TY - JOUR
A1 - Berry, Paul E.
A1 - Dammhahn, Melanie
A1 - Blaum, Niels
T1 - Keeping cool on hot days
BT - activity responses of African antelope to heat extremes
JF - Frontiers in ecology and evolution
N2 - Long-lived organisms are likely to respond to a rapidly changing climate with behavioral flexibility. Animals inhabiting the arid parts of southern Africa face a particularly rapid rise in temperature which in combination with food and water scarcity places substantial constraints on the ability of animals to tolerate heat. We investigated how three species of African antelope-springbok Antidorcas marsupialis, kudu Tragelaphus strepsiceros and eland T. oryx-differing in body size, habitat preference and movement ecology, change their activity in response to extreme heat in an arid savanna. Serving as a proxy for activity, dynamic body acceleration data recorded every five minutes were analyzed for seven to eight individuals per species for the three hottest months of the year. Activity responses to heat during the hottest time of day (the afternoons) were investigated and diel activity patterns were compared between hot and cool days. Springbok, which prefer open habitat, are highly mobile and the smallest of the species studied, showed the greatest decrease in activity with rising temperature. Furthermore, springbok showed reduced mean activity over the 24 h cycle on hot days compared to cool days. Large-bodied eland seemed less affected by afternoon heat than springbok. While eland also reduced diurnal activity on hot days compared to cool days, they compensated for this by increasing nocturnal activity, possibly because their predation risk is lower. Kudu, which are comparatively sedentary and typically occupy shady habitat, seemed least affected during the hottest time of day and showed no appreciable difference in diel activity patterns between hot and cool days. The interplay between habitat preference, body size, movement patterns, and other factors seems complex and even sub-lethal levels of heat stress have been shown to impact an animal's long-term survival and reproduction. Thus, differing heat tolerances among species could result in a shift in the composition of African herbivore communities as temperatures continue to rise, with significant implications for economically important wildlife-based land use and conservation.
KW - springbok
KW - kudu
KW - eland
KW - dynamic body acceleration
KW - tri-axial accelerometers
KW - behavioral flexibility
KW - climate change
KW - savanna ecology
Y1 - 2023
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1172303
SN - 2296-701X
VL - 11
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
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 - Souto-Veiga, Rodrigo
A1 - Groeneveld, Juergen
A1 - Enright, Neal J.
A1 - Fontaine, Joseph B.
A1 - Jeltsch, Florian
T1 - Declining pollination success reinforces negative climate and fire change impacts in a serotinous, fire-killed plant
JF - Plant ecology : an international journal
N2 - Climate change projections predict that Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs) are becoming hotter and drier and that fires will become more frequent and severe.
While most plant species in these important biodiversity hotspots are adapted to hot, dry summers and recurrent fire, the Interval Squeeze framework suggests that reduced seed production (demographic shift), reduced seedling establishment after fire (post fire recruitment shift), and reduction in the time between successive fires (fire interval shift) will threaten fire killed species under climate change.
One additional potential driver of accelerated species decline, however, has not been considered so far: the decrease in pollination success observed in many ecosystems worldwide has the potential to further reduce seed accumulation and thus population persistence also in these already threatened systems.
Using the well-studied fire-killed and serotinous shrub species Banksia hookeriana as an example, we apply a new spatially implicit population simulation model to explore population dynamics under past (1988-2002) and current (2003-2017) climate conditions, deterministic and stochastic fire regimes, and alternative scenarios of pollination decline.
Overall, model results suggest that while B. hookeriana populations were stable under past climate conditions, they will not continue to persist under current (and prospective future) climate.
Negative effects of climatic changes and more frequent fires are reinforced by the measured decline in seed set leading to further reduction in the mean persistence time by 12-17%.
These findings clearly indicate that declining pollination rates can be a critical factor that increases further the pressure on the persistence of fire-killed plants.
Future research needs to investigate whether other fire-killed species are similarly threatened, and if local population extinction may be compensated by recolonization events, facilitating persistence in spatially structured meta-communities.
KW - climate change
KW - fire frequency
KW - interval squeeze
KW - pollination
KW - process-based simulation model
KW - mediterranean-type ecosystem
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-022-01244-7
SN - 1385-0237
SN - 1573-5052
VL - 223
IS - 7
SP - 863
EP - 881
PB - Springer
CY - Dordrecht
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ben Nsir, Siwar
A1 - Jomaa, Seifeddine
A1 - Yildirim, Umit
A1 - Zhou, Xiangqian
A1 - D'Oria, Marco
A1 - Rode, Michael
A1 - Khlifi, Slaheddine
T1 - Assessment of climate change impact on discharge of the lakhmass catchment (Northwest Tunisia)
JF - Water
N2 - The Mediterranean region is increasingly recognized as a climate change hotspot but is highly underrepresented in hydrological climate change studies. This study aims to investigate the climate change effects on the hydrology of Lakhmass catchment in Tunisia. Lakhmass catchment is a part of the Medium Valley of Medjerda in northwestern Tunisia that drains an area of 126 km(2). First, the Hydrologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavdelning light (HBV-light) model was calibrated and validated successfully at a daily time step to simulate discharge during the 1981-1986 period. The Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency and Percent bias (NSE, PBIAS) were (0.80, +2.0%) and (0.53, -9.5%) for calibration (September 1982-August 1984) and validation (September 1984-August 1986) periods, respectively. Second, HBV-light model was considered as a predictive tool to simulate discharge in a baseline period (1981-2009) and future projections using data (precipitation and temperature) from thirteen combinations of General Circulation Models (GCMs) and Regional Climatic Models (RCMs). We used two trajectories of Representative Concentration Pathways, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Each RCP is divided into three projection periods: near-term (2010-2039), mid-term (2040-2069) and long-term (2070-2099). For both scenarios, a decrease in precipitation and discharge will be expected with an increase in air temperature and a reduction in precipitation with almost 5% for every +1 degrees C of global warming. By long-term (2070-2099) projection period, results suggested an increase in temperature with about 2.7 degrees C and 4 degrees C, and a decrease in precipitation of approximately 7.5% and 15% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This will likely result in a reduction of discharge of 12.5% and 36.6% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This situation calls for early climate change adaptation measures under a participatory approach, including multiple stakeholders and water users.
KW - hydrological modeling
KW - HBV-light model
KW - Mediterranean
KW - discharge
KW - climate change
KW - RCP4,5 and 8,5
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w14142242
SN - 2073-4441
VL - 14
IS - 14
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - McCool, Weston C.
A1 - Codding, Brian F.
A1 - Vernon, Kenneth B.
A1 - Wilson, Kurt M.
A1 - Yaworsky, Peter M.
A1 - Marwan, Norbert
A1 - Kennett, Douglas J.
T1 - Climate change-induced population pressure drives high rates of lethal violence in the Prehispanic central Andes
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America : PNAS
N2 - Understanding the influence of climate change and population pressure on human conflict remains a critically important topic in the social sciences. Long-term records that evaluate these dynamics across multiple centuries and outside the range of modern climatic variation are especially capable of elucidating the relative effect of-and the interaction between-climate and demography. This is crucial given that climate change may structure population growth and carrying capacity, while both climate and population influence per capita resource availability. This study couples paleoclimatic and demographic data with osteological evaluations of lethal trauma from 149 directly accelerator mass spectrometry C-14-dated individuals from the Nasca highland region of Peru. Multiple local and supraregional precipitation proxies are combined with a summed probability distribution of 149 C-14 dates to estimate population dynamics during a 700-y study window. Counter to previous findings, our analysis reveals a precipitous increase in violent deaths associated with a period of productive and stable climate, but volatile population dynamics. We conclude that favorable local climate conditions fostered population growth that put pressure on the marginal and highly circumscribed resource base, resulting in violent resource competition that manifested in over 450 y of internecine warfare. These findings help support a general theory of intergroup violence, indicating that relative resource scarcity-whether driven by reduced resource abundance or increased competition-can lead to violence in subsistence societies when the outcome is lower per capita resource availability.
KW - climate change
KW - population pressure
KW - warfare
KW - lethal violence
KW - Andes
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2117556119
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
VL - 119
IS - 17
PB - National Acad. of Sciences
CY - Washington
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 - Katzenberger, Anja
A1 - Levermann, Anders
A1 - Schewe, Jacob
A1 - Pongratz, Julia
T1 - Intensification of very wet monsoon seasons in India under global warming
JF - Geophysical research letters
N2 - Rainfall-intense summer monsoon seasons on the Indian subcontinent that are exceeding long-term averages cause widespread floods and landslides.
Here we show that the latest generation of coupled climate models robustly project an intensification of very rainfall-intense seasons (June-September).
Under the shared socioeconomic pathway SSP5-8.5, very wet monsoon seasons as observed in only 5 years in the period 1965-2015 are projected to occur 8 times more often in 2050-2100 in the multi-model average.
Under SSP2-4.5, these seasons become only a factor of 6 times more frequent, showing that even modest efforts to mitigate climate change can have a strong impact on the frequency of very strong rainfall seasons.
Besides, we find that the increasing risk of extreme seasonal rainfall is accompanied by a shift from days with light rainfall to days with moderate or heavy rainfall. Additionally, the number of wet days is projected to increase.
KW - Indian monsoon
KW - climate modeling
KW - extreme seasons
KW - climate change
KW - CMIP6
KW - India
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098856
SN - 0094-8276
SN - 1944-8007
VL - 49
IS - 15
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
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 - 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 - Palmer, Matthew D.
A1 - Gregory, Jonathan
A1 - Bagge, Meike
A1 - Calvert, Daley
A1 - Hagedoorn, Jan Marius
A1 - Howard, Tom
A1 - Klemann, Volker
A1 - Lowe, Jason A.
A1 - Roberts, Chris
A1 - Slangen, Aimee B. A.
A1 - Spada, Giorgio
T1 - Exploring the drivers of global and local sea‐level change over the 21st century and beyond
JF - Earth's future
N2 - We present a new set of global and local sea‐level projections at example tide gauge locations under the RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios. Compared to the CMIP5‐based sea‐level projections presented in IPCC AR5, we introduce a number of methodological innovations, including (i) more comprehensive treatment of uncertainties, (ii) direct traceability between global and local projections, and (iii) exploratory extended projections to 2300 based on emulation of individual CMIP5 models. Combining the projections with observed tide gauge records, we explore the contribution to total variance that arises from sea‐level variability, different emissions scenarios, and model uncertainty. For the period out to 2300 we further breakdown the model uncertainty by sea‐level component and consider the dependence on geographic location, time horizon, and emissions scenario. Our analysis highlights the importance of local variability for sea‐level change in the coming decades and the potential value of annual‐to‐decadal predictions of local sea‐level change. Projections to 2300 show a substantial degree of committed sea‐level rise under all emissions scenarios considered and highlight the reduced future risk associated with RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 compared to RCP8.5. Tide gauge locations can show large ( > 50%) departures from the global average, in some cases even reversing the sign of the change. While uncertainty in projections of the future Antarctic ice dynamic response tends to dominate post‐2100, we see substantial differences in the breakdown of model variance as a function of location, time scale, and emissions scenario.
KW - climate change
KW - CMIP5 models
KW - RCP scenarios
KW - sea-level projections
KW - tide gauge observations
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001413
SN - 2328-4277
VL - 8
IS - 9
SP - 1
EP - 25
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Leins, Johannes A.
