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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 
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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - Guzman Arias, Diego Alejandro
A1  - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1  - Mendiondo, Eduardo Mario
T1  - Multi-driver ensemble to evaluate the water utility business interruption cost induced by hydrological drought risk scenarios in Brazil
JF  - Urban water journal
N2  - Climate change and increasing water demand in urban environments necessitate planning water utility companies' finances. Traditionally, methods to estimate the direct water utility business interruption costs (WUBIC) caused by droughts have not been clearly established. We propose a multi-driver assessment method. We project the water yield using a hydrological model driven by regional climate models under radiative forcing scenarios. We project water demand under stationary and non-stationary conditions to estimate drought severity and duration, which are linked with pricing policies recently adopted by the Sao Paulo Water Utility Company. The results showed water insecurity. The non-stationary trend imposed larger differences in the drought resilience financial gap, suggesting that the uncertainties of WUBIC derived from demand and climate models are greater than those associated with radiative forcing scenarios. As populations increase, proactively controlling demand is recommended to avoid or minimize reactive policy changes during future drought events, repeating recent financial impacts.
KW  - Business interruption cost
KW  - water utility company
KW  - hydrological
KW  - droughts
KW  - water security
KW  - urban water
KW  - climate change
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2022.2058564
SN  - 1573-062X
SN  - 1744-9006
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Guzman, Diego A.
A1  - Samprogna Mohor, Guilherme
A1  - Mendiondo, Eduardo Mario
T1  - Multi-year index-based insurance for adapting Water Utility Companies to hydrological drought
BT  - case study of a water supply system of the Sao Paulo metropolitan region, Brazil
JF  - Water
N2  - The sustainability of water utility companies is threatened by non-stationary drivers, such as climate and anthropogenic changes. To cope with potential economic losses, instruments such as insurance are useful for planning scenarios and mitigating impacts, but data limitations and risk uncertainties affect premium estimation and, consequently, business sustainability. This research estimated the possible economic impacts of business interruption to the Sao Paulo Water Utility Company derived from hydrological drought and how this could be mitigated with an insurance scheme. Multi-year insurance (MYI) was proposed through a set of "change" drivers: the climate driver, through forcing the water evaluation and planning system (WEAP) hydrological tool; the anthropogenic driver, through water demand projections; and the economic driver, associated with recent water price policies adopted by the utility company during water scarcity periods. In our study case, the evaluated indices showed that MYI contracts that cover only longer droughts, regardless of the magnitude, offer better financial performance than contracts that cover all events (in terms of drought duration). Moreover, through MYI contracts, we demonstrate solvency for the insurance fund in the long term and an annual average actuarially fair premium close to the total expected revenue reduction.
KW  - multi-year insurance
KW  - climate change
KW  - hydrological drought
KW  - water
KW  - security and economy
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/w12112954
SN  - 2073-4441
VL  - 12
IS  - 11
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - 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  - 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  - Hickmann, Thomas
A1  - Widerberg, Oscar
A1  - Lederer, Markus
A1  - Pattberg, Philipp H.
T1  - The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat as an orchestrator in global climate policymaking
JF  - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration
N2  - Scholars have recently devoted increasing attention to the role and function of international bureaucracies in global policymaking. Some of them contend that international public officials have gained significant political influence in various policy fields. Compared to other international bureaucracies, the political leeway of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been considered rather limited. Due to the specific problem structure of the policy domain of climate change, national governments endowed this intergovernmental treaty secretariat with a relatively narrow mandate. However, this article argues that in the past few years, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat has gradually loosened its straitjacket and expanded its original spectrum of activity by engaging different sub-national and non-state actors into a policy dialogue using facilitative orchestration as a mode of governance. The present article explores the recent evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat and investigates the way in which it initiates, guides, broadens and strengthens sub-national and non-state climate actions to achieve progress in the international climate negotiations. <br /> Points for practitioners <br /> The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has lately adopted new roles and functions in global climate policymaking. While previously seen as a rather technocratic body that, first and foremost, serves national governments, the Climate Secretariat increasingly interacts with sub-national governments, civil society organizations and private companies to push the global response to climate change forward. We contend that the Climate Secretariat can contribute to global climate policymaking by coordinating and steering the initiatives of non-nation-state actors towards coherence and good practice.
KW  - climate change
KW  - environmental policymaking
KW  - intergovernmental relations
KW  - international bureaucracies
KW  - sub-national and non-state actors
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319840425
SN  - 0020-8523
SN  - 1461-7226
VL  - 87
IS  - 1
SP  - 21
EP  - 38
PB  - Sage
CY  - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.]
