TY  - JOUR
A1  - Loeffler, Jörg
A1  - Anschlag, Kerstin
A1  - Baker, Barry
A1  - Finch, Oliver-D.
A1  - Diekkrueger, Bernd
A1  - Wundram, Dirk
A1  - Schroeder, Boris
A1  - Pape, Roland
A1  - Lundberg, Anders
T1  - Mountain ecosystem response to global change
JF  - Erdkunde : archive for scientific geography
N2  - Mountain ecosystems are commonly regarded as being highly sensitive to global change. Due to the system complexity and multifaceted interacting drivers, however, understanding current responses and predicting future changes in these ecosystems is extremely difficult. We aim to discuss potential effects of global change on mountain ecosystems and give examples of the underlying response mechanisms as they are understood at present. Based on the development of scientific global change research in mountains and its recent structures, we identify future research needs, highlighting the major lack and the importance of integrated studies that implement multi-factor, multi-method, multi-scale, and interdisciplinary research.
KW  - High mountain ecology
KW  - arctic-alpine environments
KW  - climate change
KW  - land use and land cover change
KW  - tree line alteration
KW  - range shifts
KW  - altitudinal zonation
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3112/erdkunde.2011.02.06
SN  - 0014-0015
VL  - 65
IS  - 2
SP  - 189
EP  - 213
PB  - Geographisches Inst., Univ. Bonn
CY  - Goch
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Guzman Arias, Diego Alejandro
A1  - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1  - Mendiondo, Eduardo Mario
T1  - Multi-driver ensemble to evaluate the water utility business interruption cost induced by hydrological drought risk scenarios in Brazil
JF  - Urban water journal
N2  - Climate change and increasing water demand in urban environments necessitate planning water utility companies' finances. Traditionally, methods to estimate the direct water utility business interruption costs (WUBIC) caused by droughts have not been clearly established. We propose a multi-driver assessment method. We project the water yield using a hydrological model driven by regional climate models under radiative forcing scenarios. We project water demand under stationary and non-stationary conditions to estimate drought severity and duration, which are linked with pricing policies recently adopted by the Sao Paulo Water Utility Company. The results showed water insecurity. The non-stationary trend imposed larger differences in the drought resilience financial gap, suggesting that the uncertainties of WUBIC derived from demand and climate models are greater than those associated with radiative forcing scenarios. As populations increase, proactively controlling demand is recommended to avoid or minimize reactive policy changes during future drought events, repeating recent financial impacts.
KW  - Business interruption cost
KW  - water utility company
KW  - hydrological
KW  - droughts
KW  - water security
KW  - urban water
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2022.2058564
SN  - 1573-062X
SN  - 1744-9006
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Guzman, Diego A.
A1  - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1  - Mendiondo, Eduardo Mario
T1  - Multi-year index-based insurance for adapting Water Utility Companies to hydrological drought
BT  - case study of a water supply system of the Sao Paulo metropolitan region, Brazil
JF  - Water
N2  - The sustainability of water utility companies is threatened by non-stationary drivers, such as climate and anthropogenic changes. To cope with potential economic losses, instruments such as insurance are useful for planning scenarios and mitigating impacts, but data limitations and risk uncertainties affect premium estimation and, consequently, business sustainability. This research estimated the possible economic impacts of business interruption to the Sao Paulo Water Utility Company derived from hydrological drought and how this could be mitigated with an insurance scheme. Multi-year insurance (MYI) was proposed through a set of "change" drivers: the climate driver, through forcing the water evaluation and planning system (WEAP) hydrological tool; the anthropogenic driver, through water demand projections; and the economic driver, associated with recent water price policies adopted by the utility company during water scarcity periods. In our study case, the evaluated indices showed that MYI contracts that cover only longer droughts, regardless of the magnitude, offer better financial performance than contracts that cover all events (in terms of drought duration). Moreover, through MYI contracts, we demonstrate solvency for the insurance fund in the long term and an annual average actuarially fair premium close to the total expected revenue reduction.
KW  - multi-year insurance
KW  - climate change
KW  - hydrological drought
KW  - water
KW  - security and economy
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/w12112954
SN  - 2073-4441
VL  - 12
IS  - 11
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wenz, Leonie
A1  - Levermann, Anders
A1  - Auffhammer, Maximilian
T1  - North-south polarization of European electricity consumption under future warming
JF  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2  - There is growing empirical evidence that anthropogenic climate change will substantially affect the electric sector. Impacts will stem both from the supply sidethrough the mitigation of greenhouse gasesand from the demand sidethrough adaptive responses to a changing environment. Here we provide evidence of a polarization of both peak load and overall electricity consumption under future warming for the worlds third-largest electricity marketthe 35 countries of Europe. We statistically estimate country-level doseresponse functions between daily peak/total electricity load and ambient temperature for the period 2006-2012. After removing the impact of nontemperature confounders and normalizing the residual load data for each country, we estimate a common doseresponse function, which we use to compute national electricity loads for temperatures that lie outside each countrys currently observed temperature range. To this end, we impose end-of-century climate on todays European economies following three different greenhouse-gas concentration trajectories, ranging from ambitious climate-change mitigationin line with the Paris agreementto unabated climate change. We find significant increases in average daily peak load and overall electricity consumption in southern and western Europe (similar to 3 to similar to 7% for Portugal and Spain) and significant decreases in northern Europe (similar to-6 to similar to-2% for Sweden and Norway). While the projected effect on European total consumption is nearly zero, the significant polarization and seasonal shifts in peak demand and consumption have important ramifications for the location of costly peak-generating capacity, transmission infrastructure, and the design of energy-efficiency policy and storage capacity.
KW  - electricity consumption
KW  - peak load
KW  - climate change
KW  - adaptation
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704339114
SN  - 0027-8424
VL  - 114
SP  - E7910
EP  - E7918
PB  - National Acad. of Sciences
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Li, Zhen
A1  - Spangenberg, Erik
A1  - Schicks, Judith Maria
A1  - Kempka, Thomas
T1  - Numerical Simulation of Coastal Sub-Permafrost Gas Hydrate Formation in the Mackenzie Delta, Canadian Arctic
JF  - Energies
N2  - The Mackenzie Delta (MD) is a permafrost-bearing region along the coasts of the Canadian Arctic which exhibits high sub-permafrost gas hydrate (GH) reserves. The GH occurring at the Mallik site in the MD is dominated by thermogenic methane (CH4), which migrated from deep conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs, very likely through the present fault systems. Therefore, it is assumed that fluid flow transports dissolved CH4 upward and out of the deeper overpressurized reservoirs via the existing polygonal fault system and then forms the GH accumulations in the Kugmallit-Mackenzie Bay Sequences. We investigate the feasibility of this mechanism with a thermo-hydraulic-chemical numerical model, representing a cross section of the Mallik site. We present the first simulations that consider permafrost formation and thawing, as well as the formation of GH accumulations sourced from the upward migrating CH4-rich formation fluid. The simulation results show that temperature distribution, as well as the thickness and base of the ice-bearing permafrost are consistent with corresponding field observations. The primary driver for the spatial GH distribution is the permeability of the host sediments. Thus, the hypothesis on GH formation by dissolved CH4 originating from deeper geological reservoirs is successfully validated. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that the permafrost has been substantially heated to 0.8-1.3 degrees C, triggered by the global temperature increase of about 0.44 degrees C and further enhanced by the Arctic Amplification effect at the Mallik site from the early 1970s to the mid-2000s.
KW  - gas hydrate
KW  - permafrost
KW  - methane
KW  - faults
KW  - climate change
KW  - Mallik
KW  - numerical simulations
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/en15144986
SN  - 1996-1073
VL  - 15
IS  - 14
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Drewes, Julia
A1  - Moreiras, Stella
A1  - Korup, Oliver
T1  - Permafrost activity and atmospheric warming in the Argentinian Andes
JF  - Geomorphology : an international journal on pure and applied geomorphology
N2  - Rock glaciers are permafrost or glacial landforms of debris and ice that deform under the influence of gravity. Recent estimates hold that, in the semiarid Chilean Andes for example, active rock glaciers store more water than glaciers. However, little is known about how many rock glaciers might decay because of global warming and how much this decay might contribute to water and sediment release. We investigated an inventory of >6500 rock glaciers in the Argentinian Andes, spanning the climatic gradient from the Desert Andes to cold-temperate Tierra del Fuego. We used active rock glaciers as a diagnostic of permafrost, assuming that the toes mark the 0 degrees C isotherm in climate scenarios for the twenty-first century and their impact on freezing conditions near the rock glacier toes. We find that, under future worst case warming, up to 95% of rock glaciers in the southern Desert Andes and in the Central Andes will rest in areas above 0 degrees C and that this freezing level might move up more than twice as much (similar to 500 m) as during the entire Holocene (similar to 200 m). Many active rock glaciers are already well below the current freezing level and exemplify how local controls may confound regional prognoses. A Bayesian Multifactor Analysis of Variance further shows that only in the Central Andes are the toes of active rock glaciers credibly higher than those of inactive ones. Elsewhere in the Andes, active and inactive rock glaciers occupy indistinguishable elevation bands, regardless of aspect, the formation mechanism, or shape of rock glaciers. The state of rock glacier activity predicts differences in elevations of toes to 140 m at best so that regional inference of the distribution of discontinuous permafrost from rock-glacier toes cannot be more accurate than this in the Argentinian Andes. We conclude that the Central Andes-where rock glaciers are largest, cover the most area, and have a greater density than glaciers-is likely to experience the most widespread disturbance to the thermal regime of the twenty-first century. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW  - rock glacier
KW  - Argentina
KW  - permafrost
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2018.09.005
SN  - 0169-555X
SN  - 1872-695X
VL  - 323
SP  - 13
EP  - 24
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Stoof-Leichsenring, Kathleen Rosemarie
A1  - Pestryakova, Luidmila Agafyevna
A1  - Epp, Laura Saskia
A1  - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1  - Phylogenetic diversity and environment form assembly rules for Arctic diatom genera
BT  - a study on recent and ancient sedimentary DNA
JF  - Journal of Biogeography
N2  - Aim This study investigates taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity in diatom genera to evaluate assembly rules for eukaryotic microbes across the Siberian tree line. We first analysed how phylogenetic distance relates to taxonomic richness and turnover. Second, we used relatedness indices to evaluate if environmental filtering or competition influences the assemblies in space and through time. Third, we used distance-based ordination to test which environmental variables shape diatom turnover. Location Yakutia and Taymyria, Russia: we sampled 78 surface sediments and a sediment core, extending to 7,000 years before present, to capture the forest-tundra transition in space and time respectively. Taxon Arctic freshwater diatoms. Methods We applied metabarcoding to retrieve diatom diversity from surface and core sedimentary DNA. The taxonomic assignment binned sequence types (lineages) into genera and created taxonomic (abundance of lineages within different genera) and phylogenetic datasets (phylogenetic distances of lineages within different genera). Results Contrary to our expectations, we find a unimodal relationship between phylogenetic distance and richness in diatom genera. We discern a positive relationship between phylogenetic distance and taxonomic turnover in spatially and temporally distributed diatom genera. Furthermore, we reveal positive relatedness indices in diatom genera across the spatial environmental gradient and predominantly in time slices at a single location, with very few exceptions assuming effects of competition. Distance-based ordination of taxonomic and phylogenetic turnover indicates that lake environment variables, like HCO3- and water depth, largely explain diatom turnover. Main conclusion Phylogenetic and abiotic assembly rules are important in understanding the regional assembly of diatom genera across lakes in the Siberian tree line ecotone. Using a space-time approach we are able to exclude the influence of geography and elucidate that lake environmental variables primarily shape the assemblies. We conclude that some diatom genera have greater capabilities to adapt to environmental changes, whereas others will be putatively replaced or lost due to the displacement of the Arctic tundra biome under recent global warming.
