Climate Control: The Long-Term Challenge

Abstract. Understanding the effects of climate and catchment characteristics on overall water balance at different temporal scales remains a challenging task due to the large spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability. Based on a long-term (1960–2008) land surface hydrologic dataset over China, this study presented a systematic examination of the applicability of the Budyko model (BM) under various climatic conditions at long-term mean annual, annual, seasonal and monthly temporal scales. The roles of water storage change (WSC, dS/dt) in water balance modeling and the dominant climate control factors on modeling errors of BM are investigated. The results indicate that BM performs well at mean annual scale and the performance in arid climates is better than humid climates. At other smaller timescales, BM is generally accurate in arid climates, but fails to capture dominant controls on water balance in humid climates due to the effects of WSC not included in BM. The accuracy of BM can be ranked from high to low as: dry seasonal, annual, monthly, and wet seasonal timescales. When WSC is incorporated into BM by replacing precipitation (P) with effective precipitation (i.e., P minus WSC), significant improvements are found in arid climates, but to a lesser extent in humid climates. The ratio of the standard deviation of WSC to that of evapotranspiration (E), which increases from arid to humid climates, is found to be the key indicator of the BM simulation errors due to the omission of the effect of WSC. The modeling errors of BM are positively correlated with the temporal variability of WSC and hence larger in humid climates, and also found to be proportional to the ratio of potential evapotranspiration (PET) to E. More sophisticated models than the BM which explicitly incorporate the effect of WSC are required to improve water balance modeling in humid climates particularly at all the annual, seasonal, and monthly timescales.

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Response of plant community structure and primary productivity to experimental drought and flooding in an Alaskan fen

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/cjfr-2014-0100 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 45 (2) ◽

pp. 185-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Amber C. Churchill ◽

Merritt R. Turetsky ◽

A. David McGuire ◽

Teresa N. Hollingsworth

Keyword(s):

Plant Species ◽

Water Table ◽

Primary Productivity ◽

Net Primary Productivity ◽

Species Abundance ◽

Total Biomass ◽

Climate Control ◽

Green Area ◽

Northern Peatlands

Northern peatlands represent a long-term net sink for atmospheric CO2, but these ecosystems can shift from net carbon (C) sinks to sources based on changing climate and environmental conditions. In particular, changes in water availability associated with climate control peatland vegetation and carbon uptake processes. We examined the influence of changing hydrology on plant species abundance and ecosystem primary production in an Alaskan fen by manipulating the water table in field treatments to mimic either sustained flooding (raised water table) or drought (lowered water table) conditions for 6 years. We found that water table treatments altered plant species abundance by increasing sedge and grass cover in the raised water table treatment and reducing moss cover while increasing vascular green area in the lowered water table treatment. Gross primary productivity was lower in the lowered treatment than in the other plots, although there were no differences in total biomass or vascular net primary productivity among the treatments. Overall, our results indicate that vegetation abundance was more sensitive to variation in water table than total biomass and vascular biomass accrual. Finally, in our experimental peatland, drought had stronger consequences for change in vegetation abundance and ecosystem function than sustained flooding.

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Climate control on the long-term anomalous changes of zooplankton communities in the Northwestern Mediterranean

Global Change Biology ◽

10.1111/j.1365-2486.2007.01469.x ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 11-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

JUAN CARLOS MOLINERO ◽

FRÉDÉRIC IBANEZ ◽

SAMI SOUISSI ◽

EMMANUELLE BUECHER ◽

SERGE DALLOT ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Control ◽

Zooplankton Communities ◽

Northwestern Mediterranean

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Welfare Aspects of Raising Entire Male Pigs and Immunocastrates

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani10112140 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (11) ◽

pp. 2140

Author(s):

Eberhard Borell ◽

Michel Bonneau ◽

Mirjam Holinger ◽

Armelle Prunier ◽

Volker Stefanski ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Environmental Enrichment ◽

Scientific Literature ◽

Point Of View ◽

Current Status ◽

Climate Control ◽

Housing Systems ◽

Group Stability ◽

Long Time ◽

Entire Male

For a long time, scientists assumed that newborns have a severely limited sense of pain (if any). However, this assumption is wrong and led to a “start of the exit” from piglet surgical castration. Some of the currently discussed or already implemented alternatives such as general or local anaesthesia during surgical castration raise additional welfare concerns as well as legal problems and/or are hardly applicable. The favoured long-term, welfare-friendly “gold standard” is to raise entire male pigs (EM). However, this may also impose certain welfare problems under the current conventional housing and management conditions. The specific types of behaviour displayed by EM such as mounting and aggressive behaviours but also increased exploration, which are partially linked to sexual maturation, increase the risk for injuries. The current status of knowledge (scientific literature and farmer experiences) on housing of EM suggests that environmental enrichment, space, group-stability, social constellation, feeding (diet and feeder space), health and climate control are critical factors to be considered for future housing systems. From an animal welfare point of view, an intermediate variant to be favoured to reduce problematic behaviour could be to slaughter EM before reaching puberty or to immunize boars early on to suppress testicular function. Immunization against endogenous GnRH can reduce EM-specific problems after the 2nd vaccination.

