stress. Crop yields are simulated using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM), driven by high-resolution (12 km) dynamically downscaled climate projections for 1995-2004 and 2085-2094. Results show that maize and soybean yield losses are prominent in the US Midwest by the late 21st century under both Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, and the magnitude of loss highly depends on the current vulnerability and changes in climate extremes. Elevated atmospheric CO 2 partially but not completely offsets the yield gaps caused by climate extremes, and the effect is greater in soybean than in maize. Our simulations suggest that drought will continue to be the largest threat to US rainfed maize production under RCP4.5 and soybean production under both RCP scenarios, whereas high temperature and heat stress take over the dominant stress of drought on maize under RCP8.5. We also reveal that shifts in the geographic distributions of dominant stresses are characterized by the increase in concurrent stresses, especially for the US Midwest. These findings imply the importance of considering heat and drought stresses simultaneously for future agronomic adaptation and mitigation strategies, particularly for breeding programs and crop management. The modeling framework of partitioning the total effects of climate change into individual stress impacts can be applied to the study of other crops and agriculture systems. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Combined top-down and bottom-up climate change impact assessment for the hydrological system in the Vu Gia- Thu Bon River Basin.

PubMed

Tra, Tran Van; Thinh, Nguyen Xuan; Greiving, Stefan

2018-07-15

Vu Gia- Thu Bon (VGTB) River Basin, located in the Central Coastal zone of Viet Nam currently faces water shortage. Climate change is expected to exacerbate the challenge. Therefore, there is a need to study the impacts of climate change on water shortage in the river basin. The study adopts a combined top-down and bottom-up climate change impact assessment to address the impacts of climate change on water shortage in the VGTB River Basin. A MIKE BASIN water balance model for the river basin was established to simulate the response of the hydrological system. Simulations were performed through parametrically varying temperature and precipitation to determine the vulnerability space of water shortage. General Circulation Models (GCMs) were then utilized to provide climate projections for the river basin. The output from GCMs was then mapped onto the vulnerability space determined earlier. In total, 9 out of 55 water demand nodes in the simulation are expected to face problematic conditions as future climate changes. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Geobiological constraints on Earth system sensitivity to CO₂ during the Cretaceous and Cenozoic.

PubMed

Royer, D L; Pagani, M; Beerling, D J

2012-07-01

Earth system climate sensitivity (ESS) is the long-term (>10³ year) response of global surface temperature to doubled CO₂ that integrates fast and slow climate feedbacks. ESS has energy policy implications because global temperatures are not expected to decline appreciably for at least 10³ year, even if anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions drop to zero. We report provisional ESS estimates of 3 °C or higher for some of the Cretaceous and Cenozoic based on paleo-reconstructions of CO₂ and temperature. These estimates are generally higher than climate sensitivities simulated from global climate models for the same ancient periods (approximately 3 °C). Climate models probably do not capture the full suite of positive climate feedbacks that amplify global temperatures during some globally warm periods, as well as other characteristic features of warm climates such as low meridional temperature gradients. These absent feedbacks may be related to clouds, trace greenhouse gases (GHGs), seasonal snow cover, and/or vegetation, especially in polar regions. Better characterization and quantification of these feedbacks is a priority given the current accumulation of atmospheric GHGs. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Assessing the Vulnerability of Eco-Environmental Health to Climate Change

PubMed Central

Tong, Shilu; Mather, Peter; Fitzgerald, Gerry; McRae, David; Verrall, Ken; Walker, Dylan

2010-01-01

There is an urgent need to assess the vulnerability of eco-environmental health to climate change. This paper aims to provide an overview of current research, to identify knowledge gaps, and to propose future research needs in this challenging area. Evidence shows that climate change is affecting and will, in the future, have more (mostly adverse) impacts on ecosystems. Ecosystem degradation, particularly the decline of the life support systems, will undoubtedly affect human health and wellbeing. Therefore, it is important to develop a framework to assess the vulnerability of eco-environmental health to climate change, and to identify appropriate adaptation strategies to minimize the impact of climate change. PMID:20616990

Modeling impacts of climate change on the potential distribution of the carcinogenic liver fluke, Opisthorchis viverrini, in Thailand.

PubMed

Suwannatrai, A; Pratumchart, K; Suwannatrai, K; Thinkhamrop, K; Chaiyos, J; Kim, C S; Suwanweerakamtorn, R; Boonmars, T; Wongsaroj, T; Sripa, B

2017-01-01

Global climate change is now regarded as imposing a significant threat of enhancing transmission of parasitic diseases. Maximum entropy species distribution modeling (MaxEnt) was used to explore how projected climate change could affect the potential distribution of the carcinogenic liver fluke, Opisthorchis viverrini, in Thailand. A range of climate variables was used: the Hadley Global Environment Model 2-Earth System (HadGEM2-ES) climate change model and also the IPCC scenarios A2a for 2050 and 2070. Occurrence data from surveys conducted in 2009 and 2014 were obtained from the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. The MaxEnt model performed better than random for O. viverrini with training AUC values greater than 0.8 under current and future climatic conditions. The current distribution of O. viverrini is significantly affected by precipitation and minimum temperature. According to current conditions, parts of Thailand climatically suitable for O. viverrini are mostly in the northeast and north, but the parasite is largely absent from southern Thailand. Under future climate change scenarios, the distribution of O. viverrini in 2050 should be significantly affected by precipitation, maximum temperature, and mean temperature of the wettest quarter, whereas in 2070, significant factors are likely to be precipitation during the coldest quarter, maximum, and minimum temperatures. Maps of predicted future distribution revealed a drastic decrease in presence of O. viverrini in the northeast region. The information gained from this study should be a useful reference for implementing long-term prevention and control strategies for O. viverrini in Thailand.

Transformational adaptation when incremental adaptations to climate change are insufficient

PubMed Central

Kates, Robert W.; Travis, William R.; Wilbanks, Thomas J.

2012-01-01

All human–environment systems adapt to climate and its natural variation. Adaptation to human-induced change in climate has largely been envisioned as increments of these adaptations intended to avoid disruptions of systems at their current locations. In some places, for some systems, however, vulnerabilities and risks may be so sizeable that they require transformational rather than incremental adaptations. Three classes of transformational adaptations are those that are adopted at a much larger scale, that are truly new to a particular region or resource system, and that transform places and shift locations. We illustrate these with examples drawn from Africa, Europe, and North America. Two conditions set the stage for transformational adaptation to climate change: large vulnerability in certain regions, populations, or resource systems; and severe climate change that overwhelms even robust human use systems. However, anticipatory transformational adaptation may be difficult to implement because of uncertainties about climate change risks and adaptation benefits, the high costs of transformational actions, and institutional and behavioral actions that tend to maintain existing resource systems and policies. Implementing transformational adaptation requires effort to initiate it and then to sustain the effort over time. In initiating transformational adaptation focusing events and multiple stresses are important, combined with local leadership. In sustaining transformational adaptation, it seems likely that supportive social contexts and the availability of acceptable options and resources for actions are key enabling factors. Early steps would include incorporating transformation adaptation into risk management and initiating research to expand the menu of innovative transformational adaptations. PMID:22509036

Transformational adaptation when incremental adaptations to climate change are insufficient.

PubMed

Kates, Robert W; Travis, William R; Wilbanks, Thomas J

2012-05-08

All human-environment systems adapt to climate and its natural variation. Adaptation to human-induced change in climate has largely been envisioned as increments of these adaptations intended to avoid disruptions of systems at their current locations. In some places, for some systems, however, vulnerabilities and risks may be so sizeable that they require transformational rather than incremental adaptations. Three classes of transformational adaptations are those that are adopted at a much larger scale, that are truly new to a particular region or resource system, and that transform places and shift locations. We illustrate these with examples drawn from Africa, Europe, and North America. Two conditions set the stage for transformational adaptation to climate change: large vulnerability in certain regions, populations, or resource systems; and severe climate change that overwhelms even robust human use systems. However, anticipatory transformational adaptation may be difficult to implement because of uncertainties about climate change risks and adaptation benefits, the high costs of transformational actions, and institutional and behavioral actions that tend to maintain existing resource systems and policies. Implementing transformational adaptation requires effort to initiate it and then to sustain the effort over time. In initiating transformational adaptation focusing events and multiple stresses are important, combined with local leadership. In sustaining transformational adaptation, it seems likely that supportive social contexts and the availability of acceptable options and resources for actions are key enabling factors. Early steps would include incorporating transformation adaptation into risk management and initiating research to expand the menu of innovative transformational adaptations.

Impacts of climate change on indirect human exposure to pathogens and chemicals from agriculture.

PubMed

Boxall, Alistair B A; Hardy, Anthony; Beulke, Sabine; Boucard, Tatiana; Burgin, Laura; Falloon, Peter D; Haygarth, Philip M; Hutchinson, Thomas; Kovats, R Sari; Leonardi, Giovanni; Levy, Leonard S; Nichols, Gordon; Parsons, Simon A; Potts, Laura; Stone, David; Topp, Edward; Turley, David B; Walsh, Kerry; Wellington, Elizabeth M H; Williams, Richard J

2009-04-01

Climate change is likely to affect the nature of pathogens and chemicals in the environment and their fate and transport. Future risks of pathogens and chemicals could therefore be very different from those of today. In this review, we assess the implications of climate change for changes in human exposures to pathogens and chemicals in agricultural systems in the United Kingdom and discuss the subsequent effects on health impacts. In this review, we used expert input and considered literature on climate change; health effects resulting from exposure to pathogens and chemicals arising from agriculture; inputs of chemicals and pathogens to agricultural systems; and human exposure pathways for pathogens and chemicals in agricultural systems. We established the current evidence base for health effects of chemicals and pathogens in the agricultural environment; determined the potential implications of climate change on chemical and pathogen inputs in agricultural systems; and explored the effects of climate change on environmental transport and fate of different contaminant types. We combined these data to assess the implications of climate change in terms of indirect human exposure to pathogens and chemicals in agricultural systems. We then developed recommendations on future research and policy changes to manage any adverse increases in risks. Overall, climate change is likely to increase human exposures to agricultural contaminants. The magnitude of the increases will be highly dependent on the contaminant type. Risks from many pathogens and particulate and particle-associated contaminants could increase significantly. These increases in exposure can, however, be managed for the most part through targeted research and policy changes.

Personal cooling in hot workings

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

Tuck, M.A.

1999-07-01

The number of mines experiencing climatic difficulties worldwide is increasing. In a large number of cases these climatic difficulties are confined to working areas only or to specific locations within working areas. Thus the problem in these mines can be described as highly localized, due to a large extent not to high rock temperatures but due to machine heat loads and low airflow rates. Under such situations conventional means of controlling the climate can be inapplicable and/or uneconomic. One possible means of achieving the required level of climatic control, to ensure worker health and safety whilst achieving economic gains, ismore » to adopt a system of active man cooling. This is the reverse of normal control techniques where the cooling power of the ventilating air is enhanced in some way. Current methods of active man cooling include ice jackets and various umbilical cord type systems. These have numerous drawbacks, such as limited useful exposure times and limitations to worker mobility. The paper suggests an alternative method of active man cooling than those currently available and reviews the design criteria for such a garment. The range of application of such a garment is discussed, under both normal and emergency situations.« less

Large storage operations under climate change: expanding uncertainties and evolving tradeoffs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giuliani, Matteo; Anghileri, Daniela; Castelletti, Andrea; Vu, Phuong Nam; Soncini-Sessa, Rodolfo

2016-03-01

In a changing climate and society, large storage systems can play a key role for securing water, energy, and food, and rebalancing their cross-dependencies. In this letter, we study the role of large storage operations as flexible means of adaptation to climate change. In particular, we explore the impacts of different climate projections for different future time horizons on the multi-purpose operations of the existing system of large dams in the Red River basin (China-Laos-Vietnam). We identify the main vulnerabilities of current system operations, understand the risk of failure across sectors by exploring the evolution of the system tradeoffs, quantify how the uncertainty associated to climate scenarios is expanded by the storage operations, and assess the expected costs if no adaptation is implemented. Results show that, depending on the climate scenario and the time horizon considered, the existing operations are predicted to change on average from -7 to +5% in hydropower production, +35 to +520% in flood damages, and +15 to +160% in water supply deficit. These negative impacts can be partially mitigated by adapting the existing operations to future climate, reducing the loss of hydropower to 5%, potentially saving around 34.4 million US year-1 at the national scale. Since the Red River is paradigmatic of many river basins across south east Asia, where new large dams are under construction or are planned to support fast growing economies, our results can support policy makers in prioritizing responses and adaptation strategies to the changing climate.

The UK Earth System Model project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tang, Yongming

2016-04-01

In this talk we will describe the development and current status of the UK Earth System Model (UKESM). This project is a NERC/Met Office collaboration and has two objectives; to develop and apply a world-leading Earth System Model, and to grow a community of UK Earth System Model scientists. We are building numerical models that include all the key components of the global climate system, and contain the important process interactions between global biogeochemistry, atmospheric chemistry and the physical climate system. UKESM will be used to make key CMIP6 simulations as well as long-time (e.g. millennium) simulations, large ensemble experiments and investigating a range of future carbon emission scenarios.

Flexible Environments for Grand-Challenge Simulation in Climate Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pierrehumbert, R.; Tobis, M.; Lin, J.; Dieterich, C.; Caballero, R.

2004-12-01

Current climate models are monolithic codes, generally in Fortran, aimed at high-performance simulation of the modern climate. Though they adequately serve their designated purpose, they present major barriers to application in other problems. Tailoring them to paleoclimate of planetary simulations, for instance, takes months of work. Theoretical studies, where one may want to remove selected processes or break feedback loops, are similarly hindered. Further, current climate models are of little value in education, since the implementation of textbook concepts and equations in the code is obscured by technical detail. The Climate Systems Center at the University of Chicago seeks to overcome these limitations by bringing modern object-oriented design into the business of climate modeling. Our ultimate goal is to produce an end-to-end modeling environment capable of configuring anything from a simple single-column radiative-convective model to a full 3-D coupled climate model using a uniform, flexible interface. Technically, the modeling environment is implemented as a Python-based software component toolkit: key number-crunching procedures are implemented as discrete, compiled-language components 'glued' together and co-ordinated by Python, combining the high performance of compiled languages and the flexibility and extensibility of Python. We are incrementally working towards this final objective following a series of distinct, complementary lines. We will present an overview of these activities, including PyOM, a Python-based finite-difference ocean model allowing run-time selection of different Arakawa grids and physical parameterizations; CliMT, an atmospheric modeling toolkit providing a library of 'legacy' radiative, convective and dynamical modules which can be knitted into dynamical models, and PyCCSM, a version of NCAR's Community Climate System Model in which the coupler and run-control architecture are re-implemented in Python, augmenting its flexibility and adaptability.

Climate Discovery Online Courses for Educators from NCAR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henderson, S.; Ward, D. L.; Meymaris, K. K.; Johnson, R. M.; Gardiner, L.; Russell, R.

2008-12-01

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has responded to the pressing need for professional development in climate and global change sciences by creating the Climate Discovery online course series. This series was designed with the secondary geoscience educator in mind. The online courses are based on current and credible climate change science. Interactive learning techniques are built into the online course designs with assignments that encourage active participation. A key element of the online courses is the creation of a virtual community of geoscience educators who exchange ideas related to classroom implementation, student assessment, and lessons plans. Geoscience educators from around the country have participated in the online courses. The ongoing interest from geoscience educators strongly suggests that the NCAR Climate Discovery online courses are a timely and needed professional development opportunity. The intent of NCAR Climate Discovery is to positively impact teachers' professional development scientifically authentic information, (2) experiencing guided practice in conducting activities and using ancillary resources in workshop venues, (3) gaining access to standards-aligned lesson plans, kits that promote hands-on learning, and scientific content that are easily implemented in their classrooms, and (4) becoming a part of a community of educators with whom they may continue to discuss the challenges of pedagogy and content comprehension in teaching climate change in the Earth system context. Three courses make up the Climate Discovery series: Introduction to Climate Change; Earth System Science - A Climate Change Perspective; and Understanding Climate Change Today. Each course, instructed by science education specialists, combines geoscience content, information about current climate research, hands-on activities, and group discussion. The online courses use the web-based Moodle courseware system (open- source software similar to Blackboard and webCT), utilizing its features to promote dialogue as well as provide rich online content and media. A key element of the online courses is the development and support of an online learning community, an essential component in successful online courses. Interactive learning techniques are built into the course designs with assignments that encourage active participation. Educators (both formal and informal) use the courses as a venue to exchange ideas and teaching resources. A unique feature of the courses is the emphasis on hands-on activities, a hallmark of our professional development efforts. This presentation will focus on the lessons learned in the development of the three online courses and our successful recruitment and retention efforts.

Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thornton, P. E.; Calvin, K. V.; Jones, A. D.; Di Vittorio, A. V.; Bond-Lamberty, B. P.; Chini, L. P.; Shi, X.; Mao, J.; Collins, W. D.; Edmonds, J.; Hurtt, G. C.

2017-12-01

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical datasets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns, and socio-economic development trajectories. In this work we show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drives significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land-use, and carbon cycle projections for the 21st century. We find that exposure of human appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid range forcing scenario. Land ecosystem response to increased carbon dioxide concentration, increased anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, and changes in temperature and precipitation all play a role. The feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system demonstrated in this work are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy economic models to ESMs used to date.

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.

Insights from Modeling the Integrated Climate, Biogeochemical Cycles, Human Activities and Their Interactions in the ACME Earth System Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leung, L. R.; Thornton, P. E.; Riley, W. J.; Calvin, K. V.

2017-12-01

Towards the goal of understanding the contributions from natural and managed systems to current and future greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon-climate and carbon-CO2 feedbacks, efforts have been underway to improve representations of the terrestrial, river, and human components of the ACME earth system model. Broadly, our efforts include implementation and comparison of approaches to represent the nutrient cycles and nutrient limitations on ecosystem production, extending the river transport model to represent sediment and riverine biogeochemistry, and coupling of human systems such as irrigation, reservoir operations, and energy and land use with the ACME land and river components. Numerical experiments have been designed to understand how terrestrial carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles regulate climate system feedbacks and the sensitivity of the feedbacks to different model treatments, examine key processes governing sediment and biogeochemistry in the rivers and their role in the carbon cycle, and exploring the impacts of human systems in perturbing the hydrological and carbon cycles and their interactions. This presentation will briefly introduce the ACME modeling approaches and discuss preliminary results and insights from numerical experiments that lay the foundation for improving understanding of the integrated climate-biogeochemistry-human system.

Climate change and drinking water production in The Netherlands: a flexible approach.

PubMed

Ramaker, T A B; Meuleman, A F M; Bernhardi, L; Cirkel, G

2005-01-01

Climate change increases water system dynamics through temperature changes, changes in precipitation patterns, evaporation, water quality and water storage in ice packs. Water system dependent economical stakeholders, such as drinking water companies in The Netherlands, have to cope with consequences of climate change, e.g. floods and water shortages in river systems, upconing brackish ground water, salt water intrusion, increasing peak demands and microbiological activity. In the past decades, however, both water systems and drinking water production have become more and more inflexible; water systems have been heavily regulated and the drinking water supply has grown into an inflexible, but cheap and reliable, system. Flexibility and adaptivity are solutions to overcome climate change related consequences. Flexible adaptive strategies for drinking water production comprise new sources for drinking water production, application of storage concepts in the short term, and a redesign of large centralised systems, including flexible treatment plants, in the long term. Transition to flexible concepts will take decades because investment depreciation periods of assets are long. This implies that long-term strategies within an indicated time path have to be developed. These strategies must be based on thorough knowledge of current assets to seize opportunities for change.

Atmospheric Signature of the Agulhas Current

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nkwinkwa Njouodo, Arielle Stela; Koseki, Shunya; Keenlyside, Noel; Rouault, Mathieu

2018-05-01

Western boundary currents play an important role in the climate system by transporting heat poleward and releasing it to the atmosphere. While their influence on extratropical storms and oceanic rainfall is becoming appreciated, their coastal influence is less known. Using satellite and climate reanalysis data sets and a regional atmospheric model, we show that the Agulhas Current is a driver of the observed band of rainfall along the southeastern African coast and above the Agulhas Current. The Agulhas current's warm core is associated with sharp gradients in sea surface temperature and sea level pressure, a convergence of low-level winds, and a co-located band of precipitation. Correlations among wind convergence, sea level pressure, and sea surface temperature indicate that these features show high degree of similarity to those in the Gulf Stream region. Model experiments further indicate that the Agulhas Current mostly impacts convective rainfall.

Effects of climate change on the delivery of soil-mediated ecosystem services within the primary sector in temperate ecosystems: a review and New Zealand case study.

PubMed

Orwin, Kate H; Stevenson, Bryan A; Smaill, Simeon J; Kirschbaum, Miko U F; Dickie, Ian A; Clothier, Brent E; Garrett, Loretta G; van der Weerden, Tony J; Beare, Michael H; Curtin, Denis; de Klein, Cecile A M; Dodd, Michael B; Gentile, Roberta; Hedley, Carolyn; Mullan, Brett; Shepherd, Mark; Wakelin, Steven A; Bell, Nigel; Bowatte, Saman; Davis, Murray R; Dominati, Estelle; O'Callaghan, Maureen; Parfitt, Roger L; Thomas, Steve M

2015-08-01

Future human well-being under climate change depends on the ongoing delivery of food, fibre and wood from the land-based primary sector. The ability to deliver these provisioning services depends on soil-based ecosystem services (e.g. carbon, nutrient and water cycling and storage), yet we lack an in-depth understanding of the likely response of soil-based ecosystem services to climate change. We review the current knowledge on this topic for temperate ecosystems, focusing on mechanisms that are likely to underpin differences in climate change responses between four primary sector systems: cropping, intensive grazing, extensive grazing and plantation forestry. We then illustrate how our findings can be applied to assess service delivery under climate change in a specific region, using New Zealand as an example system. Differences in the climate change responses of carbon and nutrient-related services between systems will largely be driven by whether they are reliant on externally added or internally cycled nutrients, the extent to which plant communities could influence responses, and variation in vulnerability to erosion. The ability of soils to regulate water under climate change will mostly be driven by changes in rainfall, but can be influenced by different primary sector systems' vulnerability to soil water repellency and differences in evapotranspiration rates. These changes in regulating services resulted in different potentials for increased biomass production across systems, with intensively managed systems being the most likely to benefit from climate change. Quantitative prediction of net effects of climate change on soil ecosystem services remains a challenge, in part due to knowledge gaps, but also due to the complex interactions between different aspects of climate change. Despite this challenge, it is critical to gain the information required to make such predictions as robust as possible given the fundamental role of soils in supporting human well-being. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Our Changing Climate: A Brand New Way to Study Climate Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

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

2014-12-01

Earth's climate is inherently variable, but is currently changing at rates unprecedented in recent Earth history. Human activity plays a major role in this change and is projected to do so well into the future. This is the stance taken in Our Changing Climate, the brand new climate science ebook from the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Our Changing Climate investigates Earth's climate system, explores humans' impact on it, and identifies actions needed in response to climate change. Released in August 2014, Our Changing Climate is the result of a year's worth of intensive research and writing, incorporating the latest scientific understandings of Earth's climate system from reports such as IPCC AR5 and the Third National Climate Assessment. To encourage additional exploration of climate science information, scientific literature, from which chapter content was derived, is cited at the conclusion of each chapter. In addition, Topic In Depth sections appear throughout each chapter and lead to more extensive information related to various topics. For example, a Topic In Depth in Chapter 11 describes the effect of climate extremes on ranching enterprises in Nebraska. Climate science is multi-disciplinary and therefore Our Changing Climate covers a breadth of topics. From understanding basic statistics and geospatial tools used to investigate Earth's climate system to examining the psychological and financial reasons behind climate change denial, the AMS believes that a multi-disciplinary approach is the most effective way to increase climate literacy. Our Changing Climate is part of the AMS Climate Studies course which is intended for undergraduate-level students. Other course materials include an eInvestigations Manual and access to the RealTime Climate Portal, both of which provide weekly activities corresponding to that week's chapter content. The RealTime Climate Portal also has links to climate data as well as societal interactions and climate policy websites to spur further interest. Faculty support materials are also provided. AMS Climate Studies has been licensed by 130 institutions since Fall 2010. Our Changing Climate reveals the impact that each of us has on the climate. With this understanding come choices and actions for a more sustainable future.

Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat-And How to Counter It

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McKinley, Galen A.

2008-10-01

The Earth's climate is changing due to human activities. Recent polls suggest that the U.S. public generally recognizes this fact, and the efforts that led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former U.S. vice president Al Gore to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize have played no small role in bringing most of the public to realize what scientists have been discussing for years. Yet aside from distorted Hollywood movie accounts such as The Day After Tomorrow, the public knows little about the potential for abrupt change in the climate system. With support from climate science philanthropist Gary Comer, climate scientist Wally Broecker has teamed with science writer Robert Kunzig in this book to bring abrupt climate change into public view. They do this elegantly and convincingly, making the first 12 chapters quite enjoyable.

Thermal Environments. Educational Facilities Review Series Number 17.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baas, Alan M.

This review surveys documents and journal articles previously announced in RIE and CIJE that deal with climate control, integrated thermal and luminous systems, total energy systems, and current trends in school air conditioning. The literature cited indicates that selection of thermal systems must take into account longterm operating costs in…

Evaluating Options for Improving California's Drought Resilience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ray, P. A.; Schwarz, A.; Wi, S.; Correa, M.; Brown, C.

2015-12-01

Through a unique collaborative arrangement, the University of Massachusetts (UMass) and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) have together performed a baseline climate change analysis of the California state (State Water Project) and federal (Central Valley Project) water systems. The first step in the baseline analysis was development of an improved basinwide hydrologic model covering a large area of California including all major tributaries to the state and federal water systems. The CalLite modeling system used by DWR for planning purposes allowed simulation of the system of reservoirs, rivers, control points, and deliveries which are then used to create performance metrics that quantify a wide range of system characteristics including water deliveries, water quality, and environmental/ecological factors. A baseline climate stress test was conducted to identify current vulnerabilities to climate change through the linking of the modeling chain with Decision Scaling concepts through the UMass bottom-up climate stress-testing algorithm. This procedure allowed the first comprehensive climate stress analysis of the California state and federal water systems not constrained by observed historical variability and wet-dry year sequences. A forward-looking drought vulnerability and adaptation assessment of the water systems based on this workflow is ongoing and preliminary results will be presented. Presentation of results will include discussion of the collaborative arrangement between DWR and UMass, which is instrumental to both the success of the research and the education of policy makers.

Unexpectedly large impact of forest management and grazing on global vegetation biomass

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erb, Karl-Heinz; Kastner, Thomas; Plutzar, Christoph; Bais, Anna Liza S.; Carvalhais, Nuno; Fetzel, Tamara; Gingrich, Simone; Haberl, Helmut; Lauk, Christian; Niedertscheider, Maria; Pongratz, Julia; Thurner, Martin; Luyssaert, Sebastiaan

2018-01-01

Carbon stocks in vegetation have a key role in the climate system. However, the magnitude, patterns and uncertainties of carbon stocks and the effect of land use on the stocks remain poorly quantified. Here we show, using state-of-the-art datasets, that vegetation currently stores around 450 petagrams of carbon. In the hypothetical absence of land use, potential vegetation would store around 916 petagrams of carbon, under current climate conditions. This difference highlights the massive effect of land use on biomass stocks. Deforestation and other land-cover changes are responsible for 53-58% of the difference between current and potential biomass stocks. Land management effects (the biomass stock changes induced by land use within the same land cover) contribute 42-47%, but have been underestimated in the literature. Therefore, avoiding deforestation is necessary but not sufficient for mitigation of climate change. Our results imply that trade-offs exist between conserving carbon stocks on managed land and raising the contribution of biomass to raw material and energy supply for the mitigation of climate change. Efforts to raise biomass stocks are currently verifiable only in temperate forests, where their potential is limited. By contrast, large uncertainties hinder verification in the tropical forest, where the largest potential is located, pointing to challenges for the upcoming stocktaking exercises under the Paris agreement.

Unexpectedly large impact of forest management and grazing on global vegetation biomass.

PubMed

Erb, Karl-Heinz; Kastner, Thomas; Plutzar, Christoph; Bais, Anna Liza S; Carvalhais, Nuno; Fetzel, Tamara; Gingrich, Simone; Haberl, Helmut; Lauk, Christian; Niedertscheider, Maria; Pongratz, Julia; Thurner, Martin; Luyssaert, Sebastiaan

2018-01-04

Carbon stocks in vegetation have a key role in the climate system. However, the magnitude, patterns and uncertainties of carbon stocks and the effect of land use on the stocks remain poorly quantified. Here we show, using state-of-the-art datasets, that vegetation currently stores around 450 petagrams of carbon. In the hypothetical absence of land use, potential vegetation would store around 916 petagrams of carbon, under current climate conditions. This difference highlights the massive effect of land use on biomass stocks. Deforestation and other land-cover changes are responsible for 53-58% of the difference between current and potential biomass stocks. Land management effects (the biomass stock changes induced by land use within the same land cover) contribute 42-47%, but have been underestimated in the literature. Therefore, avoiding deforestation is necessary but not sufficient for mitigation of climate change. Our results imply that trade-offs exist between conserving carbon stocks on managed land and raising the contribution of biomass to raw material and energy supply for the mitigation of climate change. Efforts to raise biomass stocks are currently verifiable only in temperate forests, where their potential is limited. By contrast, large uncertainties hinder verification in the tropical forest, where the largest potential is located, pointing to challenges for the upcoming stocktaking exercises under the Paris agreement.

Flow regime alterations under changing climate in two river basins: Implications for freshwater ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gibson, C.A.; Meyer, J.L.; Poff, N.L.; Hay, L.E.; Georgakakos, A.

2005-01-01

We examined impacts of future climate scenarios on flow regimes and how predicted changes might affect river ecosystems. We examined two case studies: Cle Elum River, Washington, and Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River Basin, Georgia and Florida. These rivers had available downscaled global circulation model (GCM) data and allowed us to analyse the effects of future climate scenarios on rivers with (1) different hydrographs, (2) high future water demands, and (3) a river-floodplain system. We compared observed flow regimes to those predicted under future climate scenarios to describe the extent and type of changes predicted to occur. Daily stream flow under future climate scenarios was created by either statistically downscaling GCMs (Cle Elum) or creating a regression model between climatological parameters predicted from GCMs and stream flow (Chattahoochee-Apalachicola). Flow regimes were examined for changes from current conditions with respect to ecologically relevant features including the magnitude and timing of minimum and maximum flows. The Cle Elum's hydrograph under future climate scenarios showed a dramatic shift in the timing of peak flows and lower low flow of a longer duration. These changes could mean higher summer water temperatures, lower summer dissolved oxygen, and reduced survival of larval fishes. The Chattahoochee-Apalachicola basin is heavily impacted by dams and water withdrawals for human consumption; therefore, we made comparisons between pre-large dam conditions, current conditions, current conditions with future demand, and future climate scenarios with future demand to separate climate change effects and other anthropogenic impacts. Dam construction, future climate, and future demand decreased the flow variability of the river. In addition, minimum flows were lower under future climate scenarios. These changes could decrease the connectivity of the channel and the floodplain, decrease habitat availability, and potentially lower the ability of the river to assimilate wastewater treatment plant effluent. Our study illustrates the types of changes that river ecosystems might experience under future climates. Copyright ?? 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evaluation of DGVMs in tropical areas: linking patterns of vegetation cover, climate and fire to ecological processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Onofrio, Donatella; von Hardenberg, Jost; Baudena, Mara

2017-04-01

Many current Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs), including those incorporated into Earth System Models (ESMs), are able to realistically reproduce the distribution of the most worldwide biomes. However, they display high uncertainty in predicting the forest, savanna and grassland distributions and the transitions between them in tropical areas. These biomes are the most productive terrestrial ecosystems, and owing to their different biogeophysical and biogeochemical characteristics, future changes in their distributions could have also impacts on climate states. In particular, expected increasing temperature and CO2, modified precipitation regimes, as well as increasing land-use intensity could have large impacts on global biogeochemical cycles and precipitation, affecting the land-climate interactions. The difficulty of the DGVMs in simulating tropical vegetation, especially savanna structure and occurrence, has been associated with the way they represent the ecological processes and feedbacks between biotic and abiotic conditions. The inclusion of appropriate ecological mechanisms under present climatic conditions is essential for obtaining reliable future projections of vegetation and climate states. In this work we analyse observed relationships of tree and grass cover with climate and fire, and the current ecological understanding of the mechanisms driving the forest-savanna-grassland transition in Africa to evaluate the outcomes of a current state-of-the-art DGVM and to assess which ecological processes need to be included or improved within the model. Specifically, we analyse patterns of woody and herbaceous cover and fire return times from MODIS satellite observations, rainfall annual average and seasonality from TRMM satellite measurements and tree phenology information from the ESA global land cover map, comparing them with the outcomes of the LPJ-GUESS DGVM, also used by the EC-Earth global climate model. The comparison analysis with the LPJ-GUESS simulations suggests possible improvements in the model representations of tree-grass competition for water and in the vegetation-fire interaction. The proposed method could be useful for evaluating DGVMs in tropical areas, especially in the phase of model setting-up, before the coupling with Earth System Models. This could help in improving the simulations of ecological processes and consequently of land-climate interactions.

Root Systems of Individual Plants, and the Biotic and Abiotic Factors Controlling Their Depth and Distribution: a Synthesis Using a Global Database.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tumber-Davila, S. J.; Schenk, H. J.; Jackson, R. B.

2017-12-01

This synthesis examines plant rooting distributions globally, by doubling the number of entries in the Root Systems of Individual Plants database (RSIP) created by Schenk and Jackson. Root systems influence many processes, including water and nutrient uptake and soil carbon storage. Root systems also mediate vegetation responses to changing climatic and environmental conditions. Therefore, a collective understanding of the importance of rooting systems to carbon sequestration, soil characteristics, hydrology, and climate, is needed. Current global models are limited by a poor understanding of the mechanisms affecting rooting, carbon stocks, and belowground biomass. This improved database contains an extensive bank of records describing the rooting system of individual plants, as well as detailed information on the climate and environment from which the observations are made. The expanded RSIP database will: 1) increase our understanding of rooting depths, lateral root spreads and above and belowground allometry; 2) improve the representation of plant rooting systems in Earth System Models; 3) enable studies of how climate change will alter and interact with plant species and functional groups in the future. We further focus on how plant rooting behavior responds to variations in climate and the environment, and create a model that can predict rooting behavior given a set of environmental conditions. Preliminary results suggest that high potential evapotranspiration and seasonality of precipitation are indicative of deeper rooting after accounting for plant growth form. When mapping predicted deep rooting by climate, we predict deepest rooting to occur in equatorial South America, Africa, and central India.

Climate Sensitivity in the Anthropocene

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Previdi, M.; Liepert, B. G.; Peteet, Dorothy M.; Hansen, J.; Beerling, D. J.; Broccoli, A. J.; Frolking, S.; Galloway, J. N.; Heimann, M.; LeQuere, C.;

A Faculty Workshop Model to Integrate Climate Change across the Curriculum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teranes, J. L.

2017-12-01

Much of the growing scientific certainty of human impacts on the climate system, and the implications of these impacts on current and future generations, have been discovered and documented in research labs in colleges and universities across the country. Often these institutions also take decisive action towards combatting climate change, by making significant reductions in greenhouse emissions and pledging to greater future reductions. Yet, there are still far too many students that graduate from these campuses without an adequate understanding of how climate change will impact them within their lifetimes and without adequate workforce preparation to implement solutions. It may be that where college and universities still have the largest influence on climate change adaption and mitigation is in the way that we educate students. Here I present a curriculum workshop model at UC San Diego that leverages faculty expertise to infuse climate change education across disciplines to enhance UC San Diego students' climate literacy, particularly for those students whose major focus is not in the geosciences. In this model, twenty faculty from a breadth of disciplines, including social sciences, humanities, arts, education, and natural sciences participated in workshops and developed curricula to infuse aspects of climate change into their existing undergraduate courses. We particularly encouraged development of climate change modules in courses in the humanities, social sciences and arts that are best positioned to address the important human and social dimensions of climate change. In this way, climate change content becomes embedded in current course offerings, including non-science courses, to increase climate literacy among a greater number and a broader cross-section of students.

Lightning Discharges, Cosmic Rays and Climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, Sanjay; Siingh, Devendraa; Singh, R. P.; Singh, A. K.; Kamra, A. K.

2018-03-01

The entirety of the Earth's climate system is continuously bombarded by cosmic rays and exhibits about 2000 thunderstorms active at any time of the day all over the globe. Any linkage among these vast systems should have global consequences. Numerous studies done in the past deal with partial links between some selected aspects of this grand linkage. Results of these studies vary from weakly to strongly significant and are not yet complete enough to justify the physical mechanism proposed to explain such links. This review is aimed at presenting the current understanding, based on the past studies on the link between cosmic ray, lightning and climate. The deficiencies in some proposed links are pointed out. Impacts of cosmic rays on engineering systems and the possible effects of cosmic rays on human health are also briefly discussed. Also enumerated are some problems for future work which may help in developing the grand linkage among these three vast systems.

Atmospheric and oceanographic research review, 1979

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1980-01-01

Papers generated by atmospheric, oceanographic, and climatological research performed during 1979 at the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences are presented. The GARP/global weather research is aimed at developing techniques for the utilization and analysis of the FGGE data sets. Observing system studies were aimed at developing a GLAS TIROS N sounding retrieval system and preparing for the joint NOAA/NASA AMTS simulation study. The climate research objective is to support the development and effective utilization of space acquired data systems by developing the GLAS GCM for short range climate predictions, studies of the sensitivity of climate to boundary conditions, and predictability studies. Ocean/air interaction studies concentrated on the development of models for the prediction of upper ocean currents, temperatures, sea state, mixed layer depths, and upwelling zones, and on studies of the interactions of the atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems on time scales of a month or more.

The pilot climate data system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reph, M. G.; Treinish, L. A.; Smith, P. H.

1984-01-01

The Pilot Climate Data System (PCDS) is an interactive scientific information management system for locating, obtaining, manipulating, and displaying climate-research data. The PCDS was developed to manage a large collection of data of interest to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) research community and currently provides such support for approximately twenty data sets. In order to provide the PCDS capabilities, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC) has integrated the capabilities of several general-purpose software packages with specialized software for reading and reformatting the supported data sets. These capabilities were integrated in a manner which allows the PCDS to be easily expanded, either to provide support for additional data sets or to provide additional functional capabilities. This also allows the PCDS to take advantage of new technology as it becomes available, since parts of the system can be replaced with more powerful components without significantly affecting the user interface.

Big Data Challenges in Climate Science: Improving the Next-Generation Cyberinfrastructure

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schnase, John L.; Lee, Tsengdar J.; Mattmann, Chris A.; Lynnes, Christopher S.; Cinquini, Luca; Ramirez, Paul M.; Hart, Andre F.; Williams, Dean N.; Waliser, Duane; Rinsland, Pamela;

Climate change: The necessary, the possible and the desirable Earth League climate statement on the implications for climate policy from the 5th IPCC Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rockström, Johan; Brasseur, Guy; Hoskins, Brian; Lucht, Wolfgang; Schellnhuber, John; Kabat, Pavel; Nakicenovic, Nebojsa; Gong, Peng; Schlosser, Peter; Máñez Costa, Maria; Humble, April; Eyre, Nick; Gleick, Peter; James, Rachel; Lucena, Andre; Masera, Omar; Moench, Marcus; Schaeffer, Roberto; Seitzinger, Sybil; van der Leeuw, Sander; Ward, Bob; Stern, Nicholas; Hurrell, James; Srivastava, Leena; Morgan, Jennifer; Nobre, Carlos; Sokona, Youba; Cremades, Roger; Roth, Ellinor; Liverman, Diana; Arnott, James

2014-12-01

The development of human civilisations has occurred at a time of stable climate. This climate stability is now threatened by human activity. The rising global climate risk occurs at a decisive moment for world development. World nations are currently discussing a global development agenda consequent to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which ends in 2015. It is increasingly possible to envisage a world where absolute poverty is largely eradicated within one generation and where ambitious goals on universal access and equal opportunities for dignified lives are adopted. These grand aspirations for a world population approaching or even exceeding nine billion in 2050 is threatened by substantial global environmental risks and by rising inequality. Research shows that development gains, in both rich and poor nations, can be undermined by social, economic and ecological problems caused by human-induced global environmental change. Climate risks, and associated changes in marine and terrestrial ecosystems that regulate the resilience of the climate system, are at the forefront of these global risks. We, as citizens with a strong engagement in Earth system science and socio-ecological dynamics, share the vision of a more equitable and prosperous future for the world, yet we also see threats to this future from shifts in climate and environmental processes. Without collaborative action now, our shared Earth system may not be able to sustainably support a large proportion of humanity in the decades ahead.

RETScreen Plus Software Tutorial

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ganoe, Rene D.; Stackhouse, Paul W., Jr.; DeYoung, Russell J.

2014-01-01

Greater emphasis is being placed on reducing both the carbon footprint and energy cost of buildings. A building's energy usage depends upon many factors one of the most important is the local weather and climate conditions to which it's electrical, heating and air conditioning systems must respond. Incorporating renewable energy systems, including solar systems, to supplement energy supplies and increase energy efficiency is important to saving costs and reducing emissions. Also retrofitting technologies to buildings requires knowledge of building performance in its current state, potential future climate state, projection of potential savings with capital investment, and then monitoring the performance once the improvements are made. RETScreen Plus is a performance analysis software module that supplies the needed functions of monitoring current building performance, targeting projected energy efficiency improvements and verifying improvements once completed. This tutorial defines the functions of RETScreen Plus as well as outlines the general procedure for monitoring and reporting building energy performance.

Infectious Diseases, Urbanization and Climate Change: Challenges in Future China.

PubMed

Tong, Michael Xiaoliang; Hansen, Alana; Hanson-Easey, Scott; Cameron, Scott; Xiang, Jianjun; Liu, Qiyong; Sun, Yehuan; Weinstein, Philip; Han, Gil-Soo; Williams, Craig; Bi, Peng

2015-09-07

China is one of the largest countries in the world with nearly 20% of the world's population. There have been significant improvements in economy, education and technology over the last three decades. Due to substantial investments from all levels of government, the public health system in China has been improved since the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. However, infectious diseases still remain a major population health issue and this may be exacerbated by rapid urbanization and unprecedented impacts of climate change. This commentary aims to explore China's current capacity to manage infectious diseases which impair population health. It discusses the existing disease surveillance system and underscores the critical importance of strengthening the system. It also explores how the growing migrant population, dramatic changes in the natural landscape following rapid urbanization, and changing climatic conditions can contribute to the emergence and re-emergence of infectious disease. Continuing research on infectious diseases, urbanization and climate change may inform the country's capacity to deal with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in the future.

Climate Engine - Monitoring Drought with Google Earth Engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hegewisch, K.; Daudert, B.; Morton, C.; McEvoy, D.; Huntington, J. L.; Abatzoglou, J. T.

2016-12-01

Drought has adverse effects on society through reduced water availability and agricultural production and increased wildfire risk. An abundance of remotely sensed imagery and climate data are being collected in near-real time that can provide place-based monitoring and early warning of drought and related hazards. However, in an era of increasing wealth of earth observations, tools that quickly access, compute, and visualize archives, and provide answers at relevant scales to better inform decision-making are lacking. We have developed ClimateEngine.org, a web application that uses Google's Earth Engine platform to enable users to quickly compute and visualize real-time observations. A suite of drought indices allow us to monitor and track drought from local (30-meters) to regional scales and contextualize current droughts within the historical record. Climate Engine is currently being used by U.S. federal agencies and researchers to develop baseline conditions and impact assessments related to agricultural, ecological, and hydrological drought. Climate Engine is also working with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) to expedite monitoring agricultural drought over broad areas at risk of food insecurity globally.

The Southwest Pacific Ocean circulation and climate experiment (SPICE)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ganachaud, A.; Cravatte, S.; Melet, A.; Schiller, A.; Holbrook, N. J.; Sloyan, B. M.; Widlansky, M. J.; Bowen, M.; Verron, J.; Wiles, P.; Ridgway, K.; Sutton, P.; Sprintall, J.; Steinberg, C.; Brassington, G.; Cai, W.; Davis, R.; Gasparin, F.; Gourdeau, L.; Hasegawa, T.; Kessler, W.; Maes, C.; Takahashi, K.; Richards, K. J.; Send, U.

2014-11-01

The Southwest Pacific Ocean Circulation and Climate Experiment (SPICE) is an international research program under the auspices of CLIVAR. The key objectives are to understand the Southwest Pacific Ocean circulation and the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) dynamics, as well as their influence on regional and basin-scale climate patterns. South Pacific thermocline waters are transported in the westward flowing South Equatorial Current (SEC) toward Australia and Papua-New Guinea. On its way, the SEC encounters the numerous islands and straits of the Southwest Pacific and forms boundary currents and jets that eventually redistribute water to the equator and high latitudes. The transit in the Coral, Solomon, and Tasman Seas is of great importance to the climate system because changes in either the temperature or the amount of water arriving at the equator have the capability to modulate the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, while the southward transports influence the climate and biodiversity in the Tasman Sea. After 7 years of substantial in situ oceanic observational and modeling efforts, our understanding of the region has much improved. We have a refined description of the SPCZ behavior, boundary currents, pathways, and water mass transformation, including the previously undocumented Solomon Sea. The transports are large and vary substantially in a counter-intuitive way, with asymmetries and gating effects that depend on time scales. This paper provides a review of recent advancements and discusses our current knowledge gaps and important emerging research directions.

A perspective on sustained marine observations for climate modelling and prediction.

PubMed

Dunstone, Nick J

2014-09-28

Here, I examine some of the many varied ways in which sustained global ocean observations are used in numerical modelling activities. In particular, I focus on the use of ocean observations to initialize predictions in ocean and climate models. Examples are also shown of how models can be used to assess the impact of both current ocean observations and to simulate that of potential new ocean observing platforms. The ocean has never been better observed than it is today and similarly ocean models have never been as capable at representing the real ocean as they are now. However, there remain important unanswered questions that can likely only be addressed via future improvements in ocean observations. In particular, ocean observing systems need to respond to the needs of the burgeoning field of near-term climate predictions. Although new ocean observing platforms promise exciting new discoveries, there is a delicate balance to be made between their funding and that of the current ocean observing system. Here, I identify the need to secure long-term funding for ocean observing platforms as they mature, from a mainly research exercise to an operational system for sustained observation over climate change time scales. At the same time, considerable progress continues to be made via ship-based observing campaigns and I highlight some that are dedicated to addressing uncertainties in key ocean model parametrizations. The use of ocean observations to understand the prominent long time scale changes observed in the North Atlantic is another focus of this paper. The exciting first decade of monitoring of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation by the RAPID-MOCHA array is highlighted. The use of ocean and climate models as tools to further probe the drivers of variability seen in such time series is another exciting development. I also discuss the need for a concerted combined effort from climate models and ocean observations in order to understand the current slow-down in surface global warming. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Visualizing interconnections among climate risks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanaka, K.; Yokohata, T.; Nishina, K.; Takahashi, K.; Emori, S.; Kiguchi, M.; Iseri, Y.; Honda, Y.; Okada, M.; Masaki, Y.; Yamamoto, A.; Shigemitsu, M.; Yoshimori, M.; Sueyoshi, T.; Hanasaki, N.; Ito, A.; Sakurai, G.; Iizumi, T.; Nishimori, M.; Lim, W. H.; Miyazaki, C.; Kanae, S.; Oki, T.

2015-12-01

It is now widely recognized that climate change is affecting various sectors of the world. Climate change impact on one sector may spread out to other sectors including those seemingly remote, which we call "interconnections of climate risks". While a number of climate risks have been identified in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), there has been no attempt to explore their interconnections comprehensively. Here we present a first and most exhaustive visualization of climate risks drawn based on a systematic literature survey. Our risk network diagrams depict that changes in the climate system impact natural capitals (terrestrial water, crop, and agricultural land) as well as social infrastructures, influencing the socio-economic system and ultimately our access to food, water, and energy. Our findings suggest the importance of incorporating climate risk interconnections into impact and vulnerability assessments and call into question the widely used damage function approaches, which address a limited number of climate change impacts in isolation. Furthermore, the diagram is useful to educate decision makers, stakeholders, and general public about cascading risks that can be triggered by the climate change. Socio-economic activities today are becoming increasingly more inter-dependent because of the rapid technological progress, urbanization, and the globalization among others. Equally complex is the ecosystem that is susceptible to climate change, which comprises interwoven processes affecting one another. In the context of climate change, a number of climate risks have been identified and classified according to regions and sectors. These reports, however, did not fully address the inter-relations among risks because of the complexity inherent in this issue. Climate risks may ripple through sectors in the present inter-dependent world, posing a challenge ahead of us to maintain the resilience of the system. It is therefore imperative to improve our understanding on how climate change may induce a chain of impacts. Our study is a first step toward this goal by mapping out climate risks and their cause-effect relationships based on current literature.