A1 - Grimm, Volker
A1 - Drechsler, Martin
T1 - Large-scale PVA modeling of insects in cultivated grasslands
BT - the role of dispersal in mitigating the effects of management schedules under climate change
JF - Ecology and evolution
N2 - In many species, dispersal is decisive for survival in a changing climate. Simulation models for population dynamics under climate change thus need to account for this factor. Moreover, large numbers of species inhabiting agricultural landscapes are subject to disturbances induced by human land use. We included dispersal in the HiLEG model that we previously developed to study the interaction between climate change and agricultural land use in single populations. Here, the model was parameterized for the large marsh grasshopper (LMG) in cultivated grasslands of North Germany to analyze (1) the species development and dispersal success depending on the severity of climate change in subregions, (2) the additional effect of grassland cover on dispersal success, and (3) the role of dispersal in compensating for detrimental grassland mowing. Our model simulated population dynamics in 60-year periods (2020-2079) on a fine temporal (daily) and high spatial (250 x 250 m(2)) scale in 107 subregions, altogether encompassing a range of different grassland cover, climate change projections, and mowing schedules. We show that climate change alone would allow the LMG to thrive and expand, while grassland cover played a minor role. Some mowing schedules that were harmful to the LMG nevertheless allowed the species to moderately expand its range. Especially under minor climate change, in many subregions dispersal allowed for mowing early in the year, which is economically beneficial for farmers. More severe climate change could facilitate LMG expansion to uninhabited regions but would require suitable mowing schedules along the path. These insights can be transferred to other species, given that the LMG is considered a representative of grassland communities. For more specific predictions on the dynamics of other species affected by climate change and land use, the publicly available HiLEG model can be easily adapted to the characteristics of their life cycle.
KW - bilinear interpolation
KW - climate change
KW - dispersal success
KW - land use
KW - large marsh grasshopper
KW - spatially explicit model
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9063
SN - 2045-7758
VL - 12
IS - 7
PB - Wiley
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 - 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 - 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.
Points for practitioners
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 - 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 - Warszawski, Lila
A1 - Kriegler, Elmar
A1 - Lenton, Timothy M.
A1 - Gaffney, Owen
A1 - Jacob, Daniela
A1 - Klingenfeld, Daniel
A1 - Koide, Ryu
A1 - Costa, María Máñez
A1 - Messner, Dirk
A1 - Nakicenovic, Nebojsa
A1 - Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim
A1 - Schlosser, Peter
A1 - Takeuchi, Kazuhiko
A1 - van der Leeuw, Sander
A1 - Whiteman, Gail
A1 - Rockström, Johan
T1 - All options, not silver bullets, needed to limit global warming to 1.5 °C
BT - a scenario appraisal
JF - Environmental research letters
N2 - Climate science provides strong evidence of the necessity of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The IPCC 1.5 °C special report (SR1.5) presents 414 emissions scenarios modelled for the report, of which around 50 are classified as '1.5 °C scenarios', with no or low temperature overshoot. These emission scenarios differ in their reliance on individual mitigation levers, including reduction of global energy demand, decarbonisation of energy production, development of land-management systems, and the pace and scale of deploying carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. The reliance of 1.5 °C scenarios on these levers needs to be critically assessed in light of the potentials of the relevant technologies and roll-out plans. We use a set of five parameters to bundle and characterise the mitigation levers employed in the SR1.5 1.5 °C scenarios. For each of these levers, we draw on the literature to define 'medium' and 'high' upper bounds that delineate between their 'reasonable', 'challenging' and 'speculative' use by mid century. We do not find any 1.5 °C scenarios that stay within all medium upper bounds on the five mitigation levers. Scenarios most frequently 'over use' CDR with geological storage as a mitigation lever, whilst reductions of energy demand and carbon intensity of energy production are 'over used' less frequently. If we allow mitigation levers to be employed up to our high upper bounds, we are left with 22 of the SR1.5 1.5 °C scenarios with no or low overshoot. The scenarios that fulfil these criteria are characterised by greater coverage of the available mitigation levers than those scenarios that exceed at least one of the high upper bounds. When excluding the two scenarios that exceed the SR1.5 carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, this subset of 1.5 °C scenarios shows a range of 15–22 Gt CO2 (16–22 Gt CO2 interquartile range) for emissions in 2030. For the year of reaching net zero CO2 emissions the range is 2039–2061 (2049–2057 interquartile range).
KW - climate change
KW - emissions scenarios
KW - 1.5 ◦C
KW - negative emissions
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abfeec
SN - 1748-9326
N1 - Corrigendum: 10.1088/1748-9326/acbf6a
VL - 16
IS - 6
PB - IOP Publishing
CY - Bristol
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Böhnke, Denise
A1 - Krehl, Alice
A1 - Moermann, Kai
A1 - Volk, Rebekka
A1 - Lützkendorf, Thomas
A1 - Naber, Elias
A1 - Becker, Ronja
A1 - Norra, Stefan
T1 - Mapping urban green and its ecosystem services at microscale-a methodological approach for climate adaptation and biodiversity
JF - Sustainability / Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
N2 - The current awareness of the high importance of urban green leads to a stronger need for tools to comprehensively represent urban green and its benefits. A common scientific approach is the development of urban ecosystem services (UES) based on remote sensing methods at the city or district level. Urban planning, however, requires fine-grained data that match local management practices. Hence, this study linked local biotope and tree mapping methods to the concept of ecosystem services. The methodology was tested in an inner-city district in SW Germany, comparing publicly accessible areas and non-accessible courtyards. The results provide area-specific [m(2)] information on the green inventory at the microscale, whereas derived stock and UES indicators form the basis for comparative analyses regarding climate adaptation and biodiversity. In the case study, there are ten times more micro-scale green spaces in private courtyards than in the public space, as well as twice as many trees. The approach transfers a scientific concept into municipal planning practice, enables the quantitative assessment of urban green at the microscale and illustrates the importance for green stock data in private areas to enhance decision support in urban development. Different aspects concerning data collection and data availability are critically discussed.
KW - climate adaptation
KW - urban green
KW - mapping
KW - ecosystem service cascade
KW - model
KW - surface type-function-concept
KW - planning indicators
KW - city district
KW - level
KW - urban planning practice
KW - climate change
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159029
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 14
IS - 15
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Sedova, Barbora
A1 - Kalkuhl, Matthias
A1 - Mendelsohn, Robert
T1 - Distributional impacts of weather and climate in rural India
JF - Economics of disasters and climate change
N2 - Climate-related costs and benefits may not be evenly distributed across the population. We study distributional implications of seasonal weather and climate on within-country inequality in rural India. Utilizing a first difference approach, we find that the poor are more sensitive to weather variations than the non-poor. The poor respond more strongly to (seasonal) temperature changes: negatively in the (warm) spring season, more positively in the (cold) rabi season. Less precipitation is harmful to the poor in the monsoon kharif season and beneficial in the winter and spring seasons. We show that adverse weather aggravates inequality by reducing consumption of the poor farming households. Future global warming predicted under RCP8.5 is likely to exacerbate these effects, reducing consumption of poor farming households by one third until the year 2100. We also find inequality in consumption across seasons with higher consumption during the harvest and lower consumption during the sowing seasons.
KW - climate change
KW - weather
KW - inequality
KW - household analysis
KW - India
KW - econometrics
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-019-00051-1
SN - 2511-1280
SN - 2511-1299
VL - 4
IS - 1
SP - 5
EP - 44
PB - Springer
CY - Cham
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 - Schultes, Anselm
A1 - Piontek, Franziska
A1 - Soergel, Bjoern
A1 - Rogelj, Joeri
A1 - Baumstark, Lavinia
A1 - Kriegler, Elmar
A1 - Edenhofer, Ottmar
A1 - Luderer, Gunnar
T1 - Economic damages from on-going climate change imply deeper near-term emission cuts
JF - Environmental research letters
N2 - Pathways toward limiting global warming to well below 2 ∘C, as used by the IPCC in the Fifth Assessment Report, do not consider the climate impacts already occurring below 2 ∘C. Here we show that accounting for such damages significantly increases the near-term ambition of transformation pathways. We use econometric estimates of climate damages on GDP growth and explicitly model the uncertainty in the persistence time of damages. The Integrated Assessment Model we use includes the climate system and mitigation technology detail required to derive near-term policies. We find an optimal carbon price of $115 per tonne of CO2 in 2030. The long-term persistence of damages, while highly uncertain, is a main driver of the near-term carbon price. Accounting for damages on economic growth increases the gap between the currently pledged nationally determined contributions and the welfare-optimal 2030 emissions by two thirds, compared to pathways considering the 2 ∘C limit only.
KW - climate change
KW - climate mitigation
KW - climate impacts
KW - integrated assessment
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac27ce
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 16
IS - 10
PB - IOP Publishing
CY - Bristol
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Han, Sungju
A1 - Kuhlicke, Christian
T1 - Barriers and drivers for mainstreaming nature-based solutions for flood risks
BT - the case of South Korea
JF - International journal of disaster risk science
N2 - Nature-based solutions (NBS) are seen as a promising adaptation measure that sustainably deals with diverse societal challenges, while simultaneously delivering multiple benefits. Nature-based solutions have been highlighted as a resilient and sustainable means of mitigating floods and other hazards globally. This study examined diverging conceptualizations of NBS, as well as the attitudinal (for example, emotions and beliefs) and contextual (for example, legal and political aspects) barriers and drivers of NBS for flood risks in South Korea. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 11 experts and focused on the topic of flood risk measures and NBS case studies. The analysis found 11 barriers and five drivers in the attitudinal domain, and 13 barriers and two drivers in the contextual domain. Most experts see direct monetary benefits as an important attitudinal factor for the public. Meanwhile, the cost-effectiveness of NBS and their capacity to cope with flood risks were deemed influential factors that could lead decision makers to opt for NBS. Among the contextual factors, insufficient systems to integrate NBS in practice and the ideologicalization of NBS policy were found to be peculiar barriers, which hinder consistent realization of initiatives and a long-term national plan for NBS. Understanding the barriers and drivers related to the mainstreaming of NBS is critical if we are to make the most of such solutions for society and nature. It is also essential that we have a shared definition, expectation, and vision of NBS.
KW - climate change
KW - flood risk management
KW - nature-based solutions (NBS)
KW - South Korea
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-021-00372-4
SN - 2095-0055
SN - 2192-6395
VL - 12
IS - 5
SP - 661
EP - 672
PB - Springer
CY - New York
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 - Rolph, Rebecca
A1 - Overduin, Pier Paul
A1 - Ravens, Thomas
A1 - Lantuit, Hugues
A1 - Langer, Moritz
T1 - ArcticBeach v1.0
BT - a physics-based parameterization of pan-Arctic coastline erosion
JF - Frontiers in Earth Science
N2 - In the Arctic, air temperatures are increasing and sea ice is declining, resulting in larger waves and a longer open water season, all of which intensify the thaw and erosion of ice-rich coasts. Climate change has been shown to increase the rate of Arctic coastal erosion, causing problems for Arctic cultural heritage, existing industrial, military, and civil infrastructure, as well as changes in nearshore biogeochemistry. Numerical models that reproduce historical and project future Arctic erosion rates are necessary to understand how further climate change will affect these problems, and no such model yet exists to simulate the physics of erosion on a pan-Arctic scale. We have coupled a bathystrophic storm surge model to a simplified physical erosion model of a permafrost coastline. This Arctic erosion model, called ArcticBeach v1.0, is a first step toward a physical parameterization of Arctic shoreline erosion for larger-scale models. It is forced by wind speed and direction, wave period and height, sea surface temperature, all of which are masked during times of sea ice cover near the coastline. Model tuning requires observed historical retreat rates (at least one value), as well as rough nearshore bathymetry. These parameters are already available on a pan-Arctic scale. The model is validated at three study sites at 1) Drew Point (DP), Alaska, 2) Mamontovy Khayata (MK), Siberia, and 3) Veslebogen Cliffs, Svalbard. Simulated cumulative retreat rates for DP and MK respectively (169 and 170 m) over the time periods studied at each site (2007-2016, and 1995-2018) are found to the same order of magnitude as observed cumulative retreat (172 and 120 m). The rocky Veslebogen cliffs have small observed cumulative retreat rates (0.05 m over 2014-2016), and our model was also able to reproduce this same order of magnitude of retreat (0.08 m). Given the large differences in geomorphology between the study sites, this study provides a proof-of-concept that ArcticBeach v1.0 can be applied on very different permafrost coastlines. ArcticBeach v1.0 provides a promising starting point to project retreat of Arctic shorelines, or to evaluate historical retreat in places that have had few observations.