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - 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  - Marzetz, Vanessa
A1  - Spijkerman, Elly
A1  - Striebel, Maren
A1  - Wacker, Alexander
T1  - Phytoplankton community responses to interactions between light intensity, light variations, and phosphorus supply
JF  - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2  - In a changing world, phytoplankton communities face a large variety of challenges including altered light regimes. These alterations are caused by more pronounced stratification due to rising temperatures, enhanced eutrophication, and browning of lakes. Community responses toward these effects can emerge as alterations in physiology, biomass, biochemical composition, or diversity. In this study, we addressed the combined effects of changes in light and nutrient conditions on community responses. In particular, we investigated how light intensity and variability under two nutrient conditions influence (1) fast responses such as adjustments in photosynthesis, (2) intermediate responses such as pigment adaptation and (3) slow responses such as changes in community biomass and species composition. Therefore, we exposed communities consisting of five phytoplankton species belonging to different taxonomic groups to two constant and two variable light intensity treatments combined with two levels of phosphorus supply. The tested phytoplankton communities exhibited increased fast reactions of photosynthetic processes to light variability and light intensity. The adjustment of their light harvesting mechanisms via community pigment composition was not affected by light intensity, variability, or nutrient supply. However, pigment specific effects of light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply on the proportion of the respective pigments were detected. Biomass was positively affected by higher light intensity and nutrient concentrations while the direction of the effect of variability was modulated by light intensity. Light variability had a negative impact on biomass at low, but a positive impact at high light intensity. The effects on community composition were species specific. Generally, the proportion of green algae was higher under high light intensity, whereas the cyanobacterium performed better under low light conditions. In addition to that, the diatom and the cryptophyte performed better with high nutrient supply while the green algae as well as the cyanobacterium performed better at low nutrient conditions. This shows that light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply interactively affect communities. Furthermore, the responses are highly species and pigment specific, thus to clarify the effects of climate change a deeper understanding of the effects of light variability and species interactions within communities is important.
KW  - phytoplankton communities
KW  - light variability
KW  - photosynthetic rate
KW  - climate change
KW  - resource competition
KW  - light intensity (irradiance)
KW  - pigment composition
KW  - nutrient supply
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.539733
SN  - 2296-665X
VL  - 8
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Marzetz, Vanessa
A1  - Spijkerman, Elly
A1  - Striebel, Maren
A1  - Wacker, Alexander
T1  - Phytoplankton Community Responses to Interactions Between Light Intensity, Light Variations, and Phosphorus Supply
JF  - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2  - In a changing world, phytoplankton communities face a large variety of challenges including altered light regimes. These alterations are caused by more pronounced stratification due to rising temperatures, enhanced eutrophication, and browning of lakes. Community responses toward these effects can emerge as alterations in physiology, biomass, biochemical composition, or diversity. In this study, we addressed the combined effects of changes in light and nutrient conditions on community responses. In particular, we investigated how light intensity and variability under two nutrient conditions influence (1) fast responses such as adjustments in photosynthesis, (2) intermediate responses such as pigment adaptation and (3) slow responses such as changes in community biomass and species composition. Therefore, we exposed communities consisting of five phytoplankton species belonging to different taxonomic groups to two constant and two variable light intensity treatments combined with two levels of phosphorus supply. The tested phytoplankton communities exhibited increased fast reactions of photosynthetic processes to light variability and light intensity. The adjustment of their light harvesting mechanisms via community pigment composition was not affected by light intensity, variability, or nutrient supply. However, pigment specific effects of light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply on the proportion of the respective pigments were detected. Biomass was positively affected by higher light intensity and nutrient concentrations while the direction of the effect of variability was modulated by light intensity. Light variability had a negative impact on biomass at low, but a positive impact at high light intensity. The effects on community composition were species specific. Generally, the proportion of green algae was higher under high light intensity, whereas the cyanobacterium performed better under low light conditions. In addition to that, the diatom and the cryptophyte performed better with high nutrient supply while the green algae as well as the cyanobacterium performed better at low nutrient conditions. This shows that light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply interactively affect communities. Furthermore, the responses are highly species and pigment specific, thus to clarify the effects of climate change a deeper understanding of the effects of light variability and species interactions within communities is important.
KW  - phytoplankton communities
KW  - light variability
KW  - photosynthetic rate
KW  - climate change
KW  - resource competition
KW  - light intensity (irradiance)
KW  - pigment composition
KW  - nutrient supply
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.539733
SN  - 2296-665X
VL  - 8
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - 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  - 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  - 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  -