PERFORMANCE OF SOLAR HOT WATER COLLECTORS FOR ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION AND CLIMATE CONTROL

EPA Science Inventory

We will systematically evaluate commercially available solar thermal collectors and thermal storage systems for use in residential scale co-generative heat and electrical power systems. Currently, reliable data is unavailable over the range of conditions and installations thes...

Basin-Wide Oceanographic Array Bridges the South Atlantic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ansorge, I. J.; Baringer, M. O.; Campos, E. J. D.; Dong, S.; Fine, R. A.; Garzoli, S. L.; Goni, G.; Meinen, C. S.; Perez, R. C.; Piola, A. R.; Roberts, M. J.; Speich, S.; Sprintall, J.; Terre, T.; Van den Berg, M. A.

2014-02-01

The meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is a global system of surface, intermediate, and deep ocean currents. The MOC connects the surface layer of the ocean and the atmosphere with the huge reservoir of the deep sea and is the primary mechanism for transporting heat, freshwater, and carbon between ocean basins. Climate models show that past changes in the strength of the MOC were linked to historical climate variations. Further research suggests that the MOC will continue to modulate climate change scenarios on time scales ranging from decades to centuries [Latif et al., 2006].

A climate trend analysis of Uganda

USGS Publications Warehouse

Funk, Christopher C.; Rowland, Jim; Eilerts, Gary; White, Libby

2012-01-01

This brief report, drawing from a multi-year effort by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), identifies observed changes in rainfall and temperature in Uganda, based on an analysis of a quality-controlled, long time series of station observations throughout Uganda. Extending recent trends forward, it also provides a current and near-future context for understanding the actual nature of climate change impacts in the country, and a basis for identifying climate adaptations that may protect and improve the country's food security.

Coral-inferred Variability of Upstream Kuroshio Current from 1953-2004 AD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, X.; Yi, L.; Shen, C. C.; Hsin, Y. C.

2016-12-01

The Kuroshio Current (KC), one of the most important western boundary currents in the North Pacific Ocean, strongly impacts regional climate in East Asia and upper-ocean thermal structure. However, the responses of KC to regional and remote climate forcing are poorly understood owing to lacking of long-term KC observations. Here, we present a sea surface temperature (SST) record from 1953 to 2004 AD derived from monthly skeletal δ18O data of a living coral Porites core, drilled in Nanwan, southern Taiwan (22°N, 121°E), located on the western front of the Upstream KC. The increased/reduced Kuroshio transport would generate stronger/weaker upwelling in Southern Taiwan, which can cause lower/higher SST. Agreement between dynamics of interannual coral δ18O and modern KC data shows that the regional coral δ18O can be used as a promising proxy for Upstream KC intensity. The KC-induced SST anomaly record reveals prominent interannual and decadal variability predominantly controlled by the bifurcation latitude of North Equatorial Current. We also find that the reconstructed KC intensity at east of Taiwan and south of Japan have nearly simultaneous interannual changes, suggesting the same dominant forcing(s) for the entire KC system. Additional work is needed to understand the KC system with respect to the interannual to decadal climate variability and the influences of global warming.

Will high-resolution global ocean models benefit coupled predictions on short-range to climate timescales?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hewitt, Helene T.; Bell, Michael J.; Chassignet, Eric P.; Czaja, Arnaud; Ferreira, David; Griffies, Stephen M.; Hyder, Pat; McClean, Julie L.; New, Adrian L.; Roberts, Malcolm J.

2017-12-01

As the importance of the ocean in the weather and climate system is increasingly recognised, operational systems are now moving towards coupled prediction not only for seasonal to climate timescales but also for short-range forecasts. A three-way tension exists between the allocation of computing resources to refine model resolution, the expansion of model complexity/capability, and the increase of ensemble size. Here we review evidence for the benefits of increased ocean resolution in global coupled models, where the ocean component explicitly represents transient mesoscale eddies and narrow boundary currents. We consider lessons learned from forced ocean/sea-ice simulations; from studies concerning the SST resolution required to impact atmospheric simulations; and from coupled predictions. Impacts of the mesoscale ocean in western boundary current regions on the large-scale atmospheric state have been identified. Understanding of air-sea feedback in western boundary currents is modifying our view of the dynamics in these key regions. It remains unclear whether variability associated with open ocean mesoscale eddies is equally important to the large-scale atmospheric state. We include a discussion of what processes can presently be parameterised in coupled models with coarse resolution non-eddying ocean models, and where parameterizations may fall short. We discuss the benefits of resolution and identify gaps in the current literature that leave important questions unanswered.

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.

Global wheat production potentials and management flexibility under the representative concentration pathways

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balkovič, Juraj; van der Velde, Marijn; Skalský, Rastislav; Xiong, Wei; Folberth, Christian; Khabarov, Nikolay; Smirnov, Alexey; Mueller, Nathaniel D.; Obersteiner, Michael

2014-11-01

Wheat is the third largest crop globally and an essential source of calories in human diets. Maintaining and increasing global wheat production is therefore strongly linked to food security. A large geographic variation in wheat yields across similar climates points to sizeable yield gaps in many nations, and indicates a regionally variable flexibility to increase wheat production. Wheat is particularly sensitive to a changing climate thus limiting management opportunities to enable (sustainable) intensification with potentially significant implications for future wheat production. We present a comprehensive global evaluation of future wheat yields and production under distinct Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) using the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) agro-ecosystem model. We project, in a geographically explicit manner, future wheat production pathways for rainfed and irrigated wheat systems. We explore agricultural management flexibility by quantifying the development of wheat yield potentials under current, rainfed, exploitable (given current irrigation infrastructure), and irrigated intensification levels. Globally, because of climate change, wheat production under conventional management (around the year 2000) would decrease across all RCPs by 37 to 52 and 54 to 103 Mt in the 2050s and 2090s, respectively. However, the exploitable and potential production gap will stay above 350 and 580 Mt, respectively, for all RCPs and time horizons, indicating that negative impacts of climate change can globally be offset by adequate intensification using currently existing irrigation infrastructure and nutrient additions. Future world wheat production on cropland already under cultivation can be increased by ~ 35% through intensified fertilization and ~ 50% through increased fertilization and extended irrigation, if sufficient water would be available. Significant potential can still be exploited, especially in rainfed wheat systems in Russia, Eastern Europe and North America.

The combined and separate impacts of climate extremes on the current and future US rainfed maize and soybean production under elevated CO 2

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

Jin, Zhenong; Zhuang, Qianlai; Wang, Jiali

Heat and drought stresses are two emerging climatic threats to the US maize and soybean production, yet their impacts on yields are collectively determined by the magnitude of climate change and rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. Here we present a study that quantified the current and future yield responses of US rainfed maize and soybean to climate extremes, and for the first time characterized spatial shifts in the relative importance of temperature, heat and drought stress. Crop yields are simulated using the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM), driven by the high-resolution (12 km) Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model downscaled futuremore » climate scenarios at two time slices (1995-2005 and 2085-2094). Our results show that climatic yield gaps and interannual variability are greater in the core production area than in the remaining US by the late 21st century under both Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, and the magnitude of change is highly dependent on the current climate sensitivity and vulnerability. Elevated CO2 partially offsets the climatic yield gaps and reduces interannual yield variability, and effect is more prominent in soybean than in maize. We demonstrate that drought will continue to be the largest threat to US rainfed maize and soybean production, although its dominant role gradually gives way to other impacts of heat extremes. We also reveal that shifts in the geographic distributions of dominant stressors are characterized by increases in the concurrent stress, especially for the US Midwest. These findings imply the importance of considering drought and extreme heat simultaneously for future agronomic adaptation and mitigation strategies, particularly for breeding programs and crop management.« less

Ecologically-Relevant Maps of Landforms and Physiographic Diversity for Climate Adaptation Planning

PubMed Central

Theobald, David M.; Harrison-Atlas, Dylan; Monahan, William B.; Albano, Christine M.

2015-01-01

Key to understanding the implications of climate and land use change on biodiversity and natural resources is to incorporate the physiographic platform on which changes in ecological systems unfold. Here, we advance a detailed classification and high-resolution map of physiography, built by combining landforms and lithology (soil parent material) at multiple spatial scales. We used only relatively static abiotic variables (i.e., excluded climatic and biotic factors) to prevent confounding current ecological patterns and processes with enduring landscape features, and to make the physiographic classification more interpretable for climate adaptation planning. We generated novel spatial databases for 15 landform and 269 physiographic types across the conterminous United States of America. We examined their potential use by natural resource managers by placing them within a contemporary climate change adaptation framework, and found our physiographic databases could play key roles in four of seven general adaptation strategies. We also calculated correlations with common empirical measures of biodiversity to examine the degree to which the physiographic setting explains various aspects of current biodiversity patterns. Additionally, we evaluated the relationship between landform diversity and measures of climate change to explore how changes may unfold across a geophysical template. We found landform types are particularly sensitive to spatial scale, and so we recommend using high-resolution datasets when possible, as well as generating metrics using multiple neighborhood sizes to both minimize and characterize potential unknown biases. We illustrate how our work can inform current strategies for climate change adaptation. The analytical framework and classification of landforms and parent material are easily extendable to other geographies and may be used to promote climate change adaptation in other settings. PMID:26641818

Climatic Effects of Regional Nuclear War

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Oman, Luke D.

2011-01-01

We use a modern climate model and new estimates of smoke generated by fires in contemporary cities to calculate the response of the climate system to a regional nuclear war between emerging third world nuclear powers using 100 Hiroshima-size bombs (less than 0.03% of the explosive yield of the current global nuclear arsenal) on cities in the subtropics. We find significant cooling and reductions of precipitation lasting years, which would impact the global food supply. The climate changes are large and longlasting because the fuel loadings in modern cities are quite high and the subtropical solar insolation heats the resulting smoke cloud and lofts it into the high stratosphere, where removal mechanisms are slow. While the climate changes are less dramatic than found in previous "nuclear winter" simulations of a massive nuclear exchange between the superpowers, because less smoke is emitted, the changes seem to be more persistent because of improvements in representing aerosol processes and microphysical/dynamical interactions, including radiative heating effects, in newer global climate system models. The assumptions and calculations that go into these conclusions will be described.

Impacts of Climate Change on Indirect Human Exposure to Pathogens and Chemicals from Agriculture

PubMed Central

Boxall, Alistair B.A.; Hardy, Anthony; Beulke, Sabine; Boucard, Tatiana; Burgin, Laura; Falloon, Peter D.; Haygarth, Philip M.; Hutchinson, Thomas; Kovats, R. Sari; Leonardi, Giovanni; Levy, Leonard S.; Nichols, Gordon; Parsons, Simon A.; Potts, Laura; Stone, David; Topp, Edward; Turley, David B.; Walsh, Kerry; Wellington, Elizabeth M.H.; Williams, Richard J.

2009-01-01

Objective Climate change is likely to affect the nature of pathogens and chemicals in the environment and their fate and transport. Future risks of pathogens and chemicals could therefore be very different from those of today. In this review, we assess the implications of climate change for changes in human exposures to pathogens and chemicals in agricultural systems in the United Kingdom and discuss the subsequent effects on health impacts. Data sources In this review, we used expert input and considered literature on climate change; health effects resulting from exposure to pathogens and chemicals arising from agriculture; inputs of chemicals and pathogens to agricultural systems; and human exposure pathways for pathogens and chemicals in agricultural systems. Data synthesis We established the current evidence base for health effects of chemicals and pathogens in the agricultural environment; determined the potential implications of climate change on chemical and pathogen inputs in agricultural systems; and explored the effects of climate change on environmental transport and fate of different contaminant types. We combined these data to assess the implications of climate change in terms of indirect human exposure to pathogens and chemicals in agricultural systems. We then developed recommendations on future research and policy changes to manage any adverse increases in risks. Conclusions Overall, climate change is likely to increase human exposures to agricultural contaminants. The magnitude of the increases will be highly dependent on the contaminant type. Risks from many pathogens and particulate and particle-associated contaminants could increase significantly. These increases in exposure can, however, be managed for the most part through targeted research and policy changes. PMID:19440487

Integrated monitoring and information systems for managing aquatic invasive species in a changing climate.

PubMed

Lee, Henry; Reusser, Deborah A; Olden, Julian D; Smith, Scott S; Graham, Jim; Burkett, Virginia; Dukes, Jeffrey S; Piorkowski, Robert J; McPhedran, John

2008-06-01

Changes in temperature, precipitation, and other climatic drivers and sea-level rise will affect populations of existing native and non-native aquatic species and the vulnerability of aquatic environments to new invasions. Monitoring surveys provide the foundation for assessing the combined effects of climate change and invasions by providing baseline biotic and environmental conditions, although the utility of a survey depends on whether the results are quantitative or qualitative, and other design considerations. The results from a variety of monitoring programs in the United States are available in integrated biological information systems, although many include only non-native species, not native species. Besides including natives, we suggest these systems could be improved through the development of standardized methods that capture habitat and physiological requirements and link regional and national biological databases into distributed Web portals that allow drawing information from multiple sources. Combining the outputs from these biological information systems with environmental data would allow the development of ecological-niche models that predict the potential distribution or abundance of native and non-native species on the basis of current environmental conditions. Environmental projections from climate models can be used in these niche models to project changes in species distributions or abundances under altered climatic conditions and to identify potential high-risk invaders. There are, however, a number of challenges, such as uncertainties associated with projections from climate and niche models and difficulty in integrating data with different temporal and spatial granularity. Even with these uncertainties, integration of biological and environmental information systems, niche models, and climate projections would improve management of aquatic ecosystems under the dual threats of biotic invasions and climate change.

Integrated monitoring and information systems for managing aquatic invasive species in a changing climate

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lee, Henry; Reusser, Deborah A.; Olden, Julian D.; Smith, Scott S.; Graham, Jim; Burkett, Virginia; Dukes, Jeffrey S.; Piorkowski, Robert J.; Mcphedran, John

2008-01-01

Changes in temperature, precipitation, and other climatic drivers and sea-level rise will affect populations of existing native and non-native aquatic species and the vulnerability of aquatic environments to new invasions. Monitoring surveys provide the foundation for assessing the combined effects of climate change and invasions by providing baseline biotic and environmental conditions, although the utility of a survey depends on whether the results are quantitative or qualitative, and other design considerations. The results from a variety of monitoring programs in the United States are available in integrated biological information systems, although many include only non-native species, not native species. Besides including natives, we suggest these systems could be improved through the development of standardized methods that capture habitat and physiological requirements and link regional and national biological databases into distributed Web portals that allow drawing information from multiple sources. Combining the outputs from these biological information systems with environmental data would allow the development of ecological-niche models that predict the potential distribution or abundance of native and non-native species on the basis of current environmental conditions. Environmental projections from climate models can be used in these niche models to project changes in species distributions or abundances under altered climatic conditions and to identify potential high-risk invaders. There are, however, a number of challenges, such as uncertainties associated with projections from climate and niche models and difficulty in integrating data with different temporal and spatial granularity. Even with these uncertainties, integration of biological and environmental information systems, niche models, and climate projections would improve management of aquatic ecosystems under the dual threats of biotic invasions and climate change

Abrupt climate change: can society cope?

PubMed

Hulme, Mike

2003-09-15

Consideration of abrupt climate change has generally been incorporated neither in analyses of climate-change impacts nor in the design of climate adaptation strategies. Yet the possibility of abrupt climate change triggered by human perturbation of the climate system is used to support the position of both those who urge stronger and earlier mitigative action than is currently being contemplated and those who argue that the unknowns in the Earth system are too large to justify such early action. This paper explores the question of abrupt climate change in terms of its potential implications for society, focusing on the UK and northwest Europe in particular. The nature of abrupt climate change and the different ways in which it has been defined and perceived are examined. Using the example of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation (THC), the suggested implications for society of abrupt climate change are reviewed; previous work has been largely speculative and has generally considered the implications only from economic and ecological perspectives. Some observations about the implications from a more social and behavioural science perspective are made. If abrupt climate change simply implies changes in the occurrence or intensity of extreme weather events, or an accelerated unidirectional change in climate, the design of adaptation to climate change can proceed within the existing paradigm, with appropriate adjustments. Limits to adaptation in some sectors or regions may be reached, and the costs of appropriate adaptive behaviour may be large, but strategy can develop on the basis of a predicted long-term unidirectional change in climate. It would be more challenging, however, if abrupt climate change implied a directional change in climate, as, for example, may well occur in northwest Europe following a collapse of the THC. There are two fundamental problems for society associated with such an outcome: first, the future changes in climate currently being anticipated and prepared for may reverse and, second, the probability of such a scenario occurring remains fundamentally unknown. The implications of both problems for climate policy and for decision making have not been researched. It is premature to argue therefore that abrupt climate change - in the sense referred to here - imposes unacceptable costs on society or the world economy, represents a catastrophic impact of climate change or constitutes a dangerous change in climate that should be avoided at all reasonable cost. We conclude by examining the implications of this contention for future research and policy formation.

The Community Climate System Model.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blackmon, Maurice; Boville, Byron; Bryan, Frank; Dickinson, Robert; Gent, Peter; Kiehl, Jeffrey; Moritz, Richard; Randall, David; Shukla, Jagadish; Solomon, Susan; Bonan, Gordon; Doney, Scott; Fung, Inez; Hack, James; Hunke, Elizabeth; Hurrell, James; Kutzbach, John; Meehl, Jerry; Otto-Bliesner, Bette; Saravanan, R.; Schneider, Edwin K.; Sloan, Lisa; Spall, Michael; Taylor, Karl; Tribbia, Joseph; Washington, Warren

2001-11-01

The Community Climate System Model (CCSM) has been created to represent the principal components of the climate system and their interactions. Development and applications of the model are carried out by the U.S. climate research community, thus taking advantage of both wide intellectual participation and computing capabilities beyond those available to most individual U.S. institutions. This article outlines the history of the CCSM, its current capabilities, and plans for its future development and applications, with the goal of providing a summary useful to present and future users. The initial version of the CCSM included atmosphere and ocean general circulation models, a land surface model that was grafted onto the atmosphere model, a sea-ice model, and a flux coupler that facilitates information exchanges among the component models with their differing grids. This version of the model produced a successful 300-yr simulation of the current climate without artificial flux adjustments. The model was then used to perform a coupled simulation in which the atmospheric CO2 concentration increased by 1% per year. In this version of the coupled model, the ocean salinity and deep-ocean temperature slowly drifted away from observed values. A subsequent correction to the roughness length used for sea ice significantly reduced these errors. An updated version of the CCSM was used to perform three simulations of the twentieth century's climate, and several pro-jections of the climate of the twenty-first century. The CCSM's simulation of the tropical ocean circulation has been significantly improved by reducing the background vertical diffusivity and incorporating an anisotropic horizontal viscosity tensor. The meridional resolution of the ocean model was also refined near the equator. These changes have resulted in a greatly improved simulation of both the Pacific equatorial undercurrent and the surface countercurrents. The interannual variability of the sea surface temperature in the central and eastern tropical Pacific is also more realistic in simulations with the updated model. Scientific challenges to be addressed with future versions of the CCSM include realistic simulation of the whole atmosphere, including the middle and upper atmosphere, as well as the troposphere; simulation of changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the incorporation of an integrated chemistry model; inclusion of global, prognostic biogeochemical components for land, ocean, and atmosphere; simulations of past climates, including times of extensive continental glaciation as well as times with little or no ice; studies of natural climate variability on seasonal-to-centennial timescales; and investigations of anthropogenic climate change. In order to make such studies possible, work is under way to improve all components of the model. Plans call for a new version of the CCSM to be released in 2002. Planned studies with the CCSM will require much more computer power than is currently available.

Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Climate change threatens human health and well-being in the United States. To address this growing threat, the Interagency Group on Climate Change and Human Health (CCHHG), a working group of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP), has developed this assessment as part of the ongoing efforts of the USGCRP’s National Climate Assessment (NCA) and as called for under the President’s Climate Action Plan. The authors of this assessment have compiled and assessed current research on human health impacts of climate change and summarized the current “state of the science” for a number of key impact areas. This assessment provides a comprehensive update to the most recent detailed technical assessment for the health impacts of climate change, 2008 Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.6 (SAP 4.6) Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems (CCSP 2008). It also updates and builds upon the health chapter of the third NCA (Melillo et al. 2014). The lead and coordinating Federal agencies for the USGCRP Climate and Health Assessment are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institute of Health (NIH), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Available at https://health2016.globalchange.gov/ The interagency U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has developed this assessment as part of the ongoing efforts of their National C

An end-to-end assessment of extreme weather impacts on food security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chavez, Erik; Conway, Gordon; Ghil, Michael; Sadler, Marc

2015-11-01

Both governments and the private sector urgently require better estimates of the likely incidence of extreme weather events, their impacts on food crop production and the potential consequent social and economic losses. Current assessments of climate change impacts on agriculture mostly focus on average crop yield vulnerability to climate and adaptation scenarios. Also, although new-generation climate models have improved and there has been an exponential increase in available data, the uncertainties in their projections over years and decades, and at regional and local scale, have not decreased. We need to understand and quantify the non-stationary, annual and decadal climate impacts using simple and communicable risk metrics that will help public and private stakeholders manage the hazards to food security. Here we present an `end-to-end’ methodological construct based on weather indices and machine learning that integrates current understanding of the various interacting systems of climate, crops and the economy to determine short- to long-term risk estimates of crop production loss, in different climate and adaptation scenarios. For provinces north and south of the Yangtze River in China, we have found that risk profiles for crop yields that translate climate into economic variability follow marked regional patterns, shaped by drivers of continental-scale climate. We conclude that to be cost-effective, region-specific policies have to be tailored to optimally combine different categories of risk management instruments.

Increasing impacts of climate extremes on critical infrastructures in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Forzieri, Giovanni; Bianchi, Alessandra; Feyen, Luc; Silva, Filipe Batista e.; Marin, Mario; Lavalle, Carlo; Leblois, Antoine

2016-04-01

The projected increases in exposure to multiple climate hazards in many regions of Europe, emphasize the relevance of a multi-hazard risk assessment to comprehensively quantify potential impacts of climate change and develop suitable adaptation strategies. In this context, quantifying the future impacts of climatic extremes on critical infrastructures is crucial due to their key role for human wellbeing and their effects on the overall economy. Critical infrastructures describe the existing assets and systems that are essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact as a result of the failure to maintain those functions. We assess the direct damages of heat and cold waves, river and coastal flooding, droughts, wildfires and windstorms to energy, transport, industry and social infrastructures in Europe along the 21st century. The methodology integrates in a coherent framework climate hazard, exposure and vulnerability components. Overall damage is expected to rise up to 38 billion €/yr, ten time-folds the current climate damage, with drastic variations in risk scenarios. Exemplificative are drought and heat-related damages that could represent 70% of the overall climate damage in 2080s versus the current 12%. Many regions, prominently Southern Europe, will likely suffer multiple stresses and systematic infrastructure failures due to climate extremes if no suitable adaptation measures will be taken.

Exploring the concept of climate surprises. A review of the literature on the concept of surprise and how it is related to climate change

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

Glantz, M.H.; Moore, C.M.; Streets, D.G.

This report examines the concept of climate surprise and its implications for environmental policymaking. Although most integrated assessment models of climate change deal with average values of change, it is usually the extreme events or surprises that cause the most damage to human health and property. Current models do not help the policymaker decide how to deal with climate surprises. This report examines the literature of surprise in many aspects of human society: psychology, military, health care, humor, agriculture, etc. It draws together various ways to consider the concept of surprise and examines different taxonomies of surprise that have beenmore » proposed. In many ways, surprise is revealed to be a subjective concept, triggered by such factors as prior experience, belief system, and level of education. How policymakers have reacted to specific instances of climate change or climate surprise in the past is considered, particularly with regard to the choices they made between proactive and reactive measures. Finally, the report discusses techniques used in the current generation of assessment models and makes suggestions as to how climate surprises might be included in future models. The report concludes that some kinds of surprises are simply unpredictable, but there are several types that could in some way be anticipated and assessed, and their negative effects forestalled.« less

Data Integration Plans for the NOAA National Climate Model Portal (NCMP) (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rutledge, G. K.; Williams, D. N.; Deluca, C.; Hankin, S. C.; Compo, G. P.

2010-12-01

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and its collaborators have initiated a five-year development and implementation of an operational access capability for the next generation weather and climate model datasets. The NOAA National Climate Model Portal (NCMP) is being designed using format neutral open web based standards and tools where users at all levels of expertise can gain access and understanding to many of NOAA’s climate and weather model products. NCMP will closely coordinate with and reside under the emerging NOAA Climate Services Portal (NCSP). To carry out its mission, NOAA must be able to successfully integrate model output and other data and information from all of its discipline specific areas to understand and address the complexity of many environmental problems. The NCMP will be an initial access point for the emerging NOAA Climate Services Portal (NCSP), which is the basis for unified access to NOAA climate products and services. NCMP is currently collaborating with the emerging Environmental Projection Center (EPC) expected to be developed at the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder CO. Specifically, NCMP is being designed to: - Enable policy makers and resource managers to make informed national and global policy decisions using integrated climate and weather model outputs, observations, information, products, and other services for the scientist and the non-scientist; - Identify model to observational interoperability requirements for climate and weather system analysis and diagnostics; - Promote the coordination of an international reanalysis observational clearinghouse (i.e.., Reanalysis.org) spanning the worlds numerical processing Center’s for an “Ongoing Analysis of the Climate System”. NCMP will initially provide access capabilities to 3 of NOAA’s high volume Reanalysis data sets of the weather and climate systems: 1) NCEP’s Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFS-R); 2) NOAA’s Climate Diagnostics Center/ Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project data set (20CR, G. Compo, et al.), a historical reanalysis that will provide climate information dating back to 1850 to the present; and 3) the CPC’s Upper Air Reanlaysis. NCMP will advance the highly successful NOAA National Operational Model Archive and Distribution System (NOMADS, Rutledge, BAMS 2006), and standards already in use including Unidata’s THREDDS (TDS), PMEL’s Live Access Server (LAS) and the GrADS Data Server (GDS) from COLA; the Department of Energy (DOE) Earth System Grid (ESG) and the associated IPCC Climate model archive located at the Program for Climate Model Diagnostics and Inter-comparison (PCMDI) through the ESG; and NOAA’s Unified Access Framework (UAF) effort; and core standards developed by Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The format neutral OPeNDAP protocol as used in the NOMADS system will also be a key aspect of the design of NCMP.

The Challenges of Developing a Framework for Global Water Cycle Monitoring and Prediction (Alfred Wegener Medal Lecture)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wood, Eric F.

2014-05-01

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Water Strategy ("From Observations to Decisions") recognizes that "water is essential for ensuring food and energy security, for facilitating poverty reduction and health security, and for the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity", and that water cycle data and observations are critical for improved water management and water security - especially in less developed regions. The GEOSS Water Strategy has articulated a number of goals for improved water management, including flood and drought preparedness, that include: (i) facilitating the use of Earth Observations for water cycle observations; (ii) facilitating the acquisition, processing, and distribution of data products needed for effective management; (iii) providing expertise, information systems, and datasets to the global, regional, and national water communities. There are several challenges that must be met to advance our capability to provide near real-time water cycle monitoring, early warning of hydrological hazards (floods and droughts) and risk assessment under climate change, regionally and globally. Current approaches to monitoring and predicting hydrological hazards are limited in many parts of the world, and especially in developing countries where national capacity is limited and monitoring networks are inadequate. This presentation describes the developments at Princeton University towards a seamless monitoring and prediction framework at all time scales that allows for consistent assessment of water variability from historic to current conditions, and from seasonal and decadal predictions to climate change projections. At the center of the framework is an experimental, global water cycle monitoring and seasonal forecast system that has evolved out of regional and continental systems for the US and Africa. The system is based on land surface hydrological modeling that is driven by satellite remote sensing precipitation to predict current hydrological conditions, flood potential and the state of drought. Seasonal climate model forecasts are downscaled and bias-corrected to drive the land surface model to provide hydrological forecasts and drought products out 6-9 months. The system relies on historic reconstructions of water variability over the 20th century, which forms the background climatology to which current conditions can be assessed. Future changes in water availability and drought risk are quantified based on bias-corrected and downscaled climate model projections that are used to drive the land surface models. For regions with lack of on-the-ground data we are field-testing low-cost environmental sensors and along with new satellite products for terrestrial hydrology and vegetation, integrating these into the system for improved monitoring and prediction. At every step there are scientific challenges whose solutions are only partially being solved. In addition there are challenges in delivering such systems as "climate services", especially to societies with low technical capacity such as rural agriculturalists in sub-Saharan Africa, but whose needs for such information are great. We provide an overview of the system and some examples of real-world applications to flood and drought events, with a focus on Africa.

Advanced Thermo-Adsorptive Battery: Advanced Thermo-Adsorptive Battery Climate Control System

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

None

HEATS Project: MIT is developing a low-cost, compact, high-capacity, advanced thermoadsorptive battery (ATB) for effective climate control of EVs. The ATB provides both heating and cooling by taking advantage of the materials’ ability to adsorb a significant amount of water. This efficient battery system design could offer up as much as a 30% increase in driving range compared to current EV climate control technology. The ATB provides high-capacity thermal storage with little-to-no electrical power consumption. The ATB is also looking to explore the possibility of shifting peak electricity loads for cooling and heating in a variety of other applications, includingmore » commercial and residential buildings, data centers, and telecom facilities.« less

Free Flyer Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS) and Climate Services Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cahalan, R.; Pilewskie, P.; Woods, T.

2012-01-01

NOAA's planned Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS) mission will fly along with the NOAA user service payloads Advanced Data Collection System (ADCS) and Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT). In ' order to guarantee continuity in the 33-year solar irradiance climate data record, TSIS must be launched in time to overlap with current on-orbit solar irradiance instruments. Currently TSIS is moving towards a launch rcadinss date of January 2015. TSIS provides for continuation of the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) and the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) ,currently onboard NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) platform, launched in January 2003. The difficulty of ensuring continuity has increased due to the launch failure of NASA's Glory mission with its improved TIM. Achieving the needed overlap must now rely on extending SORCE. and maintaining the TSIS schedule. TSIS is one component of a NASA-NOAA joint program (JPSS) planned to transition certain climate observations to operational mode. We summarize issues of continuity, improvements being made to the TIM and 81M sensors, and plans to provide for traceability of total and spectral irradiance measurements to ground-based cryogenic standards.

Past exposure to climate extremes can inform future projections and guide management: coral reefs as a model system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Donner, S. D.

2016-12-01

Coral reefs are thought to be more sensitive to climate change than any other marine ecosystem. Episodes of mass coral bleaching, due to anomalously warm water temperatures, have led to coral mortality, declines in coral cover and shifts in the population of other reef-dwelling organisms. The onset of mass bleaching is typically predicted using accumulated heat stress, specifically when the SST exceeds a local climatological maximum by 1-2 °C for a month or more. However, recent evidence suggests that the threshold at which bleaching occurs depends on the past thermal experience of the coral reef and the composition of the coral community. This presentation describes the results of a long-term field and modelling research program evaluating the influence of climate experience on the susceptibility of coral reef ecosystems to future climate extremes. Modeling work identified Kiribati's equatorial Gilbert Islands, where the El Niño / Southern Oscillation drives year-to-year shifts in current strength, current direction and consequently ocean temperatures, as an ideal natural laboratory for studying ocean climate extremes. The field program then tracked changes in the coral communities over multiple heat stress events (e.g. 2004-5, 2009-10 El Niño) at a matrix of sites exposed to different levels of historical climate variability and human disturbance. Among the results is evidence that coral bleaching patterns are best predicted by the coefficient of variation of past SST, light exposure, and the presence of particular resilient coral taxa, rather than the standard heat stress metrics. The lessons of this research can be applicable other systems where past experience influences the response to climate extremes

Responses of tropical root crops to climate change: implications for Pacific food security

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gleadow, R.; Webber, B.; Macness, N.; Lisson, S.; Nauluvula, P.; Hargraves, J.; Crimp, S. J.

2013-12-01

Cassava and taro are an important source of calories in many parts of the developing world and hold much promise for meeting the need for food security in equatorial regions. Communities in the Pacific Island countries reliant on agriculture-based livelihood systems have been identified as particularly at risk from climate change, due to likely increases in crop failure, new patterns of pests and diseases, lack of appropriate seed and plant material, loss of livestock and potential loss of arable land. Recent shortfalls in agricultural production resulting from changing export markets, commodity prices, climatic variation, and population growth and urbanisation, have contributed further to regional food insecurity concerns. Cassava and taro contain herbivore defense chemicals that are detrimental to human health (cyanogenic glucosides and calcium oxalate). Unprocessed cassava can cause acute cyanide intoxication, paralysis and even death, especially during droughts. A number of activities are already underway in the Pacific region to identify ways to ameliorate existing climate risk and enhance current agricultural production. Whilst these activities are important to ensure long-term agricultural sustainability, there remains a significant degree of uncertainty as to how effective these strategies may be in the face of a changing and increasingly variable future climate. We present our current understanding of the impact of climate change on key Pacific production systems - specifically those based on the staple root crops, taro and cassava. This includes (1) Our understanding of the responses of cassava and taro crops to existing environmental drivers (climate, soil and nutrient interactions); (2) The responses of cassava and taro crops to enhanced CO2 conditions; and (3) Efforts to model productivity responses (within the APSIM framework) and results for locations in the Pacific.

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.

Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering

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

Irvine, Peter J.; Kravitz, Ben; Lawrence, Mark G.

Here, despite a growing literature on the projected physical climate responses to solar geoengineering — i.e. proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo — there is no clear picture of the subsequent impacts of such a modified climate on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. Here we argue that engaging the climate impacts research community is necessary to evaluate and communicate how solar geoengineering might reduce some risks, exacerbate others, and give rise to novel risks. We review the current state of knowledge on consequences of solar geoengineering and conclude thatmore » a thorough assessment of its impacts can proceed by building upon the frameworks developed for assessing impacts of climate change. However, the climate response to solar geoengineering will depend on the form under consideration and the manner in which it is deployed, presenting a novel challenge for the climate impacts research community.« less

Towards a comprehensive climate impacts assessment of solar geoengineering

DOE PAGES

Irvine, Peter J.; Kravitz, Ben; Lawrence, Mark G.; ...

2016-11-23

Here, despite a growing literature on the projected physical climate responses to solar geoengineering — i.e. proposals to cool the planet by increasing the planetary albedo — there is no clear picture of the subsequent impacts of such a modified climate on natural and human systems such as agriculture, health, water resources, and ecosystems. Here we argue that engaging the climate impacts research community is necessary to evaluate and communicate how solar geoengineering might reduce some risks, exacerbate others, and give rise to novel risks. We review the current state of knowledge on consequences of solar geoengineering and conclude thatmore » a thorough assessment of its impacts can proceed by building upon the frameworks developed for assessing impacts of climate change. However, the climate response to solar geoengineering will depend on the form under consideration and the manner in which it is deployed, presenting a novel challenge for the climate impacts research community.« less

A multi-model assessment of the co-benefits of climate mitigation for global air quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rao, Shilpa; Klimont, Zbigniew; Leitao, Joana; Riahi, Keywan; van Dingenen, Rita; Aleluia Reis, Lara; Calvin, Katherine; Dentener, Frank; Drouet, Laurent; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Harmsen, Mathijs; Luderer, Gunnar; Heyes, Chris; Strefler, Jessica; Tavoni, Massimo; van Vuuren, Detlef P.

2016-12-01

We present a model comparison study that combines multiple integrated assessment models with a reduced-form global air quality model to assess the potential co-benefits of global climate mitigation policies in relation to the World Health Organization (WHO) goals on air quality and health. We include in our assessment, a range of alternative assumptions on the implementation of current and planned pollution control policies. The resulting air pollution emission ranges significantly extend those in the Representative Concentration Pathways. Climate mitigation policies complement current efforts on air pollution control through technology and fuel transformations in the energy system. A combination of stringent policies on air pollution control and climate change mitigation results in 40% of the global population exposed to PM levels below the WHO air quality guideline; with the largest improvements estimated for India, China, and Middle East. Our results stress the importance of integrated multisector policy approaches to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Hourly test reference weather data in the changing climate of Finland for building energy simulations.

PubMed

Jylhä, Kirsti; Ruosteenoja, Kimmo; Jokisalo, Juha; Pilli-Sihvola, Karoliina; Kalamees, Targo; Mäkelä, Hanna; Hyvönen, Reijo; Drebs, Achim

2015-09-01

Dynamic building energy simulations need hourly weather data as input. The same high temporal resolution is required for assessments of future heating and cooling energy demand. The data presented in this article concern current typical values and estimated future changes in outdoor air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and global, diffuse and normal solar radiation components. Simulated annual and seasonal delivered energy consumptions for heating of spaces, heating of ventilation supply air and cooling of spaces in the current and future climatic conditions are also presented for an example house, with district heating and a mechanical space cooling system. We provide details on how the synthetic future weather files were created and utilised as input data for dynamic building energy simulations by the IDA Indoor Climate and Energy program and also for calculations of heating and cooling degree-day sums. The information supplied here is related to the research article titled "Energy demand for the heating and cooling of residential houses in Finland in a changing climate" [1].

High Pulse Repetition Rate, Eye Safe, Visible Wavelength Lidar Systems: Design, Results and Potential

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Spinhirne, James; Berkoff, Timothy; Welton, Elsworth; Campbell, James; OCStarr, David (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

In 1993 the first of the eye safe visible wavelength lidar systems known now as Micro Pulse Lidar (MPL) became operational. Since that time there have been several dozen of these systems produced and applied for full time profiling of atmospheric cloud and aerosol structure. There is currently an observational network of MPL sites to support global climate research. In the course of application of these instruments there have been significant improvements in understanding, design and performance of the systems. There are addition potential and applications beyond current practice for the high repetition rate, eye safe designs. The MPL network and the current capability, design and future potential of MPL systems are described.

Modeling glacial climates

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

North, G. R.; Crowley, T. J.

1984-01-01

Mathematical climate modelling has matured as a discipline to the point that it is useful in paleoclimatology. As an example a new two dimensional energy balance model is described and applied to several problems of current interest. The model includes the seasonal cycle and the detailed land-sea geographical distribution. By examining the changes in the seasonal cycle when external perturbations are forced upon the climate system it is possible to construct hypotheses about the origin of midlatitude ice sheets and polar ice caps. In particular the model predicts a rather sudden potential for glaciation over large areas when the Earth's orbital elements are only slightly altered. Similarly, the drift of continents or the change of atmospheric carbon dioxide over geological time induces radical changes in continental ice cover. With the advance of computer technology and improved understanding of the individual components of the climate system, these ideas will be tested in far more realistic models in the near future.

Accelerating Climate Simulations Through Hybrid Computing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zhou, Shujia; Sinno, Scott; Cruz, Carlos; Purcell, Mark

2009-01-01

Unconventional multi-core processors (e.g., IBM Cell B/E and NYIDIDA GPU) have emerged as accelerators in climate simulation. However, climate models typically run on parallel computers with conventional processors (e.g., Intel and AMD) using MPI. Connecting accelerators to this architecture efficiently and easily becomes a critical issue. When using MPI for connection, we identified two challenges: (1) identical MPI implementation is required in both systems, and; (2) existing MPI code must be modified to accommodate the accelerators. In response, we have extended and deployed IBM Dynamic Application Virtualization (DAV) in a hybrid computing prototype system (one blade with two Intel quad-core processors, two IBM QS22 Cell blades, connected with Infiniband), allowing for seamlessly offloading compute-intensive functions to remote, heterogeneous accelerators in a scalable, load-balanced manner. Currently, a climate solar radiation model running with multiple MPI processes has been offloaded to multiple Cell blades with approx.10% network overhead.

Antarctic Meteorology and Climatology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, J. C.; Turner, J.

1997-07-01

This book is a comprehensive survey of the climatology and meteorology of Antarctica. The first section of the book reviews the methods by which we can observe the Antarctic atmosphere and presents a synthesis of climatological measurements. In the second section, the authors consider the processes that maintain the observed climate, from large-scale atmospheric circulation to small-scale processes. The final section reviews our current knowledge of the variability of Antarctic climate and the possible effects of "greenhouse" warming. The authors stress links among the Antarctic atmosphere, other elements of the Antarctic climate system (oceans, sea ice and ice sheets), and the global climate system. This volume will be of greatest interest to meteorologists and climatologists with a specialized interest in Antarctica, but it will also appeal to researchers in Antarctic glaciology, oceanography and biology. Graduates and undergraduates studying physical geography, and the earth, atmospheric and environmental sciences will find much useful background material in the book.

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%.

Current Climate Variability & Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Diem, J.; Criswell, B.; Elliott, W. C.

2013-12-01

Current Climate Variability & Change is the ninth among a suite of ten interconnected, sequential labs that address all 39 climate-literacy concepts in the U.S. Global Change Research Program's Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences. The labs are as follows: Solar Radiation & Seasons, Stratospheric Ozone, The Troposphere, The Carbon Cycle, Global Surface Temperature, Glacial-Interglacial Cycles, Temperature Changes over the Past Millennium, Climates & Ecosystems, Current Climate Variability & Change, and Future Climate Change. All are inquiry-based, on-line products designed in a way that enables students to construct their own knowledge of a topic. Questions representative of various levels of Webb's depth of knowledge are embedded in each lab. In addition to the embedded questions, each lab has three or four essential questions related to the driving questions for the lab suite. These essential questions are presented as statements at the beginning of the material to represent the lab objectives, and then are asked at the end as questions to function as a summative assessment. For example, the Current Climate Variability & Change is built around these essential questions: (1) What has happened to the global temperature at the Earth's surface, in the middle troposphere, and in the lower stratosphere over the past several decades?; (2) What is the most likely cause of the changes in global temperature over the past several decades and what evidence is there that this is the cause?; and (3) What have been some of the clearly defined effects of the change in global temperature on the atmosphere and other spheres of the Earth system? An introductory Prezi allows the instructor to assess students' prior knowledge in relation to these questions, while also providing 'hooks' to pique their interest related to the topic. The lab begins by presenting examples of and key differences between climate variability (e.g., Mt. Pinatubo eruption) and climate change. The next section guides students through the exploration of temporal changes in global temperature from the surface to the lower stratosphere. Students discover that there has been global warming over the past several decades, and the subsequent section allows them to consider solar radiation and greenhouse gases as possible causes of this warming. Students then zoom in on different latitudinal zones to examine changes in temperature for each zone and hypothesize about why one zone may have warmed more than others. The final section, prior to the answering of the essential questions, is an examination of the following effects of the current change in temperatures: loss of sea ice; rise of sea level; loss of permafrost loss; and moistening of the atmosphere. The lab addresses 14 climate-literacy concepts and all seven climate-literacy principles through data and images that are mainly NASA products. It focuses on the satellite era of climate data; therefore, 1979 is the typical starting year for most datasets used by students. Additionally, all time-series analysis end with the latest year with full-year data availability; thus, the climate variability and trends truly are 'current.'

Enhancing climate literacy through the use of an interdisciplinary global change framework and conceptual models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bean, J. R.; Zoehfeld, K.; Mitchell, K.; Levine, J.; White, L. D.

2016-12-01

Understanding climate change and how to mitigate the causes and consequences of anthropogenic activities are essential components of the Next Generations Science Standards. To comprehend climate change today and why current rates and magnitudes of change are of concern, students must understand the various factors that drive Earth system processes and also how they interrelate. The Understanding Global Change web resource in development from the UC Museum of Paleontology will provide science educators with a conceptual framework, graphical models, lessons, and assessment templates for teaching NGSS aligned, interdisciplinary, climate change curricula. To facilitate students learning about the Earth as a dynamic, interacting system of ongoing processes, the Understanding Global Change site will provide explicit conceptual links for the causes of climate change (e.g., burning of fossil fuels, deforestation), Earth system processes (e.g., Earth's energy budget, water cycle), and the changes scientists measure in the Earth system (e.g., temperature, precipitation). The conceptual links among topics will be presented in a series of storyboards that visually represent relationships and feedbacks among components of the Earth system and will provide teachers with guides for implementing NGSS-aligned climate change instruction that addresses physical science, life sciences, Earth and space science, and engineering performance expectations. These visualization and instructional methods are used by teachers during professional development programs at UC Berkeley and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and are being tested in San Francisco Bay Area classrooms.

Modeling the influence of climate change on watershed systems: Adaptation through targeted practices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dudula, John; Randhir, Timothy O.

2016-10-01

Climate change may influence hydrologic processes of watersheds (IPCC, 2013) and increased runoff may cause flooding, eroded stream banks, widening of stream channels, increased pollutant loading, and consequently impairment of aquatic life. The goal of this study was to quantify the potential impacts of climate change on watershed hydrologic processes and to evaluate scale and effectiveness of management practices for adaptation. We simulate baseline watershed conditions using the Hydrological Simulation Program Fortran (HSPF) simulation model to examine the possible effects of changing climate on watershed processes. We also simulate the effects of adaptation and mitigation through specific best management strategies for various climatic scenarios. With continuing low-flow conditions and vulnerability to climate change, the Ipswich watershed is the focus of this study. We quantify fluxes in runoff, evapotranspiration, infiltration, sediment load, and nutrient concentrations under baseline and climate change scenarios (near and far future). We model adaptation options for mitigating climate effects on watershed processes using bioretention/raingarden Best Management Practices (BMPs). It was observed that climate change has a significant impact on watershed runoff and carefully designed and maintained BMPs at subwatershed scale can be effective in mitigating some of the problems related to stormwater runoff. Policy options include implementation of BMPs through education and incentives for scale-dependent and site specific bioretention units/raingardens to increase the resilience of the watershed system to current and future climate change.

The future of climate science analysis in a coming era of exascale computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bates, S. C.; Strand, G.

2013-12-01

Projections of Community Earth System Model (CESM) output based on the growth of data archived over 2000-2012 at all of our computing sites (NCAR, NERSC, ORNL) show that we can expect to reach 1,000 PB (1 EB) sometime in the next decade or so. The current paradigms of using site-based archival systems to hold these data that are then accessed via portals or gateways, downloading the data to a local system, and then processing/analyzing the data will be irretrievably broken before then. From a climate modeling perspective, the expertise involved in making climate models themselves efficient on HPC systems will need to be applied to the data as well - providing fast parallel analysis tools co-resident in memory with the data, because the disk I/O bandwidth simply will not keep up with the expected arrival of exaflop systems. The ability of scientists, analysts, stakeholders and others to use climate model output to turn these data into understanding and knowledge will require significant advances in the current typical analysis tools and packages to enable these processes for these vast volumes of data. Allowing data users to enact their own analyses on model output is virtually a requirement as well - climate modelers cannot anticipate all the possibilities for analysis that users may want to do. In addition, the expertise of data scientists, and their knowledge of the model output and their knowledge of best practices in data management (metadata, curation, provenance and so on) will need to be rewarded and exploited to gain the most understanding possible from these volumes of data. In response to growing data size, demand, and future projections, the CESM output has undergone a structure evolution and the data management plan has been reevaluated and updated. The major evolution of the CESM data structure is presented here, along with the CESM experience and role within the CMIP3/CMIP5.

Sustainable water deliveries from the Colorado River in a changing climate.

PubMed

Barnett, Tim P; Pierce, David W

2009-05-05

The Colorado River supplies water to 27 million users in 7 states and 2 countries and irrigates over 3 million acres of farmland. Global climate models almost unanimously project that human-induced climate change will reduce runoff in this region by 10-30%. This work explores whether currently scheduled future water deliveries from the Colorado River system are sustainable under different climate-change scenarios. If climate change reduces runoff by 10%, scheduled deliveries will be missed approximately 58% of the time by 2050. If runoff reduces 20%, they will be missed approximately 88% of the time. The mean shortfall when full deliveries cannot be met increases from approximately 0.5-0.7 billion cubic meters per year (bcm/yr) in 2025 to approximately 1.2-1.9 bcm/yr by 2050 out of a request of approximately 17.3 bcm/yr. Such values are small enough to be manageable. The chance of a year with deliveries <14.5 bcm/yr increases to 21% by midcentury if runoff reduces 20%, but such low deliveries could be largely avoided by reducing scheduled deliveries. These results are computed by using estimates of Colorado River flow from the 20th century, which was unusually wet; if the river reverts to its long-term mean, shortfalls increase another 1-1.5 bcm/yr. With either climate-change or long-term mean flows, currently scheduled future water deliveries from the Colorado River are not sustainable. However, the ability of the system to mitigate droughts can be maintained if the various users of the river find a way to reduce average deliveries.