KW - permafrost
KW - erosion
KW - modelling
KW - arctic
KW - climate change
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.962208
SN - 2296-6463
VL - 10
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
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 - Sælen, Håkon
A1 - Hovi, Jon
A1 - Sprinz, Detlef F.
A1 - Underdal, Arild
T1 - How US withdrawal might influence cooperation under the Paris climate agreement
JF - Environmental science & policy
N2 - Using a novel agent-based model, we study how US withdrawal might influence the political process established by the Paris Agreement, and hence the prospects for reaching the collective goal to limit warming below 2 degrees C. Our model enables us to analyze to what extent reaching this goal despite US withdrawal would place more stringent requirements on other core elements of the Paris cooperation process. We find, first, that the effect of a US withdrawal depends critically on the extent to which member countries reciprocate others' promises and contributions. Second, while the 2 degrees C goal will likely be reached only under a very small set of conditions in any event, even temporary US withdrawal will further narrow this set significantly. Reaching this goal will then require other countries to step up their ambition at the first opportunity and to comply nearly 100% with their pledges, while maintaining high confidence in the Paris Agreements institutions. Third, although a US withdrawal will first primarily affect the United States' own emissions, it will eventually prove even more detrimental to other countries' emissions.
KW - climate change
KW - Paris agreement
KW - President Trump
KW - 2 degrees C target
KW - agent-based modeling
KW - reciprocity
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2020.03.011
SN - 1462-9011
SN - 1873-6416
VL - 108
SP - 121
EP - 132
PB - Elsevier
CY - Oxford
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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - Vindas-Picado, José
A1 - Yaney-Keller, Adam
A1 - St. Andrews, Laura
A1 - Panagopoulou, Aliki
A1 - Santidrián Tomillo, Pilar
T1 - Effectiveness of shading to mitigate the impact of high temperature on sea turtle clutches considering the effect on primary sex ratios
JF - Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change : an international journal devoted to scientific, engineering, socio-economic and policy responses to environmental change
N2 - Developmental success of sea turtle clutches depends on incubation temperature, which also determines sex ratio of hatchlings. As global temperatures are rising, several studies have proposed mitigation strategies such as irrigation and shading to increase hatching success. Our study expands upon this research and measures the effects of using boxes with different degrees of shade coverage (50%, 80%, and 90%) on sand temperature and water content. Boxes were fully covered with fabric in 2017/2018 (top and sides) but were side open in 2018/2019. We took measurements at olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) turtle nest depths (45 and 75 cm) at Playa Grande, Costa Rica. Shading reduced temperature by up to 0.8 degrees C and up to 0.4 degrees C at 45 cm and 75 cm, respectively. There were statistically significant differences between shading and control treatments at both depths, but differences between shade treatments were only significant when using side open boxes, possibly due to air flow. Shading had no effect on water content. While the impact of using shaded boxes on temperature was low, the potential impact on primary sex ratios was large. If shading were applied to leatherback clutches, the percentage of female hatchlings could vary by up to 50%, with a maximum difference around the pivotal temperature (temperature with 1:1 sex ratio). Shading can be useful to increase hatching success, but we recommend avoiding it at temperatures within the transitional range (temperatures that produce both sexes), or using it only during the last third of incubation, when sex is already determined. As global warming will likely continue, understanding potential impact and effectiveness of mitigation strategies may be critical for the survival of threatened sea turtle populations.
KW - climate mitigation
KW - climate change
KW - hatchery
KW - hatching success
KW - TSD
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-020-09932-3
SN - 1381-2386
SN - 1573-1596
VL - 25
IS - 8
SP - 1509
EP - 1521
PB - Springer
CY - Dordrecht
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 - Skålevåg, Amalie
A1 - Vormoor, Klaus Josef
T1 - Daily streamflow trends in Western versus Eastern Norway and their attribution to hydro-meteorological drivers
JF - Hydrological processes : an international journal
N2 - Regional warming and modifications in precipitation regimes has large impacts on streamflow in Norway, where both rainfall and snowmelt are important runoff generating processes. Hydrological impacts of recent changes in climate are usually investigated by trend analyses applied on annual, seasonal, or monthly time series. None of these detect sub-seasonal changes and their underlying causes. This study investigated sub-seasonal changes in streamflow, rainfall, and snowmelt in 61 and 51 catchments respectively in Western (Vestlandet) and Eastern (ostlandet) Norway by applying the Mann-Kendall test and Theil-Sen estimator on 10-day moving averaged daily time series over a 30-year period (1983-2012). The relative contribution of rainfall versus snowmelt to daily streamflow and the changes therein have also been estimated to identify the changing relevance of these driving processes over the same period. Detected changes in 10-day moving averaged daily streamflow were finally attributed to changes in the most important hydro-meteorological drivers using multiple-regression models with increasing complexity. Earlier spring flow timing in both regions occur due to earlier snowmelt. ostlandet shows increased summer streamflow in catchments up to 1100 m a.s.l. and slightly increased winter streamflow in about 50% of the catchments. Trend patterns in Vestlandet are less coherent. The importance of rainfall has increased in both regions. Attribution of trends reveals that changes in rainfall and snowmelt can explain some streamflow changes where they are dominant processes (e.g., spring snowmelt in ostlandet and autumn rainfall in Vestlandet). Overall, the detected streamflow changes can be best explained by adding temperature trends as an additional predictor, indicating the relevance of additional driving processes such as increased glacier melt and evapotranspiration.
KW - attribution
KW - climate change
KW - hydrological change
KW - hydro-meteorological
KW - driver
KW - streamflow trend
KW - trend analysis
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14329
SN - 0885-6087
SN - 1099-1085
VL - 35
IS - 8
PB - Wiley
CY - New York
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 - 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 - 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 - Lecourieux, Fatma
A1 - Kappel, Christian
A1 - Pieri, Philippe
A1 - Charon, Justine
A1 - Pillet, Jeremy
A1 - Hilbert, Ghislaine
A1 - Renaud, Christel
A1 - Gomes, Eric
A1 - Delrot, Serge
A1 - Lecourieux, David
T1 - Dissecting the Biochemical and Transcriptomic Effects of a Locally Applied Heat Treatment on Developing Cabernet Sauvignon Grape Berries
JF - Frontiers in plant science
N2 - Reproductive development of grapevine and berry composition are both strongly influenced by temperature. To date, the molecular mechanisms involved in grapevine berries response to high temperatures are poorly understood. Unlike recent data that addressed the effects on berry development of elevated temperatures applied at the whole plant level, the present work particularly focuses on the fruit responses triggered by direct exposure to heat treatment (HT). In the context of climate change, this work focusing on temperature effect at the microclimate level is of particular interest as it can help to better understand the consequences of leaf removal (a common viticultural practice) on berry development. HT (+8 degrees C) was locally applied to clusters from Cabernet Sauvignon fruiting cuttings at three different developmental stages (middle green, veraison and middle ripening). Samples were collected 1, 7, and 14 days after treatment and used for metabolic and transcriptomic analyses. The results showed dramatic and specific biochemical and transcriptomic changes in heat exposed berries, depending on the developmental stage and the stress duration. When applied at the herbaceous stage, HT delayed the onset of veraison. Heating also strongly altered the berry concentration of amino acids and organic acids (e.g., phenylalanine, raminobutyric acid and malate) and decreased the anthocyanin content at maturity. These physiological alterations could be partly explained by the deep remodeling of transcriptome in heated berries. More than 7000 genes were deregulated in at least one of the nine experimental conditions. The most affected processes belong to the categories "stress responses," protein metabolism" and "secondary metabolism," highlighting the intrinsic capacity of grape berries to perceive HT and to build adaptive responses. Additionally, important changes in processes related to "transport," "hormone" and "cell wall" might contribute to the postponing of veraison. Finally, opposite effects depending on heating duration were observed for genes encoding enzymes of the general phenylpropanoid pathway, suggesting that the HI induced decrease in anthocyanin content may result from a combination of transcript abundance and product degradation.
KW - grapevine
KW - berry development
KW - microclimate
KW - high temperature
KW - microarrays
KW - metabolomics/metabolite profiling
KW - climate change
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.00053
SN - 1664-462X
VL - 8
PB - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Meißl, Gertraud
A1 - Formayer, Herbert
A1 - Klebinder, Klaus
A1 - Kerl, Florian
A1 - Schöberl, Friedrich
A1 - Geitner, Clemens
A1 - Markart, Gerhard
A1 - Leidinger, David
A1 - Bronstert, Axel
T1 - Climate change effects on hydrological system conditions influencing generation of storm runoff in small Alpine catchments
JF - Hydrological processes : an international journal
N2 - Floods and debris flows in small Alpine torrent catchments (<10km(2)) arise from a combination of critical antecedent system state conditions and mostly convective precipitation events with high precipitation intensities. Thus, climate change may influence the magnitude-frequency relationship of extreme events twofold: by a modification of the occurrence probabilities of critical hydrological system conditions and by a change of event precipitation characteristics. Three small Alpine catchments in different altitudes in Western Austria (Ruggbach, Brixenbach and Langentalbach catchment) were investigated by both field experiments and process-based simulation. Rainfall-runoff model (HQsim) runs driven by localized climate scenarios (CNRM-RM4.5/ARPEGE, MPI-REMO/ECHAM5 and ICTP-RegCM3/ECHAM5) were used in order to estimate future frequencies of stormflow triggering system state conditions. According to the differing altitudes of the study catchments, two effects of climate change on the hydrological systems can be observed. On one hand, the seasonal system state conditions of medium altitude catchments are most strongly affected by air temperature-controlled processes such as the development of the winter snow cover as well as evapotranspiration. On the other hand, the unglaciated high-altitude catchment is less sensitive to climate change-induced shifts regarding days with critical antecedent soil moisture and desiccated litter layer due to its elevation-related small proportion of sensitive areas. For the period 2071-2100, the number of days with critical antecedent soil moisture content will be significantly reduced to about 60% or even less in summer in all catchments. In contrast, the number of days with dried-out litter layers causing hydrophobic effects will increase by up to 8%-11% of the days in the two lower altitude catchments. The intensity analyses of heavy precipitation events indicate a clear increase in rain intensities of up to 10%.
KW - climate change
KW - hydrophobic effects
KW - small Alpine catchments
KW - soil moisture
KW - storm runoff events
KW - system conditions
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11104
SN - 0885-6087
SN - 1099-1085
VL - 31
IS - 6
SP - 1314
EP - 1330
PB - Wiley
CY - New York
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Rybski, Diego
A1 - Reusser, Dominik Edwin
A1 - Winz, Anna-Lena
A1 - Fichtner, Christina
A1 - Sterzel, Till
A1 - Kropp, Jürgen
T1 - Cities as nuclei of sustainability?
JF - Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
N2 - We have assembled CO2 emission figures from collections of urban GHG emission estimates published in peer-reviewed journals or reports from research institutes and non-governmental organizations. Analyzing the scaling with population size, we find that the exponent is development dependent with a transition from super- to sub-linear scaling. From the climate change mitigation point of view, the results suggest that urbanization is desirable in developed countries. Further, we compare this analysis with a second scaling relation, namely the fundamental allometry between city population and area, and propose that density might be a decisive quantity too. Last, we derive the theoretical country-wide urban emissions by integration and obtain a dependence on the size of the largest city.
KW - Scaling
KW - cities
KW - climate change
KW - development process
KW - allometry
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0265813516638340
SN - 2399-8083
SN - 2399-8091
VL - 44
IS - 3
SP - 425
EP - 440
PB - Sage Publ.
CY - London
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 -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Perring, Michael P.
A1 - Bernhardt-Roemermann, Markus
A1 - Baeten, Lander
A1 - Midolo, Gabriele
A1 - Blondeel, Haben
A1 - Depauw, Leen
A1 - Landuyt, Dries
A1 - Maes, Sybryn L.
