Tropical monodominant forest resilience to climate change in Central Africa: A Gilbertiodendron dewevrei forest pollen record over the past 2,700 years

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Tovar ◽  
David J. Harris ◽  
Elinor Breman ◽  
Terry Brncic ◽  
Kathy J. Willis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Pollen Record ◽  
The Past ◽  
Forest Resilience ◽  
Gilbertiodendron Dewevrei

Central European vegetation and climate dynamics during the past 130 ka at Füramoos, SW Germany

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Kern ◽  
Frederik Allstädt ◽  
Andreas Koutsodendris ◽  
Bertil Mächtle ◽  
Gerd Schukraft ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Boreal Forests ◽  
Pollen Record ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Alps ◽  
Mis 5E ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Last Glacial

<p>To better understand the response of Central European vegetation to rapid climate change during the late Quaternary, we have revisited the Füramoos peat bog in southwestern Germany. Located between two moraine ridges of Rissian age and comprising a near-complete sedimentary sequence from late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 to 1, this peat bog represents the longest continuous pollen record from the last glacial-interglacial cycle north of the Alps. The Füramoos site has been in the focus of several palynological studies in the past, showing that it presents an excellent archive to study the impact of Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events on the Central European ecosystems (e.g., Müller et al., 2003). However, these previous studies were only of limited temporal resolution, which has yet precluded detailed insight into the ecosystem response to short-term climate change. We present a new, highly resolved pollen record (temporal resolution: 80–200 yrs) and XRF core scanning data from Füramoos spanning the past ~130 ka based on two new drill cores that consist of peat and lake sediments (Kern et al., 2019).</p><p>Our results show that closed temperate forests thrived at Füramoos during full interglacials characterized by <em>Alnus</em>, <em>Corylus</em>, <em>Quercus</em>, and <em>Ulmus</em>. The major difference between the past two interglacials is that <em>Fagus</em> dominates during MIS 1 whereas it is mostly absent during MIS 5e. During MIS 5, the vegetation evolved from closed temperate (MIS 5e) to boreal forests (dominated by <em>Betula</em>, <em>Picea</em>, and <em>Pinus</em>; MIS 5d–5a). The youngest part of the last interglacial (MIS 5d–5a) is marked by six distinct forests contractions (decreases in arboreal pollen by ~30–50%) before the establishment of a steppe vegetation that prevailed throughout the Last Glacial (MIS 2–4). In addition, seven transient increases in tree-pollen percentages document the expansion of boreal forests during MIS 2–4; they are associated with synchronous increases of Si, Ti, K and Fe contents as evidenced in XRF data.</p><p>We attribute the forest contractions during MIS 5d–5a to the cooling events C19–C24 known from marine records in the North Atlantic and terrestrial records from southern Europe. Moreover, the forest expansions during MIS 2–4 are associated with warm and moist conditions occurring during D-O events 7–12, and 14. In contrast, D-O events 13 and 15–19 don’t leave an imprint on the vegetation although their presence is clearly documented in the XRF data. Our findings emphasize that the sediments from Füramoos are exceptionally well suited to reconstruct ecosystem dynamics in Central Europe yielding unprecedented insight into the vegetation response to short-term climatic forcing north of the Alps during the past 130 kyrs.</p><p> </p><p>Müller, U.C., Pross, J., Bibus, E., 2003. Vegetation response to rapid climate change in Central Europe during the past 140,000 yr based on evidence from the Füramoos pollen record. <em>Quaternary Research</em> 59, 235–245.</p><p>Kern, O.A., Koutsodendris, A., Mächtle, B., et al., 2019. X-ray fluorescence core scanning yields reliable semiquantitative data on the elemental composition of peat and organic-rich lake sediments. <em>Science of the Total Environment</em> 697, 134110.</p>

Denouement: World Politics, Systemic Leadership, and Climate Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
World Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Climate Fluctuations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Agrarian Economy ◽  
Historical Processes

In this final chapter, we conclude by recapitulating our argument and evidence. One goal of this work has been to improve our understanding of the patterns underlying the evolution of world politics over the past one thousand years. How did we get to where we are now? Where and when did the “modern” world begin? How did we shift from a primarily agrarian economy to a primarily industrial one? How did these changes shape world politics? A related goal was to examine more closely the factors that led to the most serious attempts by states to break free of agrarian constraints. We developed an interactive model of the factors that we thought were most likely to be significant. Finally, a third goal was to examine the linkages between the systemic leadership that emerged from these historical processes and the global warming crisis of the twenty-first century. Climate change means that the traditional energy platforms for system leadership—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—have become counterproductive. The ultimate irony is that we thought that the harnessing of carbon fuels made us invulnerable to climate fluctuations, while the exact opposite turns out to be true. The more carbon fuels are consumed, the greater the damage done to the atmosphere. In many respects, the competition for systemic leadership generated this problem. Yet it is unclear whether systemic leadership will be up to the task of resolving it.