A simple object-oriented and open-source model for scientific and policy analyses of the global climate system – Hector v1.0

DOE PAGES

Hartin, Corinne A.; Patel, Pralit L.; Schwarber, Adria; ...

2015-04-01

Simple climate models play an integral role in the policy and scientific communities. They are used for climate mitigation scenarios within integrated assessment models, complex climate model emulation, and uncertainty analyses. Here we describe Hector v1.0, an open source, object-oriented, simple global climate carbon-cycle model. This model runs essentially instantaneously while still representing the most critical global-scale earth system processes. Hector has a three-part main carbon cycle: a one-pool atmosphere, land, and ocean. The model's terrestrial carbon cycle includes primary production and respiration fluxes, accommodating arbitrary geographic divisions into, e.g., ecological biomes or political units. Hector actively solves the inorganicmore » carbon system in the surface ocean, directly calculating air–sea fluxes of carbon and ocean pH. Hector reproduces the global historical trends of atmospheric [CO 2], radiative forcing, and surface temperatures. The model simulates all four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) with equivalent rates of change of key variables over time compared to current observations, MAGICC (a well-known simple climate model), and models from the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Hector's flexibility, open-source nature, and modular design will facilitate a broad range of research in various areas.« less

Pilot climate data system user's guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reph, M. G.; Treinish, L. A.; Bloch, L.

1984-01-01

Instructions for using the Pilot Climate Data System (PCDS), an interactive, scientific data management system for locating, obtaining, manipulating, and displaying climate-research data are presented. The PCDS currently provides this supoort for approximately twenty data sets. Figures that illustrate the terminal displays which a user sees when he/she runs the PCDS and some examples of the output from this system are included. The capabilities which are described in detail allow a user to perform the following: (1) obtain comprehensive descriptions of a number of climate parameter data sets and the associated sensor measurements from which they were derived; (2) obtain detailed information about the temporal coverage and data volume of data sets which are readily accessible via the PCDS; (3) extract portions of a data set using criteria such as time range and geographic location, and output the data to tape, user terminal, system printer, or online disk files in a special data-set-independent format; (4) access and manipulate the data in these data-set-independent files, performing such functions as combining the data, subsetting the data, and averaging the data; and (5) create various graphical representations of the data stored in the data-set-independent files.

The NASA Earth Science Flight Program: an update

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neeck, Steven P.

2015-10-01

Earth's changing environment impacts every aspect of life on our planet and climate change has profound implications on society. Studying Earth as a single complex system is essential to understanding the causes and consequences of climate change and other global environmental concerns. NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) shapes an interdisciplinary view of Earth, exploring interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, land surface interior, and life itself. This enables scientists to measure global and climate changes and to inform decisions by government, other organizations, and people in the United States and around the world. The data collected and results generated are accessible to other agencies and organizations to improve the products and services they provide, including air quality indices, disaster prediction and response, agricultural yield projections, and aviation safety. ESD's Flight Program provides the space based observing systems and infrastructure for mission operations and scientific data processing and distribution that support NASA's Earth science research and modeling activities. The Flight Program currently has 21 operating Earth observing space missions, including the recently launched Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, and the International Space Station (ISS) RapidSCAT and Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) instruments. The ESD has 22 more missions and instruments planned for launch over the next decade. These include first and second tier missions from the 2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey, Climate Continuity missions and selected instruments to assure availability of key climate data sets, operational missions to ensure sustained land imaging provided by the Landsat system, and small-sized competitively selected orbital missions and instrument missions of opportunity belonging to the Earth Venture (EV) Program. Some examples are the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT), ICESat-2, SAGE III on ISS, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On (GRACE FO), Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO), Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), and Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) Lidar missions. An overview of plans and current status will be presented.

The NASA Earth Science Program and Small Satellites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Neeck, Steven P.

2015-01-01

Earth's changing environment impacts every aspect of life on our planet and climate change has profound implications on society. Studying Earth as a single complex system is essential to understanding the causes and consequences of climate change and other global environmental concerns. NASA's Earth Science Division (ESD) shapes an interdisciplinary view of Earth, exploring interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, land surface interior, and life itself. This enables scientists to measure global and climate changes and to inform decisions by Government, other organizations, and people in the United States and around the world. The data collected and results generated are accessible to other agencies and organizations to improve the products and services they provide, including air quality indices, disaster prediction and response, agricultural yield projections, and aviation safety. ESD's Flight Program provides the spacebased observing systems and supporting infrastructure for mission operations and scientific data processing and distribution that support NASA's Earth science research and modeling activities. The Flight Program currently has 21 operating Earth observing space missions, including the recently launched Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, and the International Space Station (ISS) RapidSCAT and Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) instruments. The ESD has 22 more missions and instruments planned for launch over the next decade. These include first and second tier missions from the 2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey, Climate Continuity missions to assure availability of key climate data sets, and small-sized competitively selected orbital missions and instrument missions of opportunity belonging to the Earth Venture (EV) Program. Small satellites (500 kg or less) are critical contributors to these current and future satellite missions. Some examples are the aforementioned Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On (GRACE FO), and the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) microsatellite constellation. Small satellites also support ESD in space validation and risk reduction of enabling technologies (components and systems). The status of the ESD Flight Program and the role of small satellites will be discussed.

Estimating landscape-scale impacts of agricultural management on soil carbon using measurements and models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schipanski, M.; Rosenzweig, S. T.; Robertson, A. D.; Sherrod, L. A.; Ghimire, R.; McMaster, G. S.

2017-12-01

Agriculture covers 40% of Earth's ice-free land area and has broad impacts on global biogeochemical cycles. While some agricultural management changes are small in scale or impact, others have the potential to shift biogeochemical cycles at landscape and larger scales if widely adopted. Understanding which management practices have the potential to contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation while maintaining productivity requires scaling up estimates spatially and temporally. We used on-farm, long-term, and landscape scale datasets to estimate how crop rotations impact soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation rates under current and future climate scenarios across the semi-arid Central and Southern Great Plains. We used a stratified, landscape-scale soil sampling approach across 96 farm fields to evaluate crop rotation intensity effects on SOC pools and pesticide inputs. Replacing traditional wheat-fallow rotations with more diverse, continuously cropped rotations increased SOC by 17% and 12% in 0-10 cm and 0-20 cm depths, respectively, and reduced herbicide use by 50%. Using USDA Cropland Data Layer, we estimated soil C accumulation and pesticide reduction potentials of shifting to more intensive rotations. We also used a 30-year cropping systems experiment to calibrate and validate the Daycent model to evaluate rotation intensify effects under future climate change scenarios. The model estimated greater SOC accumulation rates under continuously cropped rotations, but SOC stocks peaked and then declined for all cropping systems beyond 2050 under future climate scenarios. Perennial grasslands were the only system estimated to maintain SOC levels in the future. In the Southern High Plains, soil C declined despite increasing input intensity under current weather while modest gains were simulated under future climate for sorghum-based cropping systems. Our findings highlight the potential vulnerability of semi-arid regions to climate change, which will be compounded by declining groundwater levels along the western edge of the High Plains Aquifer that increase reliance on dryland farming systems. Understanding these challenges provides opportunities to develop future transition and adaptation strategies in partnership with producers, policy makers, and rural communities.

When climate change is a fact! Adaptive strategies for drinking water production in a changing natural environment.

PubMed

Meuleman, A F M; Cirkel, G; Zwolsman, G J J

2007-01-01

Climate change increases water system dynamics through temperature changes, changes in precipitation patterns, evaporation, and water quality and water storage in ice packs. Water system dependent economical stakeholders, such as drinking water companies in the Netherlands, have to cope with consequences of climate change, e.g. floods and water shortages in river systems, upcoming of brackish ground water, salt water intrusion, increasing peak demands and microbiological activity due to temperature rise. In the past decades, however, both water systems and drinking water production have become more and more inflexible; water systems have been heavily regulated aiming at maximum security and economic functions and the drinking water supply in the Netherlands has grown into an inflexible, but cheap and reliable, system. At a water catchment scale, flexibility and adaptation are solutions to overcome climate change related consequences. Flexible adaptive strategies for drinking water production comprise new sources for drinking water production, application of storage concepts in the short term, and a redesign of large centralized systems, including flexible treatment plants, in the long term. Transition to flexible concepts will take decades because investment depreciation periods of assets are long. These strategies must be based on thorough knowledge of current assets to seize opportunities for change.

Future consequences and challenges for dairy cow production systems arising from climate change in Central Europe - a review.

PubMed

Gauly, M; Bollwein, H; Breves, G; Brügemann, K; Dänicke, S; Daş, G; Demeler, J; Hansen, H; Isselstein, J; König, S; Lohölter, M; Martinsohn, M; Meyer, U; Potthoff, M; Sanker, C; Schröder, B; Wrage, N; Meibaum, B; von Samson-Himmelstjerna, G; Stinshoff, H; Wrenzycki, C

2013-05-01

It is well documented that global warming is unequivocal. Dairy production systems are considered as important sources of greenhouse gas emissions; however, little is known about the sensitivity and vulnerability of these production systems themselves to climate warming. This review brings different aspects of dairy cow production in Central Europe into focus, with a holistic approach to emphasize potential future consequences and challenges arising from climate change. With the current understanding of the effects of climate change, it is expected that yield of forage per hectare will be influenced positively, whereas quality will mainly depend on water availability and soil characteristics. Thus, the botanical composition of future grassland should include species that are able to withstand the changing conditions (e.g. lucerne and bird's foot trefoil). Changes in nutrient concentration of forage plants, elevated heat loads and altered feeding patterns of animals may influence rumen physiology. Several promising nutritional strategies are available to lower potential negative impacts of climate change on dairy cow nutrition and performance. Adjustment of feeding and drinking regimes, diet composition and additive supplementation can contribute to the maintenance of adequate dairy cow nutrition and performance. Provision of adequate shade and cooling will reduce the direct effects of heat stress. As estimated genetic parameters are promising, heat stress tolerance as a functional trait may be included into breeding programmes. Indirect effects of global warming on the health and welfare of animals seem to be more complicated and thus are less predictable. As the epidemiology of certain gastrointestinal nematodes and liver fluke is favourably influenced by increased temperature and humidity, relations between climate change and disease dynamics should be followed closely. Under current conditions, climate change associated economic impacts are estimated to be neutral if some form of adaptation is integrated. Therefore, it is essential to establish and adopt mitigation strategies covering available tools from management, nutrition, health and plant and animal breeding to cope with the future consequences of climate change on dairy farming.

Applying "Climate" system to teaching basic climatology and raising public awareness of climate change issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gordova, Yulia; Okladnikov, Igor; Titov, Alexander; Gordov, Evgeny

2016-04-01

While there is a strong demand for innovation in digital learning, available training programs in the environmental sciences have no time to adapt to rapid changes in the domain content. A joint group of scientists and university teachers develops and implements an educational environment for new learning experiences in basics of climatic science and its applications. This so-called virtual learning laboratory "Climate" contains educational materials and interactive training courses developed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with profound understanding of changes in regional climate and environment. The main feature of this Laboratory is that students perform their computational tasks on climate modeling and evaluation and assessment of climate change using the typical tools of the "Climate" information-computational system, which are usually used by real-life practitioners performing such kind of research. Students have an opportunity to perform computational laboratory works using information-computational tools of the system and improve skills of their usage simultaneously with mastering the subject. We did not create an artificial learning environment to pass the trainings. On the contrary, the main purpose of association of the educational block and computational information system was to familiarize students with the real existing technologies for monitoring and analysis of data on the state of the climate. Trainings are based on technologies and procedures which are typical for Earth system sciences. Educational courses are designed to permit students to conduct their own investigations of ongoing and future climate changes in a manner that is essentially identical to the techniques used by national and international climate research organizations. All trainings are supported by lectures, devoted to the basic aspects of modern climatology, including analysis of current climate change and its possible impacts ensuring effective links between theory and practice. Along with its usage in graduate and postgraduate education, "Climate" is used as a framework for a developed basic information course on climate change for common public. In this course basic concepts and problems of modern climate change and its possible consequences are described for non-specialists. The course will also include links to relevant information resources on topical issues of Earth Sciences and a number of case studies, which are carried out for a selected region to consolidate the received knowledge.

Climate and Global Change: Programs and Services Reaching Public and K-12 Audiences at a National Research Laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foster, S. Q.; Johnson, R. M.; Carbone, L.; Eastburn, T.; Munoz, R.; Lu, G.; Ammann, C.

2004-05-01

The study of climate and global change is an important on-going focal area for scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Programs overseen by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Office of Education and Outreach (UCAR-EO) help to translate NCAR's scientific programs, methodologies, and technologies, and their societal benefits to over 80,000 visitors to the NCAR Mesa Laboratory each year. This is accomplished through the implementation of exhibits, guided tours, an audiotour, programs for school groups, and a teachers' guide to exhibits which is currently in development. The Climate Discovery Exhibit unveiled in July 2003 offers visitors a visually engaging and informative overview of information, graphics, artifacts, and interactives describing the Earth system's dynamic processes that contribute to and mediate climate change, the history of our planet's changing climate, and perspectives on geographic locations and societies around the world that have potential to be impacted by a changing climate. Climate Futures, an addition to this exhibit to open in the summer of 2004, will help visitors to understand why scientists seek to model the global climate system and how information about past and current climate are used to validate models and build scenarios for Earth's future climate, while clarifying the effects of natural and human-induced contributions to these predictions. UCAR-EO further strives to enhance public understanding and to dispel misconceptions about climate change by bringing scientists' explanations to visitors who learn about atmospheric sciences while on staff-guided tours and/or while using an audiotour developed in 2003 with a grant from the National Science Foundation. With advanced reservations, a limited number of visitors may experience demonstrations of climate models in the NCAR Visualization Laboratory. An instructional module for approximately 5,000 visiting school children and a teachers guide for the Climate Discovery Exhibit is in the development and field testing phase with a goal to promote interest in and understanding of how climate change studies align with K-12 science standards. Over the next year, much of the content will become available to national audiences via the new NCAR EO web site (www.ncar.ucar.edu/eo), UCAR-EO's summer teachers workshops, and sessions at the National Science Teacher Association meetings.

Climatological temperature senstivity of soil carbon turnover: Observations, simple scaling models, and ESMs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koven, C. D.; Hugelius, G.; Lawrence, D. M.; Wieder, W. R.

2016-12-01

The projected loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere resulting from climate change is a potentially large but highly uncertain feedback to warming. The magnitude of this feedback is poorly constrained by observations and theory, and is disparately represented in Earth system models. To assess the likely long-term response of soils to climate change, spatial gradients in soil carbon turnover times can identify broad-scale and long-term controls on the rate of carbon cycling as a function of climate and other factors. Here we show that the climatological temperature control on carbon turnover in the top meter of global soils is more sensitive in cold climates than in warm ones. We present a simplified model that explains the high cold-climate sensitivity using only the physical scaling of soil freeze-thaw state across climate gradients. Critically, current Earth system models (ESMs) fail to capture this pattern, however it emerges from an ESM that explicitly resolves vertical gradients in soil climate and turnover. The weak tropical temperature sensitivity emerges from a different model that explicitly resolves mineralogical control on decomposition. These results support projections of strong future carbon-climate feedbacks from northern soils and demonstrate a method for ESMs to capture this emergent behavior.

Venus climate stability and volcanic resurfacing rates

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bullock, M. A.; Grinspoon, D. H.; Pollack, J. B.

1994-01-01

The climate of Venus is to a large degree controlled by the radiative properties of its massive atmosphere. In addition, outgassing due to volcanic activity, exospheric escape processes, and surface/atmosphere interactions may all be important in moderating the abundances of atmospheric CO2 and other volatiles. We have developed an evolutionary climate model for Venus using a systems approach that emphasizes feedbacks between elements in the climate system. Modules for atmospheric radiative transfer, surface/atmosphere interactions, tropospheric chemistry, and exospheric escape processes have so far been developed. Climate feedback loops result from interconnections between modules, in the form of the environmental parameters pressure, temperature, and atmospheric mixing ratios. The radiative transfer module has been implemented by using Rosseland mean opacities in a one dimensional grey radiative-convective model. The model has been solved for the static (time independent) case to determine climate equilibrium points. The dynamics of the model have also been explored by employing reaction/diffusion kinetics for possible surface atmosphere heterogeneous reactions over geologic timescales. It was found that under current conditions, the model predicts that the climate of Venus is at or near an unstable equilibrium point. The effects of constant rate volcanism and corresponding exsolution of volatiles on the stability of the climate model were also explored.

Plant functional diversity affects climate-vegetation interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Groner, Vivienne P.; Raddatz, Thomas; Reick, Christian H.; Claussen, Martin

2018-04-01

We present how variations in plant functional diversity affect climate-vegetation interaction towards the end of the African Humid Period (AHP) in coupled land-atmosphere simulations using the Max Planck Institute Earth system model (MPI-ESM). In experiments with AHP boundary conditions, the extent of the green Sahara varies considerably with changes in plant functional diversity. Differences in vegetation cover extent and plant functional type (PFT) composition translate into significantly different land surface parameters, water cycling, and surface energy budgets. These changes have not only regional consequences but considerably alter large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns and the position of the tropical rain belt. Towards the end of the AHP, simulations with the standard PFT set in MPI-ESM depict a gradual decrease of precipitation and vegetation cover over time, while simulations with modified PFT composition show either a sharp decline of both variables or an even slower retreat. Thus, not the quantitative but the qualitative PFT composition determines climate-vegetation interaction and the climate-vegetation system response to external forcing. The sensitivity of simulated system states to changes in PFT composition raises the question how realistically Earth system models can actually represent climate-vegetation interaction, considering the poor representation of plant diversity in the current generation of land surface models.

Perspectives on Hydro-Climatic Change in Rivers Sourced From the Khangai Mountains, Mongolia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Venable, N. B.; Fassnacht, S. R.; Tumenjargal, S.; Batbuyan, B.; Odgarav, J.; Sukhbataar, J.; Fernandez-Gimenez, M.; Adyabadam, G.

2012-12-01

Patterns of pastoralism have shaped the Mongolian countryside throughout history. These patterns are largely dictated by seasonal and extreme climate and water conditions. While change has always been a part of the traditional herder lifestyle, the magnitude and variety of impacts imposed by natural and human-induced changes in the last few decades has increased, negatively affecting the coupled natural-human systems of Mongolia. Regional hydrologic impacts from increased mining, irrigation, urbanization, and climate change are challenging to measure and model due to sparse and relatively short meteorological and hydrological records. Characterization of the variability inherent in Mongolian hydrological systems in the international literature remains limited. To quantify recent changes to these systems, several river basins near the Khangai Mountains were analyzed. These basins adjoin and include community-based managed and non-managed grazing lands under study as part of an ongoing National Science Foundation Coupled Natural and Human Systems (NSF-CNH) project. Statistically significant increasing temperatures and decreasing streamflows in the study areas support herder's perceptions of hydro-climatic changes and variability. The results of basin characterization combined with water balance modeling and trend analyses illustrate the future potential for further change in these hydro-climatic systems. Alternate land-uses and herder lifestyle modifications may amplify impacts from climatic change. Recent fieldwork also revealed complex surface-groundwater interactions in some areas that may affect model outcomes. Future explorations of longer-term variability through the use of proxies and the development of hydrologic scenarios will place the current basin analyses in context to more fully assess possible impacts to the hydrologic-human systems of Mongolia.

Climate legacies drive global soil carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems

PubMed Central

Delgado-Baquerizo, Manuel; Eldridge, David J.; Maestre, Fernando T.; Karunaratne, Senani B.; Trivedi, Pankaj; Reich, Peter B.; Singh, Brajesh K.

2017-01-01

Climatic conditions shift gradually over millennia, altering the rates at which carbon (C) is fixed from the atmosphere and stored in the soil. However, legacy impacts of past climates on current soil C stocks are poorly understood. We used data from more than 5000 terrestrial sites from three global and regional data sets to identify the relative importance of current and past (Last Glacial Maximum and mid-Holocene) climatic conditions in regulating soil C stocks in natural and agricultural areas. Paleoclimate always explained a greater amount of the variance in soil C stocks than current climate at regional and global scales. Our results indicate that climatic legacies help determine global soil C stocks in terrestrial ecosystems where agriculture is highly dependent on current climatic conditions. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering how climate legacies influence soil C content, allowing us to improve quantitative predictions of global C stocks under different climatic scenarios. PMID:28439540

Solving the Global Climate Monitoring Problem in the Atmosphere: Towards SI-tied Climate Records with Integrated Uncertainty Propagation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kirchengast, G.; Schwaerz, M.; Fritzer, J.; Schwarz, J.; Scherllin-Pirscher, B.; Steiner, A. K.

2013-12-01

Monitoring the atmosphere to gain accurate and long-term stable records of essential climate variables (ECVs) such as temperature and greenhouse gases is the backbone of contemporary atmospheric and climate science. Earth observation from space is the key to obtain such data globally in the atmosphere. Currently, however, not any existing satellite-based atmospheric ECV record can serve as authoritative benchmark over months to decades so that climate variability and change in the atmosphere are not yet reliably monitored. Radio occultation (RO) using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals provides a unique opportunity to solve this problem in the free atmosphere (from ~1-2 km altitude upwards) for core ECVs: the thermodynamic variables temperature and pressure, and to some degree water vapor, which are key parameters for tracking climate change. On top of RO we have recently conceived next-generation methods, microwave and infrared-laser occultation and nadir-looking infrared-laser reflectometry. These can monitor a full set of thermo-dynamic ECVs (incl. wind) as well as the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane as main drivers of climate change; for the latter we also target the boundary layer for tracking carbon sources and sinks. We briefly introduce to why the atmospheric climate monitoring challenge is unsolved so far and why just the above methods have the capabilities to break through. We then focus on RO, which already provided more than a decade of observations. RO accurately measures time delays from refraction of GNSS signals during atmospheric occultation events. This enables to tie RO-derived ECVs and their uncertainty to fundamental time standards, effectively the SI second, and to their unique long-term stability and narrow uncertainty. However, despite impressive advances since the pioneering RO mission GPS/Met in the mid-1990ties no rigorous trace from fundamental time to the ECVs (duly accounting also for relevant side influences) exists so far. Establishing such a trace first-time in form of the Reference Occultation Processing System rOPS, providing reference RO data for climate science and applications, is therefore a current cornerstone endeavor at the Wegener Center over 2011 to 2015, supported also by colleagues from other key groups at EUMETSAT Darmstadt, UCAR Boulder, DMI Copenhagen, ECMWF Reading, IAP Moscow, AIUB Berne, and RMIT Melbourne. With the rOPS we undertake to process the full chain from the SI-tied raw data to the atmospheric ECVs with integrated uncertainty propagation. We summarize where we currently stand in quantifying RO accuracy and long-term stability and then discuss the concept, development status and initial results from the rOPS, with emphasis on its novel capability to provide SI-tied reference data with integrated uncertainty estimation. We comment how these data can provide ground-breaking support to challenges such as climate model evaluation, anthropogenic change detection and attribution, and calibration of complementary climate observing systems.

Pilot climate data system: A state-of-the-art capability in scientific data management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, P. H.; Treinish, L. A.; Novak, L. V.

1983-01-01

The Pilot Climate Data System (PCDS) was developed by the Information Management Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to manage a large collection of climate-related data of interest to the research community. The PCDS now provides uniform data catalogs, inventories, access methods, graphical displays and statistical calculations for selected NASA and non-NASA data sets. Data manipulation capabilities were developed to permit researchers to easily combine or compare data. The current capabilities of the PCDS include many tools for the statistical survey of climate data. A climate researcher can examine any data set of interest via flexible utilities to create a variety of two- and three-dimensional displays, including vector plots, scatter diagrams, histograms, contour plots, surface diagrams and pseudo-color images. The graphics and statistics subsystems employ an intermediate data storage format which is data-set independent. Outside of the graphics system there exist other utilities to select, filter, list, compress, and calculate time-averages and variances for any data of interest. The PCDS now fully supports approximately twenty different data sets and is being used on a trial basis by several different in-house research grounds.

Application of open source standards and technologies in the http://climate4impact.eu/ portal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plieger, Maarten; Som de Cerff, Wim; Pagé, Christian; Tatarinova, Natalia

2015-04-01

This presentation will demonstrate how to calculate and visualize the climate indice SU (number of summer days) on the climate4impact portal. The following topics will be covered during the demonstration: - Security: Login using OpenID for access to the Earth System Grid Fedeation (ESGF) data nodes. The ESGF works in conjunction with several external websites and systems. The climate4impact portal uses X509 based short lived credentials, generated on behalf of the user with a MyProxy service. Single Sign-on (SSO) is used to make these websites and systems work together. - Discovery: Facetted search based on e.g. variable name, model and institute using the ESGF search services. A catalog browser allows for browsing through CMIP5 and any other climate model data catalogues (e.g. ESSENCE, EOBS, UNIDATA). - Processing using Web Processing Services (WPS): Transform data, subset, export into other formats, and perform climate indices calculations using Web Processing Services implemented by PyWPS, based on NCAR NCPP OpenClimateGIS and IS-ENES2 ICCLIM. - Visualization using Web Map Services (WMS): Visualize data from ESGF data nodes using ADAGUC Web Map Services. The aim of climate4impact is to enhance the use of Climate Research Data and to enhance the interaction with climate effect/impact communities. The portal is based on 21 impact use cases from 5 different European countries, and is evaluated by a user panel consisting of use case owners. It has been developed within the European projects IS-ENES and IS-ENES2 for more than 5 years, and its development currently continues within IS-ENES2 and CLIPC. As the climate impact community is very broad, the focus is mainly on the scientific impact community. This work has resulted in the ENES portal interface for climate impact communities and can be visited at http://climate4impact.eu/ The current main objectives for climate4impact can be summarized in two objectives. The first one is to work on a web interface which automatically generates a graphical user interface on WPS endpoints. The WPS calculates climate indices and subset data using OpenClimateGIS/ICCLIM on data stored in ESGF data nodes. Data is then transmitted from ESGF nodes over secured OpenDAP and becomes available in a new, per user, secured OpenDAP server. The results can then be visualized again using ADAGUC WMS. Dedicated wizards for processing of climate indices will be developed in close collaboration with users. The second one is to expose climate4impact services, so as to offer standardized services which can be used by other portals. This has the advantage to add interoperability between several portals, as well as to enable the design of specific portals aimed at different impact communities, either thematic or national, for example.

Multi-objective optimization for evaluation of simulation fidelity for precipitation, cloudiness and insolation in regional climate models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, H.

2016-12-01

Precipitation is one of the most important climate variables that are taken into account in studying regional climate. Nevertheless, how precipitation will respond to a changing climate and even its mean state in the current climate are not well represented in regional climate models (RCMs). Hence, comprehensive and mathematically rigorous methodologies to evaluate precipitation and related variables in multiple RCMs are required. The main objective of the current study is to evaluate the joint variability of climate variables related to model performance in simulating precipitation and condense multiple evaluation metrics into a single summary score. We use multi-objective optimization, a mathematical process that provides a set of optimal tradeoff solutions based on a range of evaluation metrics, to characterize the joint representation of precipitation, cloudiness and insolation in RCMs participating in the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) and Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment-North America (CORDEX-NA). We also leverage ground observations, NASA satellite data and the Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES). Overall, the quantitative comparison of joint probability density functions between the three variables indicates that performance of each model differs markedly between sub-regions and also shows strong seasonal dependence. Because of the large variability across the models, it is important to evaluate models systematically and make future projections using only models showing relatively good performance. Our results indicate that the optimized multi-model ensemble always shows better performance than the arithmetic ensemble mean and may guide reliable future projections.

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.

NASA and the National Climate Assessment: Promoting awareness of NASA Earth science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leidner, A. K.

2014-12-01

NASA Earth science observations, models, analyses, and applications made significant contributions to numerous aspects of the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) report and are contributing to sustained climate assessment activities. The agency's goal in participating in the NCA was to ensure that NASA scientific resources were made available to understand the current state of climate change science and climate change impacts. By working with federal agency partners and stakeholder communities to develop and write the report, the agency was able to raise awareness of NASA climate science with audiences beyond the traditional NASA community. To support assessment activities within the NASA community, the agency sponsored two competitive programs that not only funded research and tools for current and future assessments, but also increased capacity within our community to conduct assessment-relevant science and to participate in writing assessments. Such activities fostered the ability of graduate students, post-docs, and senior researchers to learn about the science needs of climate assessors and end-users, which can guide future research activities. NASA also contributed to developing the Global Change Information System, which deploys information from the NCA to scientists, decision makers, and the public, and thus contributes to climate literacy. Finally, NASA satellite imagery and animations used in the Third NCA helped the pubic and decision makers visualize climate changes and were frequently used in social media to communicate report key findings. These resources are also key for developing educational materials that help teachers and students explore regional climate change impacts and opportunities for responses.

Scientific Overview of Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems (TEMPEST) Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chandra, C. V.; Reising, S. C.; Kummerow, C. D.; van den Heever, S. C.; Todd, G.; Padmanabhan, S.; Brown, S. T.; Lim, B.; Haddad, Z. S.; Koch, T.; Berg, G.; L'Ecuyer, T.; Munchak, S. J.; Luo, Z. J.; Boukabara, S. A.; Ruf, C. S.

2014-12-01

Over the past decade and a half, we have gained a better understanding of the role of clouds and precipitation on Earth's water cycle, energy budget and climate, from focused Earth science observational satellite missions. However, these missions provide only a snapshot at one point in time of the cloud's development. Processes that govern cloud system development occur primarily on time scales of the order of 5-30 minutes that are generally not observable from low Earth orbiting satellites. Geostationary satellites, in contrast, have higher temporal resolution but at present are limited to visible and infrared wavelengths that observe only the tops of clouds. This observing gap was noted by the National Research Council's Earth Science Decadal Survey in 2007. Uncertainties in global climate models are significantly affected by processes that govern the formation and dissipation of clouds that largely control the global water and energy budgets. Current uncertainties in cloud parameterization within climate models lead to drastically different climate outcomes. With all evidence suggesting that the precipitation onset may be governed by factors such atmospheric stability, it becomes critical to have at least first-order observations globally in diverse climate regimes. Similar arguments are valid for ice processes where more efficient ice formation and precipitation have a tendency to leave fewer ice clouds behind that have different but equally important impacts on the Earth's energy budget and resulting temperature trends. TEMPEST is a unique program that will provide a small constellation of inexpensive CubeSats with millimeter-wave radiometers to address key science needs related to cloud and precipitation processes. Because these processes are most critical in the development of climate models that will soon run at scales that explicitly resolve clouds, the TEMPEST program will directly focus on examining, validating and improving the parameterizations currently used in cloud scale models. The time evolution of cloud and precipitation microphysics is dependent upon parameterized process rates. The outcome of TEMPEST will provide a first-order understanding of how individual assumptions in current cloud model parameterizations behave in diverse climate regimes.

National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center, Version 2.0

USGS Publications Warehouse

O'Malley, R.; Fort, E.; Hartke-O'Berg, N.; Varela-Acevedo, E.; Padgett, Holly A.

2013-01-01

The mission of the USGS's National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC) is to serve the scientific needs of managers of fish, wildlife, habitats, and ecosystems as they plan for a changing climate. DOI Climate Science Centers (CSCs) are management by NCCWSC and include this mission as a core responsibility, in line with the CSC mission to provide scientific support for climate-adaptation across a full range of natural and cultural resources. NCCWSC is a Science Center application designed in Drupal with the OMEGA theme. As a content management system, Drupal allows the science center to keep their website up-to-date with current publications, news, meetings and projects. OMEGA allows the site to be adaptive at different screen sizes and is developed on the 960 grid.

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.

Diver Down: Remote Sensing of Carbon Climate Feedbacks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schimel, D.; Chatterjee, A.; Baker, D. F.; Basu, S.; Denning, A. S.; Schuh, A. E.; Crowell, S.; Jacobson, A. R.; Bowman, K. W.; Liu, J.; O'Dell, C.

2016-12-01

What controls the rate of increase of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere? It may seem self-evident but actually remains mysterious. The increases of CO2 and CH4 result from a combination of forcing from anthropogenic emissions and Earth System feedbacks that dampen or amplify the effects of those emissions on atmospheric concentrations. The fraction of anthropogenic CO2 remaining in the atmosphere has remained remarkably constant over the last 59 years but has shown recent dynamics and if it changes in the future, will affect the climate impact of any given fossil fuel regime. While greenhouse gases affect the global atmosphere, their sources and sinks are remarkably heterogeneous in time and space, and traditional in situ observing systems do not provide the coverage and resolution to quantify carbon-climate feedbacks or reduce the uncertainty of model predictions. Here we describe an methodology for estimating critical carbon-climate feedback effects of current spaceborne XCO2 measurements, developed by the OCO-2 Flux Group, and applied to OCO-2 and GOSAT data. The methodology allows integration of the space-based carbon budgets with other global data sets, and exposes the impact of residual bias error on the estimated fluxes, allowing the uncertainty of the estimated feedbacks to be quantified. The approach is limited by the short timeseries currently available, but suggests dramatic changes to the carbon cycle over the recent past. We present the methodology, early results and implications for a future, sustained carbon observing system.

The impact of climate change on photovoltaic power generation in Europe

PubMed Central

Jerez, Sonia; Tobin, Isabelle; Vautard, Robert; Montávez, Juan Pedro; López-Romero, Jose María; Thais, Françoise; Bartok, Blanka; Christensen, Ole Bøssing; Colette, Augustin; Déqué, Michel; Nikulin, Grigory; Kotlarski, Sven; van Meijgaard, Erik; Teichmann, Claas; Wild, Martin

2015-01-01

Ambitious climate change mitigation plans call for a significant increase in the use of renewables, which could, however, make the supply system more vulnerable to climate variability and changes. Here we evaluate climate change impacts on solar photovoltaic (PV) power in Europe using the recent EURO-CORDEX ensemble of high-resolution climate projections together with a PV power production model and assuming a well-developed European PV power fleet. Results indicate that the alteration of solar PV supply by the end of this century compared with the estimations made under current climate conditions should be in the range (−14%;+2%), with the largest decreases in Northern countries. Temporal stability of power generation does not appear as strongly affected in future climate scenarios either, even showing a slight positive trend in Southern countries. Therefore, despite small decreases in production expected in some parts of Europe, climate change is unlikely to threaten the European PV sector. PMID:26658608

Earth-System Scales of Biodiversity Variability in Shallow Continental Margin Seafloor Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moffitt, S. E.; White, S. M.; Hill, T. M.; Kennett, J.

2015-12-01

High-resolution paleoceanographic sedimentary sequences allow for the description of ecosystem sensitivity to earth-system scales of climate and oceanographic change. Such archives from Santa Barbara Basin, California record the ecological consequences to seafloor ecosystems of climate-forced shifts in the California Current Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ). Here we use core MV0508-20JPC dated to 735,000±5,000 years ago (Marine Isotope Stage 18) as a "floating window" of millennial-scale ecological variability. For this investigation, previously published archives of planktonic δ18O (Globigerina bulloides) record stadial and interstadial oscillations in surface ocean temperature. Core MV0508-20JPC is an intermittently laminated archive, strongly influenced by the California Current OMZ, with continuously preserved benthic foraminifera and discontinuously preserved micro-invertebrates, including ophiuroids, echinoderms, ostracods, gastropods, bivalves and scaphopods. Multivariate statistical approaches, such as ordinations and cluster analyses, describe climate-driven changes in both foraminiferal and micro-invertebrate assemblages. Statistical ordinations illustrate that the shallow continental margin seafloor underwent predictable phase-shifts in oxygenation and biodiversity across stadial and interstadial events. A narrow suite of severely hypoxic taxa characterized foraminiferal communities from laminated intervals, including Bolivina tumida, Globobulimina spp., and Nonionella stella. Foraminiferal communities from bioturbated intervals are diverse and >60% similar to each other, and they are associated with echinoderm, ostracod and mollusc fossils. As with climate shifts in the latest Quaternary, there is a sensitive benthic ecosystem response in mid-Pleistocene continental margins to climatically related changes in OMZ strength.

Key challenges and priorities for modelling European grasslands under climate change.

PubMed

Kipling, Richard P; Virkajärvi, Perttu; Breitsameter, Laura; Curnel, Yannick; De Swaef, Tom; Gustavsson, Anne-Maj; Hennart, Sylvain; Höglind, Mats; Järvenranta, Kirsi; Minet, Julien; Nendel, Claas; Persson, Tomas; Picon-Cochard, Catherine; Rolinski, Susanne; Sandars, Daniel L; Scollan, Nigel D; Sebek, Leon; Seddaiu, Giovanna; Topp, Cairistiona F E; Twardy, Stanislaw; Van Middelkoop, Jantine; Wu, Lianhai; Bellocchi, Gianni

2016-10-01

Grassland-based ruminant production systems are integral to sustainable food production in Europe, converting plant materials indigestible to humans into nutritious food, while providing a range of environmental and cultural benefits. Climate change poses significant challenges for such systems, their productivity and the wider benefits they supply. In this context, grassland models have an important role in predicting and understanding the impacts of climate change on grassland systems, and assessing the efficacy of potential adaptation and mitigation strategies. In order to identify the key challenges for European grassland modelling under climate change, modellers and researchers from across Europe were consulted via workshop and questionnaire. Participants identified fifteen challenges and considered the current state of modelling and priorities for future research in relation to each. A review of literature was undertaken to corroborate and enrich the information provided during the horizon scanning activities. Challenges were in four categories relating to: 1) the direct and indirect effects of climate change on the sward 2) climate change effects on grassland systems outputs 3) mediation of climate change impacts by site, system and management and 4) cross-cutting methodological issues. While research priorities differed between challenges, an underlying theme was the need for accessible, shared inventories of models, approaches and data, as a resource for stakeholders and to stimulate new research. Developing grassland models to effectively support efforts to tackle climate change impacts, while increasing productivity and enhancing ecosystem services, will require engagement with stakeholders and policy-makers, as well as modellers and experimental researchers across many disciplines. The challenges and priorities identified are intended to be a resource 1) for grassland modellers and experimental researchers, to stimulate the development of new research directions and collaborative opportunities, and 2) for policy-makers involved in shaping the research agenda for European grassland modelling under climate change. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Towards a Seamless Framework for Drought Analysis and Prediction from Seasonal to Climate Change Time Scales (Plinius Medal Lecture)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sheffield, Justin

2013-04-01

Droughts arguably cause the most impacts of all natural hazards in terms of the number of people affected and the long-term economic costs and ecosystem stresses. Recent droughts worldwide have caused humanitarian and economic problems such as food insecurity across the Horn of Africa, agricultural economic losses across the central US and loss of livelihoods in rural western India. The prospect of future increases in drought severity and duration driven by projected changes in precipitation patterns and increasing temperatures is worrisome. Some evidence for climate change impacts on drought is already being seen for some regions, such as the Mediterranean and east Africa. Mitigation of the impacts of drought requires advance warning of developing conditions and enactment of drought plans to reduce vulnerability. A key element of this is a drought early warning system that at its heart is the capability to monitor evolving hydrological conditions and water resources storage, and provide reliable and robust predictions out to several months, as well as the capacity to act on this information. At longer time scales, planning and policy-making need to consider the potential impacts of climate change and its impact on drought risk, and do this within the context of natural climate variability, which is likely to dominate any climate change signal over the next few decades. There are several challenges that need to be met to advance our capability to provide both early warning at seasonal time scales and risk assessment under climate change, regionally and globally. Advancing our understanding of drought predictability and risk requires knowledge of drought at all time scales. This includes understanding of past drought occurrence, from the paleoclimate record to the recent past, and understanding of drought mechanisms, from initiation, through persistence to recovery and translation of this understanding to predictive models. Current approaches to monitoring and predicting drought are limited in many parts of the world, and especially in developing countries where national capacity is limited. Evaluation of past droughts and their mechanisms is limited by data availability and especially before the instrumental period of the last 50-100 years, for which there is reliance on incomplete spatial proxy data, such as tree rings. Seasonal predictability is currently mainly limited to tropical and sub-tropical regions through connections with sea surface temperature variations such as ENSO. Predictability in mid-latitudes is low and especially for precipitation, although dynamical model predictions appear to be edging statistical models in many aspects of seasonal prediction. This presentation describes ongoing research on evaluation of drought risk and drought mechanisms at regional to global scales with the eventual goal of developing a seamless monitoring and prediction framework at all time scales. Such a framework would allow consistent assessment of drought from historic to current conditions, and from seasonal and decadal predictions to climate change projections. At the center of the framework is an experimental global drought monitoring and seasonal forecast system that has evolved out of regional and continental systems for the US and Africa. The system is based on land surface hydrological modeling that is driven by satellite remote sensing precipitation to predict current hydrological conditions and the state of drought. Seasonal climate model forecasts are downscaled and bias-corrected to drive the land surface model to provide hydrological forecasts and drought products out 6-9 months. The system relies on historic reconstructions of drought variability over the 20th century, which forms the background climatology to which current conditions can be assessed and drought mechanisms can be diagnosed. Future drought risk is quantified based on bias-corrected and downscaled climate model projections that are used to drive the land surface models. Current research is focused on several aspects, including: 1) quantifying the uncertainties in historic drought reconstructions; 2) analysis of drought propagation through the coupled hydrological/vegetation system; 3) the utility of new data sources such as on the ground sensors and new satellite products for terrestrial hydrology and vegetation, for improved monitoring and prediction, especially in poorly observed regions; 4) advancing predictive skill for all aspects of drought occurrence through diagnosis of the driving mechanisms and feedbacks of historic droughts; and 5) quantification and reduction of uncertainties in future projections of drought under climate change. The steps towards the development of a seamless framework for analysis and prediction in the context of this research are discussed.

Developing Models for Predictive Climate Science

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

Drake, John B; Jones, Philip W

2007-01-01

The Community Climate System Model results from a multi-agency collaboration designed to construct cutting-edge climate science simulation models for a broad research community. Predictive climate simulations are currently being prepared for the petascale computers of the near future. Modeling capabilities are continuously being improved in order to provide better answers to critical questions about Earth's climate. Climate change and its implications are front page news in today's world. Could global warming be responsible for the July 2006 heat waves in Europe and the United States? Should more resources be devoted to preparing for an increase in the frequency of strongmore » tropical storms and hurricanes like Katrina? Will coastal cities be flooded due to a rise in sea level? The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which archives all weather data for the nation, reports that global surface temperatures have increased over the last century, and that the rate of increase is three times greater since 1976. Will temperatures continue to climb at this rate, will they decline again, or will the rate of increase become even steeper? To address such a flurry of questions, scientists must adopt a systematic approach and develop a predictive framework. With responsibility for advising on energy and technology strategies, the DOE is dedicated to advancing climate research in order to elucidate the causes of climate change, including the role of carbon loading from fossil fuel use. Thus, climate science--which by nature involves advanced computing technology and methods--has been the focus of a number of DOE's SciDAC research projects. Dr. John Drake (ORNL) and Dr. Philip Jones (LANL) served as principal investigators on the SciDAC project, 'Collaborative Design and Development of the Community Climate System Model for Terascale Computers.' The Community Climate System Model (CCSM) is a fully-coupled global system that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of the Earth's past, present, and future climate states. The collaborative SciDAC team--including over a dozen researchers at institutions around the country--developed, validated, documented, and optimized the performance of CCSM using the latest software engineering approaches, computational technology, and scientific knowledge. Many of the factors that must be accounted for in a comprehensive model of the climate system are illustrated in figure 1.« less

Southwest Pacific Ocean Circulation and Climate Experiment (SPICE) scientific advances and future west pacific coordination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ganachaud, A. S.; Sprintall, J.; Lin, X.; Ando, K.

2016-02-01

The Southwest Pacific Ocean Circulation and Climate Experiment (SPICE) is an international research program under the auspices of CLIVAR (Climate Variability and Predictability). The key objectives are to understand the Southwest Pacific Ocean circulation and Convergence Zone (SPCZ) dynamics, as well as their influence on regional and basin-scale climate patterns. It was designed to measure and monitor the ocean circulation, and to validate and improve numerical models. South Pacific oceanic waters are carried from the subtropical gyre centre in the westward flowing South Equatorial Current (SEC), towards the southwest Pacific-a major circulation pathway that redistributes water from the subtropics to the equator and Southern Ocean. Water transit through the Coral and Solomon Seas is potentially of great importance to tropical climate prediction because changes in either the temperature or the amount of water arriving at the equator have the capability to modulate ENSO and produce basin-scale climate feedbacks. On average, the oceanic circulation is driven by the Trade Winds, and subject to substantial variability, related with the SPCZ position and intensity. The circulation is complex, with the SEC splitting into zonal jets upon encountering island archipelagos, before joining either the East Australian Current or the New Guinea Costal UnderCurrent towards the equator. SPICE included large, coordinated in situ measurement programs and high resolution numerical simulations of the area. After 8 years of substantial in situ oceanic observational and modeling efforts, our understanding of the region has much improved. We have a refined description of the SPCZ behavior, boundary currents, pathways, and water mass transformation, including the previously undocumented Solomon Sea. The transports are large and vary substantially in a counter-intuitive way, with asymmetries and gating effects that depend on time scales. We will review the recent advancements and discuss our current knowledge gaps and important emerging research directions. In particular we will discuss how SPICE, along with the Northwestern Pacific Ocean Circulation and Climate Experiment (NPOCE) and Indonesian ThroughFlow (ITF) programs could evolve toward an integrative observing system under CLIVAR coordination.

Climate change, biotic interactions and ecosystem services

PubMed Central

Montoya, José M.; Raffaelli, Dave

2010-01-01

Climate change is real. The wrangling debates are over, and we now need to move onto a predictive ecology that will allow managers of landscapes and policy makers to adapt to the likely changes in biodiversity over the coming decades. There is ample evidence that ecological responses are already occurring at the individual species (population) level. The challenge is how to synthesize the growing list of such observations with a coherent body of theory that will enable us to predict where and when changes will occur, what the consequences might be for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and what we might do practically in order to maintain those systems in as good condition as possible. It is thus necessary to investigate the effects of climate change at the ecosystem level and to consider novel emergent ecosystems composed of new species assemblages arising from differential rates of range shifts of species. Here, we present current knowledge on the effects of climate change on biotic interactions and ecosystem services supply, and summarize the papers included in this volume. We discuss how resilient ecosystems are in the face of the multiple components that characterize climate change, and suggest which current ecological theories may be used as a starting point to predict ecosystem-level effects of climate change. PMID:20513709

The health impacts of climate-related migration.

PubMed

Schwerdtle, Patricia; Bowen, Kathryn; McMichael, Celia

2017-12-11

Changes in climate, in conjunction with other drivers of mobility, shape human migration. While there is an increasing focus on the adaptive potential of migration, the health impacts of climate-related migration, including planned relocation and forced displacement, have not been thoroughly examined. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that migration is currently, and will increasingly be, influenced by environmental degradation and climate change, and that it needs to be addressed in a focused and coordinated manner. This paper examines the links between climate change, migration, and health, considering diverse migration responses, including immobility, forced displacement and planned migration, as well as the associated health risks and opportunities in different contexts. Using case studies, the paper illustrates strategies to reduce the health risks associated with climate change-related migration. While there is an increasing body of research examining the climate change-migration nexus, a dual approach is now required. This approach must include debate and further research regarding the health consequences and responses associated with climate migration as well as immediate strengthening of health systems to make them both climate resilient and migrant inclusive.