A1 - De Lombaerde, Emiel
A1 - Caron, Maria Mercedes
A1 - Vellend, Mark
A1 - Brunet, Joerg
A1 - Chudomelova, Marketa
A1 - Decocq, Guillaume
A1 - Diekmann, Martin
A1 - Dirnboeck, Thomas
A1 - Doerfler, Inken
A1 - Durak, Tomasz
A1 - De Frenne, Pieter
A1 - Gilliam, Frank S.
A1 - Hedl, Radim
A1 - Heinken, Thilo
A1 - Hommel, Patrick
A1 - Jaroszewicz, Bogdan
A1 - Kirby, Keith J.
A1 - Kopecky, Martin
A1 - Lenoir, Jonathan
A1 - Li, Daijiang
A1 - Malis, Frantisek
A1 - Mitchell, Fraser J. G.
A1 - Naaf, Tobias
A1 - Newman, Miles
A1 - Petrik, Petr
A1 - Reczynska, Kamila
A1 - Schmidt, Wolfgang
A1 - Standovar, Tibor
A1 - Swierkosz, Krzysztof
A1 - Van Calster, Hans
A1 - Vild, Ondrej
A1 - Wagner, Eva Rosa
A1 - Wulf, Monika
A1 - Verheyen, Kris
T1 - Global environmental change effects on plant community composition trajectories depend upon management legacies
JF - Global change biology
N2 - The contemporary state of functional traits and species richness in plant communities depends on legacy effects of past disturbances. Whether temporal responses of community properties to current environmental changes are altered by such legacies is, however, unknown. We expect global environmental changes to interact with land-use legacies given different community trajectories initiated by prior management, and subsequent responses to altered resources and conditions. We tested this expectation for species richness and functional traits using 1814 survey-resurvey plot pairs of understorey communities from 40 European temperate forest datasets, syntheses of management transitions since the year 1800, and a trait database. We also examined how plant community indicators of resources and conditions changed in response to management legacies and environmental change. Community trajectories were clearly influenced by interactions between management legacies from over 200 years ago and environmental change. Importantly, higher rates of nitrogen deposition led to increased species richness and plant height in forests managed less intensively in 1800 (i.e., high forests), and to decreases in forests with a more intensive historical management in 1800 (i.e., coppiced forests). There was evidence that these declines in community variables in formerly coppiced forests were ameliorated by increased rates of temperature change between surveys. Responses were generally apparent regardless of sites’ contemporary management classifications, although sometimes the management transition itself, rather than historic or contemporary management types, better explained understorey responses. Main effects of environmental change were rare, although higher rates of precipitation change increased plant height, accompanied by increases in fertility indicator values. Analysis of indicator values suggested the importance of directly characterising resources and conditions to better understand legacy and environmental change effects. Accounting for legacies of past disturbance can reconcile contradictory literature results and appears crucial to anticipating future responses to global environmental change.
KW - biodiversity change
KW - climate change
KW - disturbance regime
KW - forestREplot
KW - herbaceous layer
KW - management intensity
KW - nitrogen deposition
KW - plant functional traits
KW - time lag
KW - vegetation resurvey
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14030
SN - 1354-1013
SN - 1365-2486
VL - 24
IS - 4
SP - 1722
EP - 1740
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Oguntunde, Philip G.
A1 - Abiodun, Babatunde Joseph
A1 - Lischeid, Gunnar
A1 - Abatan, Abayomi A.
T1 - Droughts projection over the Niger and Volta River basins of West Africa at specific global warming levels
JF - International Journal of Climatology
N2 - This study investigates possible impacts of four global warming levels (GWLs: GWL1.5, GWL2.0, GWL2.5, and GWL3.0) on drought characteristics over Niger River basin (NRB) and Volta River basin (VRB). Two drought indices-Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)-were employed in characterizing droughts in 20 multi-model simulation outputs from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). The performance of the simulation in reproducing basic hydro-climatological features and severe drought characteristics (i.e., magnitude and frequency) in the basins were evaluated. The projected changes in the future drought frequency were quantified and compared under the four GWLs for two climate forcing scenarios (RCP8.5 and RCP4.5). The regional climate model (RCM) ensemble gives a realistic simulation of historical hydro-climatological variables needed to calculate the drought indices. With SPEI, the simulation ensemble projects an increase in the magnitude and frequency of severe droughts over both basins (NRB and VRB) at all GWLs, but the increase, which grows with the GWLs, is higher over NRB than over VRB. More than 75% of the simulations agree on the projected increase at GWL1.5 and all simulations agree on the increase at higher GWLs. With SPI, the projected changes in severe drought is weaker and the magnitude remains the same at all GWLs, suggesting that SPI projection may underestimate impacts of the GWLs on the intensity and severity of future drought. The results of this study have application in mitigating impact of global warming on future drought risk over the regional water systems.
KW - climate change
KW - drought index
KW - global warming levels
KW - river basins
KW - West Africa
KW - CORDEX data
Y1 - 2019
VL - 40
IS - 13
PB - John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
CY - New Jersey
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Huang, Xiaozhong
A1 - Peng, Wei
A1 - Rudaya, Natalia
A1 - Grimm, Eric C.
A1 - Chen, Xuemei
A1 - Cao, Xianyong
A1 - Zhang, Jun
A1 - Pan, Xiaoduo
A1 - Liu, Sisi
A1 - Chen, Chunzhu
A1 - Chen, Fahu
T1 - Holocene vegetation and climate dynamics in the Altai Mountains and Surrounding Areas
JF - Geophysical research letters
N2 - A comprehensive understanding of the regional vegetation responses to long-term climate change will help to forecast Earth system dynamics. Based on a new well-dated pollen data set from Kanas Lake and a review on the published pollen records in and around the Altai Mountains, the regional vegetation dynamics and forcing mechanisms are discussed. In the Altai Mountains, the forest optimum occurred during 10-7ka for the upper forest zone and the tree line decline and/or ecological shifts were caused by climatic cooling from around 7ka. In the lower forest zone, the forest reached an optimum in the middle Holocene, and then increased openness of the forest, possibly caused by both climate cooling and human activities, took place in the late Holocene. In the lower basins or plains around the Altai Mountains, the development of protograssland or forest benefited from increasing humidity in the middle to late Holocene. Plain Language Summary In the Altai Mountains and surrounding area of central Asia, the previous studies of the Holocene paleovegetation and paleoclimate studies did not discuss the different ecological limiting factors for the vegetation in high mountains and low-elevation areas due to limited data. With accumulating fossil pollen data and surface pollen data, it is possible to understand better the geomorphological effect on the vegetation and discrepancies of vegetation/forest responses to large-scale climate forcing, and it is also possible to get reliable quantitative reconstructions of climate. Here our new pollen data and review on the published fossil pollen data will help us to look into the past climate change and vertical evolution of vegetation in this important area of the Northern Hemisphere. Based on our study, it can be concluded that the growth of taiga forest in the wetter areas may be promoted under a future warmer climate, while the forest in the relatively dry areas is liable to decline, and the different vegetation dynamics will contribute to future high-resolution coupled vegetation-climate model for Earth system modelling.
KW - climate change
KW - Kanas Lake
KW - Altai Mountains
KW - vegetation dynamics
KW - taiga forest
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078028
SN - 0094-8276
SN - 1944-8007
VL - 45
IS - 13
SP - 6628
EP - 6636
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - Maes, Sybryn L.
A1 - Perring, Michael P.
A1 - Vanhellemont, Margot
A1 - Depauw, Leen
A1 - Van den Bulcke, Jan
A1 - Brumelis, Guntis
A1 - Brunet, Jorg
A1 - Decocq, Guillaume
A1 - den Ouden, Jan
A1 - Härdtle, Werner
A1 - Hedl, Radim
A1 - Heinken, Thilo
A1 - Heinrichs, Steffi
A1 - Jaroszewicz, Bogdan
A1 - Kopecký, Martin
A1 - Malis, Frantisek
A1 - Wulf, Monika
A1 - Verheyen, Kris
T1 - Environmental drivers interactively affect individual tree growth across temperate European forests
JF - Global change biology
N2 - Forecasting the growth of tree species to future environmental changes requires abetter understanding of its determinants. Tree growth is known to respond to global‐change drivers such as climate change or atmospheric deposition, as well as to localland‐use drivers such as forest management. Yet, large geographical scale studiesexamining interactive growth responses to multiple global‐change drivers are relativelyscarce and rarely consider management effects. Here, we assessed the interactiveeffects of three global‐change drivers (temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposi-tion) on individual tree growth of three study species (Quercus robur/petraea, Fagus syl-vatica and Fraxinus excelsior). We sampled trees along spatial environmental gradientsacross Europe and accounted for the effects of management for Quercus. We collectedincrement cores from 267 trees distributed over 151 plots in 19 forest regions andcharacterized their neighbouring environment to take into account potentially confounding factors such as tree size, competition, soil conditions and elevation. Wedemonstrate that growth responds interactively to global‐change drivers, with species ‐specific sensitivities to the combined factors. Simultaneously high levels of precipita-tion and deposition benefited Fraxinus, but negatively affected Quercus’ growth, high-lighting species‐specific interactive tree growth responses to combined drivers. ForFagus, a stronger growth response to higher temperatures was found when precipita-tion was also higher, illustrating the potential negative effects of drought stress underwarming for this species. Furthermore, we show that past forest management canmodulate the effects of changing temperatures on Quercus’ growth; individuals in plotswith a coppicing history showed stronger growth responses to higher temperatures.Overall, our findings highlight how tree growth can be interactively determined by glo-bal‐change drivers, and how these growth responses might be modulated by past for-est management. By showing future growth changes for scenarios of environmentalchange, we stress the importance of considering multiple drivers, including past man-agement and their interactions, when predicting tree growth.
KW - basal area increment
KW - climate change
KW - Fagus
KW - Fraxinus
KW - historical ecology
KW - nitrogen deposition
KW - Quercus
KW - tree-ring analysis
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14493
SN - 1354-1013
SN - 1365-2486
VL - 25
IS - 1
SP - 201
EP - 217
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - Kahl, Sandra
A1 - Lenhard, Michael
A1 - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1 - Compensatory mechanisms to climate change in the widely distributed species Silene vulgaris
JF - The journal of ecology
N2 - The adaptation of plants to future climatic conditions is crucial for their survival. Not surprisingly, phenotypic responses to climate change have already been observed in many plant populations. These responses may be due to evolutionary adaptive changes or phenotypic plasticity. Especially plant species with a wide geographic range are either expected to show genetic differentiation in response to differing climate conditions or to have a high phenotypic plasticity. We investigated phenotypic responses and plasticity as an estimate of the adaptive potential in the widespread species Silene vulgaris. In a greenhouse experiment, 25 European populations covering a geographic range from the Canary Islands to Sweden were exposed to three experimental precipitation and two temperature regimes mimicking a possible climate-change scenario for central Europe. We hypothesized that southern populations have a better performance under high temperature and drought conditions, as they are already adapted to a comparable environment. We found that our treatments significantly influenced the plants, but did not reveal a latitudinal difference in response to climate treatments for most plant traits. Only flower number showed a stronger plasticity in northern European populations (e.g. Swedish populations) where numbers decreased more drastically with increased temperature and decreased precipitation treatment. Synthesis. The significant treatment response in Silene vulgaris, independent of population origin - except for the number of flowers produced - suggests a high degree of universal phenotypic plasticity in this widely distributed species. This reflects the likely adaptation strategy of the species and forms the basis for a successful survival strategy during upcoming climatic changes. However, as flower number, a strongly fitness-related trait, decreased more strongly in northern populations under a climate-change scenario, there might be limits to adaptation even in this widespread, plastic species.