KW  - ancient sedimentary DNA
KW  - Arctic lakes
KW  - assembly rules
KW  - climate change
KW  - diatoms
KW  - environmental filtering
KW  - phylogenetic diversity
KW  - Siberian tree line
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13786
SN  - 0305-0270
SN  - 1365-2699
VL  - 47
IS  - 5
SP  - 1166
EP  - 1179
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Marzetz, Vanessa
A1  - Spijkerman, Elly
A1  - Striebel, Maren
A1  - Wacker, Alexander
T1  - Phytoplankton community responses to interactions between light intensity, light variations, and phosphorus supply
JF  - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2  - In a changing world, phytoplankton communities face a large variety of challenges including altered light regimes. These alterations are caused by more pronounced stratification due to rising temperatures, enhanced eutrophication, and browning of lakes. Community responses toward these effects can emerge as alterations in physiology, biomass, biochemical composition, or diversity. In this study, we addressed the combined effects of changes in light and nutrient conditions on community responses. In particular, we investigated how light intensity and variability under two nutrient conditions influence (1) fast responses such as adjustments in photosynthesis, (2) intermediate responses such as pigment adaptation and (3) slow responses such as changes in community biomass and species composition. Therefore, we exposed communities consisting of five phytoplankton species belonging to different taxonomic groups to two constant and two variable light intensity treatments combined with two levels of phosphorus supply. The tested phytoplankton communities exhibited increased fast reactions of photosynthetic processes to light variability and light intensity. The adjustment of their light harvesting mechanisms via community pigment composition was not affected by light intensity, variability, or nutrient supply. However, pigment specific effects of light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply on the proportion of the respective pigments were detected. Biomass was positively affected by higher light intensity and nutrient concentrations while the direction of the effect of variability was modulated by light intensity. Light variability had a negative impact on biomass at low, but a positive impact at high light intensity. The effects on community composition were species specific. Generally, the proportion of green algae was higher under high light intensity, whereas the cyanobacterium performed better under low light conditions. In addition to that, the diatom and the cryptophyte performed better with high nutrient supply while the green algae as well as the cyanobacterium performed better at low nutrient conditions. This shows that light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply interactively affect communities. Furthermore, the responses are highly species and pigment specific, thus to clarify the effects of climate change a deeper understanding of the effects of light variability and species interactions within communities is important.
KW  - phytoplankton communities
KW  - light variability
KW  - photosynthetic rate
KW  - climate change
KW  - resource competition
KW  - light intensity (irradiance)
KW  - pigment composition
KW  - nutrient supply
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.539733
SN  - 2296-665X
VL  - 8
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Marzetz, Vanessa
A1  - Spijkerman, Elly
A1  - Striebel, Maren
A1  - Wacker, Alexander
T1  - Phytoplankton Community Responses to Interactions Between Light Intensity, Light Variations, and Phosphorus Supply
JF  - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2  - In a changing world, phytoplankton communities face a large variety of challenges including altered light regimes. These alterations are caused by more pronounced stratification due to rising temperatures, enhanced eutrophication, and browning of lakes. Community responses toward these effects can emerge as alterations in physiology, biomass, biochemical composition, or diversity. In this study, we addressed the combined effects of changes in light and nutrient conditions on community responses. In particular, we investigated how light intensity and variability under two nutrient conditions influence (1) fast responses such as adjustments in photosynthesis, (2) intermediate responses such as pigment adaptation and (3) slow responses such as changes in community biomass and species composition. Therefore, we exposed communities consisting of five phytoplankton species belonging to different taxonomic groups to two constant and two variable light intensity treatments combined with two levels of phosphorus supply. The tested phytoplankton communities exhibited increased fast reactions of photosynthetic processes to light variability and light intensity. The adjustment of their light harvesting mechanisms via community pigment composition was not affected by light intensity, variability, or nutrient supply. However, pigment specific effects of light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply on the proportion of the respective pigments were detected. Biomass was positively affected by higher light intensity and nutrient concentrations while the direction of the effect of variability was modulated by light intensity. Light variability had a negative impact on biomass at low, but a positive impact at high light intensity. The effects on community composition were species specific. Generally, the proportion of green algae was higher under high light intensity, whereas the cyanobacterium performed better under low light conditions. In addition to that, the diatom and the cryptophyte performed better with high nutrient supply while the green algae as well as the cyanobacterium performed better at low nutrient conditions. This shows that light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply interactively affect communities. Furthermore, the responses are highly species and pigment specific, thus to clarify the effects of climate change a deeper understanding of the effects of light variability and species interactions within communities is important.
KW  - phytoplankton communities
KW  - light variability
KW  - photosynthetic rate
KW  - climate change
KW  - resource competition
KW  - light intensity (irradiance)
KW  - pigment composition
KW  - nutrient supply
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.539733
SN  - 2296-665X
VL  - 8
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mogrovejo Arias, Diana Carolina
A1  - Brill, Florian H. H.
A1  - Wagner, Dirk
T1  - Potentially pathogenic bacteria isolated from diverse habitats in Spitsbergen, Svalbard
JF  - Environmental earth sciences
N2  - The Arctic ecosystem, a reservoir of genetic microbial diversity, represents a virtually unlimited source of microorganisms that could interact with human beings. Despite continuous exploration of Arctic habitats and description of their microbial communities, bacterial phenotypes commonly associated with pathogenicity, such as hemolytic activity, have rarely been reported. In this study, samples of snow, fresh and marine water, soil, and sediment from several habitats in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard were collected during Summer, 2017. Bacterial isolates were obtained after incubation on oligotrophic media at different temperatures and their hemolytic potential was assessed on sheep blood agar plates. Partial (alpha) or true (beta) hemolysis was observed in 32 out of 78 bacterial species. Genes expressing cytolytic compounds, such as hemolysins, likely increase the general fitness of the producing microorganisms and confer a competitive advantage over the availability of nutrients in natural habitats. In environmental species, the nutrient-acquisition function of these compounds presumably precedes their function as toxins for mammalian erythrocytes. However, in the light of global warming, the presence of hemolytic bacteria in Arctic environments highlights the possible risks associated with these microorganisms in the event of habitat melting/destruction, ecosystem transition, and re-colonization.
KW  - Arctic
KW  - Svalbard
KW  - hemolysins
KW  - climate change
KW  - pathogens
KW  - virulence
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-020-8853-4
SN  - 1866-6280
SN  - 1866-6299
VL  - 79
IS  - 5
PB  - Springer
CY  - Berlin ; Heidelberg
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Chan, Sander
A1  - Boran, Idil
A1  - van Asselt, Harro
A1  - Iacobuta, Gabriela
A1  - Niles, Navam
A1  - Rietig, Katharine
A1  - Scobie, Michelle
A1  - Bansard, Jennifer S.
A1  - Delgado Pugley, Deborah
A1  - Delina, Laurence L.
A1  - Eichhorn, Friederike
A1  - Ellinger, Paula
A1  - Enechi, Okechukwu
A1  - Hale, Thomas
A1  - Hermwille, Lukas
A1  - Hickmann, Thomas
A1  - Honegger, Matthias
A1  - Hurtado Epstein, Andrea
A1  - Theuer, Stephanie La Hoz
A1  - Mizo, Robert
A1  - Sun, Yixian
A1  - Toussaint, Patrick
A1  - Wambugu, Geoffrey
T1  - Promises and risks of nonstate action in climate and sustainability governance
JF  - Wiley interdisciplinary reviews : Climate change
KW  - climate change
KW  - governance
KW  - nonstate actions
KW  - SDGs
KW  - sustainable development
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.572
SN  - 1757-7780
SN  - 1757-7799
VL  - 10
IS  - 3
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Imholt, Christian
A1  - Reil, Daniela
A1  - Eccard, Jana
A1  - Jacob, Daniela
A1  - Hempelmann, Nils
A1  - Jacob, Jens
T1  - Quantifying the past and future impact of climate on outbreak patterns of bank voles (Myodes glareolus)
JF  - Pest management science
N2  - BACKGROUND Central European outbreak populations of the bank vole (Myodes glareolus Schreber) are known to cause damage in forestry and to transmit the most common type of Hantavirus (Puumala virus, PUUV) to humans. A sound estimation of potential effects of future climate scenarios on population dynamics is a prerequisite for long-term management strategies. Historic abundance time series were used to identify the key weather conditions associated with bank vole abundance, and were extrapolated to future climate scenarios to derive potential long-term changes in bank vole abundance dynamics.
 RESULTS Classification and regression tree analysis revealed the most relevant weather parameters associated with high and low bank vole abundances. Summer temperatures 2 years prior to trapping had the highest impact on abundance fluctuation. Extrapolation of the identified parameters to future climate conditions revealed an increase in years with high vole abundance.