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

Branstator, Grant

The overall aim of our project was to quantify and characterize predictability of the climate as it pertains to decadal time scale predictions. By predictability we mean the degree to which a climate forecast can be distinguished from the climate that exists at initial forecast time, taking into consideration the growth of uncertainty that occurs as a result of the climate system being chaotic. In our project we were especially interested in predictability that arises from initializing forecasts from some specific state though we also contrast this predictability with predictability arising from forecasting the reaction of the system to externalmore » forcing – for example changes in greenhouse gas concentration. Also, we put special emphasis on the predictability of prominent intrinsic patterns of the system because they often dominate system behavior. Highlights from this work include: • Development of novel methods for estimating the predictability of climate forecast models. • Quantification of the initial value predictability limits of ocean heat content and the overturning circulation in the Atlantic as they are represented in various state of the art climate models. These limits varied substantially from model to model but on average were about a decade with North Atlantic heat content tending to be more predictable than North Pacific heat content. • Comparison of predictability resulting from knowledge of the current state of the climate system with predictability resulting from estimates of how the climate system will react to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. It turned out that knowledge of the initial state produces a larger impact on forecasts for the first 5 to 10 years of projections. • Estimation of the predictability of dominant patterns of ocean variability including well-known patterns of variability in the North Pacific and North Atlantic. For the most part these patterns were predictable for 5 to 10 years. • Determination of especially predictable patterns in the North Atlantic. The most predictable of these retain predictability substantially longer than generic patterns, with some being predictable for two decades.« less

Climate variability, weather and enteric disease incidence in New Zealand: time series analysis.

PubMed

Lal, Aparna; Ikeda, Takayoshi; French, Nigel; Baker, Michael G; Hales, Simon

2013-01-01

Evaluating the influence of climate variability on enteric disease incidence may improve our ability to predict how climate change may affect these diseases. To examine the associations between regional climate variability and enteric disease incidence in New Zealand. Associations between monthly climate and enteric diseases (campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis) were investigated using Seasonal Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) models. No climatic factors were significantly associated with campylobacteriosis and giardiasis, with similar predictive power for univariate and multivariate models. Cryptosporidiosis was positively associated with average temperature of the previous month (β =  0.130, SE =  0.060, p <0.01) and inversely related to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) two months previously (β =  -0.008, SE =  0.004, p <0.05). By contrast, salmonellosis was positively associated with temperature (β  = 0.110, SE = 0.020, p<0.001) of the current month and SOI of the current (β  = 0.005, SE = 0.002, p<0.050) and previous month (β  = 0.005, SE = 0.002, p<0.05). Forecasting accuracy of the multivariate models for cryptosporidiosis and salmonellosis were significantly higher. Although spatial heterogeneity in the observed patterns could not be assessed, these results suggest that temporally lagged relationships between climate variables and national communicable disease incidence data can contribute to disease prediction models and early warning systems.

Climate Central World Weather Attribution (WWA) project: Real-time extreme weather event attribution analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haustein, Karsten; Otto, Friederike; Uhe, Peter; Allen, Myles; Cullen, Heidi

2015-04-01

Extreme weather detection and attribution analysis has emerged as a core theme in climate science over the last decade or so. By using a combination of observational data and climate models it is possible to identify the role of climate change in certain types of extreme weather events such as sea level rise and its contribution to storm surges, extreme heat events and droughts or heavy rainfall and flood events. These analyses are usually carried out after an extreme event has occurred when reanalysis and observational data become available. The Climate Central WWA project will exploit the increasing forecast skill of seasonal forecast prediction systems such as the UK MetOffice GloSea5 (Global seasonal forecasting system) ensemble forecasting method. This way, the current weather can be fed into climate models to simulate large ensembles of possible weather scenarios before an event has fully emerged yet. This effort runs along parallel and intersecting tracks of science and communications that involve research, message development and testing, staged socialization of attribution science with key audiences, and dissemination. The method we employ uses a very large ensemble of simulations of regional climate models to run two different analyses: one to represent the current climate as it was observed, and one to represent the same events in the world that might have been without human-induced climate change. For the weather "as observed" experiment, the atmospheric model uses observed sea surface temperature (SST) data from GloSea5 (currently) and present-day atmospheric gas concentrations to simulate weather events that are possible given the observed climate conditions. The weather in the "world that might have been" experiments is obtained by removing the anthropogenic forcing from the observed SSTs, thereby simulating a counterfactual world without human activity. The anthropogenic forcing is obtained by comparing the CMIP5 historical and natural simulations from a variety of CMIP5 model ensembles. Here, we present results for the UK 2013/14 winter floods as proof of concept and we show validation and testing results that demonstrate the robustness of our method. We also revisit the record temperatures over Europe in 2014 and present a detailed analysis of this attribution exercise as it is one of the events to demonstrate that we can make a sensible statement of how the odds for such a year to occur have changed while it still unfolds.

Vulnerability of Thai rice production to simultaneous climate and socioeconomic changes: a double exposure analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sangpenchan, R.

2011-12-01

This research explores the vulnerability of Thai rice production to simultaneous exposure by climate and socioeconomic change -- so-called "double exposure." Both processes influence Thailand's rice production system, but the vulnerabilities associated with their interactions are unknown. To understand this double exposure, I adopts a mixed-method, qualitative-quantitative analytical approach consisting of three phases of analysis involving a Vulnerability Scoping Diagram, a Principal Component Analysis, and the EPIC crop model using proxy datasets collected from secondary data sources at provincial scales.The first and second phases identify key variables representing each of the three dimensions of vulnerability -- exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity indicating that the greatest vulnerability in the rice production system occurs in households and areas with high exposure to climate change, high sensitivity to climate and socioeconomic stress, and low adaptive capacity. In the third phase, the EPIC crop model simulates rice yields associated with future climate change projected by CSIRO and MIROC climate models. Climate change-only scenarios project the decrease in yields by 10% from the current productivity during 2016-2025 and 30% during 2045-2054. Scenarios applying both climate change and improved technology and management practices show that a 50% increase in rice production is possible, but requires strong collaboration between sectors to advance agricultural research and technology and requires strong adaptive capacity in the rice production system characterized by well-developed social capital, social networks, financial capacity, and infrastructure and household mobility at the local scale. The vulnerability assessment and climate and crop adaptation simulations used here provide useful information to decision makers developing vulnerability reduction plans in the face of concurrent climate and socioeconomic change.

Are there pre-Quaternary geological analogues for a future greenhouse warming?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Haywood, A.M.; Ridgwell, A.; Lunt, D.J.; Hill, D.J.; Pound, M.J.; Dowsett, H.J.; Dolan, A.M.; Francis, J.E.; Williams, M.

2011-01-01

Given the inherent uncertainties in predicting how climate and environments will respond to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, it would be beneficial to society if science could identify geological analogues to the human race's current grand climate experiment. This has been a focus of the geological and palaeoclimate communities over the last 30 years, with many scientific papers claiming that intervals in Earth history can be used as an analogue for future climate change. Using a coupled ocean-atmosphere modelling approach, we test this assertion for the most probable pre-Quaternary candidates of the last 100 million years: the Mid- and Late Cretaceous, the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the Early Eocene, as well as warm intervals within the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. These intervals fail as true direct analogues since they either represent equilibrium climate states to a long-term CO2 forcing-whereas anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases provide a progressive (transient) forcing on climate-or the sensitivity of the climate system itself to CO2 was different. While no close geological analogue exists, past warm intervals in Earth history provide a unique opportunity to investigate processes that operated during warm (high CO2) climate states. Palaeoclimate and environmental reconstruction/modelling are facilitating the assessment and calculation of the response of global temperatures to increasing CO2 concentrations in the longer term (multiple centuries); this is now referred to as the Earth System Sensitivity, which is critical in identifying CO2 thresholds in the atmosphere that must not be crossed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change in the long term. Palaeoclimatology also provides a unique and independent way to evaluate the qualities of climate and Earth system models used to predict future climate. ?? 2011 The Royal Society.

Are there pre-Quaternary geological analogues for a future greenhouse warming?

PubMed

Haywood, Alan M; Ridgwell, Andy; Lunt, Daniel J; Hill, Daniel J; Pound, Matthew J; Dowsett, Harry J; Dolan, Aisling M; Francis, Jane E; Williams, Mark

2011-03-13

Given the inherent uncertainties in predicting how climate and environments will respond to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, it would be beneficial to society if science could identify geological analogues to the human race's current grand climate experiment. This has been a focus of the geological and palaeoclimate communities over the last 30 years, with many scientific papers claiming that intervals in Earth history can be used as an analogue for future climate change. Using a coupled ocean-atmosphere modelling approach, we test this assertion for the most probable pre-Quaternary candidates of the last 100 million years: the Mid- and Late Cretaceous, the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the Early Eocene, as well as warm intervals within the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. These intervals fail as true direct analogues since they either represent equilibrium climate states to a long-term CO(2) forcing--whereas anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases provide a progressive (transient) forcing on climate--or the sensitivity of the climate system itself to CO(2) was different. While no close geological analogue exists, past warm intervals in Earth history provide a unique opportunity to investigate processes that operated during warm (high CO(2)) climate states. Palaeoclimate and environmental reconstruction/modelling are facilitating the assessment and calculation of the response of global temperatures to increasing CO(2) concentrations in the longer term (multiple centuries); this is now referred to as the Earth System Sensitivity, which is critical in identifying CO(2) thresholds in the atmosphere that must not be crossed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change in the long term. Palaeoclimatology also provides a unique and independent way to evaluate the qualities of climate and Earth system models used to predict future climate.

Modelling the impacts of global change on concentrations of Escherichia coli in an urban river

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jalliffier-Verne, Isabelle; Leconte, Robert; Huaringa-Alvarez, Uriel; Heniche, Mourad; Madoux-Humery, Anne-Sophie; Autixier, Laurène; Galarneau, Martine; Servais, Pierre; Prévost, Michèle; Dorner, Sarah

2017-10-01

Discharges of combined sewer system overflows (CSOs) affect water quality in drinking water sources despite increasing regulation and discharge restrictions. A hydrodynamic model was applied to simulate the transport and dispersion of fecal contaminants from CSO discharges and to quantify the impacts of climate and population changes on the water quality of the river used as a drinking water source in Québec, Canada. The dispersion model was used to quantify Escherichia coli (E. coli) concentrations at drinking water intakes. Extreme flows during high and low water events were based on a frequency analysis in current and future climate scenarios. The increase of the number of discharges was quantified in current and future climate scenarios with regards to the frequency of overflows observed between 2009 and 2012. For future climate scenarios, effects of an increase of population were estimated according to current population growth statistics, independently of local changes in precipitation that are more difficult to predict than changes to regional scale hydrology. Under ;business-as-usual; scenarios restricting increases in CSO discharge frequency, mean E. coli concentrations at downstream drinking water intakes are expected to increase by up to 87% depending on the future climate scenario and could lead to changes in drinking water treatment requirements for the worst case scenarios. The greatest uncertainties are related to future local discharge loads. Climate change adaptation with regards to drinking water quality must focus on characterizing the impacts of global change at a local scale. Source water protection planning must consider the impacts of climate and population change to avoid further degradation of water quality.

Measuring the respiratory gas exchange of grazing cattle using the GreenFeed emissions monitoring system

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Ruminants are a significant source of enteric methane, which has been identified as a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. With interest in developing technologies to decrease enteric methane emission, systems are currently being developed to measure the methane emission by c...

America's Climate Choices: Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liverman, D. M.; McConnell, M. C.; Raven, P.

2010-12-01

At the request of Congress, the National Academy of Sciences convened a series of coordinated activities to provide advice on actions and strategies that the nation can take to respond to climate change. As part of this suite of activities, this study examines information needs and recommends ways the federal government can better inform responses by enhancing climate change and greenhouse gas information and reporting systems and by improving climate communication and education. Demand for better information to support climate-related decisions has grown rapidly as people, organizations, and governments have moved ahead with plans and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. To meet this demand, good information systems and services are needed. Without such systems, decision makers cannot evaluate whether particular policies and actions are achieving their goals or should be modified. Although the many non-federal efforts to reduce emissions and/or adapt to future climate changes carry considerable potential to reduce risks related to climate change, there is currently no comprehensive way to assess the effectiveness of those efforts. In addition, the diverse climate change responses to date have resulted in a patchwork of regional, state, and local policies that has prompted many state and business leaders to call for the development of a more predictable and coherent policy environment at the federal level. This report demonstrates that the nation lacks comprehensive, robust, and credible information and reporting systems to inform climate choices and evaluate their effectiveness. This report also argues that decision makers can benefit from a systematic and iterative framework for responding to climate change, in which decisions and policies can be revised in light of new information and experience and that improved information and reporting systems allow for ongoing evaluation of responses to climate risks. The climate-related decisions that society will confront over the coming decades will require an informed and engaged public and an education system that provides students with the knowledge to make informed choices. Although nearly all Americans have now heard of climate change, many have yet to understand the full implications of the issue and the opportunities and risks that lie in the solutions. Nonetheless, national surveys demonstrate a clear public desire for more information about climate change and how it might affect local communities. A majority of Americans want the government to take action in response to climate change and are willing to take action themselves. Although communicating about climate change and choices is vitally important, it can be difficult. This report summarizes some simple guidelines for more effective communications.

Unified Synthesis Product (USP) Recommendations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peterson, T. C.

2009-05-01

The USP identifies a number of areas in which inadequate information or understanding hampers our ability to estimate likely future climate change and its impacts. For example, our knowledge of changes in tornadoes, hail, and ice storms is quite limited, making it difficult to know if and how such events have changed as climate has warmed, and how they might change in the future. Research on ecological responses to climate change also is limited, as is our understanding of social responses. The Report identifies the five most important gaps in knowledge and offers some thoughts on how to address those gaps: 1. Expand our understanding of climate change impacts. There is a clear need to increase understanding of how ecosystems, social and economic systems, human health, and the built environment will be affected by climate change in the context of other stresses. This includes ecosystems as well as economic systems, human health, and the built environment. 2. Refine ability to project climate change at local scales. One of the main messages to emerge from the past decade of synthesis and assessments is that while climate change is a global issue, it has a great deal of regional variability. There is an indisputable need to improve understanding of climate system effects at these smaller scales, because these are often the scales of decision-making in society. 3. Expand capacity to provide decision makers and the public with relevant information on climate change and its impacts. The United States has tremendous potential to create more comprehensive measurement, archive, and data-access systems that could provide great benefit to society. 4. Improve understanding of and ability to identify thresholds likely to lead to abrupt changes in the climate system. Paleoclimatic data shows that climate can and has changed quite abruptly when certain thresholds are crossed. Similarly, there is evidence that ecological and human systems can undergo abrupt change when tipping points are reached. 5. Enhance understanding of how society can adapt to climate change in the context of multiple stresses. There is currently limited knowledge about the ability of communities, regions, and sectors to adapt to future climate change. It is essential to improve understanding of how the capacity to adapt to a changing climate might be exercised, and the vulnerabilities to climate change and other environmental stresses that might remain. Results from these efforts would inform future assessments that continue building our understanding of humanity's impacts on climate, and climate's impacts on us. Such assessments will continue to play a role in helping the U.S. respond to changing conditions. A vision for future climate change assessments includes both sustained extensive practitioner and stakeholder involvement, and periodic, targeted, scientifically rigorous reports similar to the CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Products.

Assessing Climate Vulnerability and Resilience of a Major Water Resource System - Inverting the Paradigm for Specific Risk Quantification at Decision Making Points of Impact

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murphy, K. W.; Ellis, A. W.; Skindlov, J. A.

2015-12-01

Water resource systems have provided vital support to transformative growth in the Southwest United States and the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area where the Salt River Project (SRP) currently satisfies 40% of the area's water demand from reservoir storage and groundwater. Large natural variability and expectations of climate changes have sensitized water management to risks posed by future periods of excess and drought. The conventional approach to impacts assessment has been downscaled climate model simulations translated through hydrologic models; but, scenario ranges enlarge as uncertainties propagate through sequential levels of modeling complexity. The research often does not reach the stage of specific impact assessments, rendering future projections frustratingly uncertain and unsuitable for complex decision-making. Alternatively, this study inverts the common approach by beginning with the threatened water system and proceeding backwards to the uncertain climate future. The methodology is built upon reservoir system response modeling to exhaustive time series of climate-driven net basin supply. A reservoir operations model, developed with SRP guidance, assesses cumulative response to inflow variability and change. Complete statistical analyses of long-term historical watershed climate and runoff data are employed for 10,000-year stochastic simulations, rendering the entire range of multi-year extremes with full probabilistic characterization. Sets of climate change projections are then translated by temperature sensitivity and precipitation elasticity into future inflow distributions that are comparatively assessed with the reservoir operations model. This approach provides specific risk assessments in pragmatic terms familiar to decision makers, interpretable within the context of long-range planning and revealing a clearer meaning of climate change projections for the region. As a transferable example achieving actionable findings, the approach can guide other communities confronting water resource planning challenges.

"No future without a past" or "History will teach us nothing"?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeebe, R. E.

2012-12-01

.In 1947, Harold Clayton Urey published a landmark paper on the thermodynamic properties of isotopic substances. With his work, Urey paved the way for the reconstruction of paleotemperatures based on small differences in the distribution of stable isotopes in compounds such as sedimentary calcium carbonate. Cesare Emiliani (a student of Urey) followed in Urey's footsteps and in 1955 provided temperature reconstructions over several glacial cycles based on stable isotopes - as Urey had proposed. Emiliani is today considered the father of Paleoceanography. Over the past 60 years, the field has grown immensely and has provided unique and fundamental knowledge about the functioning of the Earth system and Earth's climatic history. In this presentation, I will explain why studying the climate of the past is fun and important. I will make the case that studying past climate events is indispensable to predicting future climate change resulting from human activities ("No future without a past"). If mankind continues on the current path of carbon emissions, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will reach levels probably unprecedented during the past 30 million years. The rate of anthropogenic carbon input is likely unprecedented during the past 56 million years. Recent evidence from paleoclimate archives reveals dramatic and long-lived consequences for Earth's climate and environment following large and rapid carbon release into the ocean-atmosphere system. While the evidence for the close link between rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and past climate change is unequivocal, such lessons from the past seem to be largely ignored at the moment ("History will teach us nothing"?). Currently, there is no indication that mankind will start reducing carbon emissions any time soon. In 1973, Emiliani warned: "If the present climatic balance is not maintained, we may soon be confronted with either a runaway glaciation or runaway deglaciation." The past forty years of climate research have shown that the latter scenario is overwhelmingly more likely.

Data near processing support for climate data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kindermann, Stephan; Ehbrecht, Carsten; Hempelmann, Nils

2016-04-01

Climate data repositories grow in size exponentially. Scalable data near processing capabilities are required to meet future data analysis requirements and to replace current "data download and process at home" workflows and approaches. On one hand side, these processing capabilities should be accessible via standardized interfaces (e.g. OGC WPS), on the other side a large variety of processing tools, toolboxes and deployment alternatives have to be supported and maintained at the data/processing center. We present a community approach of a modular and flexible system supporting the development, deployment and maintenace of OGC-WPS based web processing services. This approach is organized in an open source github project (called "bird-house") supporting individual processing services ("birds", e.g. climate index calculations, model data ensemble calculations), which rely on basic common infrastructural components (e.g. installation and deployment recipes, analysis code dependencies management). To support easy deployment at data centers as well as home institutes (e.g. for testing and development) the system supports the management of the often very complex package dependency chain of climate data analysis packages as well as docker based packaging and installation. We present a concrete deployment scenario at the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ). The DKRZ one hand side hosts a multi-petabyte climate archive which is integrated e.g. into the european ENES and worldwide ESGF data infrastructure, and on the other hand hosts an HPC center supporting (model) data production and data analysis. The deployment scenario also includes openstack based data cloud services to support data import and data distribution for bird-house based WPS web processing services. Current challenges for inter-institutionnal deployments of web processing services supporting the european and international climate modeling community as well as the climate impact community are highlighted. Also aspects supporting future WPS based cross community usage scenarios supporting data reuse and data provenance aspects are reflected.

Check-Up of Planet Earth at the Turn of the Millennium: Anticipated New Phase in Earth Sciences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kaufman, Y. J.; Ramanathan, V.

1998-01-01

Langley's remarkable solar and lunar spectra collected from Mt. Whitney inspired Arrhenius to develop the first quantitative climate model in 1896. In 1999, NASA's Earth Observing AM Satellite (EOS-AM) will repeat Langley's experiment, but for the entire planet, thus pioneering calibrated spectral observations from space. Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-AM, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, will fill a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution of few kilometers on the physical, chemical and biological elements of the earth system. Thus, like Langley's data, EOS-AM can revolutionize climate research by inspiring a new generation of climate system models and enable us to assess the human impact on the environment.

Improving Seasonal Climate Predictability in the Colorado River Basin for Enhanced Decision Support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajagopal, S.; Mahmoud, M. I.

2016-12-01

The water resource management community is increasingly seeking skillful seasonal climate forecasts with long lead times. But predicting wet or dry climate with sufficient lead time (3 months) for a season (especially winter) in the Colorado River Basin (CRB) is a challenging problem. The typical approach taken to predicting winter climate is based on using climate indices and climate models to predict precipitation or streamflow in the Colorado River Basin. In addition to this approach; which may have a long lead time, water supply forecasts are also generated based on current observations by the Colorado River Forecast Center. Recently, the effects of coupled atmospheric-ocean phenomena such as ENSO over North America, and atmospheric circulation patterns at the 500 mb pressure level, which make the CRB wet or dry, have been studied separately. In the current work we test whether combining climate indices and circulation patterns improve predictability in the CRB. To accomplish this, the atmospheric circulation data from the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and climate indices data from the Climate Prediction Center were combined using logical functions. To quantify the skill in prediction, statistics such as the hit ratio and false alarm ratio were computed. The results from using a combination of climate indices and atmospheric circulation patterns suggest that there is an improvement in the prediction skill with hit ratios higher than 0.8, as compared to using either predictor individually (which typically produced a hit ratio of 0.6). Based on this result, there is value in using this hybrid approach when compared to a black box statistical model, as the climate index is an analog to the moisture availability and the right atmospheric circulation pattern helps in transporting that moisture to the Basin.

Systematic review of current efforts to quantify the impacts of climate change on undernutrition.

PubMed

Phalkey, Revati K; Aranda-Jan, Clara; Marx, Sabrina; Höfle, Bernhard; Sauerborn, Rainer

2015-08-18

Malnutrition is a challenge to the health and productivity of populations and is viewed as one of the five largest adverse health impacts of climate change. Nonetheless, systematic evidence quantifying these impacts is currently limited. Our aim was to assess the scientific evidence base for the impact of climate change on childhood undernutrition (particularly stunting) in subsistence farmers in low- and middle-income countries. A systematic review was conducted to identify peer-reviewed and gray full-text documents in English with no limits for year of publication or study design. Fifteen manuscripts were reviewed. Few studies use primary data to investigate the proportion of stunting that can be attributed to climate/weather variability. Although scattered and limited, current evidence suggests a significant but variable link between weather variables, e.g., rainfall, extreme weather events (floods/droughts), seasonality, and temperature, and childhood stunting at the household level (12 of 15 studies, 80%). In addition, we note that agricultural, socioeconomic, and demographic factors at the household and individual levels also play substantial roles in mediating the nutritional impacts. Comparable interdisciplinary studies based on primary data at a household level are urgently required to guide effective adaptation, particularly for rural subsistence farmers. Systemization of data collection at the global level is indispensable and urgent. We need to assimilate data from long-term, high-quality agricultural, environmental, socioeconomic, health, and demographic surveillance systems and develop robust statistical methods to establish and validate causal links, quantify impacts, and make reliable predictions that can guide evidence-based health interventions in the future.

Systematic review of current efforts to quantify the impacts of climate change on undernutrition

PubMed Central

Phalkey, Revati K.; Aranda-Jan, Clara; Marx, Sabrina; Höfle, Bernhard; Sauerborn, Rainer

2015-01-01

Malnutrition is a challenge to the health and productivity of populations and is viewed as one of the five largest adverse health impacts of climate change. Nonetheless, systematic evidence quantifying these impacts is currently limited. Our aim was to assess the scientific evidence base for the impact of climate change on childhood undernutrition (particularly stunting) in subsistence farmers in low- and middle-income countries. A systematic review was conducted to identify peer-reviewed and gray full-text documents in English with no limits for year of publication or study design. Fifteen manuscripts were reviewed. Few studies use primary data to investigate the proportion of stunting that can be attributed to climate/weather variability. Although scattered and limited, current evidence suggests a significant but variable link between weather variables, e.g., rainfall, extreme weather events (floods/droughts), seasonality, and temperature, and childhood stunting at the household level (12 of 15 studies, 80%). In addition, we note that agricultural, socioeconomic, and demographic factors at the household and individual levels also play substantial roles in mediating the nutritional impacts. Comparable interdisciplinary studies based on primary data at a household level are urgently required to guide effective adaptation, particularly for rural subsistence farmers. Systemization of data collection at the global level is indispensable and urgent. We need to assimilate data from long-term, high-quality agricultural, environmental, socioeconomic, health, and demographic surveillance systems and develop robust statistical methods to establish and validate causal links, quantify impacts, and make reliable predictions that can guide evidence-based health interventions in the future. PMID:26216952

Living with a Star: New Opportunities in Sun-Climate Research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eddy, John Allen

2003-01-01

Enormous advances have been made in the last quarter century in all of these needed areas, covering the two essential halves of the Sun-Climate question: in what we know of solar variations and, equally important, in what we know of the climate system and of climatic changes. These research achievements allow us to examine all aspects of the question more directly and quantitatively than was ever possible before, and in the brighter light and more objective context of other known or suspected climate change mechanisms, including human-induced global greenhouse warming. Brief summaries of present status and current understanding are given below for nine facets of Sun-Climate science in which major progress has been made in recent years. At the same time it will be seen that in every instance, significant elements of uncertainty still remain, Some of the most important of these unanswered questions are considered later, in Section IV.

Transient simulations of historical climate change including interactive carbon emissions from land-use change.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matveev, A.; Matthews, H. D.

2009-04-01

Carbon fluxes from land conversion are among the most uncertain variables in our understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle, which limits our ability to estimate both the total human contribution to current climate forcing and the net effect of terrestrial biosphere changes on atmospheric CO2 increases. The current generation of coupled climate-carbon models have made significant progress in simulating the coupled climate and carbon cycle response to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, but do not typically include land-use change as a dynamic component of the simulation. In this work we have incorporated a book-keeping land-use carbon accounting model into the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model (UVic ESCM), and intermediate-complexity coupled climate-carbon model. The terrestrial component of the UVic ESCM allows an aerial competition of five plant functional types (PFTs) in response to climatic conditions and area availability, and tracks the associated changes in affected carbon pools. In order to model CO2 emissions from land conversion in the terrestrial component of the model, we calculate the allocation of carbon to short and long-lived wood products following specified land-cover change, and use varying decay timescales to estimate CO2 emissions. We use recently available spatial datasets of both crop and pasture distributions to drive a series of transient simulations and estimate the net contribution of human land-use change to historical carbon emissions and climate change.

Attribution of the Regional Patterns of North American Climate Trends

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoerling, M.; Kumar, A.; Karoly, D.; Rind, D.; Hegerl, G.; Eischeid, J.

2007-12-01

North American trends in surface temperature and precipitation during 1951-2006 exhibit large spatial and seasonal variations. We seek to explain these by synthesizing new information based on existing model simulations of climate and its forcing, and based on modern reanalyses that describe past and current conditions within the free atmosphere. The presentation focuses on current capabilities to explain the spatial variations and seasonal differences in North American climate trends. It will address whether various heterogeneities in space and time can be accounted for by the climate system's sensitivity to time evolving anthropogenic forcing, and examines the influences of non-anthropogenic processes. New findings are presented that indicate anthropogenic forcing alone was unlikely the cause for key regional and seasonal patterns of change, including the absence of summertime warming over the Great Plains of the United States, and the absence of warming during both winter and summer over the southern United States. Key regional features are instead attributed to trends in the principal patterns of atmospheric flow that affect North American climate. It is demonstrated that observed variations in global sea surface temperatures have significantly influenced these patterns of atmospheric flow.

Assessing the spatial impact of climate on wheat productivity and the potential value of climate forecasts at a regional level

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Enli; Xu, J.; Jiang, Q.; Austin, J.

2009-03-01

Quantification of the spatial impact of climate on crop productivity and the potential value of seasonal climate forecasts can effectively assist the strategic planning of crop layout and help to understand to what extent climate risk can be managed through responsive management strategies at a regional level. A simulation study was carried out to assess the climate impact on the performance of a dryland wheat-fallow system and the potential value of seasonal climate forecasts in nitrogen management in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) of Australia. Daily climate data (1889-2002) from 57 stations were used with the agricultural systems simulator (APSIM) to simulate wheat productivity and nitrogen requirement as affected by climate. On a good soil, simulated grain yield ranged from <2 t/ha in west inland to >7 t/ha in the east border regions. Optimal nitrogen rates ranged from <60 kgN/ha/yr to >200 kgN/ha/yr. Simulated gross margin was in the range of -20/ha to 700/ha, increasing eastwards. Wheat yield was closely related to rainfall in the growing season and the stored soil moisture at sowing time. The impact of stored soil moisture increased from southwest to northeast. Simulated annual deep drainage ranged from zero in western inland to >200 mm in the east. Nitrogen management, optimised based on ‘perfect’ knowledge of daily weather in the coming season, could add value of 26˜79/ha compared to management optimised based on historical climate, with the maximum occurring in central to western part of MDB. It would also reduce the nitrogen application by 5˜25 kgN/ha in the main cropping areas. Comparison of simulation results with the current land use mapping in MDB revealed that the western boundary of the current cropping zone approximated the isolines of 160 mm of growing season rainfall, 2.5t/ha of wheat grain yield, and 150/ha of gross margin in QLD and NSW. In VIC and SA, the 160-mm isohyets corresponded relatively lower simulated yield due to less stored soil water. Impacts of other factors like soil types were also discussed.

Assessing slope dynamics in a climate-sensitive high arctic region with Sentinel-1 dataset

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mantovani, Matteo; Pasuto, Alessandro; Soldati, Mauro; Popovic, Radmil; Berthling, Ivar

2017-04-01

As witnessed by an increasing number of studies, the evidence of ongoing climate change and its geomorphological effects is unquestionable. In the Svalbard archipelago, the Arctic amplification of global warming trends currently has a significant effect on permafrost temperatures and active layer thickness. Combined with altered intensity and variability of precipitation, slopes are likely to become more active in terms of both rapid and slow (creep) processes - at least as a temporary effect where the ice-rich transient layer of soils or jointed permafrost rock walls are starting to thaw. The slopes of the Kongsfjorden area aroundNy-Ålesund, NW Spitzbergen comprise a variable set of slopes systems on which to evaluate current modifications of slope sediment transfer; from low-angle fined-grained vegetated slopes to steep rock walls, talus slopes and rock glaciers. In addition, systems influenced by currently retreating glaciers and thermokarst processes are also found, in some settings interfering with the rock wall and talus slope systems. Within the framework of the SLOPES project, we provide baseline data on slope geometry from detailed terrestrial laser scanning and drone aerial image acquisition. Further, in order to document current dynamics, we employ interferometric analysis of data gathered by the new ESA mission SENTINEL. This presentation will report on data from the interferometric analysis.

Motivated recall in the service of the economic system: The case of anthropogenic climate change.

PubMed

Hennes, Erin P; Ruisch, Benjamin C; Feygina, Irina; Monteiro, Christopher A; Jost, John T

2016-06-01

The contemporary political landscape is characterized by numerous divisive issues. Unlike many other issues, however, much of the disagreement about climate change centers not on how best to take action to address the problem, but on whether the problem exists at all. Psychological studies indicate that, to the extent that sustainability initiatives are seen as threatening to the socioeconomic system, individuals may downplay environmental problems in order to defend and protect the status quo. In the current research, participants were presented with scientific information about climate change and later asked to recall details of what they had learned. Individuals who were experimentally induced (Study 1) or dispositionally inclined (Studies 2 and 3) to justify the economic system misremembered the evidence to be less serious, and this was associated with increased skepticism. However, when high system justifiers were led to believe that the economy was in a recovery, they recalled climate change information to be more serious than did those assigned to a control condition. When low system justifiers were led to believe that the economy was in recession, they recalled the information to be less serious (Study 3). These findings suggest that because system justification can impact information processing, simply providing the public with scientific evidence may be insufficient to inspire action to mitigate climate change. However, linking environmental information to statements about the strength of the economic system may satiate system justification needs and break the psychological link between proenvironmental initiatives and economic risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Infectious Diseases, Urbanization and Climate Change: Challenges in Future China

PubMed Central

Tong, Michael Xiaoliang; Hansen, Alana; Hanson-Easey, Scott; Cameron, Scott; Xiang, Jianjun; Liu, Qiyong; Sun, Yehuan; Weinstein, Philip; Han, Gil-Soo; Williams, Craig; Bi, Peng

2015-01-01

China is one of the largest countries in the world with nearly 20% of the world’s population. There have been significant improvements in economy, education and technology over the last three decades. Due to substantial investments from all levels of government, the public health system in China has been improved since the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. However, infectious diseases still remain a major population health issue and this may be exacerbated by rapid urbanization and unprecedented impacts of climate change. This commentary aims to explore China’s current capacity to manage infectious diseases which impair population health. It discusses the existing disease surveillance system and underscores the critical importance of strengthening the system. It also explores how the growing migrant population, dramatic changes in the natural landscape following rapid urbanization, and changing climatic conditions can contribute to the emergence and re-emergence of infectious disease. Continuing research on infectious diseases, urbanization and climate change may inform the country’s capacity to deal with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in the future. PMID:26371017

Test Plan for a Calibration Demonstration System for the Reflected Solar Instrument for the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thome, Kurtis; McCorkel, Joel; Hair, Jason; McAndrew, Brendan; Daw, Adrian; Jennings, Donald; Rabin, Douglas

2012-01-01

The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission addresses the need to observe high-accuracy, long-term climate change trends and to use decadal change observations as the most critical method to determine the accuracy of climate change. One of the major objectives of CLARREO is to advance the accuracy of SI traceable absolute calibration at infrared and reflected solar wavelengths. This advance is required to reach the on-orbit absolute accuracy required to allow climate change observations to survive data gaps while remaining sufficiently accurate to observe climate change to within the uncertainty of the limit of natural variability. While these capabilities exist at NIST in the laboratory, there is a need to demonstrate that it can move successfully from NIST to NASA and/or instrument vendor capabilities for future spaceborne instruments. The current work describes the test plan for the Solar, Lunar for Absolute Reflectance Imaging Spectroradiometer (SOLARIS) which is the calibration demonstration system (CDS) for the reflected solar portion of CLARREO. The goal of the CDS is to allow the testing and evaluation of calibration approaches , alternate design and/or implementation approaches and components for the CLARREO mission. SOLARIS also provides a test-bed for detector technologies, non-linearity determination and uncertainties, and application of future technology developments and suggested spacecraft instrument design modifications. The end result of efforts with the SOLARIS CDS will be an SI-traceable error budget for reflectance retrieval using solar irradiance as a reference and methods for laboratory-based, absolute calibration suitable for climate-quality data collections. The CLARREO mission addresses the need to observe high-accuracy, long-term climate change trends and advance the accuracy of SI traceable absolute calibration. The current work describes the test plan for the SOLARIS which is the calibration demonstration system for the reflected solar portion of CLARREO. SOLARIS provides a test-bed for detector technologies, non-linearity determination and uncertainties, and application of future technology developments and suggested spacecraft instrument design modifications. The end result will be an SI-traceable error budget for reflectance retrieval using solar irradiance as a reference and methods for laboratory-based, absolute calibration suitable for climate-quality data collections.

Humpback whale diets respond to variance in ocean climate and ecosystem conditions in the California Current.

PubMed

Fleming, Alyson H; Clark, Casey T; Calambokidis, John; Barlow, Jay

2016-03-01

Large, migratory predators are often cited as sentinel species for ecosystem processes and climate-related changes, but their utility as indicators is dependent upon an understanding of their response to environmental variability. Documentation of the links between climate variability, ecosystem change and predator dynamics is absent for most top predators. Identifying species that may be useful indicators and elucidating these mechanistic links provides insight into current ecological dynamics and may inform predictions of future ecosystem responses to climatic change. We examine humpback whale response to environmental variability through stable isotope analysis of diet over a dynamic 20-year period (1993-2012) in the California Current System (CCS). Humpback whale diets captured two major shifts in oceanographic and ecological conditions in the CCS. Isotopic signatures reflect a diet dominated by krill during periods characterized by positive phases of the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), cool sea surface temperature (SST), strong upwelling and high krill biomass. In contrast, humpback whale diets are dominated by schooling fish when the NPGO is negative, SST is warmer, seasonal upwelling is delayed and anchovy and sardine populations display increased biomass and range expansion. These findings demonstrate that humpback whales trophically respond to ecosystem shifts, and as a result, their foraging behavior is a synoptic indicator of oceanographic and ecological conditions across the CCS. Multi-decadal examination of these sentinel species thus provides insight into biological consequences of interannual climate fluctuations, fundamental to advancing ecosystem predictions related to global climate change. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Education for a Green and Resilient Economy: An Educator Framework for Teaching Climate and Energy Literacy for K-12 Teachers Across the Curriculum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Niepold, F., III; Ledley, T. S.; Lockwood, J.; Youngman, E.; Manning, C. L. B.; Sullivan, S. M.

2015-12-01

The U.S. is embarking on a major transition to a green and resilient economy, a monumental change requiring all sectors and segments of the population to pull together. Transforming our nation's economic, energy, and environmental systems to in this way will require a sustained level of expertise, innovation, and cooperative effort unseen since the 1940s to meet the challenges involved. Education can - and must - help people understand the true connections, the linkages and interdependencies, between the environment, our energy sources and the economy which underpin and form the very foundation of the concept of a green and resilient economy. To produce such a literate future workforce and citizenry, the United States will need to make major new investments in our educational systems. Teachers across the nation are helping to increase science-based understanding and awareness of current and future climate change, enhancing climate and energy literacy in K-12 classrooms, on college and university campuses. There has been tremendous progress to date, but there is still more work to be done. The new academic standards in mathematics and science (the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)) represent a sea change from the nation's previous sets of standards. Addressing these standards in the currently over 40 percent of the nation's classrooms that have adopted or adapted the NGSS will demand that we prepare new and current teachers, who can effectively address the interdisciplinary nature of climate change and societal responses. To address this opportunity and need a collaboration between NOAA, TERC and CIRES has been established to develop an Educator Framework for Teaching Climate and Energy Literacy for K-12 teachers across the curriculum based on the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. This collaboration is developing an effective way to frame the use of resources and practices to help teachers address the NGSS using the CLEAN (Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network, cleanet.org) and Climate.gov products and models to engage students as citizens of a low-carbon and climate-resilient future. The results of this collaboration will be discussed in the session.

On the stability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

PubMed

Hofmann, Matthias; Rahmstorf, Stefan

2009-12-08

One of the most important large-scale ocean current systems for Earth's climate is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Here we review its stability properties and present new model simulations to study the AMOC's hysteresis response to freshwater perturbations. We employ seven different versions of an Ocean General Circulation Model by using a highly accurate tracer advection scheme, which minimizes the problem of numerical diffusion. We find that a characteristic freshwater hysteresis also exists in the predominantly wind-driven, low-diffusion limit of the AMOC. However, the shape of the hysteresis changes, indicating that a convective instability rather than the advective Stommel feedback plays a dominant role. We show that model errors in the mean climate can make the hysteresis disappear, and we investigate how model innovations over the past two decades, like new parameterizations and mixing schemes, affect the AMOC stability. Finally, we discuss evidence that current climate models systematically overestimate the stability of the AMOC.

Climate Signals: An On-Line Digital Platform for Mapping Climate Change Impacts in Real Time

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cutting, H.

2016-12-01

Climate Signals is an on-line digital platform for cataloging and mapping the impacts of climate change. The CS platform specifies and details the chains of connections between greenhouse gas emissions and individual climate events. Currently in open-beta release, the platform is designed to to engage and serve the general public, news media, and policy-makers, particularly in real-time during extreme climate events. Climate Signals consists of a curated relational database of events and their links to climate change, a mapping engine, and a gallery of climate change monitors offering real-time data. For each event in the database, an infographic engine provides a custom attribution "tree" that illustrates the connections to climate change. In addition, links to key contextual resources are aggregated and curated for each event. All event records are fully annotated with detailed source citations and corresponding hyper links. The system of attribution used to link events to climate change in real-time is detailed here. This open-beta release is offered for public user testing and engagement. Launched in May 2016, the operation of this platform offers lessons for public engagement in climate change impacts.

Implementation of Malaria Dynamic Models in Municipality Level Early Warning Systems in Colombia. Part I: Description of Study Sites

PubMed Central

Ruiz, Daniel; Cerón, Viviana; Molina, Adriana M.; Quiñónes, Martha L.; Jiménez, Mónica M.; Ahumada, Martha; Gutiérrez, Patricia; Osorio, Salua; Mantilla, Gilma; Connor, Stephen J.; Thomson, Madeleine C.

2014-01-01

As part of the Integrated National Adaptation Pilot project and the Integrated Surveillance and Control System, the Colombian National Institute of Health is working on the design and implementation of a Malaria Early Warning System framework, supported by seasonal climate forecasting capabilities, weather and environmental monitoring, and malaria statistical and dynamic models. In this report, we provide an overview of the local ecoepidemiologic settings where four malaria process-based mathematical models are currently being implemented at a municipal level. The description includes general characteristics, malaria situation (predominant type of infection, malaria-positive cases data, malaria incidence, and seasonality), entomologic conditions (primary and secondary vectors, mosquito densities, and feeding frequencies), climatic conditions (climatology and long-term trends), key drivers of epidemic outbreaks, and non-climatic factors (populations at risk, control campaigns, and socioeconomic conditions). Selected pilot sites exhibit different ecoepidemiologic settings that must be taken into account in the development of the integrated surveillance and control system. PMID:24891460

The IS-ENES climate4impact portal: bridging the CMIP5 and CORDEX data to impact users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Som de Cerff, Wim; Plieger, Maarten; Page, Christian; Tatarinova, Natalia; Hutjes, Ronald; de Jong, Fokke; Bärring, Lars; Sjökvist, Elin; Vega Saldarriaga, Manuel; Santiago Cofiño Gonzalez, Antonio

2015-04-01

The aim of climate4impact (climate4impact.eu) is to enhance the use of Climate Research Data and to enhance the interaction with climate effect/impact communities. The portal is based on 17 impact use cases from 5 different European countries, and is evaluated by a user panel consisting of use case owners. It has been developed within the IS-ENES European project and is currently operated and further developed in the IS ENES2 project. As the climate impact community is very broad, the focus is mainly on the scientific impact community. Climate4impact is connected to the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) nodes containing global climate model data (GCM data) from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and regional climate model data (RCM) data from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). This global network of climate model data centers offers services for data description, discovery and download. The climate4impact portal connects to these services using OpenID, and offers a user interface for searching, visualizing and downloading global climate model data and more. A challenging task is to describe the available model data and how it can be used. The portal informs users about possible caveats when using climate model data. All impact use cases are described in the documentation section, using highlighted keywords pointing to detailed information in the glossary. Climate4impact currently has two main objectives. The first one is to work on a web interface which automatically generates a graphical user interface on WPS endpoints. The WPS calculates climate indices and subset data using OpenClimateGIS/icclim on data stored in ESGF data nodes. Data is then transmitted from ESGF nodes over secured OpenDAP and becomes available in a new, per user, secured OpenDAP server. The results can then be visualized again using ADAGUC WMS. Dedicated wizards for processing of climate indices will be developed in close collaboration with users. The second one is to expose climate4impact services, so as to offer standardized services which can be used by other portals (like the future Copernicus platform, developed in the EU FP7 CLIPC project). This has the advantage to add interoperability between several portals, as well as to enable the design of specific portals aimed at different impact communities, either thematic or national. In the presentation the following subjects will be detailed: - Lessons learned developing climate4impact.eu - Download: Directly from ESGF nodes and other THREDDS catalogs - Connection with the downscaling portal of the university of Cantabria - Experiences on the question and answer site via Askbot - Visualization: Visualize data from ESGF data nodes using ADAGUC Web Map Services. - Processing: Transform data, subset, export into other formats, and perform climate indices calculations using Web Processing Services implemented by PyWPS, based on NCAR NCPP OpenClimateGIS and IS-ENES2 icclim. - Security: Login using OpenID for access to the ESGF data nodes. The ESGF works in conjunction with several external websites and systems. The climate4impact portal uses X509 based short lived credentials, generated on behalf of the user with a MyProxy service. Single Sign-on (SSO) is used to make these websites and systems work together. - Discovery: Facetted search based on e.g. variable name, model and institute using the ESGF search services. A catalog browser allows for browsing through CMIP5 and any other climate model data catalogues (e.g. ESSENCE, EOBS, UNIDATA).

Upgrades, Current Capabilities and Near-Term Plans of the NASA ARC Mars Climate

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hollingsworth, J. L.; Kahre, Melinda April; Haberle, Robert M.; Schaeffer, James R.

2012-01-01

We describe and review recent upgrades to the ARC Mars climate modeling framework, in particular, with regards to physical parameterizations (i.e., testing, implementation, modularization and documentation); the current climate modeling capabilities; selected research topics regarding current/past climates; and then, our near-term plans related to the NASA ARC Mars general circulation modeling (GCM) project.

Institutional Governance Framework for Determining Carbon-related Accounting Practices: An Exploratory Study of Electricity Generating Companies in Malaysia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alrazi, B.; Mat Husin, N.

2016-03-01

Electricity industry is the major contributor of the global carbon emissions which has been scientifically identified as the main cause of climate change. With the various initiatives being implemented at the international, national, and industry levels, companies in the electricity industry are currently facing immense pressure from various stakeholders to demonstrate their policies, initiatives, targets, and performance on climate change. Against this background, accounting system is argued to be able to be play important roles in combating climate change. Using institutional governance as the underlying framework, we have identified several governance mechanisms as the determining factors for companies to have a systematic accounting system related to carbon emissions. The factors include environmental management system certification, environmental organization, publication of stand-alone sustainability reports, the use of GRI guidelines, environmental strategic planning, governance quality, and participation in CDP surveys and emissions trading scheme. We explored this issue in the context of major electricity generating companies in Malaysia and found that except for certified environmental management system, the other governance mechanisms are still lacking. The findings suggest that companies in Malaysia, in particular, from the electricity industry are not well prepared in facing risks related to climate change.

Design and development of low pressure evaporator/condenser unit for water-based adsorption type climate control systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Venkataramanan, Arjun; Rios Perez, Carlos A.; Hidrovo, Carlos H.

2016-11-01

Electric vehicles (EVs) are the future of clean transportation and driving range is one of the important parameters which dictates its marketability. In order to increase driving range, electrical battery energy consumption should be minimized. Vapor-compression refrigeration systems currently employed in EVs for climate control consume a significant fraction of the battery charge. Thus, by replacing this traditional heating ventilation and air-conditioning system with an adsorption based climate control system one can have the capability of increasing the drive range of EVs.The Advanced Thermo-adsorptive Battery (ATB) for climate control is a water-based adsorption type refrigeration cycle. An essential component of the ATB is a low pressure evaporator/condenser unit (ECU) which facilitates both the evaporation and condensation processes. The thermal design of the ECU relies predominantly on the accurate prediction of evaporation/boiling heat transfer coefficients since the standard correlations for predicting boiling heat transfer coefficients have large uncertainty at the low operating pressures of the ATB. This work describes the design and development of a low pressure ECU as well as the thermal performance of the actual ECU prototype.

Educational process in modern climatology within the web-GIS platform "Climate"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gordova, Yulia; Gorbatenko, Valentina; Gordov, Evgeny; Martynova, Yulia; Okladnikov, Igor; Titov, Alexander; Shulgina, Tamara

2013-04-01

These days, common to all scientific fields the problem of training of scientists in the environmental sciences is exacerbated by the need to develop new computational and information technology skills in distributed multi-disciplinary teams. To address this and other pressing problems of Earth system sciences, software infrastructure for information support of integrated research in the geosciences was created based on modern information and computational technologies and a software and hardware platform "Climate» (http://climate.scert.ru/) was developed. In addition to the direct analysis of geophysical data archives, the platform is aimed at teaching the basics of the study of changes in regional climate. The educational component of the platform includes a series of lectures on climate, environmental and meteorological modeling and laboratory work cycles on the basics of analysis of current and potential future regional climate change using Siberia territory as an example. The educational process within the Platform is implemented using the distance learning system Moodle (www.moodle.org). This work is partially supported by the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation (contract #8345), SB RAS project VIII.80.2.1, RFBR grant #11-05-01190a, and integrated project SB RAS #131.

Knowledge Discovery from Climate Data using Graph-Based Methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Steinhaeuser, K.