KW - climate change
KW - global change ecology
KW - latitudinal gradient
KW - local adaptation
KW - phenotypic plasticity
KW - plant performance
KW - temperature increase
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13133
SN - 0022-0477
SN - 1365-2745
VL - 107
IS - 4
SP - 1918
EP - 1930
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Smith, Taylor
A1 - Bookhagen, Bodo
T1 - Assessing Multi-Temporal Snow-Volume Trends in High Mountain Asia From 1987 to 2016 Using High-Resolution Passive Microwave Data
JF - Frontiers in Earth Science
N2 - High Mountain Asia (HMA) is dependent upon both the amount and timing of snow and glacier meltwater. Previous model studies and coarse resolution (0.25° × 0.25°, ∼25 km × 25 km) passive microwave assessments of trends in the volume and timing of snowfall, snowmelt, and glacier melt in HMA have identified key spatial and seasonal heterogeneities in the response of snow to changes in regional climate. Here we use recently developed, continuous, internally consistent, and high-resolution passive microwave data (3.125 km × 3.125 km, 1987–2016) from the special sensor microwave imager instrument family to refine and extend previous estimates of changes in the snow regime of HMA. We find an overall decline in snow volume across HMA; however, there exist spatially contiguous regions of increasing snow volume—particularly during the winter season in the Pamir, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and Kunlun Shan. Detailed analysis of changes in snow-volume trends through time reveal a large step change from negative trends during the period 1987–1997, to much more positive trends across large regions of HMA during the periods 1997–2007 and 2007–2016. We also find that changes in high percentile monthly snow-water volume exhibit steeper trends than changes in low percentile snow-water volume, which suggests a reduction in the frequency of high snow-water volumes in much of HMA. Regions with positive snow-water storage trends generally correspond to regions of positive glacier mass balances.
KW - snow
KW - glacier
KW - climate change
KW - passive microwave
KW - special sensor microwave imager
KW - special sensor microwave imager/sounder
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.559175
SN - 2296-6463
VL - 8
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Grimm-Seyfarth, Annegret
A1 - Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste
A1 - Henle, Klaus
T1 - Functional traits determine the different effects of prey, predators, and climatic extremes on desert reptiles
JF - Ecosphere : the magazine of the International Ecology University
N2 - Terrestrial reptiles are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Their highest density and diversity can be found in hot drylands, ecosystems which demonstrate extreme climatic conditions. However, reptiles are not isolated systems but part of a large species assemblage with many trophic dependencies. While direct relations among climatic conditions, invertebrates, vegetation, or reptiles have already been explored, to our knowledge, species’ responses to direct and indirect pathways of multiple climatic and biotic factors and their interactions have rarely been examined comprehensively. We investigated direct and indirect effects of climatic and biotic parameters on the individual (body condition) and population level (occupancy) of eight abundant lizard species with different functional traits in an arid Australian lizard community using a 30‐yr multi‐trophic monitoring study. We used structural equation modeling to disentangle single and interactive effects. We then assessed whether species could be grouped into functional groups according to their functional traits and their responses to different parameters. We found that lizard species differed strongly in how they responded to climatic and biotic factors. However, the factors to which they responded seemed to be determined by their functional traits. While responses on body condition were determined by habitat, activity time, and prey, responses on occupancy were determined by habitat specialization, body size, and longevity. Our findings highlight the importance of indirect pathways through climatic and biotic interactions, which should be included into predictive models to increase accuracy when predicting species’ responses to climate change. Since one might never obtain all mechanistic pathways at the species level, we propose an approach of identifying relevant species traits that help grouping species into functional groups at different ecological levels, which could then be used for predictive modeling.
KW - Australia
KW - climate change
KW - Gekkonidae
KW - periodic flooding
KW - Scincidae
KW - species functional traits
KW - species interactions
KW - structural equation modeling
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2865
SN - 2150-8925
VL - 10
IS - 9
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ayzel, Georgy
A1 - Izhitskiy, Alexander
T1 - Climate Change Impact Assessment on Freshwater Inflow into the Small Aral Sea
JF - Water
N2 - During the last few decades, the rapid separation of the Small Aral Sea from the isolated basin has changed its hydrological and ecological conditions tremendously. In the present study, we developed and validated the hybrid model for the Syr Darya River basin based on a combination of state-of-the-art hydrological and machine learning models. Climate change impact on freshwater inflow into the Small Aral Sea for the projection period 2007-2099 has been quantified based on the developed hybrid model and bias corrected and downscaled meteorological projections simulated by four General Circulation Models (GCM) for each of three Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCP). The developed hybrid model reliably simulates freshwater inflow for the historical period with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency of 0.72 and a Kling-Gupta efficiency of 0.77. Results of the climate change impact assessment showed that the freshwater inflow projections produced by different GCMs are misleading by providing contradictory results for the projection period. However, we identified that the relative runoff changes are expected to be more pronounced in the case of more aggressive RCP scenarios. The simulated projections of freshwater inflow provide a basis for further assessment of climate change impacts on hydrological and ecological conditions of the Small Aral Sea in the 21st Century.
KW - Small Aral Sea
KW - hydrology
KW - climate change
KW - modeling
KW - machine learning
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112377
SN - 2073-4441
VL - 11
IS - 11
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schwarzer, Christian
A1 - Joshi, Jasmin Radha
T1 - Ecotypic differentiation, hybridization and clonality facilitate the persistence of a cold-adapted sedge in European bogs
JF - Biological journal of the Linnean Society : a journal of evolution
N2 - Recent research has shown that many cold-adapted species survived the last glacial maximum (LGM) in northern refugia. Whether this evolutionary history has had consequences for their genetic diversity and adaptive potential remains unknown. We sampled 14 populations of Carex limosa, a sedge specialized to bog ecosystems, along a latitudinal gradient from its Scandinavian core to the southern lowland range-margin in Germany. Using microsatellite and experimental common-garden data, we evaluated the impacts of global climate change along this gradient and assessed the conservation status of the southern marginal populations. Microsatellite data revealed two highly distinct genetic groups and hybrid individuals. In our common-garden experiment, the two groups showed divergent responses to increased nitrogen/phosphorus (N/P) availability, suggesting ecotypic differentiation. Each group formed genetically uniform populations at both northern and southern sampling areas. Mixed populations occurred throughout our sampling area, an area that was entirely glaciated during the LGM. The fragmented distribution implies allopatric divergence at geographically separated refugia that putatively differed in N/P availability. Molecular data and an observed low hybrid fecundity indicate the importance of clonal reproduction for hybrid populations. At the southern range-margin, however, all populations showed effects of clonality, lowered fecundity and low competitiveness, suggesting abiotic and biotic constraints to population persistence.
KW - biogeography
KW - bog/mire plants
KW - Carex limosa
KW - climate change
KW - glacial divergence
KW - global change
KW - leading/trailing edge
KW - population differentiation
KW - sexual/asexual reproduction
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blz141
SN - 0024-4066
SN - 1095-8312
VL - 128
IS - 4
SP - 909
EP - 925
PB - Oxford Univ. Press
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Krol, Maarten
A1 - Jaeger, Annekathrin
A1 - Bronstert, Axel
A1 - Güntner, Andreas
T1 - Integrated modelling of climate, water, soil, agricultural and socio-economic processes: A general introduction of the methodology and some exemplary results from the semi-arid north-east of Brazil
JF - Journal of hydrology
N2 - Many semi-arid regions are characterised by water scarcity and vulnerability of natural resources, pronounced climatic variability and social stress. Integrated studies including climatotogy, hydrology, and socio-econornic studies are required both for analysing the dynamic natural conditions and to assess possible strategies to make semi-arid regions Less vulnerable to the present and changing climate. The model introduced here dynamically describes the retationships between climate forcing, water availability, agriculture and selected societal processes. The model has been tailored to simulate the rather complex situation in the semi-and north-eastern Brazil in a quantitative manner including the sensitivity to external forcing, such as climate change. The selected results presented show the general functioning of the integrated model, with a primary focus on climate change impacts. It becomes evident that due to Large differences in regional climate scenarios, it is still impossible to give quantitative values for the most probable development, e.g., to assign probabilities to the simulated results. However, it becomes clear that water is a very crucial factor, and that an efficient and ecologically sound water management is a key question for the further development of that semi-arid region. The simulation results show that, independent of the differences in climate change scenarios, rain-fed farming is more vulnerable to drought impacts compared to irrigated farming. However, the capacity of irrigation and other water infrastructure systems to enhance resilience in respect to climatic fluctuations is significantly constrained given a significant negative precipitation trend. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW - integrated modelling
KW - integrated river basin management
KW - water resources management
KW - semi-arid hydrology
KW - climate change
Y1 - 2006
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.12.021
SN - 0022-1694
VL - 328
IS - 3-4
SP - 417
EP - 431
PB - Elsevier
CY - Amsterdam
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 - 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 - Wieczorek, Mareike
A1 - Kruse, Stefan
A1 - Epp, Laura Saskia
A1 - Kolmogorov, Alexei
A1 - Nikolaev, Anatoly N.
A1 - Heinrich, Ingo
A1 - Jeltsch, Florian
A1 - Pestryakova, Luidmila Agafyevna
A1 - Zibulski, Romy
A1 - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1 - Dissimilar responses of larch stands in northern Siberia to increasing temperatures-a field and simulation based study
JF - Ecology : a publication of the Ecological Society of America
N2 - Arctic and alpine treelines worldwide differ in their reactions to climate change. A northward advance of or densification within the treeline ecotone will likely influence climate-vegetation feedback mechanisms. In our study, which was conducted in the Taimyr Depression in the North Siberian Lowlands, w present a combined field-and model-based approach helping us to better understand the population processes involved in the responses of the whole treeline ecotone, spanning from closed forest to single-tree tundra, to climate warming. Using information on stand structure, tree age, and seed quality and quantity from seven sites, we investigate effects of intra-specific competition and seed availability on the specific impact of recent climate warming on larch stands. Field data show that tree density is highest in the forest-tundra, and average tree size decreases from closed forest to single-tree tundra. Age-structure analyses indicate that the trees in the closed forest and forest-tundra have been present for at least similar to 240 yr. At all sites except the most southerly ones, past establishment is positively correlated with regional temperature increase. In the single-tree tundra, however, a change in growth form from krummholz to erect trees, beginning similar to 130 yr ago, rather than establishment date has been recorded. Seed mass decreases from south to north, while seed quantity increases. Simulations with LAVESI (Larix Vegetation Simulator) further suggest that relative density changes strongly in response to a warming signal in the forest-tundra while intra-specific competition limits densification in the closed forest and seed limitation hinders densification in the single-tree tundra. We find striking differences in strength and timing of responses to recent climate warming. While forest-tundra stands recently densified, recruitment is almost non-existent at the southern and northern end of the ecotone due to autecological processes. Palaeo-treelines may therefore be inappropriate to infer past temperature changes at a fine scale. Moreover, a lagged treeline response to past warming will, via feedback mechanisms, influence climate change in the future.
KW - climate change
KW - closed forest
KW - dendroecology
KW - forest change
KW - latitude
KW - recruitment
KW - tundra
KW - vegetation model
Y1 - 2017
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.1887
SN - 0012-9658
SN - 1939-9170
VL - 98
SP - 2343
EP - 2355
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
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 - 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 - Kellermann, Patric
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
A1 - Kundela, Guenther
A1 - Dosio, Alessandro
A1 - Thieken, Annegret
T1 - Frequency Analysis of Critical Meteorological Conditions in a Changing ClimateAssessing Future Implications for Railway Transportation in Austria
JF - Climate : open access journal
N2 - Meteorological extreme events have great potential for damaging railway infrastructure and posing risks to the safety of train passengers. In the future, climate change will presumably have serious implications on meteorological hazards in the Alpine region. Hence, attaining insights on future frequencies of meteorological extremes with relevance for the railway operation in Austria is required in the context of a comprehensive and sustainable natural hazard management plan of the railway operator. In this study, possible impacts of climate change on the frequencies of so-called critical meteorological conditions (CMCs) between the periods 1961-1990 and 2011-2040 are analyzed. Thresholds for such CMCs have been defined by the railway operator and used in its weather monitoring and early warning system. First, the seasonal climate change signals for air temperature and precipitation in Austria are described on the basis of an ensemble of high-resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations for Europe. Subsequently, the RCM-ensemble was used to investigate changes in the frequency of CMCs. Finally, the sensitivity of results is analyzed with varying threshold values for the CMCs. Results give robust indications for an all-season air temperature rise, but show no clear tendency in average precipitation. The frequency analyses reveal an increase in intense rainfall events and heat waves, whereas heavy snowfall and cold days are likely to decrease. Furthermore, results indicate that frequencies of CMCs are rather sensitive to changes of thresholds. It thus emphasizes the importance to carefully define, validate, andif neededto adapt the thresholds that are used in the weather monitoring and warning system of the railway operator. For this, continuous and standardized documentation of damaging events and near-misses is a pre-requisite.