 CONCLUSION Key weather patterns associated with vole abundance reflect the importance of superabundant food supply through masting to the occurrence of bank vole outbreaks. Owing to changing climate, these outbreaks are predicted potentially to increase in frequency 3-4-fold by the end of this century. This may negatively affect damage patterns in forestry and the risk of human PUUV infection in the long term. (c) 2014 Society of Chemical Industry
KW  - climate change
KW  - population dynamics
KW  - bank vole
KW  - regression tree
KW  - outbreak
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.3838
SN  - 1526-498X
SN  - 1526-4998
VL  - 71
IS  - 2
SP  - 166
EP  - 172
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Pan, Xiaohui
A1  - Wang, Weishi
A1  - Liu, Tie
A1  - Huang, Yue
A1  - De Maeyer, Philippe
A1  - Guo, Chenyu
A1  - Ling, Yunan
A1  - Akmalov, Shamshodbek
T1  - Quantitative detection and attribution of groundwater level variations in the Amu Darya Delta
JF  - Water
N2  - In the past few decades, the shrinkage of the Aral Sea is one of the biggest ecological catastrophes caused by human activity. To quantify the joint impact of both human activities and climate change on groundwater, the spatiotemporal groundwater dynamic characteristics in the Amu Darya Delta of the Aral Sea from 1999 to 2017 were analyzed, using the groundwater level, climate conditions, remote sensing data, and irrigation information. Statistics analysis was adopted to analyze the trend of groundwater variation, including intensity, periodicity, spatial structure, while the Pearson correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to quantify the impact of climate change and human activities on the variabilities of the groundwater level. Results reveal that the local groundwater dynamic has varied considerably. From 1999 to 2002, the groundwater level dropped from -189 cm to -350 cm. Until 2017, the groundwater level rose back to -211 cm with fluctuation. Seasonally, the fluctuation period of groundwater level and irrigation water was similar, both were about 18 months. Spatially, the groundwater level kept stable within the irrigation area and bare land but fluctuated drastically around the irrigation area. The Pearson correlation analysis reveals that the dynamic of the groundwater level is closely related to irrigation activity within the irrigation area (Nukus: -0.583), while for the place adjacent to the Aral Sea, the groundwater level is closely related to the Large Aral Sea water level (Muynak: 0.355). The results of PCA showed that the cumulative contribution rate of the first three components exceeds 85%. The study reveals that human activities have a great impact on groundwater, effective management, and the development of water resources in arid areas is an essential prerequisite for ecological protection.
KW  - groundwater level variation
KW  - climate change
KW  - human activities
KW  - statistical analysis
KW  - Amu Darya Delta
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/w12102869
SN  - 2073-4441
VL  - 12
IS  - 10
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tesselaar, Max
A1  - Botzen, W. J. Wouter
A1  - Haer, Toon
A1  - Hudson, Paul
A1  - Tiggeloven, Timothy
A1  - Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.
T1  - Regional inequalities in flood insurance affordability and uptake under climate change
JF  - Sustainability
N2  - Flood insurance coverage can enhance financial resilience of households to changing flood risk caused by climate change. However, income inequalities imply that not all households can afford flood insurance. The uptake of flood insurance in voluntary markets may decline when flood risk increases as a result of climate change. This increase in flood risk may cause substantially higher risk-based insurance premiums, reduce the willingness to purchase flood insurance, and worsen problems with the unaffordability of coverage for low-income households. A socio-economic tipping-point can occur when the functioning of a formal flood insurance system is hampered by diminishing demand for coverage. In this study, we examine whether such a tipping-point can occur in Europe for current flood insurance systems under different trends in future flood risk caused by climate and socio-economic change. This analysis gives insights into regional inequalities concerning the ability to continue to use flood insurance as an instrument to adapt to changing flood risk. For this study, we adapt the "Dynamic Integrated Flood and Insurance" (DIFI) model by integrating new flood risk simulations in the model that enable examining impacts from various scenarios of climate and socio-economic change on flood insurance premiums and consumer demand. Our results show rising unaffordability and declining demand for flood insurance across scenarios towards 2080. Under a high climate change scenario, simulations show the occurrence of a socio-economic tipping-point in several regions, where insurance uptake almost disappears. A tipping-point and related inequalities in the ability to use flood insurance as an adaptation instrument can be mitigated by introducing reforms of flood insurance arrangements.
KW  - climate change
KW  - flood risk management
KW  - insurance
KW  - socio-economic
KW  - tipping-point
KW  - adaptation
KW  - partial equilibrium modeling
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208734
SN  - 2071-1050
VL  - 12
IS  - 20
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kong, Xiangzhen
A1  - Ghaffar, Salman
A1  - Determann, Maria
A1  - Friese, Kurt
A1  - Jomaa, Seifeddine
A1  - Mi, Chenxi
A1  - Shatwell, Tom
A1  - Rinke, Karsten
A1  - Rode, Michael
T1  - Reservoir water quality deterioration due to deforestation emphasizes the indirect effects of global change
JF  - Water research : a journal of the International Association on Water Quality (IAWQ)
N2  - Deforestation is currently a widespread phenomenon and a growing environmental concern in the era of rapid climate change. 
In temperate regions, it is challenging to quantify the impacts of deforestation on the catchment dynamics and downstream aquatic ecosystems such as reservoirs and disentangle these from direct climate change impacts, let alone project future changes to inform management. 
Here, we tackled this issue by investigating a unique catchment-reservoir system with two reservoirs in distinct trophic states (meso- and eutrophic), both of which drain into the largest drinking water reservoir in Germany. 
Due to the prolonged droughts in 2015-2018, the catchment of the mesotrophic reservoir lost an unprecedented area of forest (exponential increase since 2015 and ca. 17.1% loss in 2020 alone). 
We coupled catchment nutrient exports (HYPE) and reservoir ecosystem dynamics (GOTM-WET) models using a process-based modeling approach. The coupled model was validated with datasets spanning periods of rapid deforestation, which makes our future projections highly robust. 
Results show that in a short-term time scale (by 2035), increasing nutrient flux from the catchment due to vast deforestation (80% loss) can turn the mesotrophic reservoir into a eutrophic state as its counterpart. 
Our results emphasize the more prominent impacts of deforestation than the direct impact of climate warming in impairment of water quality and ecological services to downstream aquatic ecosystems. Therefore, we propose to evaluate the impact of climate change on temperate reservoirs by incorporating a time scale-dependent context, highlighting the indirect impact of deforestation in the short-term scale. In the long-term scale (e.g. to 2100), a guiding hypothesis for future research may be that indirect effects (e.g., as mediated by catchment dynamics) are as important as the direct effects of climate warming on aquatic ecosystems.
KW  - deforestation
KW  - climate change
KW  - temperate regions
KW  - reservoir
KW  - eutrophication
KW  - process-based modeling
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2022.118721
SN  - 0043-1354
SN  - 1879-2448
VL  - 221
PB  - Elsevier Science
CY  - Amsterdam [u.a.]
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kuhla, Kilian
A1  - Willner, Sven N.
A1  - Otto, Christian
A1  - Geiger, Tobias
A1  - Levermann, Anders
T1  - Ripple resonance amplifies economic welfare loss from weather extremes
JF  - Environmental research letters : ERL / Institute of Physics
N2  - The most complex but potentially most severe impacts of climate change are caused by extreme weather events. In a globally connected economy, damages can cause remote perturbations and cascading consequences-a ripple effect along supply chains. Here we show an economic ripple resonance that amplifies losses when consecutive or overlapping weather extremes and their repercussions interact. This amounts to an average amplification of 21% for climate-induced heat stress, river floods, and tropical cyclones. Modeling the temporal evolution of 1.8 million trade relations between >7000 regional economic sectors, we find that the regional responses to future extremes are strongly heterogeneous also in their resonance behavior. The induced effect on welfare varies between gains due to increased demand in some regions and losses due to demand or supply shortages in others. Within the current global supply network, the ripple resonance effect of extreme weather is strongest in high-income economies-an important effect to consider when evaluating past and future economic climate impacts.
KW  - consecutive disasters
KW  - economic ripple resonance
KW  - repercussion resonance
KW  - weather extremes
KW  - supply network
KW  - climate impacts
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2932
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 16
IS  - 11
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Reibold, Kerstin
T1  - Settler Colonialism, Decolonization, and Climate Change
JF  - Journal of applied philosophy
N2  - The article proposes that climate change makes enduring colonial injustices and structures visible. It focuses on the imposition and dominance of colonial concepts of land and self-determination on Indigenous peoples in settler states. It argues that if the dominance of these colonial frameworks remains unaddressed, the progressing climate change will worsen other colonial injustices, too. Specifically, Indigenous self-determination capabilities will be increasingly undermined, and Indigenous peoples will experience the loss of what they understand as relevant land from within their own ontologies of land. The article holds that even if settler states strive to repair colonial injustices, these efforts will be unsuccessful if climate change occurs and decolonization is pursued within the framework of a settler colonial ontology of land. Therefore, the article suggests, decolonization of the ontologies of land and concepts of self-determination is a precondition for a just response to climate change.
KW  - territorial rights
KW  - indigenous rights
KW  - climate change
KW  - colonialism
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12573
SN  - 0264-3758
SN  - 1468-5930
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mielke, Jahel
T1  - Signals for 2 degrees C
BT  - the influence of policies, market factors and civil society actions on investment decisions for green infrastructure
JF  - Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment
N2  - The targets of the Paris Agreement make it necessary to redirect finance flows towards sustainable, low-carbon infrastructures and technologies. Currently, the potential of institutional investors to help finance this transition is widely discussed. Thus, this paper takes a closer look at influence factors for green investment decisions of large European insurance companies. With a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, the importance of policy, market and civil society signals is evaluated. In summary, respondents favor measures that promote green investment, such as feed-in tariffs or adjustments of capital charges for green assets, over ones that make carbon-intensive investments less attractive, such as the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies or a carbon price. While investors currently see a low impact of the carbon price, they rank a substantial reform as an important signal for the future. Respondents also emphasize that policy signals have to be coherent and credible to coordinate expectations.
