scholarly journals Global change affects differently at local scales animal populations: why Starlings still expands to the south while other temperate species go to the north?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Rodriguez ◽  
Giuseppe La Gioia ◽  
Patricia Le Quilliec ◽  
Damien Fourcy ◽  
Philippe Clergeau
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Sturnus Vulgaris ◽  
European Starling ◽  
Distribution Area ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Animal Populations ◽  
The World ◽  
Landscape Transformations

Global change, which regroups global warming, landscape transformations and other anthropic modifications of ecosystems, has effects on populations and communities and produces modifications in the expansion area of species. While some species disappear, other ones are beneficiated by the new conditions and some of them evolve in new adapted forms or leave their ancient distribution area. As climate change tends to increase the temperature in several regions of the world, some species have been seen to leave areas in equatorial regions in order to join colder areas either towards the north of the northern hemisphere or towards the south of the southern one. Many birds as have moved geographically in direction to the poles and in many cases they have anticipated their laying dates. Actually, two tit species that use to lay their eggs in a period that their fledging dates synchronize with the emerging dates of caterpillars are now evolving to reproductive in periods earlier than before the climate change. Several species are reacting like that and other ones are moving to the north in Europe for example. Nevertheless, and very curiously, European starling, Sturnus vulgaris, populations are behaving on the contrary: their laying dates are moving towards later spring and their distribution area is moving towards the south. In this study we explore and discuss about different factors that may explain this difference from other birds.

scholarly journals Assessing the Sensitivity of Main Crop Yields to Climate Change Impacts in China

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 172
Author(s):  
Yuan Xu ◽  
Jieming Chou ◽  
Fan Yang ◽  
Mingyang Sun ◽  
Weixing Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Climatic Data ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Output Elasticity ◽  
The Impact

Quantitatively assessing the spatial divergence of the sensitivity of crop yield to climate change is of great significance for reducing the climate change risk to food production. We use socio-economic and climatic data from 1981 to 2015 to examine how climate variability led to variation in yield, as simulated by an economy–climate model (C-D-C). The sensitivity of crop yield to the impact of climate change refers to the change in yield caused by changing climatic factors under the condition of constant non-climatic factors. An ‘output elasticity of comprehensive climate factor (CCF)’ approach determines the sensitivity, using the yields per hectare for grain, rice, wheat and maize in China’s main grain-producing areas as a case study. The results show that the CCF has a negative trend at a rate of −0.84/(10a) in the North region, while a positive trend of 0.79/(10a) is observed for the South region. Climate change promotes the ensemble increase in yields, and the contribution of agricultural labor force and total mechanical power to yields are greater, indicating that the yield in major grain-producing areas mainly depends on labor resources and the level of mechanization. However, the sensitivities to climate change of different crop yields to climate change present obvious regional differences: the sensitivity to climate change of the yield per hectare for maize in the North region was stronger than that in the South region. Therefore, the increase in the yield per hectare for maize in the North region due to the positive impacts of climate change was greater than that in the South region. In contrast, the sensitivity to climate change of the yield per hectare for rice in the South region was stronger than that in the North region. Furthermore, the sensitivity to climate change of maize per hectare yield was stronger than that of rice and wheat in the North region, and that of rice was the highest of the three crop yields in the South region. Finally, the economy–climate sensitivity zones of different crops were determined by the output elasticity of the CCF to help adapt to climate change and prevent food production risks.

Climatology and Trends of Climate Extremes of Temperature and Precipitation in Belo Monte Hydropower Plant – Eastern Amazon, Brazil

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanderson Luiz-Silva ◽  
Pedro Regoto ◽  
Camila Ferreira de Vasconcellos ◽  
Felipe Bevilaqua Foldes Guimarães ◽  
Katia Cristina Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
The South ◽  
North Central ◽  
Adaptation Capacity ◽  
The North ◽  
South Central ◽  
Daily Data ◽  
Belo Monte