KW - climate change
KW - critical meteorological condition
KW - frequency analysis
KW - natural hazard management
KW - railway transportation
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cli4020025
SN - 2225-1154
VL - 4
SP - 914
EP - 931
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schneider, Birgit
T1 - Burning worlds of cartography: a critical approach to climate cosmograms of the Anthropocene
JF - Geo : geography and environment
N2 - Climate science today makes use of a variety of red globes to explore and communicate findings. These transform the iconography which informs this image: the idealised, even mythical vision of the blue, vulnerable and perfect marble is impaired by the application of the colours yellow and red. Since only predictions that employ a lot of red seem to exist, spectators are confronted with the message that the future Earth that might turn out as envisaged here is undesirable. Here intuitively powerful narrations of the end of the world may connect. By employing methods of art history and visual analysis, and building on examples from current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and future scenario maps, this article explores how burning world images bear - intentionally or not - elements of horror and shock. My question explored here is as follows: should 'burning world' images be understood as a new and powerful cosmology?
KW - cartography
KW - visualisation
KW - climate change
KW - whole Earth images
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.27
SN - 2054-4049
VL - 3
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Geiger, Tobias
A1 - Frieler, Katja
A1 - Levermann, Anders
T1 - High-income does not protect against hurricane losses
JF - Environmental research letters
N2 - Damage due to tropical cyclones accounts for more than 50% of all meteorologically-induced economic losses worldwide. Their nominal impact is projected to increase substantially as the exposed population grows, per capita income increases, and anthropogenic climate change manifests. So far, historical losses due to tropical cyclones have been found to increase less than linearly with a nation's affected gross domestic product (GDP). Here we show that for the United States this scaling is caused by a sub-linear increase with affected population while relative losses scale super-linearly with per capita income. The finding is robust across a multitude of empirically derived damage models that link the storm's wind speed, exposed population, and per capita GDP to reported losses. The separation of both socio-economic predictors strongly affects the projection of potential future hurricane losses. Separating the effects of growth in population and per-capita income, per hurricane losses with respect to national GDP are projected to triple by the end of the century under unmitigated climate change, while they are estimated to decrease slightly without the separation.
KW - climate change
KW - tropical cyclones
KW - damage
KW - meteorological extremes
KW - vulnerability
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/8/084012
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 11
PB - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY - Bristol
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Di Capua, Giorgia
A1 - Coumou, Dim
T1 - Changes in meandering of the Northern Hemisphere circulation
JF - Environmental research letters
N2 - Strong waves in the mid-latitude circulation have been linked to extreme surface weather and thus changes in waviness could have serious consequences for society. Several theories have been proposed which could alter waviness, including tropical sea surface temperature anomalies or rapid climate change in the Arctic. However, so far it remains unclear whether any changes in waviness have actually occurred. Here we propose a novel meandering index which captures the maximum waviness in geopotential height contours at any given day, using all information of the full spatial position of each contour. Data are analysed on different time scale (from daily to 11 day running means) and both on hemispheric and regional scales. Using quantile regressions, we analyse how seasonal distributions of this index have changed over 1979-2015. The most robust changes are detected for autumn which has seen a pronounced increase in strongly meandering patterns at the hemispheric level as well as over the Eurasian sector. In summer for both the hemisphere and the Eurasian sector, significant downward trends in meandering are detected on daily timescales which is consistent with the recently reported decrease in summer storm track activity. The American sector shows the strongest increase in meandering in the warm season: in particular for 11 day running mean data, indicating enhanced amplitudes of quasi-stationary waves. Our findings have implications for both the occurrence of recent cold spells and persistent heat waves in the mid-latitudes.
KW - Rossby waves
KW - climate change
KW - extreme events
KW - mid-latitudes flow
Y1 - 2016
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094028
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 11
PB - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY - Bristol
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 - Caron, Maria Mercedes
A1 - De Frenne, Pieter
A1 - Brunet, J.
A1 - Chabrerie, Olivier
A1 - Cousins, S. A. O.
A1 - De Backer, L.
A1 - Decocq, G.
A1 - Diekmann, M.
A1 - Heinken, Thilo
A1 - Kolb, A.
A1 - Naaf, T.
A1 - Plue, J.
A1 - Selvi, Federico
A1 - Strimbeck, G. R.
A1 - Wulf, Monika
A1 - Verheyen, Kris
T1 - Interacting effects of warming and drought on regeneration and early growth of Acer pseudoplatanus and A. platanoides
JF - Plant biology
N2 - Climate change is acting on several aspects of plant life cycles, including the sexual reproductive stage, which is considered amongst the most sensitive life-cycle phases. In temperate forests, it is expected that climate change will lead to a compositional change in community structure due to changes in the dominance of currently more abundant forest tree species. Increasing our understanding of the effects of climate change on currently secondary tree species recruitment is therefore important to better understand and forecast population and community dynamics in forests. Here, we analyse the interactive effects of rising temperatures and soil moisture reduction on germination, seedling survival and early growth of two important secondary European tree species, Acer pseudoplatanus and A.platanoides. Additionally, we analyse the effect of the temperature experienced by the mother tree during seed production by collecting seeds of both species along a 2200-km long latitudinal gradient. For most of the responses, A.platanoides showed higher sensitivity to the treatments applied, and especially to its joint manipulation, which for some variables resulted in additive effects while for others only partial compensation. In both species, germination and survival decreased with rising temperatures and/or soil moisture reduction while early growth decreased with declining soil moisture content. We conclude that although A.platanoides germination and survival were more affected after the applied treatments, its initial higher germination and larger seedlings might allow this species to be relatively more successful than A.pseudoplatanus in the face of climate change.
KW - Acer platanoides
KW - Acer pseudoplatanus
KW - climate change
KW - drought
KW - reproduction
KW - seed
KW - temperature
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/plb.12177
SN - 1435-8603
SN - 1438-8677
VL - 17
IS - 1
SP - 52
EP - 62
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
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 - Alter, S. Elizabeth
A1 - Meyer, Matthias
A1 - Post, Klaas
A1 - Czechowski, Paul
A1 - Gravlund, Peter
A1 - Gaines, Cork
A1 - Rosenbaum, Howard C.
A1 - Kaschner, Kristin
A1 - Turvey, Samuel T.
A1 - van der Plicht, Johannes
A1 - Shapiro, Beth
A1 - Hofreiter, Michael
T1 - Climate impacts on transocean dispersal and habitat in gray whales from the Pleistocene to 2100
JF - Molecular ecology
N2 - Arctic animals face dramatic habitat alteration due to ongoing climate change. Understanding how such species have responded to past glacial cycles can help us forecast their response to today's changing climate. Gray whales are among those marine species likely to be strongly affected by Arctic climate change, but a thorough analysis of past climate impacts on this species has been complicated by lack of information about an extinct population in the Atlantic. While little is known about the history of Atlantic gray whales or their relationship to the extant Pacific population, the extirpation of the Atlantic population during historical times has been attributed to whaling. We used a combination of ancient and modern DNA, radiocarbon dating and predictive habitat modelling to better understand the distribution of gray whales during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Our results reveal that dispersal between the Pacific and Atlantic was climate dependent and occurred both during the Pleistocene prior to the last glacial period and the early Holocene immediately following the opening of the Bering Strait. Genetic diversity in the Atlantic declined over an extended interval that predates the period of intensive commercial whaling, indicating this decline may have been precipitated by Holocene climate or other ecological causes. These first genetic data for Atlantic gray whales, particularly when combined with predictive habitat models for the year 2100, suggest that two recent sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic may represent the beginning of the expansion of this species' habitat beyond its currently realized range.
KW - ancient DNA
KW - climate change
KW - last glacial maximum
KW - marine mammal
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13121
SN - 0962-1083
SN - 1365-294X
VL - 24
IS - 7
SP - 1510
EP - 1522
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Seifert, Linda I.
A1 - Weithoff, Guntram
A1 - Vos, Matthijs
T1 - Extreme heat changes post-heat wave community reassembly
JF - Ecology and evolution
N2 - Climate forecasts project further increases in extremely high-temperature events. These present threats to biodiversity, as they promote population declines and local species extinctions. This implies that ecological communities will need to rely more strongly on recovery processes, such as recolonization from a meta-community context. It is poorly understood how differences in extreme event intensity change the outcome of subsequent community reassembly and if such extremes modify the biotic environment in ways that would prevent the successful re-establishment of lost species. We studied replicated aquatic communities consisting of algae and herbivorous rotifers in a design that involved a control and two different heat wave intensity treatments (29 degrees C and 39 degrees C). Animal species that suffered heat-induced extinction were subsequently re-introduced at the same time and density, in each of the two treatments. The 39 degrees C treatment led to community closure in all replicates, meaning that a previously successful herbivore species could not re-establish itself in the postheat wave community. In contrast, such closure never occurred after a 29 degrees C event. Heat wave intensity determined the number of herbivore extinctions and strongly affected algal relative abundances. Re-introduced herbivore species were thus confronted with significantly different food environments. This ecological legacy generated by heat wave intensity led to differences in the failure or success of herbivore species re-introductions. Reassembly was significantly more variable, and hence less predictable, after an extreme heat wave, and was more canalized after a moderate one. Our results pertain to relatively simple communities, but they suggest that ecological legacies introduced by extremely high-temperature events may change subsequent ecological recovery and even prevent the successful re-establishment of lost species. Knowing the processes promoting and preventing ecological recovery is crucial to the success of species re-introduction programs and to our ability to restore ecosystems damaged by environmental extremes.
KW - Biodiversity
KW - climate change
KW - conservation
KW - ecological restoration
KW - extinction
KW - extreme temperature events
KW - global warming
KW - maximum temperature
KW - variability
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1490
SN - 2045-7758
VL - 5
IS - 11
SP - 2140
EP - 2148
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Wiesmeier, Martin
A1 - Munro, Sam
A1 - Barthold, Frauke Katrin
A1 - Steffens, Markus
A1 - Schad, Peter
A1 - Kögel-Knabner, Ingrid
T1 - Carbon storage capacity of semi-arid grassland soils and sequestration potentials in northern China
JF - Global change biology
N2 - Organic carbon (OC) sequestration in degraded semi-arid environments by improved soil management is assumed to contribute substantially to climate change mitigation. However, information about the soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration potential in steppe soils and their current saturation status remains unknown. In this study, we estimated the OC storage capacity of semi-arid grassland soils on the basis of remote, natural steppe fragments in northern China. Based on the maximum OC saturation of silt and clay particles <20m, OC sequestration potentials of degraded steppe soils (grazing land, arable land, eroded areas) were estimated. The analysis of natural grassland soils revealed a strong linear regression between the proportion of the fine fraction and its OC content, confirming the importance of silt and clay particles for OC stabilization in steppe soils. This relationship was similar to derived regressions in temperate and tropical soils but on a lower level, probably due to a lower C input and different clay mineralogy. In relation to the estimated OC storage capacity, degraded steppe soils showed a high OC saturation of 78-85% despite massive SOC losses due to unsustainable land use. As a result, the potential of degraded grassland soils to sequester additional OC was generally low. This can be related to a relatively high contribution of labile SOC, which is preferentially lost in the course of soil degradation. Moreover, wind erosion leads to substantial loss of silt and clay particles and consequently results in a direct loss of the ability to stabilize additional OC. Our findings indicate that the SOC loss in semi-arid environments induced by intensive land use is largely irreversible. Observed SOC increases after improved land management mainly result in an accumulation of labile SOC prone to land use/climate changes and therefore cannot be regarded as contribution to long-term OC sequestration.
