Benthic estuarine communities in Brazil: moving forward to long term studies to assess climate change impacts

Abstract Estuaries are unique coastal ecosystems that sustain and provide essential ecological services for mankind. Estuarine ecosystems include a variety of habitats with their own sediment-fauna dynamics, all of them globally undergoing alteration or threatened by human activities. Mangrove forests, saltmarshes, tidal flats and other confined estuarine systems are under increasing stress due to human activities leading to habitat and species loss. Combined changes in estuarine hydromorphology and in climate pose severe threats to estuarine ecosystems on a global scale. The ReBentos network is the first integrated attempt in Brazil to monitor estuarine changes in the long term to detect and assess the effects of global warming. This paper is an initial effort of ReBentos to review current knowledge on benthic estuarine ecology in Brazil. We herein present and synthesize all published work on Brazilian estuaries that has focused on the description of benthic communities and related ecological processes. We then use current data on Brazilian estuaries and present recommendations for future studies to address climate change effects, suggesting trends for possible future research and stressing the need for long-term datasets and international partnerships.

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Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

Regional Environmental Change ◽

10.1007/s10113-020-01734-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Heikki S. Lehtonen ◽

Jyrki Aakkula ◽

Stefan Fronzek ◽

Janne Helin ◽

Mikael Hildén ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

National Level ◽

Global Scale ◽

Change Scenario ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Climate Change Research ◽

Food And Agriculture ◽

Agriculture And Food ◽

Farm Subsidies

AbstractShared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), developed at global scale, comprise narrative descriptions and quantifications of future world developments that are intended for climate change scenario analysis. However, their extension to national and regional scales can be challenging. Here, we present SSP narratives co-developed with stakeholders for the agriculture and food sector in Finland. These are derived from intensive discussions at a workshop attended by approximately 39 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background descriptions of the SSPs for Europe, facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of four SSPs reflecting very different contexts for the development of the sector up to 2050 and beyond. Discussions focused on five themes from the perspectives of consumers, producers and policy-makers, included a joint final session and allowed for post-workshop feedback. Results reflect careful sector-based, national-level interpretations of the global SSPs from which we have constructed consensus narratives. Our results also show important critical remarks and minority viewpoints. Interesting features of the Finnish narratives compared to the global SSP narratives include greater emphasis on environmental quality; significant land abandonment in SSPs with reduced livestock production and increased plant-based diets; continued need for some farm subsidies across all SSPs and opportunities for diversifying domestic production under scenarios of restricted trade. Our results can contribute to the development of more detailed national long-term scenarios for food and agriculture that are both relevant for local stakeholders and researchers as well as being consistent with global scenarios being applied internationally.

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Gestation-Based Viability–Difficult Decisions with Far-Reaching Consequences

Children ◽

10.3390/children8070593 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (7) ◽

pp. 593

Author(s):

Sumesh Thomas ◽

Elizabeth Asztalos

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Preterm Birth ◽

Current Knowledge ◽

First Trimester ◽

Perinatal Period ◽

Outcome Data ◽

Future Research ◽

Extremely Preterm ◽

Fetal Maturity

Most clinicians rely on outcome data based on completed weeks of gestational of fetal maturity for antenatal and postnatal counseling, especially for preterm infants born at the margins of viability. Contemporary estimation of gestational maturity, based on ultrasounds, relies on the use of first-trimester scans, which offer an accuracy of ±3–7 days, and depend on the timing of the scans and the measurements used in the calculations. Most published literature on the outcomes of babies born prematurely have reported on short- and long-term outcomes based on completed gestational weeks of fetal maturity at birth. These outcome data change significantly from one week to the next, especially around the margin of gestational viability. With a change in approach solely from decisions based on survival, to disability-free survival and long-term functional outcomes, the complexity of the parental and care provider’s decision-making in the perinatal and postnatal period for babies born at less than 25 weeks gestation remains challenging. While sustaining life following birth at the margins of viability remains our priority—identifying and mitigating risks associated with extremely preterm birth begins in the perinatal period. The challenge of supporting the normal maturation of these babies postnatally has far-reaching consequences and depends on our ability to sustain life while optimizing growth, nutrition, and the repair of organs compromised by the consequences of preterm birth. This article aims to explore the ethical and medical complexities of contemporary decision-making in the perinatal and postnatal periods. We identify gaps in our current knowledge of this topic and suggest areas for future research, while offering a perspective for future collaborative decision-making and care for babies born at the margins of viability.