<p>This research aims to support studies related to the adaptation capacity of the Amazon region to climate change. The Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) is in the Xingu River basin, in eastern Amazonia. Deforestation coupled with changes in water bodies that occurred in the drainage area of Belo Monte HPP over the past few decades can significantly influence the hydroclimatic features and, consequently, ecosystems and energy generation in the region. In this context, we analyze the climatology and trends of climate extremes in this area. The climate information comes from daily data in grid points of 0.25° x 0.25° for the period 1980-2013, available in http://careyking.com/data-downloads/. A set of 17 climate extremes indices based on daily data of maximum temperature (TX), minimum temperature (TN), and precipitation (PRCP) was calculated through the RClimDex software, recommended by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). The Mann-Kendall and the Sen’s Curvature tests are used to assess the statistical significance and the magnitude of the trends, respectively. The drainage area of the Belo Monte HPP is dominated by two climatic types: an equatorial climate in the north-central portion of the basin, with high temperatures and little variation throughout the year (22°C to 32°C), in addition to more frequent precipitation; and a tropical climate in the south-central sector, which experiences slightly more pronounced temperature variations throughout the year (20°C to 33°C) and presents a more defined wet and dry periods. The south-central portion of the basin exhibits the highest temperature extremes, with the highest TX and the lowest TN of the year occurring in this area, both due to the predominant days of clear skies in the austral winter, as to the advance of intense masses of polar air at this period. The diurnal temperature range is lower in the north-central sector when compared to that in the south-central region since the first has greater cloud cover and a higher frequency of precipitation. The largest annual rainfall volumes are concentrated at the north and west sides (more than 1,800 mm) and the precipitation extremes are heterogeneous across the basin. The maximum number of consecutive dry days increases from the north (10 to 20 days) to the south (90 to 100 days). The annual frequency of warm days and nights is increasing significantly in a large part of the basin with a magnitude ranging predominantly from +7 to +19 days/decade. The annual rainfall shows a predominant elevation sign of up to +200 mm/decade only in the northern part of the basin, while the remainder shows a reduction of up to -100 mm/decade. The duration of drought periods increases in the south-central sector of the basin, reaching up to +13 days/decade in some areas. The results of this study will be used in the future as an important input, together with exposure, sensibility, and local adaptation capacity, to design adaptation strategies that are more consistent with local reality and to the needs of local communities.</p>

Temür and the problem of a conqueror's legacy

1998 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Forbes Manz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Stress ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The South ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Temür has been many things to many people. He was nomad and city-builder, Turk and promoter of Persian culture, restorer of the Mongol order and warrior for the spread of Islam. One thing he was to all: a conqueror of unequalled scope, able to subdue both the vast areas of nomad power to the north and the centres of agrarian Islamic culture to the south. The history of his successors was one of increasing political fragmentation and economic stress. Yet they too won fame, as patrons over a period of brilliant cultural achievement in Persian and Turkic. Temür's career raises a number of questions. Why did he find it necessary to pile conquest upon conquest, each more ambitious than the last? Having conceived dreams of dominion, where did he get the power and money to fulfill them? When he died, what legacy did Temür leave to his successors and to the world which they tried to control? Finally, what was this world of Turk and Persian, and where did Temür and the Timurids belong within it?

scholarly journals Rates of consumption of atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> through the weathering of loess during the next 100 yr of climate change

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Goddéris ◽  
S. L. Brantley ◽  
L. M. François ◽  
J. Schott ◽  
D. Pollard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Reaction Front ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Atmospheric Co2 ◽  
Co2 Production ◽  
Depth Interval ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
The Future

Abstract. Quantifying how C fluxes will change in the future is a complex task for models because of the coupling between climate, hydrology, and biogeochemical reactions. Here we investigate how pedogenesis of the Peoria loess, which has been weathering for the last 13 kyr, will respond over the next 100 yr of climate change. Using a cascade of numerical models for climate (ARPEGE), vegetation (CARAIB) and weathering (WITCH), we explore the effect of an increase in CO2 of 315 ppmv (1950) to 700 ppmv (2100 projection). The increasing CO2 results in an increase in temperature along the entire transect. In contrast, drainage increases slightly for a focus pedon in the south but decreases strongly in the north. These two variables largely determine the behavior of weathering. In addition, although CO2 production rate increases in the soils in response to global warming, the rate of diffusion back to the atmosphere also increases, maintaining a roughly constant or even decreasing CO2 concentration in the soil gas phase. Our simulations predict that temperature increasing in the next 100 yr causes the weathering rates of the silicates to increase into the future. In contrast, the weathering rate of dolomite – which consumes most of the CO2 – decreases in both end members (south and north) of the transect due to its retrograde solubility. We thus infer slower rates of advance of the dolomite reaction front into the subsurface, and faster rates of advance of the silicate reaction front. However, additional simulations for 9 pedons located along the north–south transect show that the dolomite weathering advance rate will increase in the central part of the Mississippi Valley, owing to a maximum in the response of vertical drainage to the ongoing climate change. The carbonate reaction front can be likened to a terrestrial lysocline because it represents a depth interval over which carbonate dissolution rates increase drastically. However, in contrast to the lower pH and shallower lysocline expected in the oceans with increasing atmospheric CO2, we predict a deeper lysocline in future soils. Furthermore, in the central Mississippi Valley, soil lysocline deepening accelerates but in the south and north the deepening rate slows. This result illustrates the complex behavior of carbonate weathering facing short term global climate change. Predicting the global response of terrestrial weathering to increased atmospheric CO2 and temperature in the future will mostly depend upon our ability to make precise assessments of which areas of the globe increase or decrease in precipitation and soil drainage.