KW  - Green infrastructure investment
KW  - policy signals
KW  - green finance
KW  - climate change
KW  - institutional investors
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2018.1528809
SN  - 2043-0795
SN  - 2043-0809
VL  - 9
IS  - 2
SP  - 87
EP  - 115
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grimm-Seyfarth, Annegret
A1  - Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste
A1  - Gruber, Bernd
A1  - Henle, Klaus
T1  - Some like it hot
BT  - from individual to population responses of an arboreal arid-zone gecko to local and distant climate
JF  - Ecological monographs
N2  - Accumulating evidence has demonstrated considerable impact of climate change on biodiversity, with terrestrial ectotherms being particularly vulnerable. While climate-induced range shifts are often addressed in the literature, little is known about the underlying ecological responses at individual and population levels. Using a 30-yr monitoring study of the long-living nocturnal gecko Gehyra variegata in arid Australia, we determined the relative contribution of climatic factors acting locally (temperature, rainfall) or distantly (La Nina induced flooding) on ecological processes ranging from traits at the individual level (body condition, body growth) to the demography at population level (survival, sexual maturity, population sizes). We also investigated whether thermoregulatory activity during both active (night) and resting (daytime) periods of the day can explain these responses. Gehyra variegata responded to local and distant climatic effects. Both high temperatures and high water availability enhanced individual and demographic parameters. Moreover, the impact of water availability was scale independent as local rainfall and La Nina induced flooding compensated each other. When water availability was low, however, extremely high temperatures delayed body growth and sexual maturity while survival of individuals and population sizes remained stable. This suggests a trade-off with traits at the individual level that may potentially buffer the consequences of adverse climatic conditions at the population level. Moreover, hot temperatures did not impact nocturnal nor diurnal behavior. Instead, only cool temperatures induced diurnal thermoregulatory behavior with individuals moving to exposed hollow branches and even outside tree hollows for sun-basking during the day. Since diurnal behavioral thermoregulation likely induced costs on fitness, this could decrease performance at both individual and population level under cool temperatures. Our findings show that water availability rather than high temperature is the limiting factor in our focal population of G.variegata. In contrast to previous studies, we stress that drier rather than warmer conditions are expected to be detrimental for nocturnal desert reptiles. Identifying the actual limiting climatic factors at different scales and their functional interactions at different ecological levels is critical to be able to predict reliably future population dynamics and support conservation planning in arid ecosystems.
KW  - behavioral adaptation
KW  - body condition
KW  - body growth rate
KW  - climate change
KW  - El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
KW  - Gehyra variegata
KW  - population dynamics
KW  - population size
KW  - survival
KW  - thermoregulation
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1301
SN  - 0012-9615
SN  - 1557-7015
VL  - 88
IS  - 3
SP  - 336
EP  - 352
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Coch, Caroline
A1  - Lamoureux, Scott F.
A1  - Knoblauch, Christian
A1  - Eischeid, Isabell
A1  - Fritz, Michael
A1  - Obu, Jaroslav
A1  - Lantuit, Hugues
T1  - Summer rainfall dissolved organic carbon, solute, and sediment fluxes in a small Arctic coastal catchment on Herschel Island (Yukon Territory, Canada)
JF  - Artic science
N2  - Coastal ecosystems in the Arctic are affected by climate change. As summer rainfall frequency and intensity are projected to increase in the future, more organic matter, nutrients and sediment could bemobilized and transported into the coastal nearshore zones. However, knowledge of current processes and future changes is limited. We investigated streamflow dynamics and the impacts of summer rainfall on lateral fluxes in a small coastal catchment on Herschel Island in the western Canadian Arctic. For the summer monitoring periods of 2014-2016, mean dissolved organic matter flux over 17 days amounted to 82.7 +/- 30.7 kg km(-2) and mean total dissolved solids flux to 5252 +/- 1224 kg km(-2). Flux of suspended sediment was 7245 kg km(-2) in 2015, and 369 kg km(-2) in 2016. We found that 2.0% of suspended sediment was composed of particulate organic carbon. Data and hysteresis analysis suggest a limited supply of sediments; their interannual variability is most likely caused by short-lived localized disturbances. In contrast, our results imply that dissolved organic carbon is widely available throughout the catchment and exhibits positive linear relationship with runoff. We hypothesize that increased projected rainfall in the future will result in a similar increase of dissolved organic carbon fluxes.
KW  - permafrost
KW  - hydrology
KW  - lateral fluxes
KW  - hysteresis
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2018-0010
SN  - 2368-7460
VL  - 4
IS  - 4
SP  - 750
EP  - 780
PB  - Canadian science publishing
CY  - Ottawa
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huber, Robert
A1  - Rigling, Andreas
A1  - Bebi, Peter
A1  - Brand, Fridolin Simon
A1  - Briner, Simon
A1  - Buttler, Alexandre
A1  - Elkin, Che
A1  - Gillet, Francois
A1  - Gret-Regamey, Adrienne
A1  - Hirschi, Christian
A1  - Lischke, Heike
A1  - Scholz, Roland Werner
A1  - Seidl, Roman
A1  - Spiegelberger, Thomas
A1  - Walz, Ariane
A1  - Zimmermann, Willi
A1  - Bugmann, Harald
T1  - Sustainable land use in Mountain Regions under global change synthesis across scales and disciplines
JF  - Ecology and society : a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability
N2  - Mountain regions provide essential ecosystem goods and services (EGS) for both mountain dwellers and people living outside these areas. Global change endangers the capacity of mountain ecosystems to provide key services. The Mountland project focused on three case study regions in the Swiss Alps and aimed to propose land-use practices and alternative policy solutions to ensure the provision of key EGS under climate and land-use changes. We summarized and synthesized the results of the project and provide insights into the ecological, socioeconomic, and political processes relevant for analyzing global change impacts on a European mountain region. In Mountland, an integrative approach was applied, combining methods from economics and the political and natural sciences to analyze ecosystem functioning from a holistic human-environment system perspective. In general, surveys, experiments, and model results revealed that climate and socioeconomic changes are likely to increase the vulnerability of the EGS analyzed. We regard the following key characteristics of coupled human-environment systems as central to our case study areas in mountain regions: thresholds, heterogeneity, trade-offs, and feedback. Our results suggest that the institutional framework should be strengthened in a way that better addresses these characteristics, allowing for (1) more integrative approaches, (2) a more network-oriented management and steering of political processes that integrate local stakeholders, and (3) enhanced capacity building to decrease the identified vulnerability as central elements in the policy process. Further, to maintain and support the future provision of EGS in mountain regions, policy making should also focus on project-oriented, cross-sectoral policies and spatial planning as a coordination instrument for land use in general.
KW  - adaptive management
KW  - climate change
KW  - ecosystem services
KW  - experiments
KW  - interdisciplinary research
KW  - land-use change
KW  - modeling
KW  - transdisciplinary research
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05499-180336
SN  - 1708-3087
VL  - 18
IS  - 3
PB  - Resilience Alliance
CY  - Wolfville
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wenz, Leonie
A1  - Kalkuhl, Matthias
A1  - Steckel, Jan Christoph
A1  - Creutzig, Felix
T1  - Teleconnected food supply shocks
JF  - Environmental research letters
N2  - The 2008-2010 food crisis might have been a harbinger of fundamental climate-induced food crises with geopolitical implications. Heat-wave-induced yield losses in Russia and resulting export restrictions led to increases in market prices for wheat across the Middle East, likely contributing to the Arab Spring. With ongoing climate change, temperatures and temperature variability will rise, leading to higher uncertainty in yields for major nutritional crops. Here we investigate which countries are most vulnerable to teleconnected supply-shocks, i.e. where diets strongly rely on the import of wheat, maize, or rice, and where a large share of the population is living in poverty. We find that the Middle East is most sensitive to teleconnected supply shocks in wheat, Central America to supply shocks in maize, and Western Africa to supply shocks in rice. Weighing with poverty levels, Sub-Saharan Africa is most affected. Altogether, a simultaneous 10% reduction in exports of wheat, rice, and maize would reduce caloric intake of 55 million people living in poverty by about 5%. Export bans in major producing regions would put up to 200 million people below the poverty line at risk, 90% of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our results suggest that a region-specific combination of national increases in agricultural productivity and diversification of trade partners and diets can effectively decrease future food security risks.
KW  - food security
KW  - trade shocks
KW  - vulnerability
KW  - climate change
KW  - teleconnections
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/035007
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 11
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - De Frenne, Pieter
A1  - Brunet, Jorg
A1  - Shevtsova, Anna
A1  - Kolb, Annette
A1  - Graae, Bente J.
A1  - Chabrerie, Olivier
A1  - Cousins, Sara Ao
A1  - Decocq, Guillaume
A1  - De Schrijver, An
A1  - Diekmann, Martin
A1  - Gruwez, Robert
A1  - Heinken, Thilo
A1  - Hermy, Martin
A1  - Nilsson, Christer
A1  - Stanton, Sharon
A1  - Tack, Wesley
A1  - Willaert, Justin
A1  - Verheyen, Kris
T1  - Temperature effects on forest herbs assessed by warming and transplant experiments along a latitudinal gradient
JF  - Global change biology
N2  - Slow-colonizing forest understorey plants are probably not able to rapidly adjust their distribution range following large-scale climate change. Therefore, the acclimation potential to climate change within their actual occupied habitats will likely be key for their short-and long-term persistence. We combined transplant experiments along a latitudinal gradient with open-top chambers to assess the effects of temperature on phenology, growth and reproductive performance of multiple populations of slow-colonizing understorey plants, using the spring flowering geophytic forb Anemone nemorosa and the early summer flowering grass Milium effusum as study species. In both species, emergence time and start of flowering clearly advanced with increasing temperatures. Vegetative growth (plant height, aboveground biomass) and reproductive success (seed mass, seed germination and germinable seed output) of A. nemorosa benefited from higher temperatures. Climate warming may thus increase future competitive ability and colonization rates of this species. Apart from the effects on phenology, growth and reproductive performance of M. effusum generally decreased when transplanted southwards (e. g., plant size and number of individuals decreased towards the south) and was probably more limited by light availability in the south. Specific leaf area of both species increased when transplanted southwards, but decreased with open-top chamber installation in A. nemorosa. In general, individuals of both species transplanted at the home site performed best, suggesting local adaptation. We conclude that contrasting understorey plants may display divergent plasticity in response to changing temperatures which may alter future understorey community dynamics.