scholarly journals Ensemble models on palaeoclimate to predict India's groundwater challenge

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Partha Sarathi Datta
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Humid Climate ◽  
Ensemble Models ◽  
North West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
14C Age

In many parts of the world, freshwater crisis is largely due to increasing water consumption and pollution by rapidly growing population and aspirations for economic development, but, ascribed usually to the climate. However, limited understanding and knowledge gaps in the factors controlling climate and uncertainties in the climate models are unable to assess the probable impacts on water availability in tropical regions. In this context, review of ensemble models on δ18O and δD in rainfall and groundwater, 3H- and 14C- ages of groundwater and 14C- age of lakes sediments helped to reconstruct palaeoclimate and long-term recharge in the North-west India; and predict future groundwater challenge. The annual mean temperature trend indicates both warming/cooling in different parts of India in the past and during 1901–2010. Neither the GCMs (Global Climate Models) nor the observational record indicates any significant change/increase in temperature and rainfall over the last century, and climate change during the last 1200 yrs BP. In much of the North-West region, deep groundwater renewal occurred from past humid climate, and shallow groundwater renewal from limited modern recharge over the past decades. To make water management to be more responsive to climate change, the gaps in the science of climate change need to be bridged.

scholarly journals Chlorine-free synthesis: An overview

2012 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro Tundo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Special Topic ◽  
Ozone Layer Depletion ◽  
The Past ◽  
Process Chemistry ◽  
End Products ◽  
Chemical Strategies ◽  
Topic Issue

Since the Industrial Revolution, chlorine has featured as an iconic molecule in process chemistry even though its production by electrolysis of sodium chloride is very energy-intensive. Owing to its high energy and reactivity, chlorine allows the manufacture of chlorinated derivatives in a very easy way: AlCl3, SnCl4, TiCl4, SiCl4, ZnCl2, PCl3, PCl5, POCl3, COCl2, etc. in turn are pillar intermediates in the production of numerous everyday goods. This kind of chloride chemistry is widely used because the energy is transferred to these intermediates, making further syntheses easy. The environmental and health constraints (toxicity and eco-toxicity, ozone layer depletion) and the growing need for energy (energy efficiency, climate change) force us to take advantage from available knowledge to develop new chemical strategies. Substitution of chlorine in end products in compounds where “chlorine is used in the making” means that we avoid electrolysis as primary energetic source; this makes chemistry “without chlorine” considerably more difficult and illustrates why it has not found favor in the past. The rationale behind this Special Topic issue is to seek useful and industrially relevant examples for alternatives to chlorine in synthesis, so as to facilitate the development of industrially relevant and implementable breakthrough technologies.

Alpine sparsely vegetated areas in the eastern Qilian Mountains shrank with climate warming in the past 30 years

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biao Zeng ◽  
Fuguang Zhang ◽  
Taibao Yang ◽  
Jiaguo Qi ◽  
Mihretab G Ghebrezgabher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Warming ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Qilian Mountains ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Hydrothermal Conditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Distribution Ranges

Alpine sparsely vegetated areas (ASVAs) in mountains are sensitive to climate change and rarely studied. In this study, we focused on the response of ASVA distribution to climate change in the eastern Qilian Mountains (EQLM) from the 1990s to the 2010s. The ASVA distribution ranges in the EQLM during the past three decades were obtained from the Thematic Mapper remote sensing digital images by using the threshold of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and artificial visual interpretation. Results indicated that the ASVA shrank gradually in the EQLM and lost its area by approximately 11.4% from the 1990s to the 2010s. The shrunken ASVA with markedly more area than the expanded one was mainly located at altitudes from 3700 m to 4300 m, which were comparatively lower than the average altitude of the ASVA distribution ranges. This condition led to the low ASVA boundaries in the EQLM moving upwards at a significant velocity of 22 m/decade at the regional scale. This vertical zonal process was modulated by topography-induced differences in local hydrothermal conditions. Thus, the ASVA shrank mainly in its lower parts with mild and sunny slopes. Annual maximum NDVI in the transition zone increased significantly and showed a stronger positive correlation with significantly increasing temperature than insignificant precipitation variations during 1990–2015. The ASVA shrinkage and up-shifting of its boundary were attributed to climate warming, which facilitated the upper part of alpine meadow in the EQLM by releasing the low temperature limitation on vegetation growth.

Climate change features along the Brahmaputra Valley in the past 26 years and possible causes

2010 ◽  
Vol 106 (4) ◽  
pp. 649-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minhong Song ◽  
Yaoming Ma ◽  
Yu Zhang ◽  
Maoshan Li ◽  
Weiqiang Ma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Brahmaputra Valley
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