2012-04-01

Climate and Earth sciences have recently experienced a rapid transformation from a historically data-poor to a data-rich environment, thus bringing them into the realm of the Fourth Paradigm of scientific discovery - a term coined by the late Jim Gray (Hey et al. 2009), the other three being theory, experimentation and computer simulation. In particular, climate-related observations from remote sensors on satellites and weather radars, in situ sensors and sensor networks, as well as outputs of climate or Earth system models from large-scale simulations, provide terabytes of spatio-temporal data. These massive and information-rich datasets offer a significant opportunity for advancing climate science and our understanding of the global climate system, yet current analysis techniques are not able to fully realize their potential benefits. We describe a class of computational approaches, specifically from the data mining and machine learning domains, which may be novel to the climate science domain and can assist in the analysis process. Computer scientists have developed spatial and spatio-temporal analysis techniques for a number of years now, and many of them may be applicable and/or adaptable to problems in climate science. We describe a large-scale, NSF-funded project aimed at addressing climate science question using computational analysis methods; team members include computer scientists, statisticians, and climate scientists from various backgrounds. One of the major thrusts is in the development of graph-based methods, and several illustrative examples of recent work in this area will be presented.

Modeling soil organic carbon stocks and changes in Spain using the GEFSOC system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Álvaro-Fuentes, Jorge; Easter, Mark; Cantero-Martínez, Carlos; Paustian, Keith

2010-05-01

Currently, there is little information about soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in Spain. To date the effects of land-use and soil management on SOC stocks in Spain have been evaluated in experimental fields under certain soil and climate conditions. However, these field experiments do not account for the spatial variability in management, cropping systems and soil and climate characteristics that exist in the whole territory. More realistic approaches like ecosystem-level dynamic simulation systems linked to geographic information systems (GIS) allow better assessments of SOC stocks at a regional or national level. The Global Environmental Facility Soil Organic Carbon (GEFSOC) system was recently built for this purpose (Milne et al., 2007) and it incorporates three widely used models for estimating SOC dynamics: (a) the Century ecosystem model; (b) the RothC soil C decomposition model; and (c) the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) method for assessing soil C at regional scales. We modeled 9.5 Mha in northeast Spain using the GEFSOC system to predict SOC stocks and changes comprising: pasture, forest, cereal-fallow, cereal monoculture, orchards, rice, irrigated land and grapes and olives. The spatial distribution of the different land use categories and their change over time was obtained from the European Corine database and from Spanish census data on land use from 1926 to 2007. At the same time, current and historical management information was collected from different sources in order to have a fairly well picture of changes in land use and management for this area. Soil parameters needed by the system were obtained from the European soil map (1 km x 1 km) and climate data was produced by the Meteorology State Agency (Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Environs of Spain). The SOC stocks simulated were validated with SOC values from the European SOC map and from other national studies. Modeled SOC results suggested that spatial-based approaches are crucial for quantify SOC stocks and changes in Spain.

The impact of changing climate conditions on the hydrological behavior of several Mediterranean sub-catchments in Crete

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eirini Vozinaki, Anthi; Tapoglou, Evdokia; Tsanis, Ioannis

2017-04-01

Climate change, although is already happening, consists of a big threat capable of causing lots of inconveniences in future societies and their economies. In this work, the climate change impact on the hydrological behavior of several Mediterranean sub-catchments, in Crete, is presented. The sensitivity of these hydrological systems to several climate change scenarios is also provided. The HBV hydrological model has been used, calibrated and validated for the study sub-catchments against measured weather and streamflow data and inputs. The impact of climate change on several hydro-meteorological parameters (i.e. precipitation, streamflow etc.) and hydrological signatures (i.e. spring flood peak, length and volume, base flow, flow duration curves, seasonality etc.) have been statistically elaborated and analyzed, defining areas of increased probability risk associated additionally to flooding or drought. The potential impacts of climate change on current and future water resources have been quantified by driving HBV model with current and future scenarios, respectively, for specific climate periods. This work aims to present an integrated methodology for the definition of future climate and hydrological risks and the prediction of future water resources behavior. Future water resources management could be rationally effectuated, in Mediterranean sub-catchments prone to drought or flooding, using the proposed methodology. The research reported in this paper was fully supported by the Project "Innovative solutions to climate change adaptation and governance in the water management of the Region of Crete - AQUAMAN" funded within the framework of the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014.

Decadal climate prediction (project GCEP).

PubMed

Haines, Keith; Hermanson, Leon; Liu, Chunlei; Putt, Debbie; Sutton, Rowan; Iwi, Alan; Smith, Doug

2009-03-13

Decadal prediction uses climate models forced by changing greenhouse gases, as in the International Panel for Climate Change, but unlike longer range predictions they also require initialization with observations of the current climate. In particular, the upper-ocean heat content and circulation have a critical influence. Decadal prediction is still in its infancy and there is an urgent need to understand the important processes that determine predictability on these timescales. We have taken the first Hadley Centre Decadal Prediction System (DePreSys) and implemented it on several NERC institute compute clusters in order to study a wider range of initial condition impacts on decadal forecasting, eventually including the state of the land and cryosphere. The eScience methods are used to manage submission and output from the many ensemble model runs required to assess predictive skill. Early results suggest initial condition skill may extend for several years, even over land areas, but this depends sensitively on the definition used to measure skill, and alternatives are presented. The Grid for Coupled Ensemble Prediction (GCEP) system will allow the UK academic community to contribute to international experiments being planned to explore decadal climate predictability.

Evaluation of Projected Agricultural Climate Risk over the Contiguous US

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, X.; Troy, T. J.; Devineni, N.

2017-12-01

Food demands are rising due to an increasing population with changing food preferences, which places pressure on agricultural production. Additionally, climate extremes have recently highlighted the vulnerability of our agricultural system to climate variability. This study seeks to fill two important gaps in current knowledge: how does the widespread response of irrigated crops differ from rainfed and how can we best account for uncertainty in yield responses. We developed a stochastic approach to evaluate climate risk quantitatively to better understand the historical impacts of climate change and estimate the future impacts it may bring about to agricultural system. Our model consists of Bayesian regression, distribution fitting, and Monte Carlo simulation to simulate rainfed and irrigated crop yields at the US county level. The model was fit using historical data for 1970-2010 and was then applied over different climate regions in the contiguous US using the CMIP5 climate projections. The relative importance of many major growing season climate indices, such as consecutive dry days without rainfall or heavy precipitation, was evaluated to determine what climate indices play a role in affecting future crop yields. The statistical modeling framework also evaluated the impact of irrigation by using county-level irrigated and rainfed yields separately. Furthermore, the projected years with negative yield anomalies were specifically evaluated in terms of magnitude, trend and potential climate drivers. This framework provides estimates of the agricultural climate risk for the 21st century that account for the full uncertainty of climate occurrences, range of crop response, and spatial correlation in climate. The results of this study can contribute to decision making about crop choice and water use in an uncertain future climate.

Long-term dynamics of a floodplain shallow lake in the Pantanal wetland: Is it all about climate?

PubMed

Silio-Calzada, Ana; Barquín, José; Huszar, Vera L M; Mazzeo, Nestor; Méndez, Fernando; Álvarez-Martínez, Jose Manuel

2017-12-15

Hydrological variability over seasonal and multi-annual timescales strongly shapes the ecological structure and functioning of floodplain ecosystems. The current IPCC climate scenario foresees an increase in the frequency of extreme events. This, in conjunction with other anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., river regulation or land-use changes) poses a serious threat to the natural functioning of these ecosystems. In this study we aimed to i) evaluate the long-term variability of the flooded area of the third largest floodplain lake in the Brazilian Pantanal using remote sensing techniques, and ii) analyze the possible factors influencing this variability. Changes in open-water and riparian floodplain-wetland vegetation areas were mapped by applying an ad hoc-developed remote-sensing method (including a newly developed normalized water index, NWI) to 221 Landsat-Thematic Mapper (TM)/Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) images, acquired between 1984 and 2011. Added to the lake's natural swing between riparian floodplain-wetland vegetation expansion and retraction, our analyses revealed large interannual changes, grouped into three main periods within the studied time interval. Moreover, our results indicate that this floodplain-lake system is losing open-water area, paired with an increase in riparian floodplain-wetland vegetation. The system's long-term dynamics are not all climate related, but are the result of a combination of drivers. The start of the Manso dam's operation upstream of the studied system, and the subsequent river regulation because of the dam operation, coupled with climatic oscillation appear to be responsible for the observed changes. However, other factors which were not considered in this study might also be important in this process and contributing to the reduction of the system's resilience to droughts (e.g., land-use changes). This study illustrates the serious conservation risks that the Pantanal faces in the near future, given the current climate-change scenario and the accumulation of dam building projects in this region. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

When should irrigators invest in more water-efficient technologies as an adaptation to climate change?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malek, K.; Adam, J. C.; Stockle, C.; Brady, M.; Yoder, J.

2015-12-01

The western US is expected to experience more frequent droughts with higher magnitudes and persistence due to the climate change, with potentially large impacts on agricultural productivity and the economy. Irrigated farmers have many options for minimizing drought impacts including changing crops, engaging in water markets, and switching irrigation technologies. Switching to more efficient irrigation technologies, which increase water availability in the crop root zone through reduction of irrigation losses, receives significant attention because of the promise of maintaining current production with less. However, more efficient irrigation systems are almost always more capital-intensive adaptation strategy particularly compared to changing crops or trading water. A farmer's decision to switch will depend on how much money they project to save from reducing drought damages. The objective of this study is to explore when (and under what climate change scenarios) it makes sense economically for farmers to invest in a new irrigation system. This study was performed over the Yakima River Basin (YRB) in Washington State, although the tools and information gained from this study are transferable to other watersheds in the western US. We used VIC-CropSyst, a large-scale grid-based modeling framework that simulates hydrological processes while mechanistically capturing crop water use, growth and development. The water flows simulated by VIC-CropSyst were used to run the RiverWare river system and water management model (YAK-RW), which simulates river processes and calculates regional water availability for agricultural use each day (i.e., the prorationing ratio). An automated computational platform has been developed and programed to perform the economic analysis for each grid cell, crop types and future climate projections separately, which allows us to explore whether or not implementing a new irrigation system is economically viable. Results of this study indicate that climate change could justify the investment in new irrigation systems during this century, but the timing of a farmer's response is likely to depend on a variety of factors, including changes in the frequency and magnitude of drought events, current irrigation systems, climatological characteristics within the basin, and crop type.

Past, present, and future design of urban drainage systems with focus on Danish experiences.

PubMed

Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K

2011-01-01

Climate change will influence the water cycle substantially, and extreme precipitation will become more frequent in many regions in the years to come. How should this fact be incorporated into design of urban drainage systems, if at all? And how important is climate change compared to other changes over time? Based on an analysis of the underlying key drivers of changes that are expected to affect urban drainage systems the current problems and their predicted development over time are presented. One key issue is management of risk and uncertainties and therefore a framework for design and analysis of urban structures in light of present and future uncertainties is presented.

Is the future already here? The impact of climate change on the distribution of the eastern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius).

PubMed

Archis, Jennifer N; Akcali, Christopher; Stuart, Bryan L; Kikuchi, David; Chunco, Amanda J

2018-01-01

Anthropogenic climate change is a significant global driver of species distribution change. Although many species have undergone range expansion at their poleward limits, data on several taxonomic groups are still lacking. A common method for studying range shifts is using species distribution models to evaluate current, and predict future, distributions. Notably, many sources of 'current' climate data used in species distribution modeling use the years 1950-2000 to calculate climatic averages. However, this does not account for recent (post 2000) climate change. This study examines the influence of climate change on the eastern coral snake ( Micrurus fulvius ). Specifically, we: (1) identified the current range and suitable environment of M. fulvius in the Southeastern United States, (2) investigated the potential impacts of climate change on the distribution of M. fulvius , and (3) evaluated the utility of future models in predicting recent (2001-2015) records. We used the species distribution modeling program Maxent and compared both current (1950-2000) and future (2050) climate conditions. Future climate models showed a shift in the distribution of suitable habitat across a significant portion of the range; however, results also suggest that much of the Southeastern United States will be outside the range of current conditions, suggesting that there may be no-analog environments in the future. Most strikingly, future models were more effective than the current models at predicting recent records, suggesting that range shifts may already be occurring. These results have implications for both M. fulvius and its Batesian mimics. More broadly, we recommend future Maxent studies consider using future climate data along with current data to better estimate the current distribution.

Sustainable water deliveries from the Colorado River in a changing climate

PubMed Central

Barnett, Tim P.; Pierce, David W.

2009-01-01

The Colorado River supplies water to 27 million users in 7 states and 2 countries and irrigates over 3 million acres of farmland. Global climate models almost unanimously project that human-induced climate change will reduce runoff in this region by 10–30%. This work explores whether currently scheduled future water deliveries from the Colorado River system are sustainable under different climate-change scenarios. If climate change reduces runoff by 10%, scheduled deliveries will be missed ≈58% of the time by 2050. If runoff reduces 20%, they will be missed ≈88% of the time. The mean shortfall when full deliveries cannot be met increases from ≈0.5–0.7 billion cubic meters per year (bcm/yr) in 2025 to ≈1.2–1.9 bcm/yr by 2050 out of a request of ≈17.3 bcm/yr. Such values are small enough to be manageable. The chance of a year with deliveries <14.5 bcm/yr increases to 21% by midcentury if runoff reduces 20%, but such low deliveries could be largely avoided by reducing scheduled deliveries. These results are computed by using estimates of Colorado River flow from the 20th century, which was unusually wet; if the river reverts to its long-term mean, shortfalls increase another 1–1.5 bcm/yr. With either climate-change or long-term mean flows, currently scheduled future water deliveries from the Colorado River are not sustainable. However, the ability of the system to mitigate droughts can be maintained if the various users of the river find a way to reduce average deliveries. PMID:19380718

Reconstruction of Holocene southern African continental climate using biomarkers from salt pan sediments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belz, Lukas; Schüller, Irka; Wehrmann, Achim; Wilkes, Heinz

2015-04-01

The climate system of southern Africa is strongly influenced by large scale atmospheric and marine circulation processes and, therefore, very sensitive to global climate change. Recent publications provided evidence for strong spatial and temporal climate variability in southern Africa over the Holocene. It is of major importance to understand the mechanisms driving the southern African climate system in order to estimate regional implications of current global change. However, proxy datasets from continental geoarchives especially of the semi-arid western Kalahari region are still scarce. A main problem is the absence of conventional continental climatic archives, due to the lack of lacustrine systems. In this study we are exploring the utility of sediments from western Kalahari salt pans, i.e. local depressions which are flooded temporarily during rainfall events. Besides the analyses of basic geochemical bulk parameters including TOC, δ13Corg, TIC, δ13Ccarb, δ18Ocarb, TN, δ15N, the paleo-climatic approach focuses on reconstruction of local vegetation assemblages to identify changes in the ecosystem. This is pursued using plant biomarkers, particularly leaf wax n-alkanes and n-alcohols and their stable carbon and hydrogen isotopic signatures. Preliminary results show prominent shifts in n-alkane distribution and δ13C values of the C33 homologue during late Pleistocene and early Holocene. These shifts correlate to changes of the TOC content. Our data indicate changes in carbon sources which possibly reflect major environmental changes.

The climate4impact portal: bridging the CMIP5 and CORDEX data infrastructure to impact users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plieger, Maarten; Som de Cerff, Wim; Pagé, Christian; Tatarinova, Natalia; Cofiño, Antonio; Vega Saldarriaga, Manuel; Hutjes, Ronald; de Jong, Fokke; Bärring, Lars; Sjökvist, Elin

2015-04-01

The aim of climate4impact is to enhance the use of Climate Research Data and to enhance the interaction with climate effect/impact communities. The portal is based on 21 impact use cases from 5 different European countries, and is evaluated by a user panel consisting of use case owners. It has been developed within the European projects IS-ENES and IS-ENES2 for more than 5 years, and its development currently continues within IS-ENES2 and CLIPC. As the climate impact community is very broad, the focus is mainly on the scientific impact community. This work has resulted in the ENES portal interface for climate impact communities and can be visited at www.climate4impact.eu. The climate4impact is connected to the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) nodes containing global climate model data (GCM data) from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and regional climate model data (RCM) data from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). This global network of climate model data centers offers services for data description, discovery and download. The climate4impact portal connects to these services using OpenID, and offers a user interface for searching, visualizing and downloading global climate model data and more. A challenging task was to describe the available model data and how it can be used. The portal tries to inform users about possible caveats when using climate model data. All impact use cases are described in the documentation section, using highlighted keywords pointing to detailed information in the glossary. During the project, the content management system Drupal was used to enable partners to contribute on the documentation section. In this presentation the architecture and following items will be detailed: - Visualization: Visualize data from ESGF data nodes using ADAGUC Web Map Services. - Processing: Transform data, subset, export into other formats, and perform climate indices calculations using Web Processing Services implemented by PyWPS, based on NCAR NCPP OpenClimateGIS and IS-ENES2 icclim. - Security: Login using OpenID for access to the ESGF data nodes. The ESGF works in conjunction with several external websites and systems. The climate4impact portal uses X509 based short lived credentials, generated on behalf of the user with a MyProxy service. Single Sign-on (SSO) is used to make these websites and systems work together. - Discovery: Facetted search based on e.g. variable name, model and institute using the ESGF search services. A catalog browser allows for browsing through CMIP5 and any other climate model data catalogues (e.g. ESSENCE, EOBS, UNIDATA). - Download: Directly from ESGF nodes and other THREDDS catalogs This architecture will also be used for the future Copernicus platform, developed in the EU FP7 CLIPC project. - Connection with the downscaling portal of the university of Cantabria - Experiences on the question and answer site via Askbot The current main objectives for climate4impact can be summarized in two objectives. The first one is to work on a web interface which automatically generates a graphical user interface on WPS endpoints. The WPS calculates climate indices and subset data using OpenClimateGIS/icclim on data stored in ESGF data nodes. Data is then transmitted from ESGF nodes over secured OpenDAP and becomes available in a new, per user, secured OpenDAP server. The results can then be visualized again using ADAGUC WMS. Dedicated wizards for processing of climate indices will be developed in close collaboration with users. The second one is to expose climate4impact services, so as to offer standardized services which can be used by other portals. This has the advantage to add interoperability between several portals, as well as to enable the design of specific portals aimed at different impact communities, either thematic or national, for example.

On inclusion of water resource management in Earth system models - Part 1: Problem definition and representation of water demand

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nazemi, A.; Wheater, H. S.

2015-01-01

Human activities have caused various changes to the Earth system, and hence the interconnections between human activities and the Earth system should be recognized and reflected in models that simulate Earth system processes. One key anthropogenic activity is water resource management, which determines the dynamics of human-water interactions in time and space and controls human livelihoods and economy, including energy and food production. There are immediate needs to include water resource management in Earth system models. First, the extent of human water requirements is increasing rapidly at the global scale and it is crucial to analyze the possible imbalance between water demands and supply under various scenarios of climate change and across various temporal and spatial scales. Second, recent observations show that human-water interactions, manifested through water resource management, can substantially alter the terrestrial water cycle, affect land-atmospheric feedbacks and may further interact with climate and contribute to sea-level change. Due to the importance of water resource management in determining the future of the global water and climate cycles, the World Climate Research Program's Global Energy and Water Exchanges project (WRCP-GEWEX) has recently identified gaps in describing human-water interactions as one of the grand challenges in Earth system modeling (GEWEX, 2012). Here, we divide water resource management into two interdependent elements, related firstly to water demand and secondly to water supply and allocation. In this paper, we survey the current literature on how various components of water demand have been included in large-scale models, in particular land surface and global hydrological models. Issues of water supply and allocation are addressed in a companion paper. The available algorithms to represent the dominant demands are classified based on the demand type, mode of simulation and underlying modeling assumptions. We discuss the pros and cons of available algorithms, address various sources of uncertainty and highlight limitations in current applications. We conclude that current capability of large-scale models to represent human water demands is rather limited, particularly with respect to future projections and coupled land-atmospheric simulations. To fill these gaps, the available models, algorithms and data for representing various water demands should be systematically tested, intercompared and improved. In particular, human water demands should be considered in conjunction with water supply and allocation, particularly in the face of water scarcity and unknown future climate.

Climate Services Information System Activities in Support of The Global Framework for Climate Services Implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Timofeyeva-Livezey, M. M.; Horsfall, F. M. C.; Pulwarty, R. S.; Klein-Tank, A.; Kolli, R. K.; Hechler, P.; Dilley, M.; Ceron, J. P.; Goodess, C.

2017-12-01

The WMO Commission on Climatology (CCl) supports the implementation of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) with a particular focus on the Climate Services Information System (CSIS), which is the core operational component of GFCS at the global, regional, and national level. CSIS is designed for producing, packaging and operationally delivering authoritative climate information data and products through appropriate operational systems, practices, data exchange, technical standards, authentication, communication, and product delivery. Its functions include climate analysis and monitoring, assessment and attribution, prediction (monthly, seasonal, decadal), and projection (centennial scale) as well as tailoring the associated products tUEAo suit user requirements. A central, enabling piece of implementation of CSIS is a Climate Services Toolkit (CST). In its development phase, CST exists as a prototype (www.wmo.int/cst) as a compilation of tools for generating tailored data and products for decision-making, with a special focus on national requirements in developing countries. WMO provides a server to house the CST prototype as well as support operations and maintenance. WMO members provide technical expertise and other in-kind support, including leadership of the CSIS development team. Several recent WMO events have helped with the deployment of CST within the eight countries that have been recognized by GFCS as illustrative for developing their climate services at national levels. Currently these countries are developing climate services projects focusing service development and delivery for selected economic sectors, such as for health, agriculture, energy, water resources, and hydrometeorological disaster risk reduction. These countries are working together with their respective WMO Regional Climate Centers (RCCs), which provide technical assistance with implementation of climate services projects at the country level and facilitate development of regional climate products, starting with the CST. The paper will introduce the CST prototype to the wider meteorological, hydrological, and climatological communities and provide details of its implementation in the context of the global framework.

Rising CO2, Climate Change, and Public Health: Exploring the Links to Plant Biology

PubMed Central

Ziska, Lewis H.; Epstein, Paul R.; Schlesinger, William H.

2009-01-01

Background Although the issue of anthropogenic climate forcing and public health is widely recognized, one fundamental aspect has remained underappreciated: the impact of climatic change on plant biology and the well-being of human systems. Objectives We aimed to critically evaluate the extant and probable links between plant function and human health, drawing on the pertinent literature. Discussion Here we provide a number of critical examples that range over various health concerns related to plant biology and climate change, including aerobiology, contact dermatitis, pharmacology, toxicology, and pesticide use. Conclusions There are a number of clear links among climate change, plant biology, and public health that remain underappreciated by both plant scientists and health care providers. We demonstrate the importance of such links in our understanding of climate change impacts and provide a list of key questions that will help to integrate plant biology into the current paradigm regarding climate change and human health. PMID:19270781

CO2 and CH4 exchanges between land ecosystems and the atmosphere in northern high latitudes over the 21st century

USGS Publications Warehouse

Zhuang, Q.; Melillo, J.M.; Sarofim, M.C.; Kicklighter, D.W.; McGuire, A.D.; Felzer, B.S.; Sokolov, A.; Prinn, R.G.; Steudler, P.A.; Hu, S.

2006-01-01

Terrestrial ecosystems of the northern high latitudes (above 50??N) exchange large amounts of CO2 and CH4 with the atmosphere each year. Here we use a process-based model to estimate the budget of CO 2 and CH4 of the region for current climate conditions and for future scenarios by considering effects of permafrost dynamics, CO 2 fertilization of photosynthesis and fire. We find that currently the region is a net source of carbon to the atmosphere at 276 Tg C yr -1. We project that throughout the 21st century, the region will most likely continue as a net source of carbon and the source will increase by up to 473 Tg C yr-1 by the end of the century compared to the current emissions. However our coupled carbon and climate model simulations show that these emissions will exert relatively small radiative forcing on global climate system compared to large amounts of anthropogenic emissions. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.

Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation on Southwestern DoD Facilities

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-03-03

integrating climate change risks into decision priorities. 15. SUBJECT TERMS adaptation, baseline sensitivity, climate change, climate exposure...four bases we found that integrating climate change risks into the current decision matrix, by linking projected risks to current or past impacts...data and decision tools and methods. Bases have some capacity to integrate climate-related information, but they have limited resources to undertake

Mineral dust transport and deposition to Antarctica: a climate model perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Albani, S.; Mahowald, N. M.; Maggi, V.; Delmonte, B.

2009-04-01

Windblown mineral dust is a useful proxy for paleoclimates. Its life cycle is determined by climate conditions in the source areas, and following the hydrological cycle, and the intensity and dynamics of the atmospheric circulation. In addition aeolian dust itself is an active component of the climate system, influencing the radiative balance of the atmosphere through its interaction with incoming solar radiation and outgoing planetary radiation. The mineral aerosols also have indirect effects on climate, and are linked to interactions with cloud microphysics and atmospheric chemistry as well as to dust's role of carrier of iron and other elements that constitute limitating nutrients for phytoplancton to remote ocean areas. We use climate model (CCSM) simulations that include a scheme for dust mobilization, transport and deposition in order to describe the evolution of dust deposition in some Antarctic ice cores sites where mineral dust records are available. Our focus is to determine the source apportionment for dust deposited to Antarctica under current and Last Glacial Maximum climate conditions, as well as to give an insight in the spatial features of transport patterns. The understanding of spatial and temporal representativeness of an ice core record is crucial to determine its value as a proxy of past climates and a necessary step in order to produce a global picture of how the dust component of the climate system has changed through time.

Characterization and Quantification of Uncertainty in the NARCCAP Regional Climate Model Ensemble and Application to Impacts on Water Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mearns, L. O.; Sain, S. R.; McGinnis, S. A.; Steinschneider, S.; Brown, C. M.

2015-12-01

In this talk we present the development of a joint Bayesian Probabilistic Model for the climate change results of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) that uses a unique prior in the model formulation. We use the climate change results (joint distribution of seasonal temperature and precipitation changes (future vs. current)) from the global climate models (GCMs) that provided boundary conditions for the six different regional climate models used in the program as informative priors for the bivariate Bayesian Model. The two variables involved are seasonal temperature and precipitation over sub-regions (i.e., Bukovsky Regions) of the full NARCCAP domain. The basic approach to the joint Bayesian hierarchical model follows the approach of Tebaldi and Sansó (2009). We compare model results using informative (i.e., GCM information) as well as uninformative priors. We apply these results to the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) model for the Colorado Springs Utility in Colorado. We investigate the layout of the joint pdfs in the context of the water model sensitivities to ranges of temperature and precipitation results to determine the likelihoods of future climate conditions that cannot be accommodated by possible adaptation options. Comparisons may also be made with joint pdfs formed from the CMIP5 collection of global climate models and empirically downscaled to the region of interest.

Analyzing the Response of Climate Perturbations to (Tropical) Cyclones using the WRF Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tewari, M.; Mittal, R.; Radhakrishnan, C.; Cipriani, J.; Watson, C.

2015-12-01

An analysis of global climate models shows considerable changes in the intensity and characteristics of future, warm climate cyclones. At regional scales, deviations in cyclone characteristics are often derived using idealized perturbations in the humidity, temperature and surface conditions. In this work, a more realistic approach is adopted by applying climate perturbations from the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) to ERA-interim data to generate the initial and boundary conditions for future climate simulations. The climate signal perturbations are generated from the differences in 21 years of mean data from CCSM4 with representative concentration pathways (RCP8.5) for the periods: (a) 2070-2090 (future climate), (b) 2025-2045 (near-future climate) and (c) 1985-2005 (current climate). Four individual cyclone cases are simulated with and without climate perturbations using the Weather Research and Forecasting model with a nested configuration. Each cyclone is characterized by variations in intensity, landfall location, precipitation and societal damage. To calculate societal damage, we use the recently introduced Cyclone Damage Potential (CDP) index evolved from the Willis Hurricane Index (WHI). As CDP has been developed for general societal applications, this work should provide useful insights for resilience analyses and industry (e.g., re-insurance).

Climate Change Detection and Attribution of Infrared Spectrum Measurements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Phojanamongkolkij, Nipa; Parker, Peter A.; Mlynczak, Martin G.

2012-01-01

Climate change occurs when the Earth's energy budget changes due to natural or possibly anthropogenic forcings. These forcings cause the climate system to adjust resulting in a new climate state that is warmer or cooler than the original. The key question is how to detect and attribute climate change. The inference of infrared spectral signatures of climate change has been discussed in the literature for nearly 30 years. Pioneering work in the 1980s noted that distinct spectral signatures would be evident in changes in the infrared radiance emitted by the Earth and its atmosphere, and that these could be observed from orbiting satellites. Since then, a number of other studies have advanced the concepts of spectral signatures of climate change. Today the concept of using spectral signatures to identify and attribute atmospheric composition change is firmly accepted and is the foundation of the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) satellite mission being developed at NASA. In this work, we will present an overview of the current climate change detection concept using climate model calculations as surrogates for climate change. Any future research work improving the methodology to achieve this concept will be valuable to our society.

The state of climate change adaptation in the Arctic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ford, James D.; McDowell, Graham; Jones, Julie

2014-10-01

The Arctic climate is rapidly changing, with wide ranging impacts on natural and social systems. A variety of adaptation policies, programs and practices have been adopted to this end, yet our understanding of if, how, and where adaptation is occurring is limited. In response, this paper develops a systematic approach to characterize the current state of adaptation in the Arctic. Using reported adaptations in the English language peer reviewed literature as our data source, we document 157 discrete adaptation initiatives between 2003 and 2013. Results indicate large variations in adaptation by region and sector, dominated by reporting from North America, particularly with regards to subsistence harvesting by Inuit communities. Few adaptations were documented in the European and Russian Arctic, or have a focus on the business and economy, or infrastructure sectors. Adaptations are being motivated primarily by the combination of climatic and non-climatic factors, have a strong emphasis on reducing current vulnerability involving incremental changes to existing risk management processes, and are primarily initiated and led at the individual/community level. There is limited evidence of trans-boundary adaptations or initiatives considering potential cross-scale/sector impacts.

On climate prediction: how much can we expect from climate memory?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuan, Naiming; Huang, Yan; Duan, Jianping; Zhu, Congwen; Xoplaki, Elena; Luterbacher, Jürg

2018-03-01

Slowing variability in climate system is an important source of climate predictability. However, it is still challenging for current dynamical models to fully capture the variability as well as its impacts on future climate. In this study, instead of simulating the internal multi-scale oscillations in dynamical models, we discussed the effects of internal variability in terms of climate memory. By decomposing climate state x(t) at a certain time point t into memory part M(t) and non-memory part ɛ (t) , climate memory effects from the past 30 years on climate prediction are quantified. For variables with strong climate memory, high variance (over 20% ) in x(t) is explained by the memory part M(t), and the effects of climate memory are non-negligible for most climate variables, but the precipitation. Regarding of multi-steps climate prediction, a power law decay of the explained variance was found, indicating long-lasting climate memory effects. The explained variances by climate memory can remain to be higher than 10% for more than 10 time steps. Accordingly, past climate conditions can affect both short (monthly) and long-term (interannual, decadal, or even multidecadal) climate predictions. With the memory part M(t) precisely calculated from Fractional Integral Statistical Model, one only needs to focus on the non-memory part ɛ (t) , which is an important quantity that determines climate predictive skills.

A Seamless Framework for Global Water Cycle Monitoring and Prediction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sheffield, J.; Wood, E. F.; Chaney, N.; Fisher, C. K.; Caylor, K. K.

2013-12-01

The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Water Strategy ('From Observations to Decisions') recognizes that 'water is essential for ensuring food and energy security, for facilitating poverty reduction and health security, and for the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity', and that water cycle data and observations are critical for improved water management and water security - especially in less developed regions. The GEOSS Water Strategy has articulated a number of goals for improved water management, including flood and drought preparedness, that include: (i) facilitating the use of Earth Observations for water cycle observations; (ii) facilitating the acquisition, processing, and distribution of data products needed for effective management; (iii) providing expertise, information systems, and datasets to the global, regional, and national water communities. There are several challenges that must be met to advance our capability to provide near real-time water cycle monitoring, early warning of hydrological hazards (floods and droughts) and risk assessment under climate change, regionally and globally. Current approaches to monitoring and predicting hydrological hazards are limited in many parts of the world, and especially in developing countries where national capacity is limited and monitoring networks are inadequate. This presentation describes the development of a seamless monitoring and prediction framework at all time scales that allows for consistent assessment of water variability from historic to current conditions, and from seasonal and decadal predictions to climate change projections. At the center of the framework is an experimental, global water cycle monitoring and seasonal forecast system that has evolved out of regional and continental systems for the US and Africa. The system is based on land surface hydrological modeling that is driven by satellite remote sensing precipitation to predict current hydrological conditions, flood potential and the state of drought. Seasonal climate model forecasts are downscaled and bias-corrected to drive the land surface model to provide hydrological forecasts and drought products out 6-9 months. The system relies on historic reconstructions of water variability over the 20th century, which forms the background climatology to which current conditions can be assessed. Future changes in water availability and drought risk are quantified based on bias-corrected and downscaled climate model projections that are used to drive the land surface models. For regions with lack of on-the-ground data we are field-testing low-cost environmental sensors and along with new satellite products for terrestrial hydrology and vegetation, integrating these into the system for improved monitoring and prediction. We provide an overview of the system and some examples of real-world applications to flood and drought events, with a focus on Africa.

Growth of a deep-water, predatory fish is influenced by the productivity of a boundary current system

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Hoang Minh; Rountrey, Adam N.; Meeuwig, Jessica J.; Coulson, Peter G.; Feng, Ming; Newman, Stephen J.; Waite, Anya M.; Wakefield, Corey B.; Meekan, Mark G.

2015-01-01

The effects of climate change on predatory fishes in deep shelf areas are difficult to predict because complex processes may govern food availability and temperature at depth. We characterised the net impact of recent environmental changes on hapuku (Polyprion oxygeneios), an apex predator found in continental slope habitats (>200 m depth) by using dendrochronology techniques to develop a multi-decadal record of growth from otoliths. Fish were sampled off temperate south-western Australia, a region strongly influenced by the Leeuwin Current, a poleward-flowing, eastern boundary current. The common variance among individual growth records was relatively low (3.4%), but the otolith chronology was positively correlated (r = 0.61, p < 0.02) with sea level at Fremantle, a proxy for the strength of the Leeuwin Current. The Leeuwin Current influences the primary productivity of shelf ecosystems, with a strong current favouring growth in hapuku. Leeuwin Current strength is predicted to decline under climate change models and this study provides evidence that associated productivity changes may flow through to higher trophic levels even in deep water habitats. PMID:25761975

Growth of a deep-water, predatory fish is influenced by the productivity of a boundary current system.

PubMed

Nguyen, Hoang Minh; Rountrey, Adam N; Meeuwig, Jessica J; Coulson, Peter G; Feng, Ming; Newman, Stephen J; Waite, Anya M; Wakefield, Corey B; Meekan, Mark G

2015-03-12

The effects of climate change on predatory fishes in deep shelf areas are difficult to predict because complex processes may govern food availability and temperature at depth. We characterised the net impact of recent environmental changes on hapuku (Polyprion oxygeneios), an apex predator found in continental slope habitats (>200 m depth) by using dendrochronology techniques to develop a multi-decadal record of growth from otoliths. Fish were sampled off temperate south-western Australia, a region strongly influenced by the Leeuwin Current, a poleward-flowing, eastern boundary current. The common variance among individual growth records was relatively low (3.4%), but the otolith chronology was positively correlated (r = 0.61, p < 0.02) with sea level at Fremantle, a proxy for the strength of the Leeuwin Current. The Leeuwin Current influences the primary productivity of shelf ecosystems, with a strong current favouring growth in hapuku. Leeuwin Current strength is predicted to decline under climate change models and this study provides evidence that associated productivity changes may flow through to higher trophic levels even in deep water habitats.

Can a Human-Induced Climate Disaster be Avoided?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watson, R.

2012-12-01

Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are one of the greatest threats to our future prosperity. World emissions are currently around 50 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent per annum and are growing rapidly. Atmospheric concentrations of GHG emissions in the atmosphere have increased, to over 400ppm of CO2e today, even after taking the offsetting radiative effects of aerosols into account, and are increasing at a rate of around 2.5ppm per year. The world's current lack of "adequate" commitments to reduce emissions are consistent with at least a 3oC rise (50-50 chance) in temperature: a temperature not seen on the planet for around 3 million years, with serious risks of 5oC rise: a temperature not seen on the planet for around 30 million years. So what are the implications of a 3-5oC rise in temperature, with associated changes in, rising sea levels, retreating mountain glaciers, melting of the Greenland ice cap, shrinking Arctic Sea ice, especially in summer, increasing frequency of extreme weather events, such as heat waves, floods, and droughts, and intensification of cyclonic events, such as hurricanes in the Atlantic. Even a 2oC increase in mean surface temperatures will adversely affect freshwater, food and fiber, natural ecosystems, coastal systems and low-lying areas, human health and social systems, especially in developing countries. The impacts of 3-5oC will be extensive, predominantly negative, undermine development and poverty alleviation goals and cut across most sectors. To address human-induced climate change requires a transition to a low carbon economy, which will require rapid technological evolution in the efficiency of energy use, environmentally sound low-carbon renewable energy sources and carbon capture and storage. The longer we wait to transition to a low carbon economy the more we are locked into a high carbon energy system with consequent environmental damage to ecological and socio-economic systems. Unfortunately the political will to achieve the 2oC goal agreed by Ministers in Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban does not exist. Indeed, the US has argued that this goal will actually inhibit national action while politicians argue about how to achieve such a global goal. If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, the time to act is now, given the inertia in the socio-economic system, and that the adverse effects of climate change cannot be reversed for centuries or are irreversible (for example, climate-induced species loss). We know enough to act, but the current scientific uncertainties, means that we are facing a problem of risk management on an immense scale. Failure to act will impoverish current and future generations.

Promise and Capability of NASA's Earth Observing System to Monitor Human-Induced Climate Variations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

King, M. D.

2003-01-01

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a space-based observing system comprised of a series of satellite sensors by which scientists can monitor the Earth, a Data and Information System (EOSDIS) enabling researchers worldwide to access the satellite data, and an interdisciplinary science research program to interpret the satellite data. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), developed as part of the Earth Observing System (EOS) and launched on Terra in December 1999 and Aqua in May 2002, is designed to meet the scientific needs for satellite remote sensing of clouds, aerosols, water vapor, and land and ocean surface properties. This sensor and multi-platform observing system is especially well suited to observing detailed interdisciplinary components of the Earth s surface and atmosphere in and around urban environments, including aerosol optical properties, cloud optical and microphysical properties of both liquid water and ice clouds, land surface reflectance, fire occurrence, and many other properties that influence the urban environment and are influenced by them. In this presentation I will summarize the current capabilities of MODIS and other EOS sensors currently in orbit to study human-induced climate variations.

Revisioning Professionalism from the Periphery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Skattebol, Jennifer; Adamson, Elizabeth; Woodrow, Christine

2016-01-01

The issue of who should be included and recognised as professionals in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) service system is both contested and pressing in the current policy climate. At stake is a high-quality early childhood care and education service system that is both responsive and appropriate to the constituency it serves. A…

Development and Utilization of Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) & Delicacy, Imprecision, and Uncertainty of Oceanic Simulations: An Investigation with ROMS

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-09-30

and Ecosystems: An important community use for ROMS is biogeochemisty: chemical cycles, water quality, blooms , micro-nutrients, larval dispersal... Chile current system. J. Climate, submitted. Colas, F., X. Capet, and J. McWilliams, 2010b: Mesoscale eddy buoyancy flux and eddy-induced

Delicacy, Imprecision, and Uncertainty of Oceanic Simulations: An Investigation with the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS)

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-30

Geochemistry and Ecosystems: An important community use for ROMS is biogeochemisty: chemical cycles, water quality, blooms , micro-nutrients, larval...Sci., submitted. Colas, F., J.C. McWilliams, X. Capet, and J. Kurian, 2012: Heat balance and eddies in the Peru- Chile Current System. Climate

Global Test Range: Toward Airborne Sensor Webs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mace, Thomas H.; Freudinger, Larry; DelFrate John H.

2008-01-01

This viewgraph presentation reviews the planned global sensor network that will monitor the Earth's climate, and resources using airborne sensor systems. The vision is an intelligent, affordable Earth Observation System. Global Test Range is a lab developing trustworthy services for airborne instruments - a specialized Internet Service Provider. There is discussion of several current and planned missions.

Adaptation responses to increasing drought frequency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loch, A. J.; Adamson, D. C.; Schwabe, K.

2016-12-01

Using state contingent analysis we discuss how and why irrigators adapt to alternative water supply signals. This analysis approach helps to illustrate how and why producers currently use state-general and state-allocable inputs to adapt and respond to known and possible future climatic alternative natures. Focusing on the timing of water allocations, we explore inherent differences in the demand for water by two key irrigation sectors: annual and perennial producers which in Australia have allowed a significant degree of risk-minimisation during droughts. In the absence of land constraints, producers also had a capacity to respond to positive state outcomes and achieve super-normal profits. In the future, however, the probability of positive state outcomes is uncertain; production systems may need to adapt to minimise losses and/or achieve positive returns under altered water supply conditions that may arise as a consequence of more frequent drought states. As such, producers must assess whether altering current input/output choice sets in response to possible future climate states will enhance their long-run competitive advantage for both expected new normal and extreme water supply outcomes. Further, policy supporting agricultural sector climate change resilience must avoid poorly-designed strategies that increase producer vulnerability in the face of drought. Our analysis explores the reliability of alternative water property right bundles and how reduced allocations across time influence alternative responses by producers. We then extend our analysis to explore how management strategies could adapt to two possible future drier state types: i) where an average reduction in water supply is experienced; and ii) where the frequency of droughts increase. The combination of these findings are subsequently used to discuss the role water reform policy has to deal with current and future climate scenarios. We argue current policy strategies could drive producers to more homogeneous production systems over time, which ultimately entail risky adaptation options under future water supply availability or increased drought frequency scenarios. Lastly, our analysis has shown the flexibility of applying SCA toward examining uncertainty surrounding future states of nature under climate change.

Health risk in the context of climate change and adaptation - Concept and mapping as an integrated approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kienberger, S.; Notenbaert, A.; Zeil, P.; Bett, B.; Hagenlocher, M.; Omolo, A.

2012-04-01

Climate change has been stated as being one of the greatest challenges to global health in the current century. Climate change impacts on human health and the socio-economic and related poverty consequences are however still poorly understood. While epidemiological issues are strongly coupled with environmental and climatic parameters, the social and economic circumstances of populations might be of equal or even greater importance when trying to identify vulnerable populations and design appropriate and well-targeted adaptation measures. The inter-linkage between climate change, human health risk and socio-economic impacts remains an important - but largely outstanding - research field. We present an overview on how risk is traditionally being conceptualised in the human health domain and reflect critically on integrated approaches as being currently used in the climate change context. The presentation will also review existing approaches, and how they can be integrated towards adaptation tools. Following this review, an integrated risk concept is being presented, which has been currently adapted under the EC FP7 research project (HEALTHY FUTURES; http://www.healthyfutures.eu/). In this approach, health risk is not only defined through the disease itself (as hazard) but also by the inherent vulnerability of the system, population or region under study. It is in fact the interaction of environment and society that leads to the development of diseases and the subsequent risk of being negatively affected by it. In this conceptual framework vulnerability is being attributed to domains of lack of resilience as well as underlying preconditions determining susceptibilities. To fulfil a holistic picture vulnerability can be associated to social, economic, environmental, institutional, cultural and physical dimensions. The proposed framework also establishes the important nexus to adaptation and how different measures can be related to avoid disease outbreaks, reduce vulnerability in order to lower health risks and disease impacts. The proposed framework explains the generic concepts of disease hazard, vulnerability, risk and its connections. It can be applied to many different diseases and implemented in different ways. Statistical or dynamic disease models integrating future climate projections can - for example - be combined with forecast models. These can be evaluated against different socio-economic development pathways and feed into decisions support systems with an ultimate aim of designing the most appropriate risk reduction strategies. The paper will present first preliminary results on the mapping of vulnerability for the Eastern African region, including diseases such as Malaria, Schistosomiasis and Rift Valley Fever and conclude with current research challenges and how they will be addressed within the HEALTHY FUTURES project.

Quantifying Livestock Heat Stress Impacts in the Sahel

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Broman, D.; Rajagopalan, B.; Hopson, T. M.

2014-12-01

Livestock heat stress, especially in regions of the developing world with limited adaptive capacity, has a largely unquantified impact on food supply. Though dominated by ambient air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation all affect heat stress, which can decrease livestock growth, milk production, reproduction rates, and mortality. Indices like the thermal-humidity index (THI) are used to quantify the heat stress experienced from climate variables. Livestock experience differing impacts at different index critical thresholds that are empirically determined and specific to species and breed. This lack of understanding has been highlighted in several studies with a limited knowledge of the critical thresholds of heat stress in native livestock breeds, as well as the current and future impact of heat stress,. As adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change depend on a solid quantitative foundation, this knowledge gap has limited such efforts. To address the lack of study, we have investigated heat stress impacts in the pastoral system of Sub-Saharan West Africa. We used a stochastic weather generator to quantify both the historic and future variability of heat stress. This approach models temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation, the climate variables controlling heat stress. Incorporating large-scale climate as covariates into this framework provides a better historical fit and allows us to include future CMIP5 GCM projections to examine the climate change impacts on heat stress. Health and production data allow us to examine the influence of this variability on livestock directly, and are considered in conjunction with the confounding impacts of fodder and water access. This understanding provides useful information to decision makers looking to mitigate the impacts of climate change and can provide useful seasonal forecasts of heat stress risk. A comparison of the current and future heat stress conditions based on climate variables for West Africa will be presented, An assessment of current and future risk was obtained by linking climatic heat stress to cattle health and production. Seasonal forecasts of heat stress are also provided by modeling the heat stress climate variables using persistent large-scale climate features.

Evidence and implications of recent and projected climate change in Alaska's forest ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wolken, Jane M.; Hollingsworth, Teresa N.; Rupp, T. Scott; Chapin, Stuart III; Trainor, Sarah F.; Barrett, Tara M.; Sullivan, Patrick F.; McGuire, A. David; Euskirchen, Eugénie S.; Hennon, Paul E.; Beever, Erik A.; Conn, Jeff S.; Crone, Lisa K.; D'Amore, David V.; Fresco, Nancy; Hanley, Thomas A.; Kielland, Knut; Kruse, James J.; Patterson, Trista; Schuur, Edward A.G.; Verbyla, David L.; Yarie, John

2011-01-01

The structure and function of Alaska's forests have changed significantly in response to a changing climate, including alterations in species composition and climate feedbacks (e.g., carbon, radiation budgets) that have important regional societal consequences and human feedbacks to forest ecosystems. In this paper we present the first comprehensive synthesis of climate-change impacts on all forested ecosystems of Alaska, highlighting changes in the most critical biophysical factors of each region. We developed a conceptual framework describing climate drivers, biophysical factors and types of change to illustrate how the biophysical and social subsystems of Alaskan forests interact and respond directly and indirectly to a changing climate. We then identify the regional and global implications to the climate system and associated socio-economic impacts, as presented in the current literature. Projections of temperature and precipitation suggest wildfire will continue to be the dominant biophysical factor in the Interior-boreal forest, leading to shifts from conifer- to deciduous-dominated forests. Based on existing research, projected increases in temperature in the Southcentral- and Kenai-boreal forests will likely increase the frequency and severity of insect outbreaks and associated wildfires, and increase the probability of establishment by invasive plant species. In the Coastal-temperate forest region snow and ice is regarded as the dominant biophysical factor. With continued warming, hydrologic changes related to more rapidly melting glaciers and rising elevation of the winter snowline will alter discharge in many rivers, which will have important consequences for terrestrial and marine ecosystem productivity. These climate-related changes will affect plant species distribution and wildlife habitat, which have regional societal consequences, and trace-gas emissions and radiation budgets, which are globally important. Our conceptual framework facilitates assessment of current and future consequences of a changing climate, emphasizes regional differences in biophysical factors, and points to linkages that may exist but that currently lack supporting research. The framework also serves as a visual tool for resource managers and policy makers to develop regional and global management strategies and to inform policies related to climate mitigation and adaptation.

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

The key role of the meat industry in transformation to a low-carbon, climate resilient, sustainable economy.