KW  - climate change
KW  - common garden experiment
KW  - forest understorey
KW  - latitude
KW  - local adaptation
KW  - open-top chambers
KW  - phenotypic plasticity
KW  - pot experiment
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02449.x
SN  - 1354-1013
VL  - 17
IS  - 10
SP  - 3240
EP  - 3253
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huber, Veronika
A1  - Krummenauer, Linda
A1  - Peña-Ortiz, Cristina
A1  - Lange, Stefan
A1  - Gasparrini, Antonio
A1  - Vicedo-Cabrera, Ana Maria
A1  - Garcia-Herrera, Ricardo
A1  - Frieler, Katja
T1  - Temperature-related excess mortality in German cities at 2 °C and higher degrees of global warming
JF  - Environmental Research
N2  - Background: Investigating future changes in temperature-related mortality as a function of global mean temperature (GMT) rise allows for the evaluation of policy-relevant climate change targets. So far, only few studies have taken this approach, and, in particular, no such assessments exist for Germany, the most populated country of Europe.

Methods: We assess temperature-related mortality in 12 major German cities based on daily time-series of all-cause mortality and daily mean temperatures in the period 1993-2015, using distributed-lag non-linear models in a two-stage design. Resulting risk functions are applied to estimate excess mortality in terms of GMT rise relative to pre-industrial levels, assuming no change in demographics or population vulnerability.

Results: In the observational period, cold contributes stronger to temperature-related mortality than heat, with overall attributable fractions of 5.49% (95%CI: 3.82-7.19) and 0.81% (95%CI: 0.72-0.89), respectively. Future projections indicate that this pattern could be reversed under progressing global warming, with heat-related mortality starting to exceed cold-related mortality at 3 degrees C or higher GMT rise. Across cities, projected net increases in total temperature-related mortality were 0.45% (95%CI: -0.02-1.06) at 3 degrees C, 1.53% (95%CI: 0.96-2.06) at 4 degrees C, and 2.88% (95%CI: 1.60-4.10) at 5 degrees C, compared to today's warming level of 1 degrees C. By contrast, no significant difference was found between projected total temperature-related mortality at 2 degrees C versus 1 degrees C of GMT rise.

Conclusions: Our results can inform current adaptation policies aimed at buffering the health risks from increased heat exposure under climate change. They also allow for the evaluation of global mitigation efforts in terms of local health benefits in some of Germany's most populated cities.
KW  - temperature-related mortality
KW  - climate change
KW  - Future projections
KW  - Germany
KW  - global mean temperature
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.109447
SN  - 0013-9351
SN  - 1096-0953
VL  - 186
SP  - 1
EP  - 10
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego, California
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mtilatila, Lucy Mphatso Ng'ombe
A1  - Bronstert, Axel
A1  - Vormoor, Klaus Josef
T1  - Temporal evaluation and projections of meteorological droughts in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin, Southeast Africa
JF  - Frontiers in water
N2  - The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021-2050) and far-term period (2071-2100) with reference to 1976-2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021-2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071-2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture.
KW  - meteorological drought
KW  - drought intensity
KW  - climate change
KW  - drought
KW  - events
KW  - Lake Malawi
KW  - Shire River
KW  - drought projections
KW  - South-Eastern
KW  - Africa
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1041452
SN  - 2624-9375
VL  - 4
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mtilatila, Lucy Mphatso Ng'ombe
A1  - Bronstert, Axel
A1  - Vormoor, Klaus Josef
T1  - Temporal evaluation and projections of meteorological droughts in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin, Southeast Africa
JF  - Frontiers in Water
N2  - The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021–2050) and far-term period (2071–2100) with reference to 1976–2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021–2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071–2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture.
KW  - meteorological drought
KW  - drought intensity
KW  - climate change
KW  - drought events
KW  - Lake Malawi
KW  - Shire River
KW  - drought projections
KW  - South-Eastern Africa
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1041452
SN  - 2624-9375
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - Frontiers Media S.A.
CY  - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wischnewski, Juliane
A1  - Kramer, Annette
A1  - Kong, Zhaochen
A1  - Mackay, Anson W.
A1  - Simpson, Gavin L.
A1  - Mischke, Steffen
A1  - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1  - Terrestrial and aquatic responses to climate change and human impact on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau during the past two centuries
JF  - Global change biology
N2  - Rapid population growth and economic development have led to increased anthropogenic pressures on the Tibetan Plateau, causing significant land cover changes with potentially severe ecological consequences. To assess whether or not these pressures are also affecting the remote montane-boreal lakes on the SE Tibetan Plateau, fossil pollen and diatom data from two lakes were synthesized. The interplay of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem response was explored in respect to climate variability and human activity over the past 200 years. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling and Procrustes rotation analysis were undertaken to determine whether pollen and diatom responses in each lake were similar and synchronous. Detrended canonical correspondence analysis was used to develop quantitative estimates of compositional species turnover. Despite instrumental evidence of significant climatic warming on the southeastern Plateau, the pollen and diatom records indicate very stable species composition throughout their profiles and show only very subtle responses to environmental changes over the past 200 years. The compositional species turnover (0.36-0.94 SD) is relatively low in comparison to the species reorganizations known from the periods during the mid-and early-Holocene (0.64-1.61 SD) on the SE Plateau, and also in comparison to turnover rates of sediment records from climate-sensitive regions in the circum arctic. Our results indicate that climatically induced ecological thresholds are not yet crossed, but that human activity has an increasing influence, particularly on the terrestrial ecosystem in our study area. Synergistic processes of post-Little Ice Age warming, 20th century climate warming and extensive reforestations since the 19th century have initiated a change from natural oak-pine forests to seminatural, likely less resilient pine-oak forests. Further warming and anthropogenic disturbances would possibly exceed the ecological threshold of these ecosystems and lead to severe ecological consequences.
KW  - climate change
KW  - compositional species turnover
KW  - diatoms
KW  - human impact
KW  - pollen
KW  - Procrustes rotation
KW  - Tibetan Plateau
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02474.x
SN  - 1354-1013
VL  - 17
IS  - 11
SP  - 3376
EP  - 3391
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Malden
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - van Kleunen, Mark
A1  - Essl, Franz
A1  - Pergl, Jan
A1  - Brundu, Giuseppe
A1  - Carboni, Marta
A1  - Dullinger, Stefan
A1  - Early, Regan
A1  - Gonzalez-Moreno, Pablo
A1  - Groom, Quentin J. M.
A1  - Hulme, Philip E.
A1  - Kueffer, Christoph
A1  - Kühn, Ingolf
A1  - Maguas, Cristina
A1  - Maurel, Noelie
A1  - Novoa, Ana
A1  - Parepa, Madalin
A1  - Pysek, Petr
A1  - Seebens, Hanno
A1  - Tanner, Rob
A1  - Touza, Julia
A1  - Verbrugge, Laura
A1  - Weber, Ewald
A1  - Dawson, Wayne
A1  - Kreft, Holger
A1  - Weigelt, Patrick
A1  - Winter, Marten
A1  - Klonner, Guenther
A1  - Talluto, Matthew V.
A1  - Dehnen-Schmutz, Katharina
T1  - The changing role of ornamental horticulture in alien plant invasions
JF  - Biological reviews
N2  - The number of alien plants escaping from cultivation into native ecosystems is increasing steadily. We provide an overview of the historical, contemporary and potential future roles of ornamental horticulture in plant invasions. We show that currently at least 75% and 93% of the global naturalised alien flora is grown in domestic and botanical gardens, respectively. Species grown in gardens also have a larger naturalised range than those that are not. After the Middle Ages, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, a global trade network in plants emerged. Since then, cultivated alien species also started to appear in the wild more frequently than non-cultivated aliens globally, particularly during the 19th century. Horticulture still plays a prominent role in current plant introduction, and the monetary value of live-plant imports in different parts of the world is steadily increasing. Historically, botanical gardens - an important component of horticulture - played a major role in displaying, cultivating and distributing new plant discoveries. While the role of botanical gardens in the horticultural supply chain has declined, they are still a significant link, with one-third of institutions involved in retail-plant sales and horticultural research. However, botanical gardens have also become more dependent on commercial nurseries as plant sources, particularly in North America. Plants selected for ornamental purposes are not a random selection of the global flora, and some of the plant characteristics promoted through horticulture, such as fast growth, also promote invasion. Efforts to breed non-invasive plant cultivars are still rare. Socio-economical, technological, and environmental changes will lead to novel patterns of plant introductions and invasion opportunities for the species that are already cultivated. We describe the role that horticulture could play in mediating these changes. We identify current research challenges, and call for more research efforts on the past and current role of horticulture in plant invasions. This is required to develop science-based regulatory frameworks to prevent further plant invasions.
KW  - botanical gardens
KW  - climate change
KW  - horticulture
KW  - naturalised plants
KW  - ornamental plants
KW  - pathways
KW  - plant invasions
KW  - plant nurseries
KW  - trade
KW  - weeds
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12402
SN  - 1464-7931
SN  - 1469-185X
VL  - 93
IS  - 3
SP  - 1421
EP  - 1437
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hickmann, Thomas
A1  - Stehle, Fee
T1  - The Embeddedness of Urban Climate Politics in Multilevel Governance
BT  - a Case Study of South Africa’s Major Cities
JF  - The journal of environment & development : a review of international policy
N2  - Numerous scholars have lately highlighted the importance of cities in the global response to climate change. However, we still have little systematic knowledge on the evolution of urban climate politics in the Global South. In particular, we lack empirical studies that examine how local climate actions arise in political-administrative systems of developing and emerging economies. Therefore, this article adopts a multilevel governance perspective to explore the climate mitigation responses of three major cities in South Africa by looking at their vertical and horizontal integration in the wider governance framework. In the absence of a coherent national climate policy, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban have developed distinct climate actions within their jurisdictions. In their effort to address climate change, transnational city networks have provided considerable technical support to these cities. Yet, substantial domestic political-economic obstacles hinder the three cities to develop a more ambitious stance on climate change.