scholarly journals Hydrogeology of Brahmaputra Basin, India

2003 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barendra Purkait
Keyword(s):  
Ground Water ◽  
Water Table ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Flood Plain ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
The South ◽  
Drainage Pattern ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Brahmaputra Basin

The Ganga-Brahmaputra river system together forms one of the largest deltas in the world comprising some 59570 sq km. The waterpower resources of the Brahmaputra have been presumed to be the fourth biggest in the world being 19.83 x 103 m3s1. The entire lower portion of the Brahmaputra consists of a vast network of distributary channels, which are dry in the cold season but are inundated during monsoon. The catchment area of the entire river is about 580,000 sq km, out of which 195,000 sq km lies in India. The maximum discharge as measured at Pandu in 1962 was of the order of 72800 m3 s-1 while the minimum was 1750 m3 s-1 in 1968. The drainage pattern in the valley is of antecedent type while the yazoo drainage pattern is most significant over the composite flood plain to the south of the Brahmaputra. The Brahmaputra valley is covered by Recent alluvium throughout its stretch except a few isolated sedimentary hills in the upper Assam, inselbergs/bornhardt of gneissic hills in the Darrang, Kamrup and Goalpara districts and a few inlying patches of Older Alluvium in the Darrang and Goalpara districts. The basin is very unstable. The present configuration of the basin is the result of uplift and subsidence of the Precambrian crystalline landmasses. Four geotectonic provinces can be delineated in the N-E India through which the Brahmaputra flows. These are bounded by major tectonic lineaments such as the basement E-W trending Dauki fault, a NE-SW trending structural feature of imbricate thrusts known as 'belt of Schuppen' and the NW-SE trending Mishmi thrust. Hydrogeologically, the Brahmaputra basin can be divided into two distinct categories, viz(a) dissected alluvial plain and (b) the inselberg zone. The first category is rep resented in the flood plain extending from the south of Sub-Himalayan piedmont fan zone in the north to right upto the main rock promontory of Garo Hills and Shillong Plateau. The inselberg zone is characterized by fractured, jointed and weathered ancient crystalline rocks with interhill narrow valley plains, consisting of thin to occasionally thick piles of assorted sediments. From the subsurface lithological data, two broad groups of aquifers are identified. These are i) shallow water table and ii) deeper water table or confined ones, separated by a system of aquicludes. The shallow aquifer materials, in general, consist of white to greyish white, fine grained micaceous sand and the thickness ranges from 1.2 to 10.3 m. The sand and clay ratio varies from 1: 2.5 to 1:26. The bedrock occurs at depth ranges of 30.4 to 39.5 m. The materials of the deeper aquifers comprise grey to greyish white, fine to medium grained sand. The sand and clay ratio varies from 1:2 to 1:7. The effective size of the aquifer materials varies from 0.125 to 0.062 mm with uniformity co-efficient around 4.00, porosity 38 to 42%, co-efficient of permeability 304 to 390 galls per day/0.3m2. The ground water is mildly alkaline with pH value 6.5 to 8.5, chloride 10 to 40 ppm, bi-carbonate 50 to 350 ppm, iron content ranges from a fraction of a ppm to 50 ppm. Total dissolved solids are low, hardness as CaCo3 50 to 300 ppm, specific conductance at 25 °C 150 to 650 mhos/cm. The yield from shallow aquifers is 1440 litres to 33750 litres/hour and for deeper aquifers ~ 1700 litres/hour at a drawdown of 13.41 m, specific capacity 21 litres/minute. The temperatures of ground water are 23°-25° C during winter, 24°-26° C during pre-monsoon and 27°- 28° C during peak monsoon. The general hydraulic gradient in the north bank is 1:800 whereas in the south bank it is 1: 300-400 The Tertiary sediments yield a range of water from 200 to 300 l.p.m whereas the yield from the Older Alluvium is 500 to 700 1.p.m. The estimated transmissibility and co-efficient of storage is of the order of ~ 800 1.p.m/ m and 8.2 x 10-3 respectively. Depths to water levels range from 5.3 to 10m below land surface (b.l.s). In the Younger or Newer Alluvium, ground water occurs both under water table and confined conditions. Depths to water levels vary from ground level to 10 m b.l.s. Depth to water ranges from 6 m b.l.s. to 2 m above land surface. The yield of the deep tubewells ranges from 2 to 4 kl/minute for a drawdown of 3 m to 6 m. The transmissibility of the aquifers varies from 69 to 1600 l.p.m/m and the storage co-fficient is of the order of 3.52 x 10-2.