PubMed

Rijsberman, Frank

2017-10-01

Climate change, air pollution and refugees have become key global challenges threatening sustainability of lifestyles, economies and ecosystems. Agri-food systems are the number one driver of environmental change. Livestock production is the world's largest land user, responsible for half of greenhouse gas emissions from agri-food systems, and the source of repeated health crises. Poor diets have become the number one cause of ill health. Recommendations for a healthy diet emphasize plant-based food. Rapidly falling costs in information technology, biotechnology, renewable energy and battery technology will disrupt current energy and transportation systems and offer opportunities for responsible meat production. Growing consumer interest in healthy food, combined with innovative information systems, offer opportunities to create value through quality control and consumer information in integrated value chains. Meat scientists have a major role to play in the necessary transformation of global agri-food systems towards a new model of green economic growth that is climate resilient, sustainable and provides green jobs. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of Drake Passage on the Ocean's Thermal and Mechanical Energy Budget in a Coupled AOGCM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

von der Heydt, A. S.; Viebahn, J. P.

2016-12-01

During the Cenozoic Earth's climate has undergone a major long-term transition from `greenhouse' to `icehouse' conditions with extensive ice sheets in the polar regions of both hemispheres. The gradual cooling may be seen as response to the overall slowly decreasing atmospheric CO2-concentration due to weathering processes in the Earth System, however, continental geometry has changed considerably over this period and the long-term gradual trend was interrupted, by several rapid transitions and periods where temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations seem to be decoupled. The Eocene-Oligocene boundary ( 34 Ma, E/O) and mid-Miocene climatic transition ( 13 Ma, MCT) reflect major phases of Antarctic ice sheet build-up and global climate cooling, while Northern Hemisphere ice sheets developed much later ( 2.7Ma). Thresholds in atmospheric CO2-concentration together with feedback mechanisms related to land ice formation are among the favoured mechanisms of these climatic transitions, while the long-proposed ocean circulation changes caused by opening of tectonic gateways seem to play a less direct role. The opening of the Southern Ocean gateways, however, has eventually led to the development of today's strongest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, playing a major role in the transport properties of the global ocean circulation. The overall state of the global ocean circulation, therefore, must precondition the climate system to dramatic events such as major ice sheet formation. Closing Drake Passage in ocean-only and coupled climate models under otherwise present-day boundary conditions has become a classic experiment, indicating that there exists a considerable uncertainty in the climate response of those models to a closed Drake Passage. Here we quantify the climate response to a closed Drake Passage in a state-of-the-art coupled climate model (CESM). We show that the ocean gateway mechanism is robust in the sense that the equatorward expansion of the Southern Ocean sub-polar gyres inevitably leads to widespread warming around Antarctica. Moreover, we provide a framework to characterise the ocean temperature response to a closed Drake Passage in terms of both the mechanical and thermal energy budget of the ocean.

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.

Basin-scale simulation of current and potential climate changed hydrologic conditions in the Lake Michigan Basin, United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

Christiansen, Daniel E.; Walker, John F.; Hunt, Randall J.

2014-01-01

The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is the largest public investment in the Great Lakes in two decades. A task force of 11 Federal agencies developed an action plan to implement the initiative. The U.S. Department of the Interior was one of the 11 agencies that entered into an interagency agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the GLRI to complete scientific projects throughout the Great Lakes basin. The U.S. Geological Survey, a bureau within the Department of the Interior, is involved in the GLRI to provide scientific support to management decisions as well as measure progress of the Great Lakes basin restoration efforts. This report presents basin-scale simulated current and forecast climatic and hydrologic conditions in the Lake Michigan Basin. The forecasts were obtained by constructing and calibrating a Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) model of the Lake Michigan Basin; the PRMS model was calibrated using the parameter estimation and uncertainty analysis (PEST) software suite. The calibrated model was used to evaluate potential responses to climate change by using four simulated carbon emission scenarios from eight general circulation models released by the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3. Statistically downscaled datasets of these scenarios were used to project hydrologic response for the Lake Michigan Basin. In general, most of the observation sites in the Lake Michigan Basin indicated slight increases in annual streamflow in response to future climate change scenarios. Monthly streamflows indicated a general shift from the current (2014) winter-storage/snowmelt-pulse system to a system with a more equally distributed hydrograph throughout the year. Simulated soil moisture within the basin illustrates that conditions within the basin are also expected to change on a monthly timescale. One effect of increasing air temperature as a result of the changing climate was the appreciable increase in the length of the growing season in the Lake Michigan Basin. The increase in growing season will cause an increase in evapotranspiration across the Lake Michigan Basin, which will directly affect soil moisture and late growing season streamflows. Output from the Lake Michigan Basin PRMS model is available through an online dynamic web mapping service available at (http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2014/5175/). The map service includes layers for the each of the 8 global climate models and 4 carbon emission scenarios combinations for 12 hydrologic model state variables. The layers are pre-rendered maps of annual hydrologic response from 1977 through 2099 that provide an easily accessible online method to examine climate change effects across the Lake Michigan Basin.

Linking environmental filtering and disequilibrium to biogeography with a community climate framework.

PubMed

Blonder, Benjamin; Nogués-Bravo, David; Borregaard, Michael K; Donoghue, John C; Jørgensen, Peter M; Kraft, Nathan J B; Lessard, Jean-Philippe; Morueta-Holme, Naia; Sandel, Brody; Svenning, Jens-Christian; Violle, Cyrille; Rahbek, Carsten; Enquist, Brian J

2015-04-01

We present a framework to measure the strength of environmental filtering and disequilibrium of the species composition of a local community across time, relative to past, current, and future climates. We demonstrate the framework by measuring the impact of climate change on New World forests, integrating data for climate niches of more than 14000 species, community composition of 471 New World forest plots, and observed climate across the most recent glacial-interglacial interval. We show that a majority of communities have species compositions that are strongly filtered and are more in equilibrium with current climate than random samples from the regional pool. Variation in the level of current community disequilibrium can be predicted from Last Glacial Maximum climate and will increase with near-future climate change.

How Cities Make Their Own Weather

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shepherd, J. Marshall

2004-01-01

Urbanization is one of the extreme cases of land use change. Most of world's population has moved to urban areas. Although currently only 1.2% of the land is considered urban, the spatial coverage and density of cities are expected to rapidly increase in d e near future. It is estimated that by the year 2025, 60% of the world's population will live in cities. Human activity in urban environments also alters weather and climate processes. However, our understanding of urbanization on the total Earth-weather-climate system is incomplete. Recent literature continues to provide evidence that anomalies in precipitation exist over and downwind of major cities. Current and future research efforts are actively seeking to verify these literature findings and understand potential cause-effect relationships. The novelty of this study is that it utilizes rainfall data from multiple satellite data sources (e.g. TRMM precipitation radar, TRMM-geosynchronous-rain gauge merged product, and SSM/I) and ground-based measurements to identify spatial anomalies and temporal trends in precipitation for cities around the world. We will also present results from experiments using a regional atmospheric-land surface modeling system. Early results will be presented and placed within the context of weather prediction, climate assessment, and societal applications.

Climate impact on airborne particulate matter concentrations in California using seven year analysis periods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mahmud, A.; Hixson, M.; Hu, J.; Zhao, Z.; Chen, S.-H.; Kleeman, M. J.

2010-11-01

The effect of global climate change on the annual average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in California was studied using a climate-air quality modeling system composed of global through regional models. Output from the NCAR/DOE Parallel Climate Model (PCM) generated under the "business as usual" global emissions scenario was downscaled using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model followed by air quality simulations using the UCD/CIT airshed model. The system represents major atmospheric processes acting on gas and particle phase species including meteorological effects on emissions, advection, dispersion, chemical reaction rates, gas-particle conversion, and dry/wet deposition. The air quality simulations were carried out for the entire state of California with a resolution of 8-km for the years 2000-2006 (present climate with present emissions) and 2047-2053 (future climate with present emissions). Each of these 7-year analysis periods was analyzed using a total of 1008 simulated days to span a climatologically relevant time period with a practical computational burden. The 7-year windows were chosen to properly account for annual variability with the added benefit that the air quality predictions under the present climate could be compared to actual measurements. The climate-air quality modeling system successfully predicted the spatial pattern of present climate PM2.5 concentrations in California but the absolute magnitude of the annual average PM2.5 concentrations were under-predicted by ~4-39% in the major air basins. The majority of this under-prediction was caused by excess ventilation predicted by PCM-WRF that should be present to the same degree in the current and future time periods so that the net bias introduced into the comparison is minimized. Surface temperature, relative humidity (RH), rain rate, and wind speed were predicted to increase in the future climate while the ultra violet (UV) radiation was predicted to decrease in major urban areas in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) and South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB). These changes lead to a predicted decrease in PM2.5 mass concentrations of ~0.3-0.7 μg m-3 in the southern portion of the SJV and ~0.3-1.1 μg m-3 along coastal regions of California including the heavily populated San Francisco Bay Area and the SoCAB surrounding Los Angeles. Annual average PM2.5 concentrations were predicted to increase at certain locations within the SJV and the Sacramento Valley (SV) due to the effects of climate change, but a corresponding analysis of the annual variability showed that these predictions are not statistically significant (i.e. the choice of a different 7-year period could produce a different outcome for these regions). Overall, virtually no region in California outside of coastal + central Los Angeles, and a small region around the port of Oakland in the San Francisco Bay Area experienced a statistically significant change in annual average PM2.5 concentrations due to the effects of climate change in the present~study. The present study employs the highest spatial resolution (8 km) and the longest analysis windows (7 years) of any climate-air quality analysis conducted for California to date, but the results still have some degree of uncertainty. Most significantly, GCM calculations have inherent uncertainty that is not fully represented in the current study since a single GCM was used as the starting point for all calculations. The PCM results used in the current study predicted greater wintertime increases in air temperature over the Pacific Ocean than over land, further motivating comparison to other GCM results. Ensembles of GCM results are usually employed to build confidence in climate calculations. The current results provide a first data-point for the climate-air quality analysis that simultaneously employ the fine spatial resolution and long time scales needed to capture the behavior of climate-PM2.5 interactions in California. Future downscaling studies should follow up with a full ensemble of GCMs as their starting point, and include aerosol feedback effects on local meteorology.

Understanding the influence of climate change on the embodied energy of water supply.

PubMed

Mo, Weiwei; Wang, Haiying; Jacobs, Jennifer M

2016-05-15

The current study aims to advance understandings on how and to what degree climate change will affect the life cycle chemical and energy uses of drinking water supply. A dynamic life cycle assessment was performed to quantify historical monthly operational embodied energy of a selected water supply system located in northeast US. Comprehensive multivariate and regression analyses were then performed to understand the statistical correlation among monthly life cycle energy consumptions, three water quality indicators (UV254, pH, and water temperature), and five climate indicators (monthly mean temperature, monthly mean maximum/minimum temperatures, total precipitation, and total snow fall). Thirdly, a calculation was performed to understand how volumetric and total life cycle energy consumptions will change under two selected IPCC emission scenarios (A2 and B1). It was found that volumetric life cycle energy consumptions are highest in winter months mainly due to the higher uses of natural gas in the case study system, but total monthly life cycle energy consumptions peak in both July and January because of the increasing water demand in summer months. Most of the variations in chemical and energy uses can be interpreted by water quality and climate variations except for the use of soda ash. It was also found that climate change might lead to an average decrease of 3-6% in the volumetric energy use of the case study system by the end of the century. This result combined with conclusions reached by previous climate versus water supply studies indicates that effects of climate change on drinking water supply might be highly dependent on the geographical location and treatment process of individual water supply systems. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

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

Han, Weiqing; Meehl, Gerald A.; Stammer, Detlef

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth’s climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modesmore » and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this article, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.« less

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

DOE PAGES

Han, Weiqing; Meehl, Gerald A.; Stammer, Detlef; ...

2016-10-04

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth’s climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modesmore » and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this article, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.« less

Global fish production and climate change

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

Brander, K.M.

2007-12-11

Current global fisheries production of {approx}160 million tons is rising as a result of increases in aquaculture production. A number of climate-related threats to both capture fisheries and aquaculture are identified, but there is low confidence in predictions of future fisheries production because of uncertainty over future global aquatic net primary production and the transfer of this production through the food chain to human consumption. Recent changes in the distribution and productivity of a number of fish species can be ascribed with high confidence to regional climate variability, such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Future production may increase in somemore » high-latitude regions because of warming and decreased ice cover, but the dynamics in low-latitude regions are giverned by different processes, and production may decline as a result of reduced vertical mixing of the water column and, hence, reduced recycling of nutrients. There are strong interactions between the effects of fishing and the effects of climate because fishing reduces the age, size, and geographic diversity of populations and the biodiversity of marine ecosystems, making both more sensitive to additional stresses such as climate change. Inland fisheries are additionally threatened by changes in precipiation and water management. The frequency and intensity of extreme climate events is likely to have a major impact on future fisheries production in both inland and marine systems. Reducing fishing mortality in the majority of fisheries, which are currently fully exploited or overexploited, is the pricipal feasible means of reducing the impacts of climate change.« less

Spatial Patterns of Sea Level Variability Associated with Natural Internal Climate Modes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Weiqing; Meehl, Gerald A.; Stammer, Detlef; Hu, Aixue; Hamlington, Benjamin; Kenigson, Jessica; Palanisamy, Hindumathi; Thompson, Philip

2017-01-01

Sea level rise (SLR) can exert significant stress on highly populated coastal societies and low-lying island countries around the world. Because of this, there is huge societal demand for improved decadal predictions and future projections of SLR, particularly on a local scale along coastlines. Regionally, sea level variations can deviate considerably from the global mean due to various geophysical processes. These include changes of ocean circulations, which partially can be attributed to natural, internal modes of variability in the complex Earth's climate system. Anthropogenic influence may also contribute to regional sea level variations. Separating the effects of natural climate modes and anthropogenic forcing, however, remains a challenge and requires identification of the imprint of specific climate modes in observed sea level change patterns. In this paper, we review our current state of knowledge about spatial patterns of sea level variability associated with natural climate modes on interannual-to-multidecadal timescales, with particular focus on decadal-to-multidecadal variability. Relevant climate modes and our current state of understanding their associated sea level patterns and driving mechanisms are elaborated separately for the Pacific, the Indian, the Atlantic, and the Arctic and Southern Oceans. We also discuss the issues, challenges and future outlooks for understanding the regional sea level patterns associated with climate modes. Effects of these internal modes have to be taken into account in order to achieve more reliable near-term predictions and future projections of regional SLR.

Quantitative assessment of current and future risks related rainfall in processing tomato in the Guadiana river basin (SW Spain)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castañeda-Vera, Alba; Garrido, Alberto; Ruiz-Ramos, Margarita; Sánchez-Sánchez, Enrique; Inés Mínguez, M.

2013-04-01

An extension of risk coverages in the insurance policies for processing tomato, mainly related to rainfall events, has resulted in an important increase in claims. This suggests that damages related to extreme or ill-timed showers have been underestimated in previous years. An estimation of damages related to rainfall in the last thirty years and the impact of climate change in the risk related to rainfall in processing tomato crops in the Guadiana river basin (SW Spain) were studied through a risk index. First, the risk index was defined with temperature and relative humidity thresholds related to different damage magnitudes. Then, this index was applied to current climate and to future climate scenarios in nine weather stations representative of the studied area to determine the trends in losses related to extreme or inopportune rainfall events. Thresholds of temperature and relative humidity were obtained from cross-checking agricultural insurance records and meteorological data from local weather stations (REDAREX, http://sw-aperos.juntaex.es/redarex). To consider longer time series, the reanalysis database ERA-INTERIM (Dee et al., 2011) was used. Simulated climate was obtained from the European Project ENSEMBLES (http://www.ensembles-eu.org/). Trends in climatic risk were analysed by applying the risk index to three sets of data defining current climate (1980-2010), mid-future climate (2010-2040) and long-term future climate (2040-2070). An algorithm to choose the surrounding cell that minimizes the temperature and precipitation climatic biases and maximizes seasonal correlation when comparing ENSEMBLES regional climate model simulations and observed climate was applied before index calculation. The results show the trends in frequency and magnitude of the risk of suffering damages related to rainfall events. The methodology decreased the uncertainty on risk levels. Results contribute to detect the periods during the growing season with larger risk of damage in order to provide information to assist research on risk management practices and to support insurance policy makers to extend guaranties and to adapt the insurance conditions and costs to real crop risks. This research is being financed by MULCLIVAR project (CGL2012-38923-C02-02), MINECO, Spain Keywords: climate change, risk, rainfall, processing tomato. References Dee, D. P., with 35 co-authors, 2011: The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system. Quart. J. R. Meteorol. Soc., 137, 553-597.

Quantitative assessment of resilience of a water supply system under rainfall reduction due to climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amarasinghe, Pradeep; Liu, An; Egodawatta, Prasanna; Barnes, Paul; McGree, James; Goonetilleke, Ashantha

2016-09-01

A water supply system can be impacted by rainfall reduction due to climate change, thereby reducing its supply potential. This highlights the need to understand the system resilience, which refers to the ability to maintain service under various pressures (or disruptions). Currently, the concept of resilience has not yet been widely applied in managing water supply systems. This paper proposed three technical resilience indictors to assess the resilience of a water supply system. A case study analysis was undertaken of the Water Grid system of Queensland State, Australia, to showcase how the proposed indicators can be applied to assess resilience. The research outcomes confirmed that the use of resilience indicators is capable of identifying critical conditions in relation to the water supply system operation, such as the maximum allowable rainfall reduction for the system to maintain its operation without failure. Additionally, resilience indicators also provided useful insight regarding the sensitivity of the water supply system to a changing rainfall pattern in the context of climate change, which represents the system's stability when experiencing pressure. The study outcomes will help in the quantitative assessment of resilience and provide improved guidance to system operators to enhance the efficiency and reliability of a water supply system.

Status and Plans for Reanalysis at NASA/GMAO

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gelaro, Ron

2017-01-01

Reanalysis plays a critical role in GMAOs goal to enhance NASA's program of Earth observations, providing vital data sets for climate research and the development of future missions. As the breadth of NASAs observations expands to include multiple components of the Earth system, so does the need to assimilate observations from currently uncoupled components of the system in a more physically consistent manner. GMAOs most recent reanalysis of the satellite era, MERRA-2, has completed the period 1980-present, and is now running as a continuing global climate analysis with two- to three-week latency. MERRA-2 assimilates meteorological and aerosol observations as a weakly coupled assimilation system as a first step toward GMAOs longer term goal of developing an integrated Earth system analysis (IESA) capability that will couple assimilation systems for the atmosphere, ocean, land and chemistry. The GMAO strategy is to progress incrementally toward an IESA through an evolving combination of coupled systems and offline component reanalyses driven by, for example, MERRA-2 atmospheric forcing. Most recently, the GMAO has implemented a weakly coupled assimilation scheme for analyzing ocean skin temperature within the existing atmospheric analysis. The scheme uses background fields from a near-surface ocean diurnal layer model to assimilate surface-sensitive radiances plus in-situ observations along with all other observations in the atmospheric assimilation system. In addition, MERRA-2-driven simulations of the ocean (plus sea ice) and atmospheric chemistry (for the EOS period) are currently underway, as is the development of a coupled atmosphere-ocean assimilation system. This talk will describe the status of these ongoing efforts and the planned steps toward an IESA capability for climate research.

Downscaled and debiased climate simulations for North America from 21,000 years ago to 2100AD

PubMed Central

Lorenz, David J.; Nieto-Lugilde, Diego; Blois, Jessica L.; Fitzpatrick, Matthew C.; Williams, John W.

2016-01-01

Increasingly, ecological modellers are integrating paleodata with future projections to understand climate-driven biodiversity dynamics from the past through the current century. Climate simulations from earth system models are necessary to this effort, but must be debiased and downscaled before they can be used by ecological models. Downscaling methods and observational baselines vary among researchers, which produces confounding biases among downscaled climate simulations. We present unified datasets of debiased and downscaled climate simulations for North America from 21 ka BP to 2100AD, at 0.5° spatial resolution. Temporal resolution is decadal averages of monthly data until 1950AD, average climates for 1950–2005 AD, and monthly data from 2010 to 2100AD, with decadal averages also provided. This downscaling includes two transient paleoclimatic simulations and 12 climate models for the IPCC AR5 (CMIP5) historical (1850–2005), RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 21st-century scenarios. Climate variables include primary variables and derived bioclimatic variables. These datasets provide a common set of climate simulations suitable for seamlessly modelling the effects of past and future climate change on species distributions and diversity. PMID:27377537

Downscaled and debiased climate simulations for North America from 21,000 years ago to 2100AD.

PubMed

Lorenz, David J; Nieto-Lugilde, Diego; Blois, Jessica L; Fitzpatrick, Matthew C; Williams, John W

2016-07-05

Increasingly, ecological modellers are integrating paleodata with future projections to understand climate-driven biodiversity dynamics from the past through the current century. Climate simulations from earth system models are necessary to this effort, but must be debiased and downscaled before they can be used by ecological models. Downscaling methods and observational baselines vary among researchers, which produces confounding biases among downscaled climate simulations. We present unified datasets of debiased and downscaled climate simulations for North America from 21 ka BP to 2100AD, at 0.5° spatial resolution. Temporal resolution is decadal averages of monthly data until 1950AD, average climates for 1950-2005 AD, and monthly data from 2010 to 2100AD, with decadal averages also provided. This downscaling includes two transient paleoclimatic simulations and 12 climate models for the IPCC AR5 (CMIP5) historical (1850-2005), RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 21st-century scenarios. Climate variables include primary variables and derived bioclimatic variables. These datasets provide a common set of climate simulations suitable for seamlessly modelling the effects of past and future climate change on species distributions and diversity.

Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy.

PubMed

Adger, W Neil; Brown, Iain; Surminski, Swenja

2018-06-13

Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts.This article is part of the theme issue 'Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'. © 2018 The Author(s).

Network-based approaches to climate knowledge discovery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Budich, Reinhard; Nyberg, Per; Weigel, Tobias

2011-11-01

Climate Knowledge Discovery Workshop; Hamburg, Germany, 30 March to 1 April 2011 Do complex networks combined with semantic Web technologies offer the next generation of solutions in climate science? To address this question, a first Climate Knowledge Discovery (CKD) Workshop, hosted by the German Climate Computing Center (Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ)), brought together climate and computer scientists from major American and European laboratories, data centers, and universities, as well as representatives from industry, the broader academic community, and the semantic Web communities. The participants, representing six countries, were concerned with large-scale Earth system modeling and computational data analysis. The motivation for the meeting was the growing problem that climate scientists generate data faster than it can be interpreted and the need to prepare for further exponential data increases. Current analysis approaches are focused primarily on traditional methods, which are best suited for large-scale phenomena and coarse-resolution data sets. The workshop focused on the open discussion of ideas and technologies to provide the next generation of solutions to cope with the increasing data volumes in climate science.

Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adger, W. Neil; Brown, Iain; Surminski, Swenja

2018-06-01

Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts. This article is part of the theme issue `Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy'.

Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy

PubMed Central

Adger, W. Neil; Brown, Iain; Surminski, Swenja

2018-01-01

Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy’. PMID:29712800

Change in atmospheric mineral aerosols in response to climate: Last glacial period, preindustrial, modern, and doubled carbon dioxide climates

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mahowald, N.M.; Muhs, D.R.; Levis, S.; Rasch, P.J.; Yoshioka, M.; Zender, C.S.; Luo, C.

2006-01-01

Desert dust simulations generated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Climate System Model for the current climate are shown to be consistent with present day satellite and deposition data. The response of the dust cycle to last glacial maximum, preindustrial, modern, and doubled-carbon dioxide climates is analyzed. Only natural (non-land use related) dust sources are included in this simulation. Similar to some previous studies, dust production mainly responds to changes in the source areas from vegetation changes, not from winds or soil moisture changes alone. This model simulates a +92%, +33%, and -60% change in dust loading for the last glacial maximum, preindustrial, and doubled-carbon dioxide climate, respectively, when impacts of carbon dioxide fertilization on vegetation are included in the model. Terrestrial sediment records from the last glacial maximum compiled here indicate a large underestimate of deposition in continental regions, probably due to the lack of simulation of glaciogenic dust sources. In order to include the glaciogenic dust sources as a first approximation, we designate the location of these sources, and infer the size of the sources using an inversion method that best matches the available data. The inclusion of these inferred glaciogenic dust sources increases our dust flux in the last glacial maximum from 2.1 to 3.3 times current deposition. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.

Climate change and health effects in Northwest Alaska.

PubMed

Brubaker, Michael; Berner, James; Chavan, Raj; Warren, John

2011-01-01

This article provides examples of adverse health effects, including weather-related injury, food insecurity, mental health issues, and water infrastructure damage, and the responses to these effects that are currently being applied in two Northwest Alaska communities. In Northwest Alaska, warming is resulting in a broad range of unusual weather and environmental conditions, including delayed freeze-up, earlier breakup, storm surge, coastal erosion, and thawing permafrost. These are just some of the climate impacts that are driving concerns about weather-related injury, the spread of disease, mental health issues, infrastructure damage, and food and water security. Local leaders are challenged to identify appropriate adaptation strategies to address climate impacts and related health effects. IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS: The tribal health system is combining local observations, traditional knowledge, and western science to perform community-specific climate change health impact assessments. Local leaders are applying this information to develop adaptation responses. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will describe relationships between climate impacts and health effects and provide examples of community-scaled adaptation actions currently being applied in Northwest Alaska. Climate change is increasing vulnerability to injury, disease, mental stress, food insecurity, and water insecurity. Northwest communities are applying adaptation approaches that are both specific and appropriate. The health impact assessment process is effective in raising awareness, encouraging discussion, engaging partners, and implementing adaptation planning. With community-specific information, local leaders are applying health protective adaptation measures.

Climate change and health effects in Northwest Alaska

PubMed Central

Brubaker, Michael; Berner, James; Chavan, Raj; Warren, John

2011-01-01

This article provides examples of adverse health effects, including weather-related injury, food insecurity, mental health issues, and water infrastructure damage, and the responses to these effects that are currently being applied in two Northwest Alaska communities. Background In Northwest Alaska, warming is resulting in a broad range of unusual weather and environmental conditions, including delayed freeze-up, earlier breakup, storm surge, coastal erosion, and thawing permafrost. These are just some of the climate impacts that are driving concerns about weather-related injury, the spread of disease, mental health issues, infrastructure damage, and food and water security. Local leaders are challenged to identify appropriate adaptation strategies to address climate impacts and related health effects. Implementation process The tribal health system is combining local observations, traditional knowledge, and western science to perform community-specific climate change health impact assessments. Local leaders are applying this information to develop adaptation responses. Objective The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will describe relationships between climate impacts and health effects and provide examples of community-scaled adaptation actions currently being applied in Northwest Alaska. Findings Climate change is increasing vulnerability to injury, disease, mental stress, food insecurity, and water insecurity. Northwest communities are applying adaptation approaches that are both specific and appropriate. Conclusion The health impact assessment process is effective in raising awareness, encouraging discussion, engaging partners, and implementing adaptation planning. With community-specific information, local leaders are applying health protective adaptation measures. PMID:22022304

Climate Change, Foodborne Pathogens and Illness in Higher-Income Countries.

PubMed

Lake, I R; Barker, G C

2018-03-01

We present a review of the likely consequences of climate change for foodborne pathogens and associated human illness in higher-income countries. The relationships between climate and food are complex and hence the impacts of climate change uncertain. This makes it difficult to know which foodborne pathogens will be most affected, what the specific effects will be, and on what timescales changes might occur. Hence, a focus upon current capacity and adaptation potential against foodborne pathogens is essential. We highlight a number of developments that may enhance preparedness for climate change. These include the following: Adoption of novel surveillance methods, such as syndromic methods, to speed up detection and increase the fidelity of intervention in foodborne outbreaks Genotype-based approaches to surveillance of food pathogens to enhance spatiotemporal resolution in tracing and tracking of illness Ever increasing integration of plant, animal and human surveillance systems, One Health, to maximise potential for identifying threats Increased commitment to cross-border (global) information initiatives (including big data) Improved clarity regarding the governance of complex societal issues such as the conflict between food safety and food waste Strong user-centric (social) communications strategies to engage diverse stakeholder groups The impact of climate change upon foodborne pathogens and associated illness is uncertain. This emphasises the need to enhance current capacity and adaptation potential against foodborne illness. A range of developments are explored in this paper to enhance preparedness.

Impacts of future climate change on urban flood volumes in Hohhot in northern China: benefits of climate change mitigation and adaptations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Qianqian; Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Maoyi

2018-01-01

As China becomes increasingly urbanised, flooding has become a regular occurrence in its major cities. Assessing the effects of future climate change on urban flood volumes is crucial to informing better management of such disasters given the severity of the devastating impacts of flooding (e.g. the 2016 flooding events across China). Although recent studies have investigated the impacts of future climate change on urban flooding, the effects of both climate change mitigation and adaptation have rarely been accounted for together in a consistent framework. In this study, we assess the benefits of mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and locally adapting to climate change by modifying drainage systems to reduce urban flooding under various climate change scenarios through a case study conducted in northern China. The urban drainage model - Storm Water Management Model - was used to simulate urban flood volumes using current and two adapted drainage systems (i.e. pipe enlargement and low-impact development, LID), driven by bias-corrected meteorological forcing from five general circulation models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 archive. Results indicate that urban flood volume is projected to increase by 52 % over 2020-2040 compared to the volume in 1971-2000 under the business-as-usual scenario (i.e. Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5). The magnitudes of urban flood volumes are found to increase nonlinearly with changes in precipitation intensity. On average, the projected flood volume under RCP 2.6 is 13 % less than that under RCP 8.5, demonstrating the benefits of global-scale climate change mitigation efforts in reducing local urban flood volumes. Comparison of reduced flood volumes between climate change mitigation and local adaptation (by improving drainage systems) scenarios suggests that local adaptation is more effective than climate change mitigation in reducing future flood volumes. This has broad implications for the research community relative to drainage system design and modelling in a changing environment. This study highlights the importance of accounting for local adaptation when coping with future urban floods.

Impacts of future climate change on urban flood volumes in Hohhot in northern China: benefits of climate change mitigation and adaptations

DOE PAGES

Zhou, Qianqian; Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Maoyi

2018-01-15

As China becomes increasingly urbanised, flooding has become a regular occurrence in its major cities. Assessing the effects of future climate change on urban flood volumes is crucial to informing better management of such disasters given the severity of the devastating impacts of flooding (e.g. the 2016 flooding events across China). Although recent studies have investigated the impacts of future climate change on urban flooding, the effects of both climate change mitigation and adaptation have rarely been accounted for together in a consistent framework. In this study, we assess the benefits of mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)more » emissions and locally adapting to climate change by modifying drainage systems to reduce urban flooding under various climate change scenarios through a case study conducted in northern China. The urban drainage model – Storm Water Management Model – was used to simulate urban flood volumes using current and two adapted drainage systems (i.e. pipe enlargement and low-impact development, LID), driven by bias-corrected meteorological forcing from five general circulation models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 archive. Results indicate that urban flood volume is projected to increase by 52 % over 2020–2040 compared to the volume in 1971–2000 under the business-as-usual scenario (i.e. Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5). The magnitudes of urban flood volumes are found to increase nonlinearly with changes in precipitation intensity. On average, the projected flood volume under RCP 2.6 is 13 % less than that under RCP 8.5, demonstrating the benefits of global-scale climate change mitigation efforts in reducing local urban flood volumes. Comparison of reduced flood volumes between climate change mitigation and local adaptation (by improving drainage systems) scenarios suggests that local adaptation is more effective than climate change mitigation in reducing future flood volumes. This has broad implications for the research community relative to drainage system design and modelling in a changing environment. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of accounting for local adaptation when coping with future urban floods.« less

Impacts of future climate change on urban flood volumes in Hohhot in northern China: benefits of climate change mitigation and adaptations

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

Zhou, Qianqian; Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Maoyi

As China becomes increasingly urbanised, flooding has become a regular occurrence in its major cities. Assessing the effects of future climate change on urban flood volumes is crucial to informing better management of such disasters given the severity of the devastating impacts of flooding (e.g. the 2016 flooding events across China). Although recent studies have investigated the impacts of future climate change on urban flooding, the effects of both climate change mitigation and adaptation have rarely been accounted for together in a consistent framework. In this study, we assess the benefits of mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)more » emissions and locally adapting to climate change by modifying drainage systems to reduce urban flooding under various climate change scenarios through a case study conducted in northern China. The urban drainage model – Storm Water Management Model – was used to simulate urban flood volumes using current and two adapted drainage systems (i.e. pipe enlargement and low-impact development, LID), driven by bias-corrected meteorological forcing from five general circulation models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 archive. Results indicate that urban flood volume is projected to increase by 52 % over 2020–2040 compared to the volume in 1971–2000 under the business-as-usual scenario (i.e. Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5). The magnitudes of urban flood volumes are found to increase nonlinearly with changes in precipitation intensity. On average, the projected flood volume under RCP 2.6 is 13 % less than that under RCP 8.5, demonstrating the benefits of global-scale climate change mitigation efforts in reducing local urban flood volumes. Comparison of reduced flood volumes between climate change mitigation and local adaptation (by improving drainage systems) scenarios suggests that local adaptation is more effective than climate change mitigation in reducing future flood volumes. This has broad implications for the research community relative to drainage system design and modelling in a changing environment. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of accounting for local adaptation when coping with future urban floods.« less

Estimating the effects of extreme weather on transportation infrastructure.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2016-12-01

Climate change, already taking place, is expected to become more pronounced in the future. Current damage assessment models for extreme weather events, such as FEMAs Hazus, do not take the full impact to transportation systems into consideration. ...

The Regional Network for Asian Schistosomiasis and Other Helminth Zoonoses (RNAS(+)) target diseases in face of climate change.

PubMed

Yang, Guo-Jing; Utzinger, Jürg; Lv, Shan; Qian, Ying-Jun; Li, Shi-Zhu; Wang, Qiang; Bergquist, Robert; Vounatsou, Penelope; Li, Wei; Yang, Kun; Zhou, Xiao-Nong

2010-01-01

Climate change-according to conventional wisdom-will result in an expansion of tropical parasitic diseases in terms of latitude and altitude, with vector-borne diseases particularly prone to change. However, although a significant rise in temperature occurred over the past century, there is little empirical evidence whether climate change has indeed favoured infectious diseases. This might be explained by the complex relationship between climate change and the frequency and the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases, which is characterised by nonlinear associations and countless other complex factors governing the distribution of infectious diseases. Here, we explore whether and how climate change might impact on diseases targeted by the Regional Network for Asian Schistosomiasis and Other Helminth Zoonoses (RNAS(+)). We start our review with a short summary of the current evidence-base how climate change affects the distribution of infectious diseases. Next, we introduce biology-based models for predicting the distribution of infectious diseases in a future, warmer world. Two case studies are presented: the classical RNAS(+) disease schistosomiasis and an emerging disease, angiostrongyliasis, focussing on their occurrences in the People's Republic of China. Strengths and limitations of current models for predicting the impact of climate change on infectious diseases are discussed, and we propose model extensions to include social and ecological factors. Finally, we recommend that mitigation and adaptation strategies to diminish potential negative effects of climate change need to be developed in concert with key stakeholders so that surveillance and early-warning systems can be strengthened and the most vulnerable population groups protected. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Status of Middle Atmosphere-Climate Models: Results SPARC-GRIPS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pawson, Steven; Kodera, Kunihiko

2003-01-01

The middle atmosphere is an important component of the climate system, primarily because of the radiative forcing of ozone. Middle atmospheric ozone can change, over long times, because of changes in the abundance of anthropogenic pollutants which catalytically destroy it, and because of the temperature sensitivity of kinetic reaction rates. There is thus a complex interaction between ozone, involving chemical and climatic mechanisms. One question of interest is how ozone will change over the next decades , as the "greenhouse-gas cooling" of the middle atmosphere increases but the concentrations of chlorine species decreases (because of policy changes). concerns the climate biases in current middle atmosphere-climate models, especially their ability to simulate the correct seasonal cycle at high latitudes, and the existence of temperature biases in the global mean. A major obstacle when addressing this question This paper will present a summary of recent results from the "GCM-Reality Intercomparison Project for SPARC" (GRIPS) initiative. A set of middle atmosphere-climate models has been compared, identifying common biases. Mechanisms for these biases are being studied in some detail, including off-line assessments of the radiation transfer codes and coordinated studies of the impacts of gravity wave drag due to sub-grid-scale processes. ensemble of models will be presented, along with numerical experiments undertaken with one or more models, designed to investigate the mechanisms at work in the atmosphere. The discussion will focus on dynamical and radiative mechanisms in the current climate, but implications for coupled ozone chemistry and the future climate will be assessed.

A multiresolution method for climate system modeling: application of spherical centroidal Voronoi tessellations

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

Ringler, Todd; Ju, Lili; Gunzburger, Max

2008-11-14

During the next decade and beyond, climate system models will be challenged to resolve scales and processes that are far beyond their current scope. Each climate system component has its prototypical example of an unresolved process that may strongly influence the global climate system, ranging from eddy activity within ocean models, to ice streams within ice sheet models, to surface hydrological processes within land system models, to cloud processes within atmosphere models. These new demands will almost certainly result in the develop of multiresolution schemes that are able, at least regionally, to faithfully simulate these fine-scale processes. Spherical centroidal Voronoimore » tessellations (SCVTs) offer one potential path toward the development of a robust, multiresolution climate system model components. SCVTs allow for the generation of high quality Voronoi diagrams and Delaunay triangulations through the use of an intuitive, user-defined density function. In each of the examples provided, this method results in high-quality meshes where the quality measures are guaranteed to improve as the number of nodes is increased. Real-world examples are developed for the Greenland ice sheet and the North Atlantic ocean. Idealized examples are developed for ocean–ice shelf interaction and for regional atmospheric modeling. In addition to defining, developing, and exhibiting SCVTs, we pair this mesh generation technique with a previously developed finite-volume method. Our numerical example is based on the nonlinear, shallow water equations spanning the entire surface of the sphere. This example is used to elucidate both the potential benefits of this multiresolution method and the challenges ahead.« less

Climate metrics and the carbon footprint of livestock products: where’s the beef?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Persson, U. Martin; Johansson, Daniel J. A.; Cederberg, Christel; Hedenus, Fredrik; Bryngelsson, David

2015-03-01

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 15% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 80% of which originate from ruminant animal systems due to high emissions of methane (CH4) from enteric fermentation and manure management. However, recent analyses have argued that the carbon footprint (CF) of ruminant meat and dairy products are substantially reduced if one adopts alternative metrics for comparing emissions of GHGs—e.g., the 100 year global temperature change potential (GTP100), instead of the commonly used 100 year global warming potential (GWP100)—due to a lower valuation of CH4 emissions. This raises the question of which metric to use. Ideally, the choice of metric should be related to a climate policy goal. Here, we argue that basing current GHG metrics solely on temperature impact 100 years into the future is inconsistent with the current global climate goal of limiting warming to 2 °C, a limit that is likely to be reached well within 100 years. A reasonable GTP value for CH4, accounting for current projections for when 2 °C warming will be reached, is about 18, leading to a current CF of 19 kg CO2-eq. per kilo beef (carcass weight, average European system), 20% lower than if evaluated using GWP100. Further, we show that an application of the GTP metric consistent with a 2 °C climate limit leads to the valuation of CH4 increasing rapidly over time as the temperature ceiling is approached. This means that the CF for beef would rise by around 2.5% per year in the coming decades, surpassing the GWP based footprint in only ten years. Consequently, the impact on the livestock sector of substituting GTPs for GWPs would be modest in the near term, but could potentially be very large in the future due to a much higher (>50%) and rapidly appreciating CF.

Species-free species distribution models describe macroecological properties of protected area networks.

PubMed

Robinson, Jason L; Fordyce, James A

2017-01-01

Among the greatest challenges facing the conservation of plants and animal species in protected areas are threats from a rapidly changing climate. An altered climate creates both challenges and opportunities for improving the management of protected areas in networks. Increasingly, quantitative tools like species distribution modeling are used to assess the performance of protected areas and predict potential responses to changing climates for groups of species, within a predictive framework. At larger geographic domains and scales, protected area network units have spatial geoclimatic properties that can be described in the gap analysis typically used to measure or aggregate the geographic distributions of species (stacked species distribution models, or S-SDM). We extend the use of species distribution modeling techniques in order to model the climate envelope (or "footprint") of individual protected areas within a network of protected areas distributed across the 48 conterminous United States and managed by the US National Park System. In our approach we treat each protected area as the geographic range of a hypothetical endemic species, then use MaxEnt and 5 uncorrelated BioClim variables to model the geographic distribution of the climatic envelope associated with each protected area unit (modeling the geographic area of park units as the range of a species). We describe the individual and aggregated climate envelopes predicted by a large network of 163 protected areas and briefly illustrate how macroecological measures of geodiversity can be derived from our analysis of the landscape ecological context of protected areas. To estimate trajectories of change in the temporal distribution of climatic features within a protected area network, we projected the climate envelopes of protected areas in current conditions onto a dataset of predicted future climatic conditions. Our results suggest that the climate envelopes of some parks may be locally unique or have narrow geographic distributions, and are thus prone to future shifts away from the climatic conditions in these parks in current climates. In other cases, some parks are broadly similar to large geographic regions surrounding the park or have climatic envelopes that may persist into near-term climate change. Larger parks predict larger climatic envelopes, in current conditions, but on average the predicted area of climate envelopes are smaller in our single future conditions scenario. Individual units in a protected area network may vary in the potential for climate adaptation, and adaptive management strategies for the network should account for the landscape contexts of the geodiversity or climate diversity within individual units. Conservation strategies, including maintaining connectivity, assessing the feasibility of assisted migration and other landscape restoration or enhancements can be optimized using analysis methods to assess the spatial properties of protected area networks in biogeographic and macroecological contexts.

Observational needs for estimating Alaskan soil carbon stocks under current and future climate

DOE PAGES

Vitharana, U. W. A.; Mishra, U.; Jastrow, J. D.; ...

2017-01-24

Representing land surface spatial heterogeneity when designing observation networks is a critical scientific challenge. Here we present a geospatial approach that utilizes the multivariate spatial heterogeneity of soil-forming factors—namely, climate, topography, land cover types, and surficial geology—to identify observation sites to improve soil organic carbon (SOC) stock estimates across the State of Alaska, USA. Standard deviations in existing SOC samples indicated that 657, 870, and 906 randomly distributed pedons would be required to quantify the average SOC stocks for 0–1 m, 0–2 m, and whole-profile depths, respectively, at a confidence interval of 5 kg C m -2. Using the spatialmore » correlation range of existing SOC samples, we identified that 309, 446, and 484 new observation sites are needed to estimate current SOC stocks to 1 m, 2 m, and whole-profile depths, respectively. We also investigated whether the identified sites might change under future climate by using eight decadal (2020–2099) projections of precipitation, temperature, and length of growing season for three representative concentration pathway (RCP 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5) scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These analyses determined that 12 to 41 additional sites (906 + 12 to 41; depending upon the emission scenarios) would be needed to capture the impact of future climate on Alaskan whole-profile SOC stocks by 2100. The identified observation sites represent spatially distributed locations across Alaska that captures the multivariate heterogeneity of soil-forming factors under current and future climatic conditions. This information is needed for designing monitoring networks and benchmarking of Earth system model results.« less

Observational needs for estimating Alaskan soil carbon stocks under current and future climate

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

Vitharana, U. W. A.; Mishra, U.; Jastrow, J. D.

Representing land surface spatial heterogeneity when designing observation networks is a critical scientific challenge. Here we present a geospatial approach that utilizes the multivariate spatial heterogeneity of soil-forming factors—namely, climate, topography, land cover types, and surficial geology—to identify observation sites to improve soil organic carbon (SOC) stock estimates across the State of Alaska, USA. Standard deviations in existing SOC samples indicated that 657, 870, and 906 randomly distributed pedons would be required to quantify the average SOC stocks for 0–1 m, 0–2 m, and whole-profile depths, respectively, at a confidence interval of 5 kg C m -2. Using the spatialmore » correlation range of existing SOC samples, we identified that 309, 446, and 484 new observation sites are needed to estimate current SOC stocks to 1 m, 2 m, and whole-profile depths, respectively. We also investigated whether the identified sites might change under future climate by using eight decadal (2020–2099) projections of precipitation, temperature, and length of growing season for three representative concentration pathway (RCP 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5) scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These analyses determined that 12 to 41 additional sites (906 + 12 to 41; depending upon the emission scenarios) would be needed to capture the impact of future climate on Alaskan whole-profile SOC stocks by 2100. The identified observation sites represent spatially distributed locations across Alaska that captures the multivariate heterogeneity of soil-forming factors under current and future climatic conditions. This information is needed for designing monitoring networks and benchmarking of Earth system model results.« less

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center presents Enhancing Standards Based Science Curriculum through NASA Content Relevancy: A Model for Sustainable Teaching-Research Integration Dr. Robert Gabrys, Raquel Marshall, Dr. Evelina Felicite-Maurice, Erin McKinley

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marshall, R. H.; Gabrys, R.

2016-12-01

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has developed a systemic educator professional development model for the integration of NASA climate change resources into the K-12 classroom. The desired outcome of this model is to prepare teachers in STEM disciplines to be globally engaged and knowledgeable of current climate change research and its potential for content relevancy alignment to standard-based curriculum. The application and mapping of the model is based on the state education needs assessment, alignment to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and implementation framework developed by the consortium of district superintendents and their science supervisors. In this presentation, we will demonstrate best practices for extending the concept of inquiry-based and project-based learning through the integration of current NASA climate change research into curriculum unit lessons. This model includes a significant teacher development component focused on capacity development for teacher instruction and pedagogy aimed at aligning NASA climate change research to related NGSS student performance expectations and subsequent Crosscutting Concepts, Science and Engineering Practices, and Disciplinary Core Ideas, a need that was presented by the district steering committee as critical for ensuring sustainability and high-impact in the classroom. This model offers a collaborative and inclusive learning community that connects classroom teachers to NASA climate change researchers via an ongoing consultant/mentoring approach. As a result of the first year of implementation of this model, Maryland teachers are implementing NGSS unit lessons that guide students in open-ended research based on current NASA climate change research.

Predicted effects of climate warming on the distribution of 50 stream fishes in Wisconsin, U.S.A.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lyons, J.; Stewart, J.S.; Mitro, M.

2010-01-01

Summer air and stream water temperatures are expected to rise in the state of Wisconsin, U.S.A., over the next 50 years. To assess potential climate warming effects on stream fishes, predictive models were developed for 50 common fish species using classification-tree analysis of 69 environmental variables in a geographic information system. Model accuracy was 56.0-93.5% in validation tests. Models were applied to all 86 898 km of stream in the state under four different climate scenarios: current conditions, limited climate warming (summer air temperatures increase 1?? C and water 0.8?? C), moderate warming (air 3?? C and water 2.4?? C) and major warming (air 5?? C and water 4?? C). With climate warming, 23 fishes were predicted to decline in distribution (three to extirpation under the major warming scenario), 23 to increase and four to have no change. Overall, declining species lost substantially more stream length than increasing species gained. All three cold-water and 16 cool-water fishes and four of 31 warm-water fishes were predicted to decline, four warm-water fishes to remain the same and 23 warm-water fishes to increase in distribution. Species changes were predicted to be most dramatic in small streams in northern Wisconsin that currently have cold to cool summer water temperatures and are dominated by cold-water and cool-water fishes, and least in larger and warmer streams and rivers in southern Wisconsin that are currently dominated by warm-water fishes. Results of this study suggest that even small increases in summer air and water temperatures owing to climate warming will have major effects on the distribution of stream fishes in Wisconsin. ?? 2010 The Authors. Journal of Fish Biology ?? 2010 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.

Trade, transport, and sinks extend the carbon dioxide responsibility of countries: An editorial essay

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

Peters, Glen P; Marland, Gregg; Hertwich, Edgar G.

