Future Scenarios: a Review of Modelling Efforts to Predict the Future of Coral Reefs in an Era of Climate Change

2009 ◽  
pp. 159-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon D. Donner ◽  
Scott F. Heron ◽  
William J. Skirving
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
The Future

scholarly journals Premediating climate change in videogames: Repetition, mastery, and failure

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 184-199
Author(s):  
Laura op de Beke
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Affective Dimensions

Abstract This article starts with the observation that growth-oriented, techno-futurist narratives are predominant in climate change videogames. It then accounts for the lack of variety by arguing that these videogames are privileged expressions of premediation. Premediation cultivates a multiplicity of future scenarios, while at the same time delimiting them to suit presentist concerns, evoking a sense of inevitability and predictability strengthened by repetition. The iterative, branching temporality at work in this logic is deeply ingrained in videogames, as the trope of mastery through repetition and its analysis requires attentiveness to the affective dimensions of gameplay. If videogames are to engage with the climate crisis more productively, they must develop different temporalities in which the potentiality of the future is preserved. In this article, I analyse the games Fate of the World and The Stillness of the Wind to demonstrate how videogames premediate climate change and how they can explore other temporalities latent in the present.

scholarly journals Predicted Shifts in the Distributions of Atlantic Reef-Building Corals in the Face of Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silas C. Principe ◽  
André L. Acosta ◽  
João E. Andrade ◽  
Tito M. C. Lotufo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Coral Species ◽  
Relative Concentration ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Brazilian Coast ◽  
Cascading Effects ◽  
Eastern Atlantic Ocean ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Face

Many species drive the diversity of ecosystems by adding structural complexity to the environment. In coral reefs, stony corals act as habitat-forming species, increasing niche availability for other organisms. Some coral species play key roles as reef builders due to their abundance or morpho-functional characteristics. Thus, changes in the distributions of these species can entail cascading effects in entire ecosystems. With climate change, many coral species are experiencing shifts in their distributions, threatening the preservation of coral reefs. Here, we projected the current and future distributions of three key reef builders of the Atlantic (Mussismilia hispida, Montastraea cavernosa, and the Siderastrea complex) under three relative concentration pathway scenarios: the most optimistic, the most pessimistic and one moderate scenario (RCP2.6, 4.5, and 8.5). Our models revealed that all the above species will undergo habitat loss in the future (2100) in the most pessimistic scenario, although new areas could become suitable, including regions in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, when considering only its actual range of occurrence, M. hispida will lose habitats under all future scenarios. Moreover, in some regions of both the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic (TNA) and the Brazilian coast, these three species could disappear, with detrimental consequences for the associated communities. We highlight the need for an urgent change of course to guarantee functional reefs in the Atlantic in the future.

scholarly journals Will climate change impact polar NOx produced by energetic particle precipitation?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ville Maliniemi ◽  
Daniel R. Marsh ◽  
Hilde Nesse Tyssøy ◽  
Christine Smith-Johnsen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Energetic Electron ◽  
Atmospheric Effects ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Future Scenario ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mean Meridional Circulation ◽  
Change Impact

<p>Energetic electron precipitation (EEP) is an important source of polar nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the upper atmosphere. During winter, mesospheric NOx has a long chemical lifetime and is transported to the stratosphere by the mean meridional circulation. Climate change is expected to accelerate this circulation and therefore increase polar mesospheric descent rates. We investigate the southern hemispheric polar NOx distribution during the 21<sup>st</sup> century under a variety of future scenarios using simulations of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). Each future scenario has the same moderate variable solar activity scenario, where EEP activity is lower than during the 20<sup>th</sup> century. We simulate stronger polar mesospheric descent in all future scenarios that increase the atmospheric radiative forcing. By the end of 21<sup>st</sup> century polar NOx in the upper stratosphere is significantly enhanced in two future scenarios with the largest increase in radiative forcing. This indicates that the ozone depleting NOx cycle will become more important in the future, especially if stratospheric chlorine species decline. Thus, EEP-related atmospheric effects may become more prominent in the future.</p>

scholarly journals A Statistical Tool to Generate Potential Future Climate Scenarios for Hydrology Applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio-Juan Collados-Lara ◽  
David Pulido-Velazquez ◽  
Eulogio Pardo-Igúzquiza
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Mountain Range ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Historical Series ◽  
The Future ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Global warming associated with greenhouse emissions will modify the availability of water resources in the future. Methodologies and tools to assess the impacts of climate change are useful for policy making. In this work, a new tool to generate potential future climate scenarios in a water resources system from historical and regional climate models’ information has been developed. The GROUNDS tool allows generation of the future series of precipitation, temperature (minimum, mean, and maximum), and potential evapotranspiration. It is a valuable tool for assessing the impacts of climate change in hydrological applications since these variables play a significant role in the water cycle, and it can be applicable to any case study. The tool uses different approaches and statistical correction techniques to generate individual local projections and ensembles of them. The non-equifeasible ensembles are created by combining the individual projections whose control or corrected control simulation has a better fit to the historical series in terms of basic and droughts statistics. In this work, the tool is presented, and the methodology implemented is described. It is also applied to a case study to illustrate how the tool works. The tool was previously tested in different typologies of water resources systems that cover different spatial scales (river basin, aquifer, mountain range, and country), obtaining satisfactory results. The local future scenarios can be propagated through appropriate hydrological models to study the impacts on other variables (e.g., aquifer recharge, chloride concentration in coastal aquifers, streamflow, snow cover area, and snow depth). The tool is also useful in quantifying the uncertainties of the future scenarios by combining them with stochastic weather generators.

Altered States: What Will Coral Reefs Look Like in the Future?

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 131-137
Author(s):  
Joanie A. Kleypas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Coral Reef ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Future ◽  
Coral Reef Ecosystems ◽  
Bounce Back

Future environmental conditions for coral reefs are rapidly approaching states outside the ranges reefs have experienced for thousands to millions of years. Coral reef ecosystems, once thought to be robust to climate change because of their ability to bounce back after large scale physical impacts, have proven to be sensitive to both temperature rise and ocean acidification. Predicting what coral reefs will look like in the future is not an easy task, and one that is likely to be proven flawed. The discussion presented here is a starting point for those predictions, mostly from the perspective of reef building and ocean acidification.

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