KW  - climate change
KW  - developing and emerging economies
KW  - local climate policy making
KW  - multilevel governance
KW  - South Africa
KW  - transnational city networks
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496518819121
SN  - 1070-4965
SN  - 1552-5465
VL  - 28
IS  - 1
SP  - 54
EP  - 77
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - Thousand Oaks
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Stiegler, Jonas
A1  - Pahl, Janice
A1  - Guillen, Rafael Arce
A1  - Ullmann, Wiebke
A1  - Blaum, Niels
T1  - The heat is on
BT  - impacts of rising temperature on the activity of a common European mammal
JF  - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
N2  - Climate conditions severely impact the activity and, consequently, the fitness of wildlife species across the globe. Wildlife can respond to new climatic conditions, but the pace of human-induced change limits opportunities for adaptation or migration. Thus, how these changes affect behavior, movement patterns, and activity levels remains unclear. In this study, we investigate how extreme weather conditions affect the activity of European hares (Lepus europaeus) during their peak reproduction period. When hares must additionally invest energy in mating, prevailing against competitors, or lactating, we investigated their sensitivities to rising temperatures, wind speed, and humidity. To quantify their activity, we used the overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) calculated from tri-axial acceleration measurements of 33 GPS-collared hares. Our analysis revealed that temperature, humidity, and wind speed are important in explaining changes in activity, with a strong response for high temperatures above 25 & DEG;C and the highest change in activity during temperature extremes of over 35 & DEG;C during their inactive period. Further, we found a non-linear relationship between temperature and activity and an interaction of activity changes between day and night. Activity increased at higher temperatures during the inactive period (day) and decreased during the active period (night). This decrease was strongest during hot tropical nights. At a stage of life when mammals such as hares must substantially invest in reproduction, the sensitivity of females to extreme temperatures was particularly pronounced. Similarly, both sexes increased their activity at high humidity levels during the day and low wind speeds, irrespective of the time of day, while the effect of humidity was stronger for males. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the complex relationships between extreme weather conditions and mammal behavior, critical for conservation and management. With ongoing climate change, extreme weather events such as heat waves and heavy rainfall are predicted to occur more often and last longer. These events will directly impact the fitness of hares and other wildlife species and hence the population dynamics of already declining populations across Europe.
KW  - activity
KW  - ODBA
KW  - animal tracking
KW  - European hare
KW  - extreme weather events
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1193861
SN  - 2296-701X
VL  - 11
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kalkuhl, Matthias
A1  - Wenz, Leonie
T1  - The impact of climate conditions on economic production
BT  - evidence from a global panel of regions
JF  - Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
N2  - We present a novel data set of subnational economic output, Gross Regional Product (GRP), for more than 1500 regions in 77 countries that allows us to empirically estimate historic climate impacts at different time scales. Employing annual panel models, long-difference regressions and cross-sectional regressions, we identify effects on productivity levels and productivity growth. We do not find evidence for permanent growth rate impacts but we find robust evidence that temperature affects productivity levels considerably. An increase in global mean surface temperature by about 3.5°C until the end of the century would reduce global output by 7–14% in 2100, with even higher damages in tropical and poor regions. Updating the DICE damage function with our estimates suggests that the social cost of carbon from temperature-induced productivity losses is on the order of 73–142$/tCO2 in 2020, rising to 92–181$/tCO2 in 2030. These numbers exclude non-market damages and damages from extreme weather events or sea-level rise.
KW  - climate change
KW  - climate damages
KW  - climate impacts
KW  - growth regression
KW  - global warming
KW  - panel regression
KW  - cross-sectional regression
KW  - damage
KW  - function
KW  - social costs of carbon
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2020.102360
SN  - 0095-0696
SN  - 1096-0449
VL  - 103
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Levermann, Anders
A1  - Clark, Peter U.
A1  - Marzeion, Ben
A1  - Milne, Glenn A.
A1  - Pollard, David
A1  - Radic, Valentina
A1  - Robinson, Alexander
T1  - The multimillennial sea-level commitment of global warming
JF  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2  - Global mean sea level has been steadily rising over the last century, is projected to increase by the end of this century, and will continue to rise beyond the year 2100 unless the current global mean temperature trend is reversed. Inertia in the climate and global carbon system, however, causes the global mean temperature to decline slowly even after greenhouse gas emissions have ceased, raising the question of how much sea-level commitment is expected for different levels of global mean temperature increase above preindustrial levels. Although sea-level rise over the last century has been dominated by ocean warming and loss of glaciers, the sensitivity suggested from records of past sea levels indicates important contributions should also be expected from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. Uncertainties in the paleo-reconstructions, however, necessitate additional strategies to better constrain the sea-level commitment. Here we combine paleo-evidence with simulations from physical models to estimate the future sea-level commitment on a multimillennial time scale and compute associated regional sea-level patterns. Oceanic thermal expansion and the Antarctic Ice Sheet contribute quasi-linearly, with 0.4 m degrees C-1 and 1.2 m degrees C-1 of warming, respectively. The saturation of the contribution from glaciers is overcompensated by the nonlinear response of the Greenland Ice Sheet. As a consequence we are committed to a sea-level rise of approximately 2.3 m degrees C-1 within the next 2,000 y. Considering the lifetime of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, this imposes the need for fundamental adaptation strategies on multicentennial time scales.
KW  - climate change
KW  - climate impacts
KW  - sea-level change
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1219414110
SN  - 0027-8424
VL  - 110
IS  - 34
SP  - 13745
EP  - 13750
PB  - National Acad. of Sciences
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schneider, Birgit
A1  - Walsh, Lynda
T1  - The politics of zoom
BT  - Problems with downscaling climate visualizations
JF  - Geo: Geography and Environment
N2  - Following the mandate in the Paris Agreement for signatories to provide “climate services” to their constituents, “downscaled” climate visualizations are proliferating. But the process of downscaling climate visualizations does not neutralize the political problems with their synoptic global sources—namely, their failure to empower communities to take action and their replication of neoliberal paradigms of globalization. In this study we examine these problems as they apply to interactive climate‐visualization platforms, which allow their users to localize global climate information to support local political action. By scrutinizing the political implications of the “zoom” tool from the perspective of media studies and rhetoric, we add to perspectives of cultural cartography on the issue of scaling from our fields. Namely, we break down the cinematic trope of “zooming” to reveal how it imports the political problems of synopticism to the level of individual communities. As a potential antidote to the politics of zoom, we recommend a downscaling strategy of connectivity, which associates rather than reduces situated views of climate to global ones.
KW  - climate change
KW  - climate services
KW  - climate visualization
KW  - connectivity
KW  - downscaling
KW  - spherical
KW  - synopticism
KW  - zoom
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.70
SN  - 2054-4049
VL  - 6
IS  - 1
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - De Frenne, Pieter
A1  - Graae, Bente J.
A1  - Brunet, Jörg
A1  - Shevtsova, Anna
A1  - De Schrijver, An
A1  - Chabrerie, Olivier
A1  - Cousins, Sara A. O.
A1  - Decocq, Guillaume
A1  - Diekmann, Martin
A1  - Hermy, Martin
A1  - Heinken, Thilo
A1  - Kolb, Annette
A1  - Nilsson, Christer
A1  - Stanton, Sharon
A1  - Verheyen, Kris
T1  - The response of forest plant regeneration to temperature variation along a latitudinal gradient
JF  - Annals of botany
N2  - The response of forest herb regeneration from seed to temperature variations across latitudes was experimentally assessed in order to forecast the likely response of understorey community dynamics to climate warming.
 Seeds of two characteristic forest plants (Anemone nemorosa and Milium effusum) were collected in natural populations along a latitudinal gradient from northern France to northern Sweden and exposed to three temperature regimes in growth chambers (first experiment). To test the importance of local adaptation, reciprocal transplants were also made of adult individuals that originated from the same populations in three common gardens located in southern, central and northern sites along the same gradient, and the resulting seeds were germinated (second experiment). Seedling establishment was quantified by measuring the timing and percentage of seedling emergence, and seedling biomass in both experiments.
 Spring warming increased emergence rates and seedling growth in the early-flowering forb A. nemorosa. Seedlings of the summer-flowering grass M. effusum originating from northern populations responded more strongly in terms of biomass growth to temperature than southern populations. The above-ground biomass of the seedlings of both species decreased with increasing latitude of origin, irrespective of whether seeds were collected from natural populations or from the common gardens. The emergence percentage decreased with increasing home-away distance in seeds from the transplant experiment, suggesting that the maternal plants were locally adapted.
 Decreasing seedling emergence and growth were found from the centre to the northern edge of the distribution range for both species. Stronger responses to temperature variation in seedling growth of the grass M. effusum in the north may offer a way to cope with environmental change. The results further suggest that climate warming might differentially affect seedling establishment of understorey plants across their distribution range and thus alter future understorey plant dynamics.
KW  - Anemone nemorosa
KW  - climate change
KW  - common garden
KW  - growth chambers
KW  - latitudinal gradient
KW  - local adaptation
KW  - Milium effusum
KW  - plant regeneration
KW  - range edges
KW  - recruitment
KW  - seedling establishment
KW  - temperature
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcs015
SN  - 0305-7364
VL  - 109
IS  - 5
SP  - 1037
EP  - 1046
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hickmann, Thomas
A1  - Widerberg, Oscar
A1  - Lederer, Markus
A1  - Pattberg, Philipp H.
T1  - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat as an orchestrator in global climate policymaking
JF  - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2  - Scholars have recently devoted increasing attention to the role and function of international bureaucracies in global policymaking. Some of them contend that international public officials have gained significant political influence in various policy fields. Compared to other international bureaucracies, the political leeway of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been considered rather limited. Due to the specific problem structure of the policy domain of climate change, national governments endowed this intergovernmental treaty secretariat with a relatively narrow mandate. However, this article argues that in the past few years, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat has gradually loosened its straitjacket and expanded its original spectrum of activity by engaging different sub-national and non-state actors into a policy dialogue using facilitative orchestration as a mode of governance. The present article explores the recent evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and investigates the way in which it initiates, guides, broadens and strengthens sub-national and non-state climate actions to achieve progress in the international climate negotiations. <br /> Points for practitioners <br /> The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has lately adopted new roles and functions in global climate policymaking. While previously seen as a rather technocratic body that, first and foremost, serves national governments, the Climate Secretariat increasingly interacts with sub-national governments, civil society organizations and private companies to push the global response to climate change forward. We contend that the Climate Secretariat can contribute to global climate policymaking by coordinating and steering the initiatives of non-nation-state actors towards coherence and good practice.