2009-01-01

Globalization and the dynamics of ecosystem sinks need be considered in post-Kyoto climate negotiations as they increasingly affect the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Currently, the allocation of responsibility for greenhouse gas mitigation is based on territorial emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, process emissions and some land-use emissions. However, at least three additional factors can significantly alter a country's impact on climate from carbon dioxide emissions. First, international trade causes a separation of consumption from production, reducing domestic pollution at the expense of foreign producers, or vice versa. Second, international transportation emissions are not allocated to countries for the purposemore » of mitigation. Third, forest growth absorbs carbon dioxide and can contribute to both carbon sequestration and climate change protection. Here we quantify how these three factors change the carbon dioxide emissions allocated to China, Japan, Russia, USA, and European Union member countries. We show that international trade can change the carbon dioxide currently allocated to countries by up to 60% and that forest expansion can turn some countries into net carbon sinks. These factors are expected to become more dominant as fossil-fuel combustion and process emissions are mitigated and as international trade and forest sinks continue to grow. Emission inventories currently in wide-spread use help to understand the global carbon cycle, but for long-term climate change mitigation a deeper understanding of the interaction between the carbon cycle and society is needed. Restructuring international trade and investment flows to meet environmental objectives, together with the inclusion of forest sinks, are crucial issues that need consideration in the design of future climate policies. And even these additional issues do not capture the full impact of changes in the carbon cycle on the global climate system.« less

Predicted effects of climate warming on the distribution of 50 stream fishes in Wisconsin, U.S.A.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stewart, Jana S.; Lyons, John D.; Matt Mitro,

2010-01-01

Summer air and stream water temperatures are expected to rise in the state of Wisconsin, U.S.A., over the next 50 years. To assess potential climate warming effects on stream fishes, predictive models were developed for 50 common fish species using classification-tree analysis of 69 environmental variables in a geographic information system. Model accuracy was 56·0–93·5% in validation tests. Models were applied to all 86 898 km of stream in the state under four different climate scenarios: current conditions, limited climate warming (summer air temperatures increase 1° C and water 0·8° C), moderate warming (air 3° C and water 2·4° C) and major warming (air 5° C and water 4° C). With climate warming, 23 fishes were predicted to decline in distribution (three to extirpation under the major warming scenario), 23 to increase and four to have no change. Overall, declining species lost substantially more stream length than increasing species gained. All three cold-water and 16 cool-water fishes and four of 31 warm-water fishes were predicted to decline, four warm-water fishes to remain the same and 23 warm-water fishes to increase in distribution. Species changes were predicted to be most dramatic in small streams in northern Wisconsin that currently have cold to cool summer water temperatures and are dominated by cold-water and cool-water fishes, and least in larger and warmer streams and rivers in southern Wisconsin that are currently dominated by warm-water fishes. Results of this study suggest that even small increases in summer air and water temperatures owing to climate warming will have major effects on the distribution of stream fishes in Wisconsin.

The Current Status and Future of GNSS-Meteorology in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jones, J.; Guerova, G.; Dousa, J.; Dick, G.; Haan, de, S.; Pottiaux, E.; Bock, O.; Pacione, R.

2017-12-01

GNSS is a well established atmospheric observing system which can accurately sense water vapour, the most abundant greenhouse gas, accounting for 60-70% of atmospheric warming. Water vapour observations are currently under-sampled in operational meteorology and obtaining and exploiting additional high-quality humidity observations is essential to improve severe weather forecasting and climate monitoring. Inconsistencies introduced into long-term time series from improved GNSS processing algorithms make climate trend analysis challenging. Ongoing re-processing efforts using state-of-the-art models are underway which will provide consistent time series' of tropospheric data, using 15+ years of GNSS observations and from over 600 stations worldwide. These datasets will enable validation of systematic biases from a range of instrumentation, improve the knowledge of climatic trends of atmospheric water vapour, and will potentially be of great benefit to global and regional NWP reanalyses and climate model simulations (e.g. IPCC AR5) COST Action ES1206 is a 4-year project, running from 2013 to 2017, which has coordinated new and improved capabilities from concurrent developments in GNSS, meteorological and climate communities. For the first time, the synergy of multi-GNSS constellations has been used to develop new, more advanced tropospheric products, exploiting the full potential of multi-GNSS on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales - from real-time products monitoring and forecasting severe weather, to the highest quality post-processed products suitable for climate research. The Action has also promoted the use of meteorological data as an input to real-time GNSS positioning, navigation, and timing services and has stimulated knowledge and data transfer throughout Europe and beyond. This presentation will give an overview of COST Action ES1206 plus an overview of ground-based GNSS-meteorology in Europe in general, including current status and future opportunities.

It's Not Just About More Data: Translation of Science and Decision Support Evaluation for Climate Impact Indicators

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kenney, M. A.

2014-12-01

The U.S. Global Change Research Program is currently considering establishing a National Climate Indicators System, which would be a set of physical, ecological, and societal indicators that would communicate key aspects of climate changes, impacts, vulnerabilities, and preparedness to inform mitigation and adaptation decisions. Thus, over the past several years 150+ scientists and practitioners representing a range of expertise from the climate system to natural systems to human sectors have developed a set of indicator recommendations that could be used as a first step to establishing such an indicator system. These recommendations have been implemented into a pilot system, with the goal of working with stakeholder communities to evaluate the understandability of individual indicators and learn how users are combining indicators for their own understanding or decision needs through this multiple Federal agency decision support platform. This prototype system provides the perfect test bed for evaluating the translation of scientific data - observations, remote sensing, and citizen science data -- and data products, such as indicators, for decision-making audiences. Often translation of scientific information into decision support products is developed and improved given intuition and feedback. Though this can be useful in many cases, more rigorous testing using social science methodologies would provide greater assurance that the data products are useful for the intended audiences. I will present some initial research using surveys to assess the understandability of indicators and whether that understanding is influenced by one's attitude toward climate change. Such information is critical to assess whether products developed for scientists by scientists have been appropriately translated for non-scientists, thus assuring that the data will have some value for the intended audience. Such survey information will provide a data driven approach to further develop and improve the National Climate Indicators System and could be applied to improve other decision support systems.

Earth System Modeling and Field Experiments in the Arctic-Boreal Zone - Report from a NASA Workshop

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sellers, Piers; Rienecker Michele; Randall, David; Frolking, Steve

2012-01-01

Early climate modeling studies predicted that the Arctic Ocean and surrounding circumpolar land masses would heat up earlier and faster than other parts of the planet as a result of greenhouse gas-induced climate change, augmented by the sea-ice albedo feedback effect. These predictions have been largely borne out by observations over the last thirty years. However, despite constant improvement, global climate models have greater difficulty in reproducing the current climate in the Arctic than elsewhere and the scatter between projections from different climate models is much larger in the Arctic than for other regions. Biogeochemical cycle (BGC) models indicate that the warming in the Arctic-Boreal Zone (ABZ) could lead to widespread thawing of the permafrost, along with massive releases of CO2 and CH4, and large-scale changes in the vegetation cover in the ABZ. However, the uncertainties associated with these BGC model predictions are even larger than those associated with the physical climate system models used to describe climate change. These deficiencies in climate and BGC models reflect, at least in part, an incomplete understanding of the Arctic climate system and can be related to inadequate observational data or analyses of existing data. A workshop was held at NASA/GSFC, May 22-24 2012, to assess the predictive capability of the models, prioritize the critical science questions; and make recommendations regarding new field experiments needed to improve model subcomponents. This presentation will summarize the findings and recommendations of the workshop, including the need for aircraft and flux tower measurements and extension of existing in-situ measurements to improve process modeling of both the physical climate and biogeochemical cycle systems. Studies should be directly linked to remote sensing investigations with a view to scaling up the improved process models to the Earth System Model scale. Data assimilation and observing system simulation studies should be used to guide the deployment pattern and schedule for inversion studies as well. Synthesis and integration of previously funded Arctic-Boreal projects (e.g., ABLE, BOREAS, ICESCAPE, ICEBRIDGE, ARCTAS) should also be undertaken. Such an effort would include the integration of multiple remotely sensed products from the EOS satellites and other resources.

Adaptation Challenges in Complex River Basins: Lessons Learned and Unlearned for the Colorado

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pulwarty, R. S.

2008-12-01

Climate variations affect the function and operation of existing water infrastructure - including hydropower, structural flood defenses, drainage and irrigation systems - as well as water management practices in support of efficiency and environmental needs. Selected basins around the world, including the Colorado, show agreements in model projections of increasing aridity. Adverse effects of climate change on freshwater systems aggravate the impacts of other stresses, such as population growth, changing economic activity, land-use change and urbanization and most importantly upstream-downstream winners and losers. Thus current water management practices may not be robust enough to cope with the impacts of climate change on water supply reliability. In many locations, water management does not even satisfactorily cope with current climate variability, so that large flood and drought-related environmental and economic damages occur on seasonal to decadal timescales. The recently released IPCC Technical Paper notes that adaptation procedures and risk management practices that incorporate projected hydrological changes with related uncertainties are being developed in some countries and regions.In this presentation we will review the challenges and lessons provided in drought and water resources management and optimization in the context of climate variability and projected change in the Western U.S., the European Union (including the Iberian Peninsula), the Murray-Darling Basin, and elsewhere. Since the release of the IPCC report several of the authors (including the presenter) have held meetings on comparative assessments of adaptation and its challenges in interstate and international river basins. As a first step, improved incorporation of information about current climate variability into water-related management could assist adaptation to longer-term climate change impacts. Future adaptations include technical changes that improve water use efficiency, demand management (e.g. through metering and pricing), and institutional changes that improve the tradability of water rights. The co-evolution of climate history and adaptation did not start with the release of IPCC scenarios. The development of the Colorado River Basin was itself influenced by water resources planners from around the world (including the Middle East) in the late 1800s. As such lessons identified, but not always learned, abound. These hold considerable promise for water savings and the reallocation of water to highly valued uses. Supply-side strategies generally involve increases in storage capacity, abstraction from watercourses, and water transfers. Integrated water resources management provides an important governance framework to achieve adaptation measures across socio-economic, environmental and administrative systems. However, several paradoxes in water management and governance mitigate against the effectiveness of scientific information for meeting short term needs in the context of reducing longer-term vulnerabilities and for providing water to meet environmental needs. Consequently a complete analysis of the effects of climate change on human water uses would consider cross-sector interactions, including the impacts of changes in water use efficiency and intentional transfers of the use of water from one sector to another.

CLARREO shortwave observing system simulation experiments of the twenty-first century: Simulator design and implementation

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

Feldman, D.R.; Algieri, C.A.; Ong, J.R.

2011-04-01

Projected changes in the Earth system will likely be manifested in changes in reflected solar radiation. This paper introduces an operational Observational System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) to calculate the signals of future climate forcings and feedbacks in top-of-atmosphere reflectance spectra. The OSSE combines simulations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report for the NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM) with the MODTRAN radiative transfer code to calculate reflectance spectra for simulations of current and future climatic conditions over the 21st century. The OSSE produces narrowband reflectances and broadband fluxes, the latter of which have been extensivelymore » validated against archived CCSM results. The shortwave reflectance spectra contain atmospheric features including signals from water vapor, liquid and ice clouds, and aerosols. The spectra are also strongly influenced by the surface bidirectional reflectance properties of predicted snow and sea ice and the climatological seasonal cycles of vegetation. By comparing and contrasting simulated reflectance spectra based on emissions scenarios with increasing projected and fixed present-day greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations, we find that prescribed forcings from increases in anthropogenic sulfate and carbonaceous aerosols are detectable and are spatially confined to lower latitudes. Also, changes in the intertropical convergence zone and poleward shifts in the subsidence zones and the storm tracks are all detectable along with large changes in snow cover and sea ice fraction. These findings suggest that the proposed NASA Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission to measure shortwave reflectance spectra may help elucidate climate forcings, responses, and feedbacks.« less

Impact of climate change on crop nutrient and water use efficiencies.

PubMed

Brouder, Sylvie M; Volenec, Jeffrey J

2008-08-01

Implicit in discussions of plant nutrition and climate change is the assumption that we know what to do relative to nutrient management here and now but that these strategies might not apply in a changed climate. We review existing knowledge on interactive influences of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, temperature and soil moisture on plant growth, development and yield as well as on plant water use efficiency (WUE) and physiological and uptake efficiencies of soil-immobile nutrients. Elevated atmospheric CO(2) will increase leaf and canopy photosynthesis, especially in C3 plants, with minor changes in dark respiration. Additional CO(2) will increase biomass without marked alteration in dry matter partitioning, reduce transpiration of most plants and improve WUE. However, spatiotemporal variation in these attributes will impact agronomic performance and crop water use in a site-specific manner. Nutrient acquisition is closely associated with overall biomass and strongly influenced by root surface area. When climate change alters soil factors to restrict root growth, nutrient stress will occur. Plant size may also change but nutrient concentration will remain relatively unchanged; therefore, nutrient removal will scale with growth. Changes in regional nutrient requirements will be most remarkable where we alter cropping systems to accommodate shifts in ecozones or alter farming systems to capture new uses from existing systems. For regions and systems where we currently do an adequate job managing nutrients, we stand a good chance of continued optimization under a changed climate. If we can and should do better, climate change will not help us.

Assessing the effects of climate change on aquatic invasive species.

PubMed

Rahel, Frank J; Olden, Julian D

2008-06-01

Different components of global environmental change are typically studied and managed independently, although there is a growing recognition that multiple drivers often interact in complex and nonadditive ways. We present a conceptual framework and empirical review of the interactive effects of climate change and invasive species in freshwater ecosystems. Climate change is expected to result in warmer water temperatures, shorter duration of ice cover, altered streamflow patterns, increased salinization, and increased demand for water storage and conveyance structures. These changes will alter the pathways by which non-native species enter aquatic systems by expanding fish-culture facilities and water gardens to new areas and by facilitating the spread of species during floods. Climate change will influence the likelihood of new species becoming established by eliminating cold temperatures or winter hypoxia that currently prevent survival and by increasing the construction of reservoirs that serve as hotspots for invasive species. Climate change will modify the ecological impacts of invasive species by enhancing their competitive and predatory effects on native species and by increasing the virulence of some diseases. As a result of climate change, new prevention and control strategies such as barrier construction or removal efforts may be needed to control invasive species that currently have only moderate effects or that are limited by seasonally unfavorable conditions. Although most researchers focus on how climate change will increase the number and severity of invasions, some invasive coldwater species may be unable to persist under the new climate conditions. Our findings highlight the complex interactions between climate change and invasive species that will influence how aquatic ecosystems and their biota will respond to novel environmental conditions.

Climate change may alter breeding ground distributions of eastern migratory monarchs (Danaus plexippus) via range expansion of Asclepias host plants.

PubMed

Lemoine, Nathan P

2015-01-01

Climate change can profoundly alter species' distributions due to changes in temperature, precipitation, or seasonality. Migratory monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) may be particularly susceptible to climate-driven changes in host plant abundance or reduced overwintering habitat. For example, climate change may significantly reduce the availability of overwintering habitat by restricting the amount of area with suitable microclimate conditions. However, potential effects of climate change on monarch northward migrations remain largely unknown, particularly with respect to their milkweed (Asclepias spp.) host plants. Given that monarchs largely depend on the genus Asclepias as larval host plants, the effects of climate change on monarch northward migrations will most likely be mediated by climate change effects on Asclepias. Here, I used MaxEnt species distribution modeling to assess potential changes in Asclepias and monarch distributions under moderate and severe climate change scenarios. First, Asclepias distributions were projected to extend northward throughout much of Canada despite considerable variability in the environmental drivers of each individual species. Second, Asclepias distributions were an important predictor of current monarch distributions, indicating that monarchs may be constrained as much by the availability of Asclepias host plants as environmental variables per se. Accordingly, modeling future distributions of monarchs, and indeed any tightly coupled plant-insect system, should incorporate the effects of climate change on host plant distributions. Finally, MaxEnt predictions of Asclepias and monarch distributions were remarkably consistent among general circulation models. Nearly all models predicted that the current monarch summer breeding range will become slightly less suitable for Asclepias and monarchs in the future. Asclepias, and consequently monarchs, should therefore undergo expanded northern range limits in summer months while encountering reduced habitat suitability throughout the northern migration.

Climate Change May Alter Breeding Ground Distributions of Eastern Migratory Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) via Range Expansion of Asclepias Host Plants

PubMed Central

Lemoine, Nathan P.

2015-01-01

Climate change can profoundly alter species’ distributions due to changes in temperature, precipitation, or seasonality. Migratory monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) may be particularly susceptible to climate-driven changes in host plant abundance or reduced overwintering habitat. For example, climate change may significantly reduce the availability of overwintering habitat by restricting the amount of area with suitable microclimate conditions. However, potential effects of climate change on monarch northward migrations remain largely unknown, particularly with respect to their milkweed (Asclepias spp.) host plants. Given that monarchs largely depend on the genus Asclepias as larval host plants, the effects of climate change on monarch northward migrations will most likely be mediated by climate change effects on Asclepias. Here, I used MaxEnt species distribution modeling to assess potential changes in Asclepias and monarch distributions under moderate and severe climate change scenarios. First, Asclepias distributions were projected to extend northward throughout much of Canada despite considerable variability in the environmental drivers of each individual species. Second, Asclepias distributions were an important predictor of current monarch distributions, indicating that monarchs may be constrained as much by the availability of Asclepias host plants as environmental variables per se. Accordingly, modeling future distributions of monarchs, and indeed any tightly coupled plant-insect system, should incorporate the effects of climate change on host plant distributions. Finally, MaxEnt predictions of Asclepias and monarch distributions were remarkably consistent among general circulation models. Nearly all models predicted that the current monarch summer breeding range will become slightly less suitable for Asclepias and monarchs in the future. Asclepias, and consequently monarchs, should therefore undergo expanded northern range limits in summer months while encountering reduced habitat suitability throughout the northern migration. PMID:25705876

Reservoirs performances under climate variability: a case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Longobardi, A.; Mautone, M.; de Luca, C.

2014-09-01

A case study, the Piano della Rocca dam (southern Italy) is discussed here in order to quantify the system performances under climate variability conditions. Different climate scenarios have been stochastically generated according to the tendencies in precipitation and air temperature observed during recent decades for the studied area. Climate variables have then been filtered through an ARMA model to generate, at the monthly scale, time series of reservoir inflow volumes. Controlled release has been computed considering the reservoir is operated following the standard linear operating policy (SLOP) and reservoir performances have been assessed through the calculation of reliability, resilience and vulnerability indices (Hashimoto et al. 1982), comparing current and future scenarios of climate variability. The proposed approach can be suggested as a valuable tool to mitigate the effects of moderate to severe and persistent droughts periods, through the allocation of new water resources or the planning of appropriate operational rules.

Projected impacts of climate change on farmers' extraction of groundwater from crystalline aquifers in South India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferrant, Sylvain; Caballero, Yvan; Perrin, Jérome; Gascoin, Simon; Dewandel, Benoit; Aulong, Stéphanie; Dazin, Fabrice; Ahmed, Shakeel; Maréchal, Jean-Christophe

2014-01-01

Local groundwater levels in South India are falling alarmingly. In the semi-arid crystalline Deccan plateau area, agricultural production relies on groundwater resources. Downscaled Global Climate Model (GCM) data are used to force a spatially distributed agro-hydrological model in order to evaluate Climate Change (CC) effects on local groundwater extraction (GWE). The slight increase of precipitation may alleviate current groundwater depletion on average, despite the increased evaporation due to warming. Nevertheless, projected climatic extremes create worse GWE shortages than for present climate. Local conditions may lead to opposing impacts on GWE, from increases to decreases (+/-20 mm/year), for a given spatially homogeneous CC forcing. Areas vulnerable to CC in terms of irrigation apportionment are thus identified. Our results emphasize the importance of accounting for local characteristics (water harvesting systems and maximal aquifer capacity versus GWE) in developing measures to cope with CC impacts in the South Indian region.

Projected impacts of climate change on farmers' extraction of groundwater from crystalline aquifers in South India.

PubMed

Ferrant, Sylvain; Caballero, Yvan; Perrin, Jérome; Gascoin, Simon; Dewandel, Benoit; Aulong, Stéphanie; Dazin, Fabrice; Ahmed, Shakeel; Maréchal, Jean-Christophe

2014-01-15

Local groundwater levels in South India are falling alarmingly. In the semi-arid crystalline Deccan plateau area, agricultural production relies on groundwater resources. Downscaled Global Climate Model (GCM) data are used to force a spatially distributed agro-hydrological model in order to evaluate Climate Change (CC) effects on local groundwater extraction (GWE). The slight increase of precipitation may alleviate current groundwater depletion on average, despite the increased evaporation due to warming. Nevertheless, projected climatic extremes create worse GWE shortages than for present climate. Local conditions may lead to opposing impacts on GWE, from increases to decreases (+/-20 mm/year), for a given spatially homogeneous CC forcing. Areas vulnerable to CC in terms of irrigation apportionment are thus identified. Our results emphasize the importance of accounting for local characteristics (water harvesting systems and maximal aquifer capacity versus GWE) in developing measures to cope with CC impacts in the South Indian region.

Climate change influences on marine infectious diseases: implications for management and society

USGS Publications Warehouse

Burge, Colleen A.; Eakin, C. Mark; Friedman, Carolyn S.; Froelich, Brett; Hershberger, Paul K.; Hofmann, Eileen E.; Petes, Laura E.; Prager, Katherine C.; Weil, Ernesto; Willis, Bette L.; Ford, Susan E.; Harvell, C. Drew

2014-01-01

Infectious diseases are common in marine environments, but the effects of a changing climate on marine pathogens are not well understood. Here, we focus on reviewing current knowledge about how the climate drives hostpathogen interactions and infectious disease outbreaks. Climate-related impacts on marine diseases are being documented in corals, shellfish, finfish, and humans; these impacts are less clearly linked to other organisms. Oceans and people are inextricably linked, and marine diseases can both directly and indirectly affect human health, livelihoods, and well-being. We recommend an adaptive management approach to better increase the resilience of ocean systems vulnerable to marine diseases in a changing climate. Land-based management methods of quarantining, culling, and vaccinating are not successful in the ocean; therefore, forecasting conditions that lead to outbreaks and designing tools/approaches to influence these conditions may be the best way to manage marine disease.

Extreme Events in China under Climate Change: Uncertainty and related impacts (CSSP-FOREX)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leckebusch, Gregor C.; Befort, Daniel J.; Hodges, Kevin I.

2016-04-01

Suitable adaptation strategies or the timely initiation of related mitigation efforts in East Asia will strongly depend on robust and comprehensive information about future near-term as well as long-term potential changes in the climate system. Therefore, understanding the driving mechanisms associated with the East Asian climate is of major importance. The FOREX project (Fostering Regional Decision Making by the Assessment of Uncertainties of Future Regional Extremes and their Linkage to Global Climate System Variability for China and East Asia) focuses on the investigation of extreme wind and rainfall related events over Eastern Asia and their possible future changes. Here, analyses focus on the link between local extreme events and their driving weather systems. This includes the coupling between local rainfall extremes and tropical cyclones, the Meiyu frontal system, extra-tropical teleconnections and monsoonal activity. Furthermore, the relation between these driving weather systems and large-scale variability modes, e.g. NAO, PDO, ENSO is analysed. Thus, beside analysing future changes of local extreme events, the temporal variability of their driving weather systems and related large-scale variability modes will be assessed in current CMIP5 global model simulations to obtain more robust results. Beyond an overview of FOREX itself, first results regarding the link between local extremes and their steering weather systems based on observational and reanalysis data are shown. Special focus is laid on the contribution of monsoonal activity, tropical cyclones and the Meiyu frontal system on the inter-annual variability of the East Asian summer rainfall.

Experiencing the Sights, Smells, Sounds, and Climate of Southern Italy in VR.

PubMed

Manghisi, Vito M; Fiorentino, Michele; Gattullo, Michele; Boccaccio, Antonio; Bevilacqua, Vitoantonio; Cascella, Giuseppe L; Dassisti, Michele; Uva, Antonio E

2017-01-01

This article explores what it takes to make interactive computer graphics and VR attractive as a promotional vehicle, from the points of view of tourism agencies and the tourists themselves. The authors exploited current VR and human-machine interface (HMI) technologies to develop an interactive, innovative, and attractive user experience called the Multisensory Apulia Touristic Experience (MATE). The MATE system implements a natural gesture-based interface and multisensory stimuli, including visuals, audio, smells, and climate effects.

Simulation of modern climate with the new version of the INM RAS climate model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Volodin, E. M.; Mortikov, E. V.; Kostrykin, S. V.; Galin, V. Ya.; Lykosov, V. N.; Gritsun, A. S.; Diansky, N. A.; Gusev, A. V.; Yakovlev, N. G.

2017-03-01

The INMCM5.0 numerical model of the Earth's climate system is presented, which is an evolution from the previous version, INMCM4.0. A higher vertical resolution for the stratosphere is applied in the atmospheric block. Also, we raised the upper boundary of the calculating area, added the aerosol block, modified parameterization of clouds and condensation, and increased the horizontal resolution in the ocean block. The program implementation of the model was also updated. We consider the simulation of the current climate using the new version of the model. Attention is focused on reducing systematic errors as compared to the previous version, reproducing phenomena that could not be simulated correctly in the previous version, and modeling the problems that remain unresolved.

Receptivity to transformative change in the Dutch urban water management sector.

PubMed

de Graaf, R E; Dahm, R J; Icke, J; Goetgeluk, R W; Jansen, S J T; van de Ven, F H M

2009-01-01

Worldwide, the need for transformative change in urban water management is acknowledged by scientists and policy makers. The effects of climate change and developments such as urbanization, the European Water Framework Directive, and societal concerns about the sustainability of urban water system force the sector to adapt. In The Netherlands, a shift towards integration of spatial planning and water management can be observed. Despite major changes in water management policy and approach, changes in the physical urban water management infrastructure remain limited to incremental solutions and demonstration projects. Policy studies show that institutional factors and professional perceptions are important factors for application of innovations in urban water management. An online survey among Dutch urban water management professionals demonstrates that according to most respondents, optimization of the current system is sufficient to achieve both European and national objectives for sustainable urban water management. The respondents are most concerned with the effects of climate change on urban water systems. In contrast to current policy of the national government, priority factors that should be addressed to achieve a more sustainable urban water system are improving knowledge of local urban water systems, capacity building, developing trust between stakeholders, and improving involvement of elected officials and citizens.

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.

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.

Impacts of Land Cover Changes on Climate over China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, L.; Frauenfeld, O. W.

2014-12-01

Land cover changes can influence regional climate through modifying the surface energy balance and water fluxes, and can also affect climate at large scales via changes in atmospheric general circulation. With rapid population growth and economic development, China has experienced significant land cover changes, such as deforestation, grassland degradation, and farmland expansion. In this study, the Community Earth System Model (CESM) is used to investigate the climate impacts of anthropogenic land cover changes over China. To isolate the climatic effects of land cover change, we focus on the CAM and CLM models, with prescribed climatological sea surface temperature and sea ice cover. Two experiments were performed, one with current vegetation and the other with potential vegetation. Current vegetation conditions were derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite observations, and potential vegetation over China was obtained from Ramankutty and Foley's global potential vegetation dataset. Impacts of land cover changes on surface air temperature and precipitation are assessed based on the difference of the two experiments. Results suggest that land cover changes have a cold-season cooling effect in a large region of China, but a warming effect in summer. These temperature changes can be reconciled with albedo forcing and evapotranspiration. Moreover, impacts on atmospheric circulation and the Asian Monsoon is also discussed.

The trend of the multi-scale temporal variability of precipitation in Colorado River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiang, P.; Yu, Z.

2011-12-01

Hydrological problems like estimation of flood and drought frequencies under future climate change are not well addressed as a result of the disability of current climate models to provide reliable prediction (especially for precipitation) shorter than 1 month. In order to assess the possible impacts that multi-scale temporal distribution of precipitation may have on the hydrological processes in Colorado River Basin (CRB), a comparative analysis of multi-scale temporal variability of precipitation as well as the trend of extreme precipitation is conducted in four regions controlled by different climate systems. Multi-scale precipitation variability including within-storm patterns and intra-annual, inter-annual and decadal variabilities will be analyzed to explore the possible trends of storm durations, inter-storm periods, average storm precipitation intensities and extremes under both long-term natural climate variability and human-induced warming. Further more, we will examine the ability of current climate models to simulate the multi-scale temporal variability and extremes of precipitation. On the basis of these analyses, a statistical downscaling method will be developed to disaggregate the future precipitation scenarios which will provide a more reliable and finer temporal scale precipitation time series for hydrological modeling. Analysis results and downscaling results will be presented.

Climate-agriculture interactions and needs for policy making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Phillips, J. G.

2010-12-01

Research exploring climate change interactions with agriculture has evolved from simplistic “delta T” simulation experiments with crop models to work highlighting the importance of climate variability and extreme events, which characterized the negative impacts possible if no adaptation occurred. There soon followed consideration of socioeconomic factors allowing for adaptive strategies that are likely to mitigate the worst case outcomes originally projected. At the same time, improved understanding of biophysical feedbacks has led to a greater recognition of the role that agriculture plays in modifying climate, with a great deal of attention recently paid to strategies to enhance carbon sequestration in agricultural systems. Advances in models of biogeochemical cycling applied to agronomic systems have allowed for new insights into greenhouse gas emissions and sinks associated with current, conventional farming systems. Yet this work is still relatively simplistic in that it seldom addresses interactions between climate dynamics, adoption of mitigation strategies, and feedbacks to the climate system and the surrounding environment. In order for agricultural policy to be developed that provides incentives for appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies over the next 50 years, a systems approach needs to be utilized that addresses feedbacks and interactions at field, farm and regional scales in a broader environmental context. Interactions between carbon and climate constraints on the one hand, and environmental impacts related to water, nutrient runoff, and pest control all imply a transformation of farming practices that is as of yet not well defined. Little attention has been paid to studying the implications of “alternative” farming strategies such as organic systems, intensive rotational grazing of livestock, or increases in the perennial component of farmscapes, all of which may be necessary responses to energy and other environmental constraints over the coming century, interacting with a changing climate. Examples of interactions that need further exploration include the degree to which increases in soil organic matter to enhance carbon sequestration will improve system resilience and help mitigate the effects of an increase in climate variability, and how we can optimize the role of below-ground microbial communities in methane and nitrous-oxide emissions and sinks as well as in nutrient cycling and plant-water relations. These and other key areas where agroecosystem research is needed to advance policy will be discussed.

Advancing Climate Literacy through Investment in Science Education Faculty, and Future and Current Science Teachers: Providing Professional Learning, Instructional Materials, and a Model for Locally-Relevant and Culturally-Responsive Content

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Halversen, C.; Apple, J. K.; McDonnell, J. D.; Weiss, E.

2014-12-01

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for 5th grade students to "obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect Earth's resources and environment". Achieving this, and other objectives in NGSS, will require changes in the educational system for both students and teachers. Teachers need access to high quality instructional materials and continuous professional learning opportunities starting in pre-service education. Students need highly engaging and authentic learning experiences focused on content that is strategically interwoven with science practices. Pre-service and early career teachers, even at the secondary level, often have relatively weak understandings of the complex Earth systems science required for understanding climate change and hold alternative ideas and naïve beliefs about the nature of science. These naïve understandings cause difficulties in portraying and teaching science, especially considering what is being called for in NGSS. The ACLIPSE program focuses on middle school pre-service science teachers and education faculty because: (1) the concepts that underlie climate change align well with the disciplinary core ideas and practices in NGSS for middle grades; and (2) middle school is a critical time for capturing students interest in science as student engagement by eighth grade is the most effective predictor of student pursuit of science in high school and college. Capturing student attention at this age is critical for recruitment to STEM careers and lifelong climate literacy. THE ACLIPSE program uses cutting edge research and technology in ocean observing systems to provide educators with new tools to engage students that will lead to deeper understanding of the interactions between the ocean and climate systems. Establishing authentic, meaningful connections between indigenous and place-based, and technological climate observations will help generate a more holistic perspective on climate change and demonstrate that observing systems can enhance understanding. ACLIPSE materials strive to translate research about climate change effectively into understandable narratives of real world phenomena using ocean data, creating meaningful pathways into ocean-climate science for students in ALL communities.

The Rangeland Vegetation Simulator: A user-driven system for quantifying production, succession, disturbance and fuels in non-forest environments

Treesearch

Matt Reeves; Leonardo Frid

2016-01-01

Rangeland landscapes occupy roughly 662 million acres in the coterminous U.S. (Reeves and Mitchell 2011) and their vegetation responds quickly to climate and management, with high relative growth rates and inter-annual variability. Current national decision support systems in the U.S. such as the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFT-DSS) require...

Two challenges for U.S. irrigation due to climate change: increasing irrigated area in wet states and increasing irrigation rates in dry states.

PubMed

McDonald, Robert I; Girvetz, Evan H

2013-01-01

Agricultural irrigation practices will likely be affected by climate change. In this paper, we use a statistical model relating observed water use by U.S. producers to the moisture deficit, and then use this statistical model to project climate changes impact on both the fraction of agricultural land irrigated and the irrigation rate (m³ ha⁻¹). Data on water withdrawals for US states (1985-2005) show that both quantities are highly positively correlated with moisture deficit (precipitation--PET). If current trends hold, climate change would increase agricultural demand for irrigation in 2090 by 4.5-21.9 million ha (B1 scenario demand: 4.5-8.7 million ha, A2 scenario demand: 9.1-21.9 million ha). Much of this new irrigated area would occur in states that currently have a wet climate and a small fraction of their agricultural land currently irrigated, posing a challenge to policymakers in states with less experience with strict regulation of agriculture water use. Moreover, most of this expansion will occur in states where current agricultural production has relatively low market value per hectare, which may make installation of irrigation uneconomical without significant changes in crops or practices by producers. Without significant increases in irrigation efficiency, climate change would also increase the average irrigation rate from 7,963 to 8,400-10,415 m³ ha⁻¹ (B1 rate: 8,400-9,145 m³ ha⁻¹, A2 rate: 9,380-10,415 m³ ha⁻¹). The irrigation rate will increase the most in states that already have dry climates and large irrigation rates, posing a challenge for water supply systems in these states. Accounting for both the increase in irrigated area and irrigation rate, total withdrawals might increase by 47.7-283.4 billion m³ (B1 withdrawal: 47.7-106.0 billion m³, A2 withdrawal: 117.4-283.4 billion m³). Increases in irrigation water-use efficiency, particularly by reducing the prevalence of surface irrigation, could eliminate the increase in total irrigation withdrawals in many states.

Check-Up of Planet Earth at the Turn of the Millennium: Contribution of EOS-Terra to a New Phase in Earth Sciences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kaufman, Yoram

1999-01-01

Langley's remarkable solar and lunar spectra collected from Mt. Whitney inspired Arrhenius to develop the first quantitative climate model in 1896. In 1999, NASA's Earth Observing AM Satellite (EOS-Terra) will repeat Langley's experiment, but for the entire planet, thus pioneering a wide array of calibrated spectral observations from space of the Earth System. Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-Terra, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, will fill a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution of few kilometers on the physical, chemical and biological elements of the earth system. Thus, like Langley's data, EOS-Terra can revolutionize climate research by inspiring a new generation of climate system models and enable us to assess the human impact on the environment. In the talk I shall review the historical developments that brought to the Terra mission, its objectives and example of application to biomass burning.

Enhancement of Local Climate Analysis Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horsfall, F. M.; Timofeyeva, M. M.; Dutton, J.

2012-12-01

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) will enhance its Local Climate Analysis Tool (LCAT) to incorporate specific capabilities to meet the needs of various users including energy, health, and other communities. LCAT is an online interactive tool that provides quick and easy access to climate data and allows users to conduct analyses at the local level such as time series analysis, trend analysis, compositing, correlation and regression techniques, with others to be incorporated as needed. LCAT uses principles of Artificial Intelligence in connecting human and computer perceptions on application of data and scientific techniques in multiprocessing simultaneous users' tasks. Future development includes expanding the type of data currently imported by LCAT (historical data at stations and climate divisions) to gridded reanalysis and General Circulation Model (GCM) data, which are available on global grids and thus will allow for climate studies to be conducted at international locations. We will describe ongoing activities to incorporate NOAA Climate Forecast System (CFS) reanalysis data (CFSR), NOAA model output data, including output from the National Multi Model Ensemble Prediction System (NMME) and longer term projection models, and plans to integrate LCAT into the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and its protocols for accessing model output and observational data to ensure there is no redundancy in development of tools that facilitate scientific advancements and use of climate model information in applications. Validation and inter-comparison of forecast models will be included as part of the enhancement to LCAT. To ensure sustained development, we will investigate options for open sourcing LCAT development, in particular, through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

Elevated atmospheric CO2 negatively impacts photosynthesis through radiative forcing and physiology-mediated climate feedback

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Peng; Zhuang, Qianlai; Ciais, Philippe; Welp, Lisa; Li, Wenyu; Xin, Qinchuan

2017-02-01

Increasing atmospheric CO2 affects photosynthesis involving directly increasing leaf carboxylation rates, stomatal closure, and climatic effects. The direct effects are generally thought to be positive leading to increased photosynthesis, while its climatic effects can be regionally positive or negative. These effects are usually considered to be independent from each other, but they are in fact coupled through interactions between land surface exchanges of gases and heat and the physical climate system. In particular, stomatal closure reduces evapotranspiration and increases sensible heat emissions from ecosystems, leading to decreased atmospheric moisture and precipitation and local warming. We use a coupled earth system model to attribute the influence of the increase in CO2 on gross primary productivity (GPP) during the period of 1930-2011. In our model, CO2 radiative effects cause climate change that has only a negligible effect on global GPP (a reduction of 0.9 ± 2% during the last 80 years) because of opposite responses between tropical and northern biomes. On the other hand, CO2 physiological effects on GPP are both positive, by increased carboxylation rates and water use efficiency (7.1 ± 0.48% increase), and negative, by vegetation-climate feedback reducing precipitation, as a consequence of decreased transpiration and increased sensible heat in areas without water limitation (2.7 ± 1.76% reduction).When considering the coupled atmosphere-vegetation system, negative climate feedback on photosynthesis and plant growth due to the current level of CO2 opposes 29-38% of the gains from direct fertilization effects.

State Policies on School Climate and Bully Prevention Efforts: Challenges and Opportunities for Deepening State Policy Support for Safe and Civil Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piscatelli, Jennifer; Lee, Chiqueena

2011-01-01

The National School Climate Center (NSCC) completed a 50-state policy scan on state school climate and anti-bullying policies to better understand the current state policy infrastructure supporting the development of positive school climates. This policy brief examines the current status of school climate and anti-bullying policies in each state,…

Invited Review: Measuring the respiratory gas exchange by grazing cattle using the GreenFeed emissions monitoring system

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Ruminants are a source of enteric methane (CH4), which has been identified as a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. With interest in developing technologies to decrease enteric CH4 emission, systems are currently being developed to measure the CH4 emission by cattle. An issue with g...

Submesoscale Flows and Mixing in the Ocean Surface Layer Using the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS)

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-30

chemical cycles, water quality, blooms , micro-nutrients, larval dispersal, biome transitions, and coupling to higher tropic levels. We collaborate with...Kurian, 2012: Heat balance and eddies in the Peru- Chile Current System. Climate Dynamics 39, 509-529, doi:10.1007/s00382-011-1170-6. Colas, F., X

Smouldering Fires in the Earth System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rein, G.

2012-04-01

Smouldering fires, the slow, low-temperature, flameless burning, represent the most persistent type of combustion phenomena and the longest continuously fires on Earth system. Indeed, smouldering mega-fires of peatlands occur with some frequency during the dry session in, for example, Indonesia, Canada, Russia, UK and USA. Smouldering fires propagate slowly through organic layers of the ground and can reach depth >5 m if large cracks, natural piping or channel systems exist. It threatens to release sequestered carbon deep into the soil. Once ignited, they are particularly difficult to extinguish despite extensive rains, weather changes or fire-fighting attempts, and can persist for long periods of time (months, years) spreading deep and over extensive areas. Recent figures at the global scale estimate that average annual greenhouse gas emissions from smouldering fires are equivalent to 15% of man-made emissions. These fires are difficult or impossible to detect with current remote sensing methods because the chemistry is significantly different, their thermal radiation signature is much smaller, and the plume is much less buoyant. These wildfires burn fossil fuels and thus are a carbon-positive fire phenomena. This creates feedbacks in the climate system because soil moisture deficit and self-heating are enchanted under warmer climate scenarios and lead to more frequent fires. Warmer temperatures at high latitudes are resulting in more frequent Artic fires. Unprecedented permafrost thaw is leaving large soil carbon pools exposed to smouldering fires for the fist time since millennia. Although interactions between flaming fires and the Earth system have been a central focus, smouldering fires are as important but have received very little attention. DBut differences with flaming fires are important. This paper reviews the current knowledge on smouldering fires in the Earth system regarding combustion dynamics, damage to the soil, emissions, remote sensing and feedbacks in the climate system.

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).

Interactive, process-oriented climate modeling with CLIMLAB

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rose, B. E. J.

2016-12-01

Global climate is a complex emergent property of the rich interactions between simpler components of the climate system. We build scientific understanding of this system by breaking it down into component process models (e.g. radiation, large-scale dynamics, boundary layer turbulence), understanding each components, and putting them back together. Hands-on experience and freedom to tinker with climate models (whether simple or complex) is invaluable for building physical understanding. CLIMLAB is an open-ended software engine for interactive, process-oriented climate modeling. With CLIMLAB you can interactively mix and match model components, or combine simpler process models together into a more comprehensive model. It was created primarily to support classroom activities, using hands-on modeling to teach fundamentals of climate science at both undergraduate and graduate levels. CLIMLAB is written in Python and ties in with the rich ecosystem of open-source scientific Python tools for numerics and graphics. The Jupyter Notebook format provides an elegant medium for distributing interactive example code. I will give an overview of the current capabilities of CLIMLAB, the curriculum we have developed thus far, and plans for the future. Using CLIMLAB requires some basic Python coding skills. We consider this an educational asset, as we are targeting upper-level undergraduates and Python is an increasingly important language in STEM fields.

How Sensitive Is the Carbon Budget Approach to Potential Carbon Cycle Changes?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matthews, D.

2014-12-01

The recent development of global Earth-system models, which include dynamic representations of both physical climate and carbon cycle processes, has led to new insights about how the climate responds to human carbon dioxide emissions. Notably, several model analyses have now shown that global temperature responds linearly to cumulative CO2 emissions across a wide range of emissions scenarios. This implies that the timing of CO2 emissions does not affect the overall climate response, and allows a finite global carbon carbon budget to be defined for a given global temperature target. This linear climate response, however, emerges from the interaction of several non-linear processes and feedbacks involving how carbon sinks respond to changes in atmospheric CO2 and climate. In this presentation, I will give an overview of how carbon sinks and carbon cycle feedbacks contribute to the overall linearity of the climate response to cumulative emissions, and will assess how robust this relationship is to a range of possible changes in the carbon cycle, including (a) potential positive carbon cycle feedbacks that are not well represented in the current generation of Earth-system models and (b) negative emission scenarios resulting from possible technological strategies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Preface

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenzweig, Cynthia (Editor); Hillel, Daniel (Editor)

2015-01-01

The potential effects of climate change on the food production system are raising concern both globally and regionally. The system is already challenged to deliver sufficient and healthy sustenance to all people, and is certain to be even further challenged as world population grows and price shocks loom. The prospect of climate change intensifies these challenges, raising the risk that more frequent and intense extreme weather events threaten the stability of agricultural production in regions around the globe. This two-part set is an important contribution to the ongoing Imperial College Press (ICP) Series on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Mitigation. This series aims to provide the know ledge base necessary for understanding and responding to climate change, in both its current form and future manifestations. In these volumes, ·leading agricultural researchers have come together to contribute their expertise on actual and potential climate change impacts, adaptation strategies, and mitigation efforts. This ongoing series is jointly published by The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), together with ICP. We hope that this fruitful cooperation will continue for many years to come, as it spurs the global effort to define and meet the great food security and climate change challenges of our time.

Ocean array alters view of Atlantic conveyor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kornei, Katherine

2018-02-01

Oceanographers have put a stethoscope on the coursing circulatory system of the Atlantic Ocean, and they have found a skittish pulse that's surprisingly strong in the waters east of Greenland—discoveries that should improve climate models. The powerful currents known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) are an engine in Earth's climate. The AMOC's shallower limbs—which include the Gulf Stream—move warm water from the tropics northward, warming Western Europe. In the north, the waters cool and sink, forming deeper limbs that transport the cold water back south—and sequester anthropogenic carbon in the process. Last week, at the American Geophysical Union's Ocean Sciences meeting, scientists presented the first data from an array of instruments moored in the subpolar North Atlantic, a $35 million, seven-nation project known as the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP). Since 2004, researchers have gathered data from another array, at 26°N, stretching from Florida to Africa. But OSNAP is the first to monitor the circulation farther north, where a critical aspect of the overturning occurs. The observations reveal unexpected eddies and strong variability in the AMOC currents. They also show that the currents east of Greenland contribute the most to the total AMOC flow. Climate models, on the other hand, have emphasized the currents west of Greenland in the Labrador Sea.

Climate services in the tourism sector - examples and market research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Damm, Andrea; Köberl, Judith; Prettenthaler, Franz; Kortschak, Dominik; Hofer, Marianne; Winkler, Claudia

2017-04-01

Tourism is one of the most weather-sensitive sectors. Hence, dealing with weather and climate risks is an important part of operational risk management. WEDDA® (WEather Driven Demand Analysis), developed by Joanneum Research, represents a comprehensive and flexible toolbox for managing weather and climate risks. Modelling the demand for products or services of a particular economic sector or company and its weather and climate sensitivity usually forms the starting and central point of WEDDA®. Coupling the calibrated demand models to either long-term climate scenarios or short-term weather forecasts enables the use of WEDDA® for the following areas of application: (i) implementing short-term forecasting systems for the prediction of the considered indicator; (ii) quantifying the weather risk of a particular economic sector or company using parameters from finance (e.g. Value-at-Risk); (iii) assessing the potential impacts of changing climatic conditions on a particular economic sector or company. WEDDA® for short-term forecasts on the demand for products or services is currently used by various tourism businesses, such as open-air swimming pools, ski areas, and restaurants. It supports tourism and recreation facilities to better cope with (increasing) weather variability by optimizing the disposability of staff, resources and merchandise according to expected demand. Since coping with increasing weather variability forms one of the challenges with respect to climate change, WEDDA® may become an important component within a whole pool of weather and climate services designed to support tourism and recreation facilities to adapt to climate change. Climate change impact assessments at European scale, as conducted in the EU-FP7 project IMPACT2C, provide basic information of climate change impacts on tourism demand not only for individual tourism businesses, but also for regional and national tourism planners and policy makers interested in benchmarks for the vulnerability of their tourism destination. In this project we analysed the impacts of +2 °C global warming on winter tourism demand in ski tourism related regions in Europe. In order to achieve the climate targets, tailored climate information services - for individual businesses as well as at the regional and national level - play an important role. The current market, however, is still in the early stages. In the ongoing H2020 projects EU-MACS (www.eu-macs.eu) and MARCO (www.marco-h2020.eu) (Nov 2016 - Oct 2018) Joanneum Research explores the climate services market in the tourism sector. The current use of climate services is reviewed in detail and in an interactive process key market barriers and enablers will be identified in close collaboration with stakeholders from the tourism industry. The analysis and co-development of new climate services concepts for the tourism sector aims to reduce the gaps between climate services supply and demand.

Reviewing Bayesian Networks potentials for climate change impacts assessment and management: A multi-risk perspective.

PubMed

Sperotto, Anna; Molina, José-Luis; Torresan, Silvia; Critto, Andrea; Marcomini, Antonio

2017-11-01

The evaluation and management of climate change impacts on natural and human systems required the adoption of a multi-risk perspective in which the effect of multiple stressors, processes and interconnections are simultaneously modelled. Despite Bayesian Networks (BNs) are popular integrated modelling tools to deal with uncertain and complex domains, their application in the context of climate change still represent a limited explored field. The paper, drawing on the review of existing applications in the field of environmental management, discusses the potential and limitation of applying BNs to improve current climate change risk assessment procedures. Main potentials include the advantage to consider multiple stressors and endpoints in the same framework, their flexibility in dealing and communicate with the uncertainty of climate projections and the opportunity to perform scenario analysis. Some limitations (i.e. representation of temporal and spatial dynamics, quantitative validation), however, should be overcome to boost BNs use in climate change impacts assessment and management. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Beating the downturn

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2009-05-01

Laser systems manufacturer Trumpf believes it can survive in the current economic climate with its strategy of diversification in both the laser technologies it is able to offer clients and the wide range of end-user applications that it serves. Nadya Anscombe finds out more.

Peak health and the need for more sustainable urban water systems

EPA Science Inventory

Large centralized urban water services in developed countries like the USA still provide significant environmental impact via loss of ecological water services, energy use, loss of nutrients from agricultural production, and eutrophication issues. Current climate models predict t...

Response of the pelagic system of the Pacific Ocean off Baja California Peninsula to the projected effects of climate change: insights from a numerical model.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arellano, B.; Rivas, D.