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Implications of Long-Term Climate Change for Biogeography and Ecological Processes in the Southern Ocean

Oceanography and Marine Biology ◽

10.1201/9780429454455-1 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-71

Author(s):

Christopher D. McQuaid

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Southern Ocean ◽

Ecological Processes

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Soil salinization under different climate change scenarios: A global scale analysis

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13668 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nima Shokri ◽

Amirhossein Hassani ◽

Adisa Azapagic

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

Soil Salinity ◽

Global Scale ◽

Soil Salinization ◽

Water Evaporation ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Spatio Temporal ◽

Salt Affected Soils

Population growth and climate change is projected to increase the pressure on land and water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. This pressure is expected to affect all driving mechanisms of soil salinization comprising alteration in soil hydrological balance, sea salt intrusion, wet/dry deposition of wind-born saline aerosols &#8212; leading to an increase in soil salinity. Soil salinity influences soil stability, bio-diversity, ecosystem functioning and soil water evaporation (1). It can be a long-term threat to agricultural activities and food security. To devise sustainable action plan investments and policy interventions, it is crucial to know when and where salt-affected soils occur. However, current estimates on spatio-temporal variability of salt-affected soils are majorly localized and future projections in response to climate change are rare. Using Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, we related the available measured soil salinity values (represented by electrical conductivity of the saturated paste soil extract, ECe) to some environmental information (or predictors including outputs of Global Circulation Models, soil, crop, topographic, climatic, vegetative, and landscape properties of the sampling locations) to develop a set of data-driven predictive tools to enable the spatio-temporal predictions of soil salinity. The outputs of these tools helped us to estimate the extent and severity of the soil salinity under current and future climatic patterns at different geographical levels and identify the salinization hotspots by the end of the 21st century in response to climate change. Our analysis suggests that a soil area of 11.73 Mkm2 located in non-frigid zones has been salt-affected in at least three-fourths of the 1980 - 2018 period (2). At the country level, Brazil, Peru, Sudan, Colombia, and Namibia were estimated to have the highest rates of annual increase in the total area of soils with an ECe &#8805; 4 dS m-1. Additionally, the results indicate that by the end of the 21st century, drylands of South America, southern and Western Australia, Mexico, southwest United States, and South Africa will be the salinization hotspots (compared to the 1961 - 1990 period). The results of this study could inform decision-making and contribute to attaining the United Nation&#8217;s Sustainable Development Goals for land and water resources management.1. Shokri-Kuehni, S.M.S., Raaijmakers, B., Kurz, T., Or, D., Helmig, R., Shokri, N. (2020). Water Table Depth and Soil Salinization: From Pore-Scale Processes to Field-Scale Responses. Water Resour. Res., 56, e2019WR026707. https://doi.org/ 10.1029/2019WR0267072. Hassani, A., Azapagic, A., Shokri, N. (2020). Predicting Long-term Dynamics of Soil Salinity and Sodicity on a Global Scale, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 117, 52, 33017&#8211;33027. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2013771117

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Climate change impacts the protective effect of forests: A case study in Switzerland

10.21203/rs.3.rs-346221/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christine Moos ◽

Antoine Guisan ◽

Christophe F. Randin ◽

Heike Lischke

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Protective Effect ◽

Climate Warming ◽

Swiss Alps ◽

Present Species ◽

Future Research ◽

Change Scenario ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Ground Truth Data