Decolonising cities of the global South in the classroom and beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 535-552
Author(s):  
Astrid Wood
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
North And South

In the post-colonial context, the global South has become the approved nomenclature for the non-European, non-Western parts of the world. The term promises a departure from post-colonial development geographies and from the material and discursive legacies of colonialism by ostensibly blurring the bifurcations between developed and developing, rich and poor, centre and periphery. In concept, the post-colonial literature mitigates the disparity between cities of the North and South by highlighting the achievements of elsewhere. But what happens when we try to teach this approach in the classroom? How do we locate the South without relying on concepts of otherness? And how do we communicate the importance of the South without re-creating the regional hierarchies that have dominated for far too long? This article outlines the academic arguments before turning to the opportunities and constraints associated with delivering an undergraduate module that teaches post-colonial concepts without relying on colonial constructs.

Origins

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-27
Author(s):  
Kenneth P. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
The South ◽  
Origin Stories ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Maritime Province

This chapter argues that the polarization of Texas and California can be traced to their origins. The chapter examines the two states’ common experiences as possessions of Spain and Mexico; their mid-nineteenth century American settlement, conquest, and admission as states; and their opposite positions on the questions of slavery and secession. Although the two origin stories have similarities, they also bear crucial differences. Texas’s bloody independence struggle and its decade-long career as an independent nation were different from California’s experience as a remote maritime province inundated by a global gold rush and its rapid admission to the Union. Most critically, Texas was settled by American southerners and was oriented toward the South, while California was settled by migrants from across the nation and around the world and was oriented toward the North. These differences became imprinted in the states’ identities and helped shape their futures.

scholarly journals Ocean Warming Effect on Surface Gravity Wave Climate Change for the End of the Twenty-First Century

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (16) ◽  
pp. 6046-6066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yalin Fan ◽  
Isaac M. Held ◽  
Shian-Jiann Lin ◽  
Xiaolan L. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Austral Summer ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
First Century ◽  
The South ◽  
Coupled Models ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Twenty First Century

Abstract Surface wind (U10) and significant wave height (Hs) response to global warming are investigated using a coupled atmosphere–wave model by perturbing the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) with anomalies generated by the Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) coupled models that use the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4)/Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A1B (SRES A1B) scenario late in the twenty-first century. Several consistent changes were observed across all four realizations for the seasonal means: robust increase of U10 and Hs in the Southern Ocean for both the austral summer and winter due to the poleward shift of the jet stream; a dipole pattern of the U10 and Hs with increases in the northeast sector and decreases at the midlatitude during boreal winter in the North Atlantic due to the more frequent occurrence of the positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); and strong decrease of U10 and Hs in the tropical western Pacific Ocean during austral summer, which might be caused by the joint effect of the weakening of the Walker circulation and the large hurricane frequency decrease in the South Pacific. Changes of the 99th percentile U10 and Hs are twice as strong as changes in the seasonal means, and the maximum changes are mainly dominated by the changes in hurricanes. Robust strong decreases of U10 and Hs in the South Pacific are obtained because of the large hurricane frequency decrease, while the results in the Northern Hemisphere basins differ among the models. An additional sensitivity experiment suggests that the qualitative response of U10 and Hs is not affected by using SST anomalies only and maintaining the radiative forcing unchanged (using 1980 values), as in this study.

‘Take it from the top’: northern conceptions about identity in the western Arctic and beyond

Polar Record ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 222-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Northwest Territories ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The South ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
Western Arctic ◽  
Student Researchers

ABSTRACTDuring the last decades the Arctic has become more central on the world stage. However, despite increased interest how much do people really know about ‘the north’ and the ‘northern people’? The aim of this article is to chronicle a research project by students, who saw themselves as northerners, that used video to capture northerners’ definitions of the north, as well as asking the community about what they wanted newcomers and southern Canada to know about the north. The group also embarked on a new discipline of northerners studying ‘the south’. 43 students interviewed 95 people in the Beaufort Delta, Northwest Territories and 25 people in Edmonton, Alberta. The student researchers’ responses and that of their interviewees are some of the most direct messages on how northerners view their identity and that of their fellow southern Canadians. This project created a video tool to share, educate, and commence a dialogue between people about the north straight from the source.

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