KW  - climate change
KW  - environmental policymaking
KW  - intergovernmental relations
KW  - international bureaucracies
KW  - sub-national and non-state actors
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319840425
SN  - 0020-8523
SN  - 1461-7226
VL  - 87
IS  - 1
SP  - 21
EP  - 38
PB  - Sage
CY  - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Steffen, Will
A1  - Röckstrom, Johan
A1  - Richardson, Katherine
A1  - Lenton, Timothy M.
A1  - Folke, Carl
A1  - Liverman, Diana
A1  - Summerhayes, Colin P.
A1  - Barnosky, Anthony D.
A1  - Cornell, Sarah E.
A1  - Crucifix, Michel
A1  - Donges, Jonathan
A1  - Fetzer, Ingo
A1  - Lade, Steven J.
A1  - Scheffer, Marten
A1  - Winkelmann, Ricarda
A1  - Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim
T1  - Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
JF  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2  - We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a "Hothouse Earth" pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System-biosphere, climate, and societies-and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values.
KW  - Earth System trajectories
KW  - climate change
KW  - Anthropocene
KW  - biosphere feedbacks
KW  - tipping elements
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
SN  - 0027-8424
VL  - 115
IS  - 33
SP  - 8252
EP  - 8259
PB  - National Acad. of Sciences
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tape, Ken D.
A1  - Jones, Benjamin M.
A1  - Arp, Christopher D.
A1  - Nitze, Ingmar
A1  - Grosse, Guido
T1  - Tundra be dammed
BT  - beaver colonization of the arctic
JF  - Global change biology
N2  - Increasing air temperatures are changing the arctic tundra biome. Permafrost is thawing, snow duration is decreasing, shrub vegetation is proliferating, and boreal wildlife is encroaching. Here we present evidence of the recent range expansion of North American beaver (Castor canadensis) into the Arctic, and consider how this ecosystem engineer might reshape the landscape, biodiversity, and ecosystem processes. We developed a remote sensing approach that maps formation and disappearance of ponds associated with beaver activity. Since 1999, 56 new beaver pond complexes were identified, indicating that beavers are colonizing a predominantly tundra region (18,293km(2)) of northwest Alaska. It is unclear how improved tundra stream habitat, population rebound following overtrapping for furs, or other factors are contributing to beaver range expansion. We discuss rates and likely routes of tundra beaver colonization, as well as effects on permafrost, stream ice regimes, and freshwater and riparian habitat. Beaver ponds and associated hydrologic changes are thawing permafrost. Pond formation increases winter water temperatures in the pond and downstream, likely creating new and more varied aquatic habitat, but specific biological implications are unknown. Beavers create dynamic wetlands and are agents of disturbance that may enhance ecosystem responses to warming in the Arctic.
KW  - arctic tundra
KW  - beaver
KW  - climate change
KW  - permafrost
KW  - population recovery
KW  - salmon
KW  - shrub expansion
KW  - stream
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14332
SN  - 1354-1013
SN  - 1365-2486
VL  - 24
IS  - 10
SP  - 4478
EP  - 4488
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wolf, Sabina
A1  - Pham, My
A1  - Matthews, Nathanial
A1  - Bubeck, Philip
T1  - Understanding the implementation gap
BT  - policy-makers’ perceptions of ecosystem-based adaptation in Central Vietnam
JF  - Climate & development
N2  - In recent years, nature-based solutions are receiving increasing attention in the field of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation as inclusive, no regret approaches. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) can mitigate the impacts of climate change, build resilience and tackle environmental degradation thereby supporting the targets set by the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement and the Sendai Framework. Despite these benefits, EbA is still rarely implemented in practice. To better understand the barriers to implementation, this research examines policy-makers' perceptions of EbA, using an extended version of Protection Motivation Theory as an analytical framework. Through semi-structured interviews with policy-makers at regional and provincial level in Central Vietnam, it was found that EbA is generally considered a promising response option, mainly due to its multiple ecosystem-service benefits. The demand for EbA measures was largely driven by the perceived consequences of natural hazards and climate change. Insufficient perceived response efficacy and time-lags in effectiveness for disaster risk reduction were identified as key impediments for implementation. Pilot projects and capacity building on EbA are important means to overcome these perceptual barriers. This paper contributes to bridging the knowledge-gap on political decision-making regarding EbA and can, thereby, promote its mainstreaming into policy plans.
KW  - climate change
KW  - ecosystem-based adaptation
KW  - risk perception
KW  - protection
KW  - motivation theory
KW  - decision making
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2020.1724068
SN  - 1756-5529
SN  - 1756-5537
VL  - 13
IS  - 1
SP  - 81
EP  - 94
PB  - Taylor & Francis LTD
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tabares Jimenez, Ximena del Carmen
A1  - Zimmermann, Heike Hildegard
A1  - Dietze, Elisabeth
A1  - Ratzmann, Gregor
A1  - Belz, Lukas
A1  - Vieth-Hillebrand, Andrea
A1  - Dupont, Lydie
A1  - Wilkes, Heinz
A1  - Mapani, Benjamin
A1  - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1  - Vegetation state changes in the course of shrub encroachment in an African savanna since about 1850 CE and their potential drivers
JF  - Ecology and evolution
N2  - Shrub encroachment has far-reaching ecological and economic consequences in many ecosystems worldwide. Yet, compositional changes associated with shrub encroachment are often overlooked despite having important effects on ecosystem functioning. We document the compositional change and potential drivers for a northern Namibian Combretum woodland transitioning into a Terminalia shrubland. We use a multiproxy record (pollen, sedimentary ancient DNA, biomarkers, compound-specific carbon (delta C-13) and deuterium (delta D) isotopes, bulk carbon isotopes (delta(13)Corg), grain size, geochemical properties) from Lake Otjikoto at high taxonomical and temporal resolution. We provide evidence that state changes in semiarid environments may occur on a scale of one century and that transitions between stable states can span around 80 years and are characterized by a unique vegetation composition. We demonstrate that the current grass/woody ratio is exceptional for the last 170 years, as supported by n-alkane distributions and the delta C-13 and delta(13)Corg records. Comparing vegetation records to environmental proxy data and census data, we infer a complex network of global and local drivers of vegetation change. While our delta D record suggests physiological adaptations of woody species to higher atmospheric pCO(2) concentration and drought, our vegetation records reflect the impact of broad-scale logging for the mining industry, and the macrocharcoal record suggests a decrease in fire activity associated with the intensification of farming. Impact of selective grazing is reflected by changes in abundance and taxonomical composition of grasses and by an increase of nonpalatable and trampling-resistant taxa. In addition, grain-size and spore records suggest changes in the erodibility of soils because of reduced grass cover. Synthesis. We conclude that transitions to an encroached savanna state are supported by gradual environmental changes induced by management strategies, which affected the resilience of savanna ecosystems. In addition, feedback mechanisms that reflect the interplay between management legacies and climate change maintain the encroached state.
KW  - climate change
KW  - fossil pollen
KW  - land-use change
KW  - savanna ecology
KW  - sedimentary ancient DNA
KW  - state and transition
KW  - tree-grass interactions
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5955
SN  - 2045-7758
VL  - 10
IS  - 2
SP  - 962
EP  - 979
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Pearce, Warren
A1  - Özkula, Suay M.
A1  - Greene, Amanda K.
A1  - Teeling, Lauren
A1  - Bansard, Jennifer S.
A1  - Omena, Janna Joceli
A1  - Rabello, Elaine Teixeira
T1  - Visual cross-platform analysis
JF  - Information, Communication and Society: digital methods to research social media images
N2  - Analysis of social media using digital methods is a flourishing approach. However, the relatively easy availability of data collected via platform application programming interfaces has arguably led to the predominance of single-platform research of social media. Such research has also privileged the role of text in social media analysis, as a form of data that is more readily gathered and searchable than images. In this paper, we challenge both of these prevailing forms of social media research by outlining a methodology for visual cross-platform analysis (VCPA), defined as the study of still and moving images across two or more social media platforms. Our argument contains three steps. First, we argue that cross-platform analysis addresses a gap in research methods in that it acknowledges the interplay between a social phenomenon under investigation and the medium within which it is being researched, thus illuminating the different affordances and cultures of web platforms. Second, we build on the literature on multimodal communication and platform vernacular to provide a rationale for incorporating the visual into cross-platform analysis. Third, we reflect on an experimental cross-platform analysis of images within social media posts (n = 471,033) used to communicate climate change to advance different modes of macro- and meso-levels of analysis that are natively visual: image-text networks, image plots and composite images. We conclude by assessing the research pathways opened up by VCPA, delineating potential contributions to empirical research and theory and the potential impact on practitioners of social media communication.
KW  - research methodology
KW  - visual analysis
KW  - social media
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1486871
SN  - 1468-4462
SN  - 1369-118X
VL  - 23
IS  - 2
SP  - 161
EP  - 180
PB  - Routledge
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Markovic, Danijela
A1  - Carrizo, Savrina F.
A1  - Kaercher, Oskar
A1  - Walz, Ariane
A1  - David, Jonathan N. W.
T1  - Vulnerability of European freshwater catchments to climate change
JF  - Global change biology
N2  - Climate change is expected to exacerbate the current threats to freshwater ecosystems, yet multifaceted studies on the potential impacts of climate change on freshwater biodiversity at scales that inform management planning are lacking. The aim of this study was to fill this void through the development of a novel framework for assessing climate change vulnerability tailored to freshwater ecosystems. The three dimensions of climate change vulnerability are as follows: (i) exposure to climate change, (ii) sensitivity to altered environmental conditions and (iii) resilience potential. Our vulnerability framework includes 1685 freshwater species of plants, fishes, molluscs, odonates, amphibians, crayfish and turtles alongside key features within and between catchments, such as topography and connectivity. Several methodologies were used to combine these dimensions across a variety of future climate change models and scenarios. The resulting indices were overlaid to assess the vulnerability of European freshwater ecosystems at the catchment scale (18 783 catchments). The Balkan Lakes Ohrid and Prespa and Mediterranean islands emerge as most vulnerable to climate change. For the 2030s, we showed a consensus among the applied methods whereby up to 573 lake and river catchments are highly vulnerable to climate change. The anthropogenic disruption of hydrological habitat connectivity by dams is the major factor reducing climate change resilience. A gap analysis demonstrated that the current European protected area network covers <25% of the most vulnerable catchments. Practical steps need to be taken to ensure the persistence of freshwater biodiversity under climate change. Priority should be placed on enhancing stakeholder cooperation at the major basin scale towards preventing further degradation of freshwater ecosystems and maintaining connectivity among catchments. The catchments identified as most vulnerable to climate change provide preliminary targets for development of climate change conservation management and mitigation strategies.