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Human impact overwhelms long-term climate control of weathering and erosion in southwest China

Geology ◽

10.1130/g36570.1 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 43 (5) ◽

pp. 439-442 ◽

Cited By ~ 47

Author(s):

Shiming Wan ◽

Samuel Toucanne ◽

Peter D. Clift ◽

Debo Zhao ◽

Germain Bayon ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Human Impact ◽

Southwest China ◽

Climate Control

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Integration of Active Solar Thermal Technologies in Greenhouses: A Mini Review

Frontiers in Energy Research ◽

10.3389/fenrg.2021.757553 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Ding Ding

Keyword(s):

Energy Demand ◽

Crop Production ◽

Heat Storage ◽

System Optimization ◽

Solar Thermal ◽

Climate Control ◽

Heating Systems ◽

Greenhouse Climate ◽

Air Temperatures

Traditional agricultural greenhouses have been used to grow vegetables in the winter without any auxiliary heating. However, crop production is highly influenced by soil and air temperatures, humidity, and solar radiation. The aim of this paper is to review the recent active solar thermal technologies that help reduce the energy demand for greenhouse climate control and achieve intensive crop production. The review is categorized into the following topics: 1) locations for collector installation; 2) discussion on the different types of solar collectors, which include metal-based, glass-based, ceramic-based, plastic-based, and hybrid photovoltaic/thermal types for greenhouse applications; 3) heat release systems in active greenhouses in terms of basal heating, backwall heating, and air heating systems; and 4) short-term and long-term heat storage systems for greenhouses. Future studies on active solar greenhouses might focus on microclimate prediction, long-term heat storage, and system optimization.

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Learning by Making. Long-term collaborations and socially productive outcomes

The Journal of Public Space ◽

10.5204/jps.v2i3.116 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

pp. 73 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Richard Burnham ◽

Louise Wallis

Keyword(s):

Digital Fabrication ◽

Primary Data ◽

Climate Control ◽

Educational Impact ◽

Barriers To Learning ◽

Teacher Observations ◽

Collaborative Community ◽

Primary Focus ◽

The University

The Learning-by-Making (LBM) program at the University of Tasmania has 20 years experience in collaborative, community-based “live” studios. Academics involved in the program have intuitively understood that a learning environment integrated with the public realm, and based in a constructed reality affords students an immersive understanding of the design process. More recently the program has shifted its focus from stand-alone, client-responsive projects to a long-term, design-led research agenda. Individual projects - including micro-dwellings, scout huts, an exhibition stand and a mobile playground - are seen as steps in the evolution of an innovative building system that harnesses the creative and socially productive potentials of digital fabrication. The benefits of this shift for academics and clients are clear. For academics, research and teaching activities can be mutually supportive, while clients benefit from a design/fabricate/assemble process that has been tested, analysed, applied and incrementally improved. The primary focus of this paper will however attempt to identify the educational impact on participating students, and will do so using the analytical lens of a relevant educational theory called threshold concepts1. The theory suggests that students can overcome barriers to learning when specific criteria or “dimensions” are present. The results of this analysis indicate that in this environment learning can be transformative, resulting in irreversible conceptual links between design idea, fabrication and practice. The conceptual space of the project is bounded by the research objective, budget, technology and client requirements, and integrative in that they inevitably involve decisions on materials, structures, habitation patterns and climate control. The learning is discursive as students are required to articulate their opinions on design decisions, both within the student group and with community collaborators. The primary data sources for this investigation have been students’ reflective journals, combined with teacher observations.

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Climate controlled root zone parameters show potential to improve water flux simulations by land surface models

10.5194/esd-2021-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Fransje van Oorschot ◽

Ruud J. van der Ent ◽

Markus Hrachowitz ◽

Andrea Alessandri

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Root Zone ◽

Surface Model ◽

Land Surface Models ◽

Climate Control ◽

Local Climate ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Surface Models ◽

Zone Parameters

Abstract. The root zone storage capacity Sr is the maximum volume of water in the subsurface that can potentially be accessed by vegetation for transpiration. It influences the seasonality of transpiration as well as fast and slow runoff processes. Many studies have shown that Sr is heterogeneous as controlled by local climate conditions, which affect vegetation strategies in sizing their root system able to support plant growth and to prevent water shortages. Root zone parameterization in most land surface models does not account for this climate control on root development, being based on look-up tables that prescribe worldwide the same root zone parameters for each vegetation class. These look-up tables are obtained from measurements of rooting structure that are scarce and hardly representative of the ecosystem scale. The objective of this research is to quantify and evaluate the effects of a climate controlled representation of Sr on the water fluxes modeled by the HTESSEL land surface model. Climate controlled Sr is here estimated with the memory method (MM) in which Sr is derived from the vegetation's memory of past root zone water storage deficits. Sr,MM is estimated for 15 river catchments over Australia across three contrasting climate regions: tropical, temperate and Mediterranean. Suitable representations of Sr,MM are implemented in an improved version of HTESSEL (MD) by accordingly modifying the soil depths to obtain a model Sr-MD that matches Sr,MM in the 15 catchments. In the control version of HTESSEL (CTR), Sr,CTR is larger than Sr,MM in 14 out of 15 catchments. Furthermore, the variability among the individual catchments of Sr,MM (117–722 mm) is considerably larger than of Sr,CTR (491–725 mm) The climate controlled representation of Sr in the MD version results in a significant and consistent improvement of the modeled monthly seasonal climatology (1975–2010) and inter-annual anomalies of river discharge compared with observations. However, the effects on biases in long-term annual mean fluxes are small and mixed. The modeled monthly seasonal climatology of the catchment discharge improved in MD compared to CTR: the correlation with observations increased significantly from 0.84 to 0.90 in tropical catchments, from 0.74 to 0.86 in temperate catchments and from 0.86 to 0.96 in Mediterranean catchments. Correspondingly, the correlations of the inter-annual discharge anomalies improve significantly in MD from 0.74 to 0.78 in tropical catchments, from 0.80 to 0.85 in temperate catchments and from 0.71 to 0.79 in Mediterranean catchments. The results indicate that the use of climate controlled Sr,MM can significantly improve the timing of modeled discharge and, by extension, also evaporation fluxes in land surface models. On the other hand, the method has not shown to significantly reduce long-term climatological model biases over the catchments considered for this study.

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