KW - climate change
KW - fine fraction
KW - soil organic carbon
KW - soil texture
KW - steppe soils
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12957
SN - 1354-1013
SN - 1365-2486
VL - 21
IS - 10
SP - 3836
EP - 3845
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Scherler, Dirk
A1 - Bookhagen, Bodo
A1 - Wulf, Hendrik
A1 - Preusser, Frank
A1 - Strecker, Manfred
T1 - Increased late Pleistocene erosion rates during fluvial aggradation in the Garhwal Himalaya, northern India
JF - Earth & planetary science letters
N2 - The response of surface processes to climatic forcing is fundamental for understanding the impacts of climate change on landscape evolution. In the Himalaya, most large rivers feature prominent fill terraces that record an imbalance between sediment supply and transport capacity, presumably due to past fluctuations in monsoon precipitation and/or effects of glaciation at high elevation. Here, we present volume estimates, chronological constraints, and Be-10-derived paleo-erosion rates from a prominent valley fill in the Yamuna catchment, Garhwal Himalaya, to elucidate the coupled response of rivers and hillslopes to Pleistocene climate change. Although precise age control is complicated due to methodological problems, the new data support formation of the valley fill during the late Pleistocene and its incision during the Holocene. We interpret this timing to indicate that changes in discharge and river-transport capacity were major controls. Compared to the present day, late Pleistocene hillslope erosion rates were higher by a factor of similar to 2-4, but appear to have decreased during valley aggradation. The higher late Pleistocene erosion rates are largely unrelated to glacial erosion and could be explained by enhanced sediment production on steep hillslopes due to increased periglacial activity that declined as temperatures increased. Alternatively, erosion rates that decrease during valley aggradation are also consistent with reduced landsliding from threshold hillslopes as a result of rising base levels. In that case, the similarity of paleo-erosion rates near the end of the aggradation period with modern erosion rates might imply that channels and hillslopes are not yet fully coupled everywhere and that present-day hillslope erosion rates may underrepresent long-term incision rates. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW - paleo-erosion rates
KW - climate change
KW - river terraces
KW - landscape evolution
KW - hillslopes
KW - Himalaya
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2015.06.034
SN - 0012-821X
SN - 1385-013X
VL - 428
SP - 255
EP - 266
PB - Elsevier
CY - Amsterdam
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Strauss, Benjamin H.
A1 - Kulp, Scott
A1 - Levermann, Anders
T1 - Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2 - Anthropogenic carbon emissions lock in long-term sea-level rise that greatly exceeds projections for this century, posing profound challenges for coastal development and cultural legacies. Analysis based on previously published relationships linking emissions to warming and warming to rise indicates that unabated carbon emissions up to the year 2100 would commit an eventual global sea-level rise of 4.3-9.9 m. Based on detailed topographic and population data, local high tide lines, and regional long-term sea-level commitment for different carbon emissions and ice sheet stability scenarios, we compute the current population living on endangered land at municipal, state, and national levels within the United States. For unabated climate change, we find that land that is home to more than 20 million people is implicated and is widely distributed among different states and coasts. The total area includes 1,185-1,825 municipalities where land that is home to more than half of the current population would be affected, among them at least 21 cities exceeding 100,000 residents. Under aggressive carbon cuts, more than half of these municipalities would avoid this commitment if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet remains stable. Similarly, more than half of the US population-weighted area under threat could be spared. We provide lists of implicated cities and state populations for different emissions scenarios and with and without a certain collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Although past anthropogenic emissions already have caused sea-level commitment that will force coastal cities to adapt, future emissions will determine which areas we can continue to occupy or may have to abandon.
KW - climate change
KW - climate impacts
KW - sea-level rise
Y1 - 2015
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511186112
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 112
IS - 44
SP - 13508
EP - 13513
PB - National Acad. of Sciences
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Lischke, Betty
A1 - Hilt, Sabine
A1 - Janse, Jan H.
A1 - Kuiper, Jan J.
A1 - Mehner, Thomas
A1 - Mooij, Wolf M.
A1 - Gaedke, Ursula
T1 - Enhanced input of terrestrial particulate organic matter reduces the resilience of the clear-water state of shallow lakes: A model study
JF - Ecosystems
N2 - The amount of terrestrial particulate organic matter (t-POM) entering lakes is predicted to increase as a result of climate change. This may especially alter the structure and functioning of ecosystems in small, shallow lakes which can rapidly shift from a clear-water, macrophyte-dominated into a turbid, phytoplankton-dominated state. We used the integrative ecosystem model PCLake to predict how rising t-POM inputs affect the resilience of the clear-water state. PCLake links a pelagic and benthic food chain with abiotic components by a number of direct and indirect effects. We focused on three pathways (zoobenthos, zooplankton, light availability) by which elevated t-POM inputs (with and without additional nutrients) may modify the critical nutrient loading thresholds at which a clear-water lake becomes turbid and vice versa. Our model results show that (1) increased zoobenthos biomass due to the enhanced food availability results in more benthivorous fish which reduce light availability due to bioturbation, (2) zooplankton biomass does not change, but suspended t-POM reduces the consumption of autochthonous particulate organic matter which increases the turbidity, and (3) the suspended t-POM reduces the light availability for submerged macrophytes. Therefore, light availability is the key process that is indirectly or directly changed by t-POM input. This strikingly resembles the deteriorating effect of terrestrial dissolved organic matter on the light climate of lakes. In all scenarios, the resilience of the clear-water state is reduced thus making the turbid state more likely at a given nutrient loading. Therefore, our study suggests that rising t-POM input can add to the effects of climate warming making reductions in nutrient loadings even more urgent.
KW - climate change
KW - PCLake
KW - bistability
KW - alternative stable states
KW - critical nutrient loading
KW - ecosystem modeling
KW - allochthony
KW - t-POM
Y1 - 2014
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-014-9747-7
SN - 1432-9840
SN - 1435-0629
VL - 17
IS - 4
SP - 616
EP - 626
PB - Springer
CY - New York
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Lehmann, Jascha
A1 - Coumou, Dim
A1 - Frieler, Katja
A1 - Eliseev, Alexey V.
A1 - Levermann, Anders
T1 - Future changes in extratropical storm tracks and baroclinicity under climate change
JF - Environmental research letters
N2 - The weather in Eurasia, Australia, and North and South America is largely controlled by the strength and position of extratropical storm tracks. Future climate change will likely affect these storm tracks and the associated transport of energy, momentum, and water vapour. Many recent studies have analyzed how storm tracks will change under climate change, and how these changes are related to atmospheric dynamics. However, there are still discrepancies between different studies on how storm tracks will change under future climate scenarios. Here, we show that under global warming the CMIP5 ensemble of coupled climate models projects only little relative changes in vertically averaged mid-latitude mean storm track activity during the northern winter, but agree in projecting a substantial decrease during summer. Seasonal changes in the Southern Hemisphere show the opposite behaviour, with an intensification in winter and no change during summer. These distinct seasonal changes in northern summer and southern winter storm tracks lead to an amplified seasonal cycle in a future climate. Similar changes are seen in the mid-latitude mean Eady growth rate maximum, a measure that combines changes in vertical shear and static stability based on baroclinic instability theory. Regression analysis between changes in the storm tracks and changes in the maximum Eady growth rate reveal that most models agree in a positive association between the two quantities over mid-latitude regions.
KW - storm tracks
KW - baroclinicity
KW - climate change
Y1 - 2014
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/8/084002
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 9
IS - 8
PB - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY - Bristol
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kahmen, Ansgar
A1 - Sachse, Dirk
A1 - Arndt, Stefan K.
A1 - Tu, Kevin P.
A1 - Farrington, Heraldo
A1 - Vitousek, Peter M.
A1 - Dawson, Todd E.
T1 - Cellulose delta O-18 is an index of leaf-to-air vapor pressure difference (VPD) in tropical plants
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2 - Cellulose in plants contains oxygen that derives in most cases from precipitation. Because the stable oxygen isotope composition, delta O-18, of precipitation is associated with environmental conditions, cellulose delta O-18 should be as well. However, plant physiological models using delta O-18 suggest that cellulose delta O-18 is influenced by a complex mix of both climatic and physiological drivers. This influence complicates the interpretation of cellulose delta O-18 values in a paleo-context. Here, we combined empirical data analyses with mechanistic model simulations to i) quantify the impacts that the primary climatic drivers humidity (e(a)) and air temperature (T-air) have on cellulose delta O-18 values in different tropical ecosystems and ii) determine which environmental signal is dominating cellulose delta O-18 values. Our results revealed that e(a) and T-air equally influence cellulose delta O-18 values and that distinguishing which of these factors dominates the delta O-18 values of cellulose cannot be accomplished in the absence of additional environmental information. However, the individual impacts of e(a) and T-air on the delta O-18 values of cellulose can be integrated into a single index of plant-experienced atmospheric vapor demand: the leaf-to-air vapor pressure difference (VPD). We found a robust relationship between VPD and cellulose delta O-18 values in both empirical and modeled data in all ecosystems that we investigated. Our analysis revealed therefore that delta O-18 values in plant cellulose can be used as a proxy for VPD in tropical ecosystems. As VPD is an essential variable that determines the biogeochemical dynamics of ecosystems, our study has applications in ecological-, climate-, or forensic-sciences.
KW - stable isotopes
KW - plant-water relations
KW - paleoecology
KW - climate change
KW - Hawaii
Y1 - 2011
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1018906108
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 108
IS - 5
SP - 1981
EP - 1986
PB - National Acad. of Sciences
CY - Washington
ER -
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 - Geyer, Juliane
A1 - Kiefer, Iris
A1 - Kreft, Stefan
A1 - Chavez, Veronica
A1 - Salafsky, Nick
A1 - Jeltsch, Florian
A1 - Ibisch, Pierre L.
T1 - Classification of climate-change-induced stresses on biological diversity
JF - Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology
N2 - Conservation actions need to account for and be adapted to address changes that will occur under global climate change. The identification of stresses on biological diversity (as defined in the Convention on Biological Diversity) is key in the process of adaptive conservation management. We considered any impact of climate change on biological diversity a stress because such an effect represents a change (negative or positive) in key ecological attributes of an ecosystem or parts of it. We applied a systemic approach and a hierarchical framework in a comprehensive classification of stresses to biological diversity that are caused directly by global climate change. Through analyses of 20 conservation sites in 7 countries and a review of the literature, we identified climate-change-induced stresses. We grouped the identified stresses according to 3 levels of biological diversity: stresses that affect individuals and populations, stresses that affect biological communities, and stresses that affect ecosystem structure and function. For each stress category, we differentiated 3 hierarchical levels of stress: stress class (thematic grouping with the coarsest resolution, 8); general stresses (thematic groups of specific stresses, 21); and specific stresses (most detailed definition of stresses, 90). We also compiled an overview of effects of climate change on ecosystem services using the categories of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and 2 additional categories. Our classification may be used to identify key climate-change-related stresses to biological diversity and may assist in the development of appropriate conservation strategies. The classification is in list format, but it accounts for relations among climate-change-induced stresses.
KW - adaptation of conservation strategies
KW - adaptive management
KW - climate change
KW - conservation planning
KW - conservation targets
KW - hierarchical framework
KW - threats to biological diversity
Y1 - 2011
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2011.01676.x
SN - 0888-8892
VL - 25
IS - 4
SP - 708
EP - 715
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Malden
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 - 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 - 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 - Huggel, Christian
A1 - Clague, John J.
A1 - Korup, Oliver
T1 - Is climate change responsible for changing landslide activity in high mountains?