2015-12-01

The response of the physical and biological dynamics of the Pacific Ocean off Baja California to the projected effects of climate change are studied using numerical simulations. This region is part of the California Current System, which is a highly productive ecosystem due to the seasonal upwelling, supporting all the trophic levels and important fisheries. The response of the ecosystem to the effects of climate change is uncertain and the information generated by models could be useful to predict future conditions. A three-dimensional hydrodinamical model is coupled to a Nitrate-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus (NPZD) trophic model, and it is forced by the GFDL 3.0 model outputs. Monthly climatologies of variables such as temperature, nutrients, wind, and ocean circulation patterns during the historical period 1985-2005 are compared to the available observed data in order to assess the model's ability to reproduce the observed patterns. The system's response to a high-emission scenario proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is also studied. The experiments are carried out using data correspondig to the RCP 6.0 scenario during the period 2006-2050.

Shift of large-scale atmospheric systems over Europe during late MIS 3 and implications for Modern Human dispersal.

PubMed

Obreht, Igor; Hambach, Ulrich; Veres, Daniel; Zeeden, Christian; Bösken, Janina; Stevens, Thomas; Marković, Slobodan B; Klasen, Nicole; Brill, Dominik; Burow, Christoph; Lehmkuhl, Frank

2017-07-19

Understanding the past dynamics of large-scale atmospheric systems is crucial for our knowledge of the palaeoclimate conditions in Europe. Southeastern Europe currently lies at the border between Atlantic, Mediterranean, and continental climate zones. Past changes in the relative influence of associated atmospheric systems must have been recorded in the region's palaeoarchives. By comparing high-resolution grain-size, environmental magnetic and geochemical data from two loess-palaeosol sequences in the Lower Danube Basin with other Eurasian palaeorecords, we reconstructed past climatic patterns over Southeastern Europe and the related interaction of the prevailing large-scale circulation modes over Europe, especially during late Marine Isotope Stage 3 (40,000-27,000 years ago). We demonstrate that during this time interval, the intensification of the Siberian High had a crucial influence on European climate causing the more continental conditions over major parts of Europe, and a southwards shift of the Westerlies. Such a climatic and environmental change, combined with the Campanian Ignimbrite/Y-5 volcanic eruption, may have driven the Anatomically Modern Human dispersal towards Central and Western Europe, pointing to a corridor over the Eastern European Plain as an important pathway in their dispersal.

Kuiper Prize Lecture - Present and past climates of the terrestrial planets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pollack, James B.

1991-01-01

An evaluation is undertaken of the current understanding of factors shaping the current climates of Venus, Mars, and the earth, in conjunction with the ways in which these planetary climates may have been different in the past. Attention is given to modeling approaches of various levels of sophistication which both characterize current climates and elucidate prior climatic epochs; these are assessed in light of observational data in order to judge degrees of success thus far and formulate major remaining questions for future investigations. Venus is noted to offer excellent opportunities for modeling the greenhouse effect.

The role of remote sensing in U.S. forest inventories: Past, present and future

Treesearch

G. Moisen; K. Brewer; R. Czaplewski; S. Healey; K. Megown; M. Finco

2014-01-01

In the current budget climate, the U.S. Forest Inventory and Analysis program is under increased pressure to do more with less. While reliance solely on field data under the current annual inventory system is a suitable solution when funding is adequate and stable, decreasing budgets and increasing need for timely information may necessitate solutions that can augment...

An assessment of global climate model-simulated climate for the western cordillera of Canada (1961-90)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonsal, Barrie R.; Prowse, Terry D.; Pietroniro, Alain

2003-12-01

Climate change is projected to significantly affect future hydrologic processes over many regions of the world. This is of particular importance for alpine systems that provide critical water supplies to lower-elevation regions. The western cordillera of Canada is a prime example where changes to temperature and precipitation could have profound hydro-climatic impacts not only for the cordillera itself, but also for downstream river systems and the drought-prone Canadian Prairies. At present, impact researchers primarily rely on global climate models (GCMs) for future climate projections. The main objective of this study is to assess several GCMs in their ability to simulate the magnitude and spatial variability of current (1961-90) temperature and precipitation over the western cordillera of Canada. In addition, several gridded data sets of observed climate for the study region are evaluated.Results reveal a close correspondence among the four gridded data sets of observed climate, particularly for temperature. There is, however, considerable variability regarding the various GCM simulations of this observed climate. The British, Canadian, German, Australian, and US GFDL models are superior at simulating the magnitude and spatial variability of mean temperature. The Japanese GCM is of intermediate ability, and the US NCAR model is least representative of temperature in this region. Nearly all the models substantially overestimate the magnitude of total precipitation, both annually and on a seasonal basis. An exception involves the British (Hadley) model, which best represents the observed magnitude and spatial variability of precipitation. This study improves our understanding regarding the accuracy of GCM climate simulations over the western cordillera of Canada. The findings may assist in producing more reliable future scenarios of hydro-climatic conditions over various regions of the country. Copyright

CLIMLAB: a Python-based software toolkit for interactive, process-oriented climate modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rose, B. E. J.

2015-12-01

Global climate is a complex emergent property of the rich interactions between simpler components of the climate system. We build scientific understanding of this system by breaking it down into component process models (e.g. radiation, large-scale dynamics, boundary layer turbulence), understanding each components, and putting them back together. Hands-on experience and freedom to tinker with climate models (whether simple or complex) is invaluable for building physical understanding. CLIMLAB is an open-ended software engine for interactive, process-oriented climate modeling. With CLIMLAB you can interactively mix and match model components, or combine simpler process models together into a more comprehensive model. It was created primarily to support classroom activities, using hands-on modeling to teach fundamentals of climate science at both undergraduate and graduate levels. CLIMLAB is written in Python and ties in with the rich ecosystem of open-source scientific Python tools for numerics and graphics. The IPython notebook format provides an elegant medium for distributing interactive example code. I will give an overview of the current capabilities of CLIMLAB, the curriculum we have developed thus far, and plans for the future. Using CLIMLAB requires some basic Python coding skills. We consider this an educational asset, as we are targeting upper-level undergraduates and Python is an increasingly important language in STEM fields. However CLIMLAB is well suited to be deployed as a computational back-end for a graphical gaming environment based on earth-system modeling.

Uncertainties in Integrated Climate Change Impact Assessments by Sub-setting GCMs Based on Annual as well as Crop Growing Period under Rice Based Farming System of Indo-Gangetic Plains of India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pillai, S. N.; Singh, H.; Panwar, A. S.; Meena, M. S.; Singh, S. V.; Singh, B.; Paudel, G. P.; Baigorria, G. A.; Ruane, A. C.; McDermid, S.; Boote, K. J.; Porter, C.; Valdivia, R. O.

2016-12-01

Integrated assessment of climate change impact on agricultural productivity is a challenge to the scientific community due to uncertainties of input data, particularly the climate, soil, crop calibration and socio-economic dataset. However, the uncertainty due to selection of GCMs is the major source due to complex underlying processes involved in initial as well as the boundary conditions dealt in solving the air-sea interactions. Under Agricultural Modeling Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), the Indo-Gangetic Plains Regional Research Team investigated the uncertainties caused due to selection of GCMs through sub-setting based on annual as well as crop-growth period of rice-wheat systems in AgMIP Integrated Assessment methodology. The AgMIP Phase II protocols were used to study the linking of climate-crop-economic models for two study sites Meerut and Karnal to analyse the sensitivity of current production systems to climate change. Climate Change Projections were made using 29 CMIP5 GCMs under RCP4.5 and RCP 8.5 during mid-century period (2040-2069). Two crop models (APSIM & DSSAT) were used. TOA-MD economic model was used for integrated assessment. Based on RAPs (Representative Agricultural Pathways), some of the parameters, which are not possible to get through modeling, derived from literature and interactions with stakeholders incorporated into the TOA-MD model for integrated assessment.

Impacts Of Global/Regional Climate Changes On Environment And Health: Need For Integrated Research And Education Collaboration (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tuluri, F.

2013-12-01

The realization of long term changes in climate in research community has to go beyond the comfort zone through climate literacy in academics. Higher education on climate change is the platform to bring together the otherwise disconnected factors such as effective discovery, decision making, innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, Climate change is a complex process that may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system, or to variations in natural or anthropogenic (human-driven) external forcing. Global climate change indicates a change in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for several decades or longer. This includes changes in average weather conditions on Earth, such as a change in average global temperature, as well as changes in how frequently regions experience heat waves, droughts, floods, storms, and other extreme weather. It is important to examine the effects of climate variations on human health and disorders in order to take preventive measures. Similarly, the influence of climate changes on animal management practices, pests and pest management systems, and high value crops such as citrus and vegetables is also equally important for investigation. New genetic agricultural varieties must be explored, and pilot studies should examine biotechnology transfer. Recent climate model improvements have resulted in an enhanced ability to simulate many aspects of climate variability and extremes. However, they are still characterized by systematic errors and limitations in accurately simulating more precisely regional climate conditions. The present situations warrant developing climate literacy on the synergistic impacts of environmental change, and improve development, testing and validation of integrated stress impacts through computer modeling. In the present study we present a detailed study of the current status on the impacts of global/regional climate changes on environment and health with a view to highlighting the need for integrated research and education collaboration at national and global level.

Applicability of the Organisational Climate Description Questionnaire--Rutgers Elementary: A South African Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vos, D.; Ellis, S. M.; van der Westhuizen, Philip C.; Mentz, P. J.

2013-01-01

The Organisational Climate Description Questionnaire--Rutgers Elementary (OCDQ--RE) was used to determine the current organizational climate of primary schools in North-West Province, South Africa. This questionnaire evaluates the actions of principals and educators; the current organizational climate in primary schools can be determined from the…

Bioclimatic predictors for supporting ecological applications in the conterminous United States

USGS Publications Warehouse

O'Donnel, Michael S.; Ignizio, Drew A.

2012-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed climate indices, referred to as bioclimatic predictors, which highlight climate conditions best related to species physiology. A set of 20 bioclimatic predictors were developed as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) continuous raster surfaces for each year between 1895 and 2009. The Parameter-elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) and down-scaled PRISM data, which included both averaged multi-year and averaged monthly climate summaries, was used to develop these multi-scale bioclimatic predictors. Bioclimatic predictors capture information about annual conditions (annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, annual range in temperature and precipitation), as well as seasonal mean climate conditions and intra-year seasonality (temperature of the coldest and warmest months, precipitation of the wettest and driest quarters). Examining climate over time is useful when quantifying the effects of climate changes on species' distributions for past, current, and forecasted scenarios. These data, which have not been readily available to scientists, can provide biologists and ecologists with relevant and multi-scaled climate data to augment research on the responses of species to changing climate conditions. The relationships established between species demographics and distributions with bioclimatic predictors can inform land managers of climatic effects on species during decisionmaking processes.

A global map of suitability for coastal Vibrio cholerae under current and future climate conditions.

PubMed

Escobar, Luis E; Ryan, Sadie J; Stewart-Ibarra, Anna M; Finkelstein, Julia L; King, Christine A; Qiao, Huijie; Polhemus, Mark E

2015-09-01

Vibrio cholerae is a globally distributed water-borne pathogen that causes severe diarrheal disease and mortality, with current outbreaks as part of the seventh pandemic. Further understanding of the role of environmental factors in potential pathogen distribution and corresponding V. cholerae disease transmission over time and space is urgently needed to target surveillance of cholera and other climate and water-sensitive diseases. We used an ecological niche model (ENM) to identify environmental variables associated with V. cholerae presence in marine environments, to project a global model of V. cholerae distribution in ocean waters under current and future climate scenarios. We generated an ENM using published reports of V. cholerae in seawater and freely available remotely sensed imagery. Models indicated that factors associated with V. cholerae presence included chlorophyll-a, pH, and sea surface temperature (SST), with chlorophyll-a demonstrating the greatest explanatory power from variables selected for model calibration. We identified specific geographic areas for potential V. cholerae distribution. Coastal Bangladesh, where cholera is endemic, was found to be environmentally similar to coastal areas in Latin America. In a conservative climate change scenario, we observed a predicted increase in areas with environmental conditions suitable for V. cholerae. Findings highlight the potential for vulnerability maps to inform cholera surveillance, early warning systems, and disease prevention and control. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Adaptation to Interannual and Interdecadal Climate Variability in Agricultural Production Systems of the Argentine Pampas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Podestá, G. P.; Bert, F.; Weber, E.; Laciana, C.; Rajagopalan, B.; Letson, D.

2007-05-01

Agricultural ecosystems play a central role in world food production and food security, and involve one of the most climate-sensitive sectors of society-agriculture. We focus on crop production in the Argentine Pampas, one of the world's major agricultural regions. Climate of the Pampas shows marked variability at both interannual and decadal time scales. We explored the scope for adaptive management in response to climate information on interannual scales. We show that different assumptions about what decision makers are trying to achieve (i.e., their objective functions) may change what actions are considered as "optimal" for a given climate context. Optimal actions also were used to estimate the economic value of forecasts of an ENSO phase. Decision constraints (e.g., crop rotations) have critical influence on value of the forecasting system. Gaps in knowledge or misconceptions about climate variability were identified in open-ended "mental model" interviews. Results were used to design educational interventions. A marked increase in precipitation since the 1970s, together with new production technologies, led to major changes in land use patterns in the Pampas. Continuous cropping has widely replaced agriculture-pasture rotations. Nevertheless, production systems that evolved partly in response to increased rainfall may not be viable if climate reverts to a drier epoch. We use historical data to define a range of plausible climate trajectories 20-30 years hence. Regional scenarios are downscaled using semi-parametric weather generators to produce multiple realizations of daily weather consistent with decadal scenarios. Finally, we use the synthetic climate, crop growth models, and realistic models of decision-making under risk to compute risk metrics (e.g., probability of yields or profits being below a threshold). Climatically optimal and marginal locations show differential responses: probabilities of negative economic results are much higher in currently marginal areas if precipitations decrease.

Assessment of Human Health Vulnerability to Climate Variability and Change in Cuba

PubMed Central

Bultó, Paulo Lázaro Ortíz; Rodríguez, Antonio Pérez; Valencia, Alina Rivero; Vega, Nicolás León; Gonzalez, Manuel Díaz; Carrera, Alina Pérez

2006-01-01

In this study we assessed the potential effects of climate variability and change on population health in Cuba. We describe the climate of Cuba as well as the patterns of climate-sensitive diseases of primary concern, particularly dengue fever. Analyses of the associations between climatic anomalies and disease patterns highlight current vulnerability to climate variability. We describe current adaptations, including the application of climate predictions to prevent disease outbreaks. Finally, we present the potential economic costs associated with future impacts due to climate change. The tools used in this study can be useful in the development of appropriate and effective adaptation options to address the increased climate variability associated with climate change. PMID:17185289

Impact of climate change on European weather extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duchez, Aurelie; Forryan, Alex; Hirschi, Joel; Sinha, Bablu; New, Adrian; Freychet, Nicolas; Scaife, Adam; Graham, Tim

2015-04-01

An emerging science consensus is that global climate change will result in more extreme weather events with concomitant increasing financial losses. Key questions that arise are: Can an upward trend in natural extreme events be recognised and predicted at the European scale? What are the key drivers within the climate system that are changing and making extreme weather events more frequent, more intense, or both? Using state-of-the-art coupled climate simulations from the UK Met Office (HadGEM3-GC2, historical and future scenario runs) as well as reanalysis data, we highlight the potential of the currently most advanced forecasting systems to progress understanding of the causative drivers of European weather extremes, and assess future frequency and intensity of extreme weather under various climate change scenarios. We characterize European extremes in these simulations using a subset of the 27 core indices for temperature and precipitation from The Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (Tank et al., 2009). We focus on temperature and precipitation extremes (e.g. extremes in daily and monthly precipitation and temperatures) and relate them to the atmospheric modes of variability over Europe in order to establish the large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns that are conducive to the occurrence of extreme precipitation and temperature events. Klein Tank, Albert M.G., and Francis W. Zwiers. Guidelines on Analysis of Extremes in a Changing Climate in Support of Informed Decisions for Adaptation. WMO-TD No. 1500. Climate Data and Monitoring. World Meteorological Organization, 2009.

Stormwater Design Return Period Standards for U.S. Transportation Infrastructure: How Are States Approaching Resilience?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samaras, C.; Lopez, T.

2016-12-01

Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and intensity of precipitation in many regions, which is relevant for stormwater engineering designs and resilience in the transportation sector. Existing and future stormwater infrastructure is generally designed for historical and stationary hydrologic conditions. For example, the design return period is based on statistical analysis of past precipitation events, often over a 50-year historical timeline. The design return period translates into how much peak precipitation volume a system is designed for in a state, and provides information about the performance of a drainage structure. The higher the design period used by an engineer for a given stormwater system, the more peak stormwater volume the system can convey. Therefore, design return periods can be associated with a design's near-term and long-term resilience. However, there is a tradeoff between the choice of design return period, the total infrastructure capital cost, and the resilience of a system to heavy precipitation events. This study analyzes current stormwater infrastructure design guidelines for state departments of transportation in the contiguous United States, in order to understand how stormwater design return periods vary across states and provide insight into the resilience of current stormwater systems design. The study found that the design return period varies considerably across the United States by roadway functional class and drainage classification, as well as within climate regions. Understanding this variation will help states identify possible vulnerabilities, highlight deficiencies across states and infrastructure types, and help in updating design return periods to increase the climate resilience of stormwater infrastructure.

Delay-induced rebounds in CO2 emissions and critical time-scales to meet global warming targets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manoli, Gabriele; Katul, Gabriel G.; Marani, Marco

2016-12-01

While climate science debates are focused on the attainment of peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions and policy tools to reduce peak temperatures, the human-energy-climate system can hold "rebound" surprises beyond this peak. Following the second industrial revolution, global per capita CO2 emissions (cc) experienced a punctuated growth of about 100% every 60 years, mainly attributable to technological development and its global spread. A model of the human-energy-climate system capable of reproducing past punctuated dynamics shows that rebounds in global CO2 emissions emerge due to delays intrinsic to the diffusion of innovations. Such intrinsic delays in the adoption and spread of low-carbon emitting technologies, together with projected population growth, upset the warming target set by the Paris Agreement. To avoid rebounds and their negative climate effects, model calculations show that the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies must occur with lags one-order of magnitude shorter (i.e., ˜6 years) than the characteristic timescale of past punctuated growth in cc. Radically new strategies to globally implement the technological advances at unprecedented rates are needed if the current emission goals are to be achieved.

High resolution climate projection of storm surge at the Venetian coast

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mel, R.; Sterl, A.; Lionello, P.

2013-04-01

Climate change impact on storm surge regime is of great importance for the safety and maintenance of Venice. In this study a future storm surge scenario is evaluated using new high resolution sea level pressure and wind data recently produced by EC-Earth, an Earth System Model based on the operational seasonal forecast system of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The study considers an ensemble of six 5 yr long simulations of the rcp45 scenario at 0.25° resolution and compares the 2094-2098 to the 2004-2008 period. EC-Earth sea level pressure and surface wind fields are used as input for a shallow water hydrodynamic model (HYPSE) which computes sea level and barotropic currents in the Adriatic Sea. Results show that a high resolution climate model is needed for producing realistic values of storm surge statistics and confirm previous studies in that they show little sensitivity of storm surge levels to climate change. However, some climate change signals are detected, such as increased persistence of high pressure conditions, an increased frequency of windless hour, and a decreased number of moderate windstorms.

ARM - Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds

DOE Data Explorer

Jensen, Mike; Bartholomew, Mary Jane; Genio, Anthony Del; Giangrande, Scott; Kollias, Pavlos

2012-01-19

Convective processes play a critical role in the Earth's energy balance through the redistribution of heat and moisture in the atmosphere and their link to the hydrological cycle. Accurate representation of convective processes in numerical models is vital towards improving current and future simulations of Earths climate system. Despite improvements in computing power, current operational weather and global climate models are unable to resolve the natural temporal and spatial scales important to convective processes and therefore must turn to parameterization schemes to represent these processes. In turn, parameterization schemes in cloud-resolving models need to be evaluated for their generality and application to a variety of atmospheric conditions. Data from field campaigns with appropriate forcing descriptors have been traditionally used by modelers for evaluating and improving parameterization schemes.

ARM - Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds (comstock-hvps)

DOE Data Explorer

Jensen, Mike; Comstock, Jennifer; Genio, Anthony Del; Giangrande, Scott; Kollias, Pavlos

2012-01-06

Convective processes play a critical role in the Earth's energy balance through the redistribution of heat and moisture in the atmosphere and their link to the hydrological cycle. Accurate representation of convective processes in numerical models is vital towards improving current and future simulations of Earths climate system. Despite improvements in computing power, current operational weather and global climate models are unable to resolve the natural temporal and spatial scales important to convective processes and therefore must turn to parameterization schemes to represent these processes. In turn, parameterization schemes in cloud-resolving models need to be evaluated for their generality and application to a variety of atmospheric conditions. Data from field campaigns with appropriate forcing descriptors have been traditionally used by modelers for evaluating and improving parameterization schemes.

Implementation of malaria dynamic models in municipality level early warning systems in Colombia. Part I: description of study sites.

PubMed

Ruiz, Daniel; Cerón, Viviana; Molina, Adriana M; Quiñónes, Martha L; Jiménez, Mónica M; Ahumada, Martha; Gutiérrez, Patricia; Osorio, Salua; Mantilla, Gilma; Connor, Stephen J; Thomson, Madeleine C

2014-07-01

As part of the Integrated National Adaptation Pilot project and the Integrated Surveillance and Control System, the Colombian National Institute of Health is working on the design and implementation of a Malaria Early Warning System framework, supported by seasonal climate forecasting capabilities, weather and environmental monitoring, and malaria statistical and dynamic models. In this report, we provide an overview of the local ecoepidemiologic settings where four malaria process-based mathematical models are currently being implemented at a municipal level. The description includes general characteristics, malaria situation (predominant type of infection, malaria-positive cases data, malaria incidence, and seasonality), entomologic conditions (primary and secondary vectors, mosquito densities, and feeding frequencies), climatic conditions (climatology and long-term trends), key drivers of epidemic outbreaks, and non-climatic factors (populations at risk, control campaigns, and socioeconomic conditions). Selected pilot sites exhibit different ecoepidemiologic settings that must be taken into account in the development of the integrated surveillance and control system. © The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Summer drought predictability over Europe: empirical versus dynamical forecasts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Turco, Marco; Ceglar, Andrej; Prodhomme, Chloé; Soret, Albert; Toreti, Andrea; Doblas-Reyes Francisco, J.

2017-08-01

Seasonal climate forecasts could be an important planning tool for farmers, government and insurance companies that can lead to better and timely management of seasonal climate risks. However, climate seasonal forecasts are often under-used, because potential users are not well aware of the capabilities and limitations of these products. This study aims at assessing the merits and caveats of a statistical empirical method, the ensemble streamflow prediction system (ESP, an ensemble based on reordering historical data) and an operational dynamical forecast system, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts—System 4 (S4) in predicting summer drought in Europe. Droughts are defined using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index for the month of August integrated over 6 months. Both systems show useful and mostly comparable deterministic skill. We argue that this source of predictability is mostly attributable to the observed initial conditions. S4 shows only higher skill in terms of ability to probabilistically identify drought occurrence. Thus, currently, both approaches provide useful information and ESP represents a computationally fast alternative to dynamical prediction applications for drought prediction.

Rainfall variability and extremes over southern Africa: assessment of a climate model to reproduce daily extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, C.; Kniveton, D.; Layberry, R.

2009-04-01

It is increasingly accepted that that any possible climate change will not only have an influence on mean climate but may also significantly alter climatic variability. A change in the distribution and magnitude of extreme rainfall events (associated with changing variability), such as droughts or flooding, may have a far greater impact on human and natural systems than a changing mean. This issue is of particular importance for environmentally vulnerable regions such as southern Africa. The subcontinent is considered especially vulnerable to and ill-equipped (in terms of adaptation) for extreme events, due to a number of factors including extensive poverty, famine, disease and political instability. Rainfall variability and the identification of rainfall extremes is a function of scale, so high spatial and temporal resolution data are preferred to identify extreme events and accurately predict future variability. The majority of previous climate model verification studies have compared model output with observational data at monthly timescales. In this research, the assessment of ability of a state of the art climate model to simulate climate at daily timescales is carried out using satellite derived rainfall data from the Microwave Infra-Red Algorithm (MIRA). This dataset covers the period from 1993-2002 and the whole of southern Africa at a spatial resolution of 0.1 degree longitude/latitude. The ability of a climate model to simulate current climate provides some indication of how much confidence can be applied to its future predictions. In this paper, simulations of current climate from the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre's climate model, in both regional and global mode, are firstly compared to the MIRA dataset at daily timescales. This concentrates primarily on the ability of the model to simulate the spatial and temporal patterns of rainfall variability over southern Africa. Secondly, the ability of the model to reproduce daily rainfall extremes will be assessed, again by a comparison with extremes from the MIRA dataset.

Climate and dengue transmission: evidence and implications.

PubMed

Morin, Cory W; Comrie, Andrew C; Ernst, Kacey

2013-01-01

Climate influences dengue ecology by affecting vector dynamics, agent development, and mosquito/human interactions. Although these relationships are known, the impact climate change will have on transmission is unclear. Climate-driven statistical and process-based models are being used to refine our knowledge of these relationships and predict the effects of projected climate change on dengue fever occurrence, but results have been inconsistent. We sought to identify major climatic influences on dengue virus ecology and to evaluate the ability of climate-based dengue models to describe associations between climate and dengue, simulate outbreaks, and project the impacts of climate change. We reviewed the evidence for direct and indirect relationships between climate and dengue generated from laboratory studies, field studies, and statistical analyses of associations between vectors, dengue fever incidence, and climate conditions. We assessed the potential contribution of climate-driven, process-based dengue models and provide suggestions to improve their performance. Relationships between climate variables and factors that influence dengue transmission are complex. A climate variable may increase dengue transmission potential through one aspect of the system while simultaneously decreasing transmission potential through another. This complexity may at least partly explain inconsistencies in statistical associations between dengue and climate. Process-based models can account for the complex dynamics but often omit important aspects of dengue ecology, notably virus development and host-species interactions. Synthesizing and applying current knowledge of climatic effects on all aspects of dengue virus ecology will help direct future research and enable better projections of climate change effects on dengue incidence.

Choosing and using climate change scenarios for ecological-impact assessments and conservation decisions

USGS Publications Warehouse

Amy K. Snover,; Nathan J. Mantua,; Littell, Jeremy; Michael A. Alexander,; Michelle M. McClure,; Janet Nye,

2013-01-01

Increased concern over climate change is demonstrated by the many efforts to assess climate effects and develop adaptation strategies. Scientists, resource managers, and decision makers are increasingly expected to use climate information, but they struggle with its uncertainty. With the current proliferation of climate simulations and downscaling methods, scientifically credible strategies for selecting a subset for analysis and decision making are needed. Drawing on a rich literature in climate science and impact assessment and on experience working with natural resource scientists and decision makers, we devised guidelines for choosing climate-change scenarios for ecological impact assessment that recognize irreducible uncertainty in climate projections and address common misconceptions about this uncertainty. This approach involves identifying primary local climate drivers by climate sensitivity of the biological system of interest; determining appropriate sources of information for future changes in those drivers; considering how well processes controlling local climate are spatially resolved; and selecting scenarios based on considering observed emission trends, relative importance of natural climate variability, and risk tolerance and time horizon of the associated decision. The most appropriate scenarios for a particular analysis will not necessarily be the most appropriate for another due to differences in local climate drivers, biophysical linkages to climate, decision characteristics, and how well a model simulates the climate parameters and processes of interest. Given these complexities, we recommend interaction among climate scientists, natural and physical scientists, and decision makers throughout the process of choosing and using climate-change scenarios for ecological impact assessment.

Mediterranean Cyclones in a changing climate. First statistical results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tous, M.; Genoves, A.; Campins, J.; Picornell, M. A.; Jansa, A.; Mizuta, R.

2009-09-01

The Mediterranean storms play an important role in weather and climate. Their influence in determining the local weather is known; heavy precipitation systems and strong wind cases are often related to the presence of a cyclone in the Mediterranean. From a large-scale point of view, the Mediterranean storm track has importance in the vertical and horizontal transfers of heat and water vapour towards the Eastern regions. For all of these reasons, any future change related to the intensity, frequency or tracks of these storms can be important for both the local weather and local climate, at least, in the countries around the basin. The Mediterranean cyclones constitute a study subject of increasing interest. Some climatologies from long series of re-analyses, like ERA15, NCEP/NCAR and ERA40, or from operational and high resolution analysis systems, like HIRLAM_INM and ECMWF, have allowed to define the main characteristics of these storms. Generally speaking, the Mediterranean storms have the characteristics of extratropical storms, showing smaller sizes and shorter life cycles than those ones developed in other maritime areas of the world. Moreover, the influence of the land areas and high mountains around the basin and the large-scale heat releases have been revealed as key factors for understanding their genesis and rates of development. In spite of the fact that probably the existing automatic procedures include some large scale assumptions, which may not the best for the correct detection and tracking the Mediterranean storms, these procedures can provide a first and almost necessary step, from a statistical/climatological point of view, specially taking into account both the current resolution of the existent global re-analysis series and global climatic models and the state-of-the art about Mediterranean cyclones. A cyclone detection and tracking procedure, originally designed for the description of Mediterranean storms, has been applied to the low resolution (1.5 degrees lat-lon) outputs of the JMA-GSM climate general circulation model. Preliminary results are here presented. Two different periods have been analysed. The first period, covering 1979-2002 has been compared with the previously computed ERA-40 climatology of cyclones. Results agree reasonably well with those obtained from ERA-40, providing confidence to the current climate simulation of JMA-GSM. Once validated the model from the perspective of cyclonic climatology under current climate conditions, the same procedure is applied to a scenario period (2075-2099) to investigate possible changes in cyclonic activity linked to climate change.

Development of an interactive interface to raise awareness of public, policy makers, and practitioners about natural hazards.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gordova, Yulia; Gordov, Evgeny; Okladnikov, Igor; Titov, Alexander

2017-04-01

Due to a global climate change the following consequences are predicted: rise in sea level due to melting glaciers and polar ice, changes in precipitation, changes in the hydrological regime, impact on ecosystems, agriculture and forestry. In Russia's vast territory these effects will be most dramatic. According to Hydrometeorological Center of Russian Federation report there is an increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events, as well as in their damage to ecosystems and infrastructure. In the framework of adaptation to climate change and mitigation of its consequences it is necessary to promote and support activities aimed at reducing possible risks. Adaptation methods include among others improving seasonal weather forecasts, systems of early warning and systems of management of risks. But there is a problem of insufficient awareness among decision-makers, as well a lack of scientific background. Those responsible for making decisions, stakeholders and the public do not have the skills and knowledge to work with the accumulated climate data to development an adaptation and sustainable development strategy. The goal is to provide these groups with tools, skills, thematic information for understanding climate processes occurring in the region. We believe that the preparation of both the persons responsible for decision-making, and the future specialist in environmental sciences shouldn't be realized artificial learning environment, but on the basis of actual operating computational and information systems used in climate research. Such kind of a system was developed by a team of the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems SB RAS. The information-computational Web GIS "Climate" (http://climate.climate.scert.ru) provides opportunities to study regional climate change and its consequences providing access to climate and weather models, a large set of geophysical data and means of processing and visualization. Also, the system is used for undergraduate and graduate students training. In addition, the system capabilities allow creating information resources to raise public awareness about climate change, its causes and consequences, which is a necessary step for the subsequent adaptation to these changes. "Climate" allows climatologists, specialists in related fields, decision-makers, stakeholders and the public use a variety of geographically distributed spatially-referenced data, resources and processing services via a web-browser. Currently, an interactive System User Manual for decision-makers is developed. It contains not only the information needed to use the system and perform practical tasks, but also the basic concepts explained in detail. The knowledge necessary for understanding the causes and possible consequences of the processes is given. The results of implementation of practical tasks are available not only in the form of color surface maps, but also on the Internet and in the form of layers for most GIS. Thus these layers can be used in usual desktop GIS which is a common software for most of decision-makers. Thus, this manual helps to prepare qualified users, which in the future will be able to determine the policy of the region to adapt to climate change impacts and hazards. The work is supported by Russian Science Foundation grant № 16-19-10257.

Cold Climate Foundation Retrofit Experimental Hygrothermal Performance. Cloquet Residential Research Facility Laboratory Results

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

Goldberg, Louise F.; Harmon, Anna C.

2015-04-09

This project was funded jointly by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). ORNL focused on developing a full basement wall system experimental database to enable others to validate hygrothermal simulation codes. NREL focused on testing the moisture durability of practical basement wall interior insulation retrofit solutions for cold climates. The project has produced a physically credible and reliable long-term hygrothermal performance database for retrofit foundation wall insulation systems in zone 6 and 7 climates that are fully compliant with the performance criteria in the 2009 Minnesota Energy Code. These data currently span the periodmore » from November 10, 2012 through May 31, 2014 and are anticipated to be extended through November 2014. The experimental data were configured into a standard format that can be published online and that is compatible with standard commercially available spreadsheet and database software.« less

Aerial Observation Needs Workshop, May 13-14, 2015

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

Nasiri, Shaima; Serbin, Shawn; Lesmes, David

2015-10-01

The mission of the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) within the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science is "to advance a robust, predictive understanding of Earth's climate and environmental systems and to inform the development of sustainable solutions to the nation's energy and environmental challenges." Accomplishing this mission requires aerial observations of the atmospheric and terrestrial components of the climate system. CESD is assessing its current and future aerial observation needs to develop a strategy and roadmap of capability requirements for the next decade. To facilitate this process,more » a workshop was convened that consisted of invited experts in the atmospheric and terrestrial sciences, airborne observations, and modeling. This workshop report summarizes the community input prior to and during the workshop on research challenges and opportunities, as well as specific science questions and observational needs that require aerial observations to address.« less

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

Hydrological Sensitivity of Land Use Scenarios for Climate Mitigation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boegh, E.; Friborg, T.; Hansen, K.; Jensen, R.; Seaby, L. P.

2014-12-01

Bringing atmospheric concentration to 550 ppm CO2 or below by 2100 will require large-scale changes to global and national energy systems, and potentially the use of land (IPCC, 2013) The Danish government aims at reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 40 % in 1990-2020 and energy consumption to be based on 100 % renewable energy by 2035. By 2050, GHG emissions should be reduced by 80-95 %. Strategies developed to reach these goals require land use change to increase the production of biomass for bioenergy, further use of catch crops, reduced nitrogen inputs in agriculture, reduced soil tillage, afforestation and establishment of permanent grass fields. Currently, solar radiation in the growing season is not fully exploited, and it is expected that biomass production for bioenergy can be supported without reductions in food and fodder production. Impacts of climate change on the hydrological sensitivity of biomass growth and soil carbon storage are however not known. The present study evaluates the hydrological sensitivity of Danish land use options for climate mitigation in terms of crop yields (including straw for bioenergy) and net CO2 exchange for wheat, barley, maize and clover under current and future climate conditions. Hydrological sensitivity was evaluated using the agrohydrological model Daisy. Simulations during current climate conditions were in good agreement with measured dry matter, crop nitrogen content and eddy covariance fluxes of water vapour and CO2. Climate scenarios from the European ENSEMBLES database were downscaled for simulating water, nitrogen and carbon balance for 2071-2100. The biomass potential generally increase, but water stress also increases in strength and extends over a longer period, thereby increasing sensitivity to water availability. The potential of different land use scenarios to maximize vegetation cover and biomass for climate mitigation is further discussed in relation to impacts on the energy- and water balance.

Scientists and Science Museums: Forging New Collaborations to Interpret the Environment and Engage Public Audiences in Climate Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, M. K.; Bartels, D.; Schwartzenberg, S.; Andrews, M. S.

2011-12-01

The Exploratorium engages Americans on issues of climate change, and energy use and production in a distinctive way; using a multilayered approach emphasizing all of the Exploratorium's strengths, not simply exhibitions. Specifically, the institution gives people access to the latest science research and researchers, provides the inquiry skills and basic science needed to make sense of this research, studies perception and cognition and how we come to believe what we believe, and sets up social communities and spaces for people to test their ideas and understandings with others. Using exhibits, the web and other media, visualization technology, building architecture, physical spaces, classes and professional education the Exploratorium achieves this multilayered approach. This powerful combination enhances people's own ability to make sound, evidence-based decisions for themselves, their families, and their communities. In 2013, the Exploratorium will move from its current home in the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco to a waterfront campus with access to the bay and outdoor platforms for instrumentation and observation. This will allow program and exhibit development in the environmental sciences that focuses on natural phenomena and physical and biological systems. Some current and planned Exploratorium projects with an emphasis on global climate change and potential for further development in the new location: 1. An Observatory building, where visitors can investigate Bay waters and climate. 2. Wired Pier, a suite of environmental sensors that will track local conditions over time and connect to larger observing networks regionally and globally 3. NOAA education and climate science partnership, including a scientist-in-residence program for training front-line staff 4. Global Climate Change Research Explorer website enabling visitors to observe current climate data or analyze evidence. 5. The Ice Stories project which trained polar scientists in media production and story-telling to blog and produce videos from their research field sites. 6. The science of thinking and sharing: How do we make decisions? How do we evaluate risk?

Multi-criteria objective based climate change impact assessment for multi-purpose multi-reservoir systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müller, Ruben; Schütze, Niels

2014-05-01

Water resources systems with reservoirs are expected to be sensitive to climate change. Assessment studies that analyze the impact of climate change on the performance of reservoirs can be divided in two groups: (1) Studies that simulate the operation under projected inflows with the current set of operational rules. Due to non adapted operational rules the future performance of these reservoirs can be underestimated and the impact overestimated. (2) Studies that optimize the operational rules for best adaption of the system to the projected conditions before the assessment of the impact. The latter allows for estimating more realistically future performance and adaption strategies based on new operation rules are available if required. Multi-purpose reservoirs serve various, often conflicting functions. If all functions cannot be served simultaneously at a maximum level, an effective compromise between multiple objectives of the reservoir operation has to be provided. Yet under climate change the historically preferenced compromise may no longer be the most suitable compromise in the future. Therefore a multi-objective based climate change impact assessment approach for multi-purpose multi-reservoir systems is proposed in the study. Projected inflows are provided in a first step using a physically based rainfall-runoff model. In a second step, a time series model is applied to generate long-term inflow time series. Finally, the long-term inflow series are used as driving variables for a simulation-based multi-objective optimization of the reservoir system in order to derive optimal operation rules. As a result, the adapted Pareto-optimal set of diverse best compromise solutions can be presented to the decision maker in order to assist him in assessing climate change adaption measures with respect to the future performance of the multi-purpose reservoir system. The approach is tested on a multi-purpose multi-reservoir system in a mountainous catchment in Germany. A climate change assessment is performed for climate change scenarios based on the SRES emission scenarios A1B, B1 and A2 for a set of statistically downscaled meteorological data. The future performance of the multi-purpose multi-reservoir system is quantified and possible intensifications of trade-offs between management goals or reservoir utilizations are shown.

Developing a National Climate Indicators System to Track Climate Changes, Impacts, Vulnerabilities, and Preparedness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kenney, M. A.; Janetos, A. C.; Arndt, D.; Chen, R. S.; Pouyat, R.; Anderson, S. M.

2013-12-01

The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is being conducted under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), pursuant to the Global Change Research Act of 1990, Section 106, which requires a report to Congress every 4 years. Part of the vision, which is now under development, for the sustained National Climate Assessment (NCA) process is a system of physical, ecological, and societal indicators that communicate key aspects of the physical climate, climate impacts, vulnerabilities, and preparedness for the purpose of informing both decision makers and the public with scientifically valid information that is useful to inform decision-making processes such as the development and implementation of climate adaptation strategies in a particular sector or region. These indicators will be tracked as a part of ongoing assessment activities, with adjustments as necessary to adapt to changing conditions and understanding. The indicators will be reviewed and updated so that the system adapts to new information. The NCA indicator system is not intended to serve as a vehicle for documenting rigorous cause and effect relationships. It is reasonable, however, for it to serve as a guide to those factors that affect the evolution of variability and change in the climate system, the resources and sectors of concern that are affected by it, and how society chooses to respond. Different components of the end-to-end climate issue serve as categories within which to organize an end-to-end system of indicators: Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, Atmospheric Composition, Physical Climate Variability and Change, Sectors and Resources of Concern, and Adaptation and Mitigation Responses. This framing has several advantages. It can be used to identify the different components of the end-to-end climate issue that both decision-makers and researchers are interested in. It is independent of scale, and therefore allows the indicators themselves to be described at spatial scales that are the most relevant for their intended use. National decision-makers may find indicators of national greenhouse gas emissions to be informative; however, state or local decision-makers have the freedom in this framework to define indicators of state, regional, or local greenhouse emissions that are more relevant to their concerns. The framework is also independent of time scale and topics within the broad categories. It therefore allows indicators of different sectors to be developed, and allows the consideration of both indicators of current state, past trends, and leading indicators. In this talk we will discuss the general conceptual model for the system, the sector specific conceptual models, and indicators that will be included in the prototype end-to-end indicator system.

On the stability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

PubMed Central

Hofmann, Matthias; Rahmstorf, Stefan

2009-01-01

One of the most important large-scale ocean current systems for Earth's climate is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Here we review its stability properties and present new model simulations to study the AMOC's hysteresis response to freshwater perturbations. We employ seven different versions of an Ocean General Circulation Model by using a highly accurate tracer advection scheme, which minimizes the problem of numerical diffusion. We find that a characteristic freshwater hysteresis also exists in the predominantly wind-driven, low-diffusion limit of the AMOC. However, the shape of the hysteresis changes, indicating that a convective instability rather than the advective Stommel feedback plays a dominant role. We show that model errors in the mean climate can make the hysteresis disappear, and we investigate how model innovations over the past two decades, like new parameterizations and mixing schemes, affect the AMOC stability. Finally, we discuss evidence that current climate models systematically overestimate the stability of the AMOC. PMID:19897722

Was Venus the first habitable world of our solar system?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Way, M. J.; Del Genio, Anthony D.; Kiang, Nancy Y.; Sohl, Linda E.; Grinspoon, David H.; Aleinov, Igor; Kelley, Maxwell; Clune, Thomas

2016-08-01

Present-day Venus is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 750 K and an atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth's. Billions of years ago the picture may have been very different. We have created a suite of 3-D climate simulations using topographic data from the Magellan mission, solar spectral irradiance estimates for 2.9 and 0.715 Gya, present-day Venus orbital parameters, an ocean volume consistent with current theory, and an atmospheric composition estimated for early Venus. Using these parameters we find that such a world could have had moderate temperatures if Venus had a prograde rotation period slower than ~16 Earth days, despite an incident solar flux 46-70% higher than Earth receives. At its current rotation period, Venus's climate could have remained habitable until at least 0.715 Gya. These results demonstrate the role rotation and topography play in understanding the climatic history of Venus-like exoplanets discovered in the present epoch.

Was Venus the First Habitable World of our Solar System?

PubMed

Way, M J; Del Genio, Anthony D; Kiang, Nancy Y; Sohl, Linda E; Grinspoon, David H; Aleinov, Igor; Kelley, Maxwell; Clune, Thomas

2016-08-28

Present-day Venus is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 750K and an atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth's. Billions of years ago the picture may have been very different. We have created a suite of 3-D climate simulations using topographic data from the Magellan mission, solar spectral irradiance estimates for 2.9 and 0.715 Gya, present-day Venus orbital parameters, an ocean volume consistent with current theory, and an atmospheric composition estimated for early Venus. Using these parameters we find that such a world could have had moderate temperatures if Venus had a rotation period slower than ~16 Earth days, despite an incident solar flux 46-70% higher than Earth receives. At its current rotation period, Venus's climate could have remained habitable until at least 715 million years ago. These results demonstrate the role rotation and topography play in understanding the climatic history of Venus-like exoplanets discovered in the present epoch.

Was Venus the First Habitable World of our Solar System?

PubMed Central

Way, M. J.; Del Genio, Anthony D.; Kiang, Nancy Y.; Sohl, Linda E.; Grinspoon, David H.; Aleinov, Igor; Kelley, Maxwell; Clune, Thomas

2017-01-01

Present-day Venus is an inhospitable place with surface temperatures approaching 750K and an atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth's. Billions of years ago the picture may have been very different. We have created a suite of 3-D climate simulations using topographic data from the Magellan mission, solar spectral irradiance estimates for 2.9 and 0.715 Gya, present-day Venus orbital parameters, an ocean volume consistent with current theory, and an atmospheric composition estimated for early Venus. Using these parameters we find that such a world could have had moderate temperatures if Venus had a rotation period slower than ~16 Earth days, despite an incident solar flux 46−70% higher than Earth receives. At its current rotation period, Venus’s climate could have remained habitable until at least 715 million years ago. These results demonstrate the role rotation and topography play in understanding the climatic history of Venus-like exoplanets discovered in the present epoch. PMID:28408771

Monitoring Building Energy Systems at NASA Centers Using NASA Earth Science data, CMIP5 climate data products and RETScreen Expert Clean Energy Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stackhouse, P. W., Jr.; Ganoe, R. E.; Westberg, D. J.; Leng, G. J.; Teets, E.; Hughes, J. M.; De Young, R.; Carroll, M.; Liou, L. C.; Iraci, L. T.; Podolske, J. R.; Stefanov, W. L.; Chandler, W.

2016-12-01

The NASA Climate Adaptation Science Investigator team is devoted to building linkages between NASA Earth Science and those within NASA responsible for infrastructure assessment, upgrades and planning. One of the focus areas is assessing NASA center infrastructure for energy efficiency, planning to meet new energy portfolio standards, and assessing future energy needs. These topics intersect at the provision of current and predicted future weather and climate data. This presentation provides an overview of the multi-center effort to access current building energy usage using Earth science observations, including those from in situ measurements, satellite measurement analysis, and global model data products as inputs to the RETScreen Expert, a clean energy decision support tool. RETScreen® Expert, sponsored by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), is a tool dedicated to developing and providing clean energy project analysis software for the feasibility design and assessment of a wide range of building projects that incorporate renewable energy technologies. RETScreen Expert requires daily average meteorological and solar parameters that are available within less than a month of real-time. A special temporal collection of meteorological parameters was compiled from near-by surface in situ measurements. These together with NASA data from the NASA CERES (Clouds and Earth's Radiance Energy System)/FLASHFlux (Fast Longwave and SHortwave radiative Fluxes) provides solar fluxes and the NASA GMAO (Global Modeling and Assimilation Office) GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) operational meteorological analysis are directly used for meteorological input parameters. Examples of energy analysis for a few select buildings at various NASA centers are presented in terms of the energy usage relationship that these buildings have with changes in their meteorological environment. The energy requirements of potential future climates are then surveyed for a range of changes using the most recent CMIP5 global climate model data output.

Climate Change Accuracy: Requirements and Economic Value

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wielicki, B. A.; Cooke, R.; Mlynczak, M. G.; Lukashin, C.; Thome, K. J.; Baize, R. R.

2014-12-01

Higher than normal accuracy is required to rigorously observe decadal climate change. But what level is needed? How can this be quantified? This presentation will summarize a new more rigorous and quantitative approach to determining the required accuracy for climate change observations (Wielicki et al., 2013, BAMS). Most current global satellite observations cannot meet this accuracy level. A proposed new satellite mission to resolve this challenge is CLARREO (Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory). CLARREO is designed to achieve advances of a factor of 10 for reflected solar spectra and a factor of 3 to 5 for thermal infrared spectra (Wielicki et al., Oct. 2013 BAMS). The CLARREO spectrometers are designed to serve as SI traceable benchmarks for the Global Satellite Intercalibration System (GSICS) and to greatly improve the utility of a wide range of LEO and GEO infrared and reflected solar passive satellite sensors for climate change observations (e.g. CERES, MODIS, VIIIRS, CrIS, IASI, Landsat, SPOT, etc). Providing more accurate decadal change trends can in turn lead to more rapid narrowing of key climate science uncertainties such as cloud feedback and climate sensitivity. A study has been carried out to quantify the economic benefits of such an advance as part of a rigorous and complete climate observing system. The study concludes that the economic value is $12 Trillion U.S. dollars in Net Present Value for a nominal discount rate of 3% (Cooke et al. 2013, J. Env. Sys. Dec.). A brief summary of these two studies and their implications for the future of climate science will be presented.