KW  - catchment connectivity
KW  - climate change
KW  - exposure
KW  - freshwater biodiversity
KW  - gap analysis
KW  - resilience
KW  - sensitivity
KW  - vulnerability
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13657
SN  - 1354-1013
SN  - 1365-2486
VL  - 23
SP  - 3567
EP  - 3580
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Šedová, Barbora
A1  - Kalkuhl, Matthias
T1  - Who are the climate migrants and where do they go?
BT  - Evidence from rural India
JF  - World development
N2  - In this paper, we move from the large strand of research that looks at evidence of climate migration to the questions: who are the climate migrants? and where do they go? These questions are crucial to design policies that mitigate welfare losses of migration choices due to climate change. We study the direct and heterogeneous associations between weather extremes and migration in rural India. We combine ERAS reanalysis data with the India Human Development Survey household panel and conduct regression analyses by applying linear probability and multinomial logit models. This enables us to establish a causal relationship between temperature and precipitation anomalies and overall migration as well as migration by destination. We show that adverse weather shocks decrease rural-rural and international migration and push people into cities in different, presumably more prosperous states. A series of positive weather shocks, however, facilitates international migration and migration to cities within the same state. Further, our results indicate that in contrast to other migrants, climate migrants are likely to be from the lower end of the skill distribution and from households strongly dependent on agricultural production. We estimate that approximately 8% of all rural-urban moves between 2005 and 2012 can be attributed to weather. This figure might increase as a consequence of climate change. Thus, a key policy recommendation is to take steps to facilitate integration of less educated migrants into the urban labor market.
KW  - climate change
KW  - migration
KW  - household analysis
KW  - India
KW  - econometrics
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104848
SN  - 0305-750X
SN  - 1873-5991
VL  - 129
PB  - Elsevier Science
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Korup, Oliver
A1  - Görüm, Tolga
A1  - Hayakawa, Yuichi
T1  - Without power? - Landslide inventories in the face of climate change
JF  - Earth surface processes and landforms : the journal of the British Geomorphological Research Group
N2  - Projected scenarios of climate change involve general predictions about the likely changes to the magnitude and frequency of landslides, particularly as a consequence of altered precipitation and temperature regimes. Whether such landslide response to contemporary or past climate change may be captured in differing scaling statistics of landslide size distributions and the erosion rates derived thereof remains debated. We test this notion with simple Monte Carlo and bootstrap simulations of statistical models commonly used to characterize empirical landslide size distributions. Our results show that significant changes to total volumes contained in such inventories may be masked by statistically indistinguishable scaling parameters, critically depending on, among others, the size of the largest of landslides recorded. Conversely, comparable model parameter values may obscure significant, i.e. more than twofold, changes to landslide occurrence, and thus inferred rates of hillslope denudation and sediment delivery to drainage networks. A time series of some of Earth's largest mass movements reveals clustering near and partly before the last glacial-interglacial transition and a distinct step-over from white noise to temporal clustering around this period. However, elucidating whether this is a distinct signal of first-order climate-change impact on slope stability or simply coincides with a transition from short-term statistical noise to long-term steady-state conditions remains an important research challenge.
KW  - landslide
KW  - climate change
KW  - magnitude & frequency
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.2248
SN  - 0197-9337
VL  - 37
IS  - 1
SP  - 92
EP  - 99
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ungelenk, Johannes
T1  - Émile Zola and the literary language of climate change
JF  - Nottingham French studies / University of Nottingham
N2  - On 7 February 1861, John Tyndall, professor of natural philosophy, delivered a historical lecture: he could prove that different gases absorb heat to a very different degree, which implies that the temperate conditions provided for by the Earth's atmosphere are dependent on its particular composition of gases. The theoretical foundation of climate science was laid.

Ten years later, on the other side of the Channel, a young and ambitious author was working on a comprehensive literary analysis of the French era under the Second Empire. Émile Zola had probably not heard or read of Tyndall's discovery. However, the article makes the case for reading Zola's Rougon-Macquart as an extensive story of climate change. Zola's literary attempts to capture the defining characteristic of the Second Empire led him to the insight that its various milieus were all part of the same ‘climate’: that of an all-encompassing warming. Zola suggests that this climate is man-made: the economic success of the Second Empire is based on heating, in a literal and metaphorical sense, as well as on stoking the steam-engines and creating the hypertrophic atmosphere of the hothouse that enhances life and maximises turnover and profit. In contrast to Tyndall and his audience, Zola sensed the catastrophic consequences of this warming: the Second Empire was inevitably moving towards a final débâcle, i.e. it was doomed to perish in local and ‘global’ climate catastrophes.

The article foregrounds the supplementary status of Tyndall's physical and Zola's literary knowledge. As Zola's striking intuition demonstrates, literature appears to have a privileged approach to the phenomenon of man-induced climate change.
N2  - Le 7 février 1861, le professeur de philosophie naturelle John Tyndall donna une communication historique: il pouvait prouver que des gaz différents absorbent la chaleur de manière différente, ce qui implique que les conditions tempérées fournies par l’atmosphère terrestre dépendent de sa composition particulière en gaz. Le fondement théorique de la science climatique était posé. Dix ans plus tard, de l'autre côté du Channel, un jeune auteur ambitieux était en train de faire une analyse littéraire globale de la France du Second Empire. Émile Zola n'avait probablement pas entendu parler de la découverte de Tyndall. Cependant, cet article propose de lire les Rougon Macquart de Zola comme une vaste histoire du changement climatique. Les tentatives littéraires entreprises par Zola pour capturer la caractéristique déterminante du Second Empire l'amena à réaliser que ses différents milieux faisaient tous partie du même « climat »: celui d'un réchauffement global. Zola suggère que ce climat est créé par l'humain et que le succès économique du Second Empire est basé sur l'action de chauffer dans un sens littéral et métaphorique, ainsi que sur l'alimentation des machines à vapeur et la création de l'atmosphère hypertrophiée d'une serre qui enrichit la vie et maximise l'écoulement et le profit. Contrairement à Tyndall et à son auditoire, Zola pressentit les conséquences catastrophiques d'un tel réchauffement: le Second Empire s'approchait inévitablement d'une débâcle finale, c'est-à-dire qu'il était voué à périr dans des catastrophes locales et « globales ».
KW  - Rougon-Macquart
KW  - climate change
KW  - John Tyndall
KW  - global warming
KW  - climate catastrophe
KW  - Second Empire
KW  - changement climatique
KW  - réchauffement planétaire
KW  - catastrophe climatique
KW  - Rougon-Macquart
KW  - Second Empire
KW  - John Tyndall
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2021.0331
SN  - 0029-4586
SN  - 2047-7236
VL  - 60
IS  - 3
SP  - 362
EP  - 373
PB  - Edinburgh University Press
CY  - Edinburgh
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ungelenk, Johannes
T1  - Émile Zola and the Literary Language of Climate Change
JF  - Nottingham French Studies
N2  - On 7 February 1861, John Tyndall, professor of natural philosophy, delivered a historical lecture: he could prove that different gases absorb heat to a very different degree, which implies that the temperate conditions provided for by the Earth's atmosphere are dependent on its particular composition of gases. The theoretical foundation of climate science was laid.

Ten years later, on the other side of the Channel, a young and ambitious author was working on a comprehensive literary analysis of the French era under the Second Empire. Émile Zola had probably not heard or read of Tyndall's discovery. However, the article makes the case for reading Zola's Rougon-Macquart as an extensive story of climate change. Zola's literary attempts to capture the defining characteristic of the Second Empire led him to the insight that its various milieus were all part of the same ‘climate’: that of an all-encompassing warming. Zola suggests that this climate is man-made: the economic success of the Second Empire is based on heating, in a literal and metaphorical sense, as well as on stoking the steam-engines and creating the hypertrophic atmosphere of the hothouse that enhances life and maximises turnover and profit. In contrast to Tyndall and his audience, Zola sensed the catastrophic consequences of this warming: the Second Empire was inevitably moving towards a final débâcle, i.e. it was doomed to perish in local and ‘global’ climate catastrophes.

The article foregrounds the supplementary status of Tyndall's physical and Zola's literary knowledge. As Zola's striking intuition demonstrates, literature appears to have a privileged approach to the phenomenon of man-induced climate change.
N2  - Le 7 février 1861, le professeur de philosophie naturelle John Tyndall donna une communication historique: il pouvait prouver que des gaz différents absorbent la chaleur de manière différente, ce qui implique que les conditions tempérées fournies par l’atmosphère terrestre dépendent de sa composition particulière en gaz. Le fondement théorique de la science climatique était posé. Dix ans plus tard, de l'autre côté du Channel, un jeune auteur ambitieux était en train de faire une analyse littéraire globale de la France du Second Empire. Émile Zola n'avait probablement pas entendu parler de la découverte de Tyndall. Cependant, cet article propose de lire les Rougon Macquart de Zola comme une vaste histoire du changement climatique. Les tentatives littéraires entreprises par Zola pour capturer la caractéristique déterminante du Second Empire l'amena à réaliser que ses différents milieux faisaient tous partie du même « climat »: celui d'un réchauffement global. Zola suggère que ce climat est créé par l'humain et que le succès économique du Second Empire est basé sur l'action de chauffer dans un sens littéral et métaphorique, ainsi que sur l'alimentation des machines à vapeur et la création de l'atmosphère hypertrophiée d'une serre qui enrichit la vie et maximise l'écoulement et le profit. Contrairement à Tyndall et à son auditoire, Zola pressentit les conséquences catastrophiques d'un tel réchauffement: le Second Empire s'approchait inévitablement d'une débâcle finale, c'est-à-dire qu'il était voué à périr dans des catastrophes locales et « globales ».
KW  - Rougon-Macquart
KW  - climate change
KW  - John Tyndall
KW  - global warming
KW  - climate catastrophe
KW  - Second Empire
KW  - changement climatique
KW  - réchauffement planétaire
KW  - catastrophe climatique
KW  - Second Empire
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3366/nfs.2021.0331
VL  - 60
IS  - 3
SP  - 362
EP  - 373
ER  -