JF - Earth surface processes and landforms : the journal of the British Geomorphological Research Group
N2 - Climate change, manifested by an increase in mean, minimum, and maximum temperatures and by more intense rainstorms, is becoming more evident in many regions. An important consequence of these changes may be an increase in landslides in high mountains. More research, however, is necessary to detect changes in landslide magnitude and frequency related to contemporary climate, particularly in alpine regions hosting glaciers, permafrost, and snow. These regions not only are sensitive to changes in both temperature and precipitation, but are also areas in which landslides are ubiquitous even under a stable climate. We analyze a series of catastrophic slope failures that occurred in the mountains of Europe, the Americas, and the Caucasus since the end of the 1990s. We distinguish between rock and ice avalanches, debris flows from de-glaciated areas, and landslides that involve dynamic interactions with glacial and river processes. Analysis of these events indicates several important controls on slope stability in high mountains, including: the non-linear response of firn and ice to warming; three-dimensional warming of subsurface bedrock and its relation to site geology; de-glaciation accompanied by exposure of new sediment; and combined short-term effects of precipitation and temperature. Based on several case studies, we propose that the following mechanisms can significantly alter landslide magnitude and frequency, and thus hazard, under warming conditions: (1) positive feedbacks acting on mass movement processes that after an initial climatic stimulus may evolve independently of climate change; (2) threshold behavior and tipping points in geomorphic systems; (3) storage of sediment and ice involving important lag-time effects.
KW - climate change
KW - landslides
KW - glaciers
KW - permafrost
Y1 - 2012
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.2223
SN - 0197-9337
VL - 37
IS - 1
SP - 77
EP - 91
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 - Schewe, Jacob
A1 - Levermann, Anders
T1 - A statistically predictive model for future monsoon failure in India
JF - Environmental research letters
N2 - Indian monsoon rainfall is vital for a large share of the world's population. Both reliably projecting India's future precipitation and unraveling abrupt cessations of monsoon rainfall found in paleorecords require improved understanding of its stability properties. While details of monsoon circulations and the associated rainfall are complex, full-season failure is dominated by large-scale positive feedbacks within the region. Here we find that in a comprehensive climate model, monsoon failure is possible but very rare under pre-industrial conditions, while under future warming it becomes much more frequent. We identify the fundamental intraseasonal feedbacks that are responsible for monsoon failure in the climate model, relate these to observational data, and build a statistically predictive model for such failure. This model provides a simple dynamical explanation for future changes in the frequency distribution of seasonal mean all-Indian rainfall. Forced only by global mean temperature and the strength of the Pacific Walker circulation in spring, it reproduces the trend as well as the multidecadal variability in the mean and skewness of the distribution, as found in the climate model. The approach offers an alternative perspective on large-scale monsoon variability as the result of internal instabilities modulated by pre-seasonal ambient climate conditions.
KW - monsoon failure
KW - climate change
KW - coupled climate model
KW - stochastic model
KW - non-linear dynamics
Y1 - 2012
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/044023
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 7
IS - 4
PB - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY - Bristol
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Tekken, Vera
A1 - Kropp, Jürgen
T1 - Climate-Driven or Human-Induced indicating severe water scarcity in the Moulouya River Basin (Morocco)
JF - Water
N2 - Many agriculture-based economies are increasingly under stress from climate change and socio-economic pressures. The excessive exploitation of natural resources still represents the standard procedure to achieve socio-economic development. In the area of the Moulouya river basin, Morocco, natural water availability represents a key resource for all economic activities. Agriculture represents the most important sector, and frequently occurring water deficits are aggravated by climate change. On the basis of historical trends taken from CRU TS 2.1, this paper analyses the impact of climate change on the per capita water availability under inclusion of population trends. The Climatic Water Balance (CWB) shows a significant decrease for the winter period, causing adverse effects for the main agricultural season. Further, moisture losses due to increasing evapotranspiration rates indicate problems for the annual water budget and groundwater recharge. The per capita blue water availability falls below a minimum threshold of 500 m(3) per year, denoting a high regional vulnerability to increasing water scarcity assuming a no-response scenario. Regional development focusing on the water-intense sectors of agriculture and tourism appears to be at risk. Institutional capacities and policies need to address the problem, and the prompt implementation of innovative water production and efficiency measures is recommended.
KW - North Africa
KW - Moulouya river basin
KW - climate change
KW - population growth
KW - regional development
KW - water availability
KW - water management
KW - water scarcity
Y1 - 2012
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/w4040959
SN - 2073-4441
VL - 4
IS - 4
SP - 959
EP - 982
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
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 - Sarmento, Juliano Sarmento
A1 - Jeltsch, Florian
A1 - Thuiller, Wilfried
A1 - Higgins, Steven
A1 - Midgley, Guy F.
A1 - Rebelo, Anthony G.
A1 - Rouget, Mathieu
A1 - Schurr, Frank Martin
T1 - Impacts of past habitat loss and future climate change on the range dynamics of South African Proteaceae
JF - Diversity & distributions : a journal of biological invasions and biodiversity
N2 - Aim To assess how habitat loss and climate change interact in affecting the range dynamics of species and to quantify how predicted range dynamics depend on demographic properties of species and the severity of environmental change. Location South African Cape Floristic Region. Methods We use data-driven demographic models to assess the impacts of past habitat loss and future climate change on range size, range filing and abundances of eight species of woody plants (Proteaceae). The species-specific models employ a hybrid approach that simulates population dynamics and long-distance dispersal on top of expected spatio-temporal dynamics of suitable habitat. Results Climate change was mainly predicted to reduce range size and range filling (because of a combination of strong habitat shifts with low migration ability). In contrast, habitat loss mostly decreased mean local abundance. For most species and response measures, the combination of habitat loss and climate change had the most severe effect. Yet, this combined effect was mostly smaller than expected from adding or multiplying effects of the individual environmental drivers. This seems to be because climate change shifts suitable habitats to regions less affected by habitat loss. Interspecific variation in range size responses depended mostly on the severity of environmental change, whereas responses in range filling and local abundance depended mostly on demographic properties of species. While most surviving populations concentrated in areas that remain climatically suitable, refugia for multiple species were overestimated by simply overlying habitat models and ignoring demography. Main conclusions Demographic models of range dynamics can simultaneously predict the response of range size, abundance and range filling to multiple drivers of environmental change. Demographic knowledge is particularly needed to predict abundance responses and to identify areas that can serve as biodiversity refugia under climate change. These findings highlight the need for data-driven, demographic assessments in conservation biogeography.
KW - biodiversity refugia
KW - CFR Proteaceae
KW - climate change
KW - demographic properties
KW - habitat loss
KW - local abundances
KW - process-based range models
KW - range filling
KW - range size
KW - species distribution models
Y1 - 2013
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12011
SN - 1366-9516
VL - 19
IS - 4
SP - 363
EP - 376
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
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 - Wasof, Safaa
A1 - Lenoir, Jonathan
A1 - Gallet-Moron, Emilie
A1 - Jamoneau, Aurelien
A1 - Brunet, Jörg
A1 - Cousins, Sara A. O.
A1 - De Frenne, Pieter
A1 - Diekmann, Martin
A1 - Hermy, Martin
A1 - Kolb, Annette
A1 - Liira, Jaan
A1 - Verheyen, Kris
A1 - Wulf, Monika
A1 - Decocq, Guillaume
T1 - Ecological niche shifts of understorey plants along a latitudinal gradient of temperate forests in north-western Europe
JF - Global ecology and biogeography : a journal of macroecology
N2 - Aim In response to environmental changes and to avoid extinction, species may either track suitable environmental conditions or adapt to the modified environment. However, whether and how species adapt to environmental changes remains unclear. By focusing on the realized niche (i.e. the actual space that a species inhabits and the resources it can access as a result of limiting biotic factors present in its habitat), we here examine shifts in the realized-niche width (i.e. ecological amplitude) and position (i.e. ecological optimum) of 26 common and widespread forest understorey plants across their distributional ranges.
Location Temperate forests along a ca. 1800-km-long latitudinal gradient from northern France to central Sweden and Estonia.
Methods We derived species' realized-niche width from a -diversity metric, which increases if the focal species co-occurs with more species. Based on the concept that species' scores in a detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) represent the locations of their realized-niche positions, we developed a novel approach to run species-specific DCAs allowing the focal species to shift its realized-niche position along the studied latitudinal gradient while the realized-niche positions of other species were held constant.
Results None of the 26 species maintained both their realized-niche width and position along the latitudinal gradient. Few species (9 of 26: 35%) shifted their realized-niche width, but all shifted their realized-niche position. With increasing latitude, most species (22 of 26: 85%) shifted their realized-niche position for soil nutrients and pH towards nutrient-poorer and more acidic soils.
Main conclusions Forest understorey plants shifted their realized niche along the latitudinal gradient, suggesting local adaptation and/or plasticity. This macroecological pattern casts doubt on the idea that the realized niche is stable in space and time, which is a key assumption of species distribution models used to predict the future of biodiversity, hence raising concern about predicted extinction rates.
KW - Beta diversity
KW - climate change
KW - detrended correspondence analyses
KW - Ellenberg indicator values
KW - forest understorey plant species
KW - niche optimum
KW - niche width
KW - plant community
KW - realized niche
Y1 - 2013
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12073
SN - 1466-822X
VL - 22
IS - 10
SP - 1130
EP - 1140
PB - Wiley-Blackwell
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - De Frenne, Pieter
A1 - Rodriguez-Sanchez, Francisco
A1 - Coomes, David Anthony
A1 - Bäten, Lander
A1 - Versträten, Gorik
A1 - Vellend, Mark
A1 - Bernhardt-Römermann, Markus
A1 - Brown, Carissa D.
A1 - Brunet, Jörg
A1 - Cornelis, Johnny
A1 - Decocq, Guillaume M.
A1 - Dierschke, Hartmut
A1 - Eriksson, Ove
A1 - Gilliam, Frank S.
A1 - Hedl, Radim
A1 - Heinken, Thilo
A1 - Hermy, Martin
A1 - Hommel, Patrick
A1 - Jenkins, Michael A.
A1 - Kelly, Daniel L.
A1 - Kirby, Keith J.
A1 - Mitchell, Fraser J. G.
A1 - Naaf, Tobias
A1 - Newman, Miles
A1 - Peterken, George
A1 - Petrik, Petr
A1 - Schultz, Jan
A1 - Sonnier, Gregory
A1 - Van Calster, Hans
A1 - Waller, Donald M.
A1 - Walther, Gian-Reto
A1 - White, Peter S.
A1 - Woods, Kerry D.
A1 - Wulf, Monika
A1 - Graae, Bente Jessen
A1 - Verheyen, Kris
T1 - Microclimate moderates plant responses to macroclimate warming
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
N2 - Recent global warming is acting across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems to favor species adapted to warmer conditions and/or reduce the abundance of cold-adapted organisms (i.e., "thermophilization" of communities). Lack of community responses to increased temperature, however, has also been reported for several taxa and regions, suggesting that "climatic lags" may be frequent. Here we show that microclimatic effects brought about by forest canopy closure can buffer biotic responses to macroclimate warming, thus explaining an apparent climatic lag. Using data from 1,409 vegetation plots in European and North American temperate forests, each surveyed at least twice over an interval of 12-67 y, we document significant thermophilization of ground-layer plant communities. These changes reflect concurrent declines in species adapted to cooler conditions and increases in species adapted to warmer conditions. However, thermophilization, particularly the increase of warm-adapted species, is attenuated in forests whose canopies have become denser, probably reflecting cooler growing-season ground temperatures via increased shading. As standing stocks of trees have increased in many temperate forests in recent decades, local microclimatic effects may commonly be moderating the impacts of macroclimate warming on forest understories. Conversely, increases in harvesting woody biomass-e.g., for bioenergy-may open forest canopies and accelerate thermophilization of temperate forest biodiversity.
KW - climate change
KW - forest management
KW - understory
KW - climatic debt
KW - range shifts
Y1 - 2013
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1311190110
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 110
IS - 46
SP - 18561
EP - 18565
PB - National Acad. of Sciences
CY - Washington
ER -