Abstract In steep terrain, forests play an important role as natural means of protection against natural hazards, such as rockfall. Due to climate warming, significant changes in the protection service of these forests have to be expected in future. Shifts of current to more drought adapted species may result in temporary or even irreversible losses in the risk reduction provided by these forests. In this study, we assessed how the protective effect against rockfall of a protection forest in the western part of the Valais in the Swiss Alps may change in future, by combining dynamic forest modelling with a quantitative risk analysis. Current and future forest development was modelled with the spatially explicit forest model TreeMig for a moderate (RCP4.5) and an extreme (RCP8.5) climate change scenario. The simulated forest scenarios were compared to ground-truth data from the current forest complex. We quantified the protective effect of the different forest scenarios based on the reduction of rockfall risk for people and infrastructure at the bottom of the slope. Rockfall risk was calculated on the basis of three-dimensional rockfall simulations. The forest simulations predicted a clear decrease in basal area of most of the currently present species in future. The forest turned into a Q. pubescens dominated forest, for both climate scenarios, and mixed with P. sylvestris in RCP4.5. F. sylvatica completely disappeared in RCP8.5. With climate warming, a clear increase in risk is expected for both climate change scenarios. In the long-term (> 100 years), a stabilization of risk, or even a slight decline may be expected due to an increase in biomass of the trees. The results of this study further indicate that regular forest interventions may promote regeneration and thus accelerate the shift in species distribution. Future research should address the long-term effect of different forest management strategies on the protection service of forests under climate change.

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Global long-term land surface temperature for NOAA AVHRR: extension from 1981-2000 to 1981-2020

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14373 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jin Ma ◽

Ji Zhou

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface ◽

Global Scale ◽

Mean Bias Error ◽

Bias Error ◽

Important Indicator ◽

Noaa Avhrr

As an important indicator of land-atmosphere energy interaction, land surface temperature (LST) plays an important role in the research of climate change, hydrology, and various land surface processes. Compared with traditional ground-based observation, satellite remote sensing provides the possibility to retrieve LST more efficiently over a global scale. Since the lack of global LST before, Ma et al., (2020) released a global 0.05 &#215;0.05&#160; long-term (1981-2000) LST based on NOAA-7/9/11/14 AVHRR. The dataset includes three layers: (1) instantaneous LST, a product generated based on an ensemble of several split-window algorithms with a random forest (RF-SWA); (2) orbital-drift-corrected (ODC) LST, a drift-corrected version of RF-SWA LST at 14:30 solar time; and (3) monthly averages of ODC LST. To meet the requirement of the long-term application, e.g. climate change, the period of the LST is extended from 1981-2000 to 1981-2020 in this study. The LST from 2001 to 2020 are retrieved from NOAA-16/18/19 AVHRR with the same algorithm for NOAA-7/8/11/14 AVHRR. The train and test results based on the simulation data from SeeBor and TIGR atmospheric profiles show that the accuracy of the RF-SWA method for the three sensors is consistent with the previous four sensors, i.e. the mean bias error and standard deviation less than 0.10 K and 1.10 K, respectively, under the assumption that the maximum emissivity and water vapor content uncertainties are 0.04 and 1.0 g/cm2, respectively. The preliminary validation against in-situ LST also shows a similar accuracy, indicating that the accuracy of LST from 1981 to 2020 are consistent with each other. In the generation code, the new LST has been improved in terms of land surface emissivity estimation, identification of cloud pixel, and the ODC method in order to generate a more reliable LST dataset. Up to now, the new version LST product (1981-2020) is under generating and will be released soon in support of the scientific research community.

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Physiological and morphological effects of climate change

Effects of Climate Change on Birds ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198824268.003.0010 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 120-133 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Andrew E. McKechnie

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Body Mass ◽

High Temperatures ◽

Arid Zone ◽

Future Research ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Heat Events

The direct impacts of higher temperatures on birds are manifested over timescales ranging from minutes and hours to years and decades. Over short timescales, acute exposure to high temperatures can lead to hyperthermia or dehydration, which among arid-zone species occasionally causes catastrophic mortality events. Over intermediate timescales of days to weeks, high temperatures can have chronic sub-lethal effects via body mass loss or reduced nestling growth rates, negatively affecting sev eral fitness components. Long-term effects of warming manifested over years to decades involve declining body mass or changes in appendage size. Key directions for future research include elucidating the role of phenotypic plasticity and epigenetic processes in avian adaptation to climate change, examining the role of stress pathways in mediating responses to heat events, and understanding the consequences of higher temperatures for species that traverse hot regions while migrating.

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Missing links in the study of solute and particle exchange between the sea floor and water column

ICES Journal of Marine Science ◽

10.1093/icesjms/fsaa060 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 77 (5) ◽

pp. 1602-1616 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Saskia Rühl ◽

Charlie Thompson ◽

Ana M Queirós ◽

Stephen Widdicombe

Keyword(s):

Water Column ◽

Current Knowledge ◽

Anthropogenic Impacts ◽

Future Research ◽

Sea Floor ◽

Marine Habitats ◽

Exchange Processes ◽

Ecosystem Level ◽

Particle Exchange

Abstract Exchanges of solutes and solids between the sea floor and water column are a vital component of ecosystem functioning in marine habitats around the globe. This review explores particle and solute exchange processes, the different mechanisms through which they interact at the ecosystem level, as well as their interdependencies. Solute and particle exchange processes are highly dependent on the characteristics of the environment within which they takes place. Exchange is driven directly by a number of factors, such as currents, granulometry, nutrient, and matter inputs, as well as living organisms. In turn, the occurrence of exchanges can influence adjacent environments and organisms. Major gaps in the present knowledge include the temporal and spatial variation in many of the processes driving benthic/pelagic exchange processes and the variability in the relative importance of individual processes caused by this variation. Furthermore, the accurate assessment of some anthropogenic impacts is deemed questionable due to a lack of baseline data and long-term effects of anthropogenic actions are often unknown. It is suggested that future research should be transdisciplinary and at ecosystem level wherever possible and that baseline surveys should be implemented and long-term observatories established to fill the current knowledge gaps.

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Separating the Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Runoff: A Review of Method and Application

Water ◽

10.3390/w12082201 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 2201 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Feng Zeng ◽

Ming-Guo Ma ◽

Dong-Rui Di ◽

Wei-Yu Shi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Research Methods ◽

Human Activities ◽

Future Research ◽

Research Needs ◽

Relevant Research ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The Impact ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

Separating the impact of climate change and human activities on runoff is an important topic in hydrology, and a large number of methods and theories have been widely used. In this paper, we review the current papers on separating the impacts of climate and human activities on runoff, summarize the progress of relevant research methods and applications in recent years, and discuss future research needs and directions.

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Climate change and Canada’s north coast: research trends, progress, and future directions

Environmental Reviews ◽

10.1139/er-2017-0027 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 82-92 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

James D. Ford ◽

Nicole Couture ◽

Trevor Bell ◽

Dylan G. Clark

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Current Knowledge ◽

Geographic Location ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Evidence Base ◽

North Coast ◽

Future Research ◽

Northern Coast ◽

Knowledge Mobilization ◽

Interdisciplinary Approaches

This paper identifies and characterizes current knowledge on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability for Canada’s northern coastline, outlining key research gaps. Warming temperatures and increased precipitation have been documented across the northern coast, with the rate of sea ice decline ranging from 2.9% to 10.4% per decade. Storm intensity and frequency is increasing, and permafrost is warming across the region. Many of these changes are projected to accelerate in the future, with in excess of 8 °C warming in winter possible under a high-emission scenario by 2081–2100. Vulnerability to these changes differs by region and community, a function of geographic location, nature of climate change impacts, and human factors. Capacity to manage climate change is high in some sectors, such as subsistence harvesting, but is being undermined by long-term societal changes. In other sectors, such as infrastructure and transportation, limitations in climate risk management capacity result in continuing high vulnerabilities. There is evidence that adaptation is taking place in response to experienced and projected impacts, although readiness for adaptation is challenged by limited resources, institutional capacity, and a need for support for adaptation across levels of government. Priority areas for future research include (i) expanding the sectoral and geographic focus of understanding on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability; (ii) integrating climatic and socio-economic projections into vulnerability and adaptation assessments; (iii) developing an evidence base on adaptation options; and (iv) monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of adaptation support. Cross-cutting themes for advancing climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability research on the north coast more broadly include the need for greater emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches and cross-cultural collaborations, support for decision-orientated research, and focus on effective knowledge mobilization.

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