scholarly journals Multicore Study of Upper Holocene Mire Development in West-Frisia, Northern Netherlands: Ecological and Archaeological Aspects

Quaternary ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Bas van Geel ◽  
Otto Brinkkemper ◽  
Guido B.A. van Reenen ◽  
Nathalie N.L. Van der Putten ◽  
Jasmijn E. Sybenga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Salt Water ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Freshwater Wetlands ◽  
Freshwater Wetland ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Raised Bog ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Poor Fen

We studied twelve late Holocene organic deposits in West-Frisia, The Netherlands. Pollen, spores, non-pollen palynomorphs, mosses, other botanical macrofossils and insect remains were recorded for reconstructions of changing environmental conditions. Eastern West-Frisia was a cultivated landscape during the Bronze Age, but it became a freshwater wetland in the Late Bronze Age. In most of our sites, radiocarbon dates show that time transgressive inundation of soils preceded the climate shift at 850 cal BC for several centuries. We suggest that solar forcing of climate change may have delivered the final push to the inundation and depopulation of West-Frisia, which had already commenced several centuries before, due to sealevel rise. We did not find evidence for significant Bronze Age tree growth in West-Frisia before the inundations. Vegetation successions in the new wetlands developed from shallow mineral-rich freshwater to rich-fen vegetation. Subsequently poor fen vegetation with birch and pine developed, and the natural succession led to ombrotrophic raised bog vegetation. Complete successions from shallow, mineral-rich lakes to raised bog lasted between 1000 and 1500 calendar years. We hypothesize that medieval drainage and reclamation became possible only when the mires of West-Frisia had reached the raised bog stage. Reclamation of raised bogs by medieval farmers (drainage, eutrophication, peat digging) caused compaction, oxidation and loss of the upper part of the peat deposit. Seeds of salt-tolerant and salt-demanding plant species indicate that the medieval sites were inundated during storm surges with brackish or salt water, which triggered the farmers to build artificial mounds and, later, dikes. Under mounds and dikes, peat deposits remained protected against further decay. With our data we deliver a long-term perspective on contemporary ecosystem dynamics of freshwater wetlands, relevant for nature conservation and future climate change.

scholarly journals The PROFOUND database for evaluating vegetation models and simulating climate impacts on forests

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. O. Reyer ◽  
Ramiro Silveyra Gonzalez ◽  
Klara Dolos ◽  
Florian Hartig ◽  
Ylva Hauf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nitrogen Deposition ◽  
Forest Stand ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Flat File ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Vegetation Models

Abstract. Process-based vegetation models are widely used to predict local and global ecosystem dynamics and climate change impacts. Due to their complexity, they require careful parameterization and evaluation to ensure that projections are accurate and reliable. The PROFOUND Database (PROFOUND DB) provides a wide range of empirical data to calibrate and evaluate vegetation models that simulate climate impacts at the forest stand scale. A particular advantage of this database is its wide coverage of multiple data sources at different hierarchical and temporal scales, together with environmental driving data as well as the latest climate scenarios. Specifically, the PROFOUND DB provides general site descriptions, soil, climate, CO2, nitrogen deposition, tree and forest stand-level, as well as remote sensing data for nine contrasting forest stands distributed across Europe. Moreover, for a subset of five sites, time series of carbon fluxes, atmospheric heat conduction, and soil water are also available. The climate and nitrogen deposition data contain several datasets for the historic period and a wide range of future climate change scenarios following the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, RCP8.5). We also provide pre-industrial climate simulations that allow for model runs aimed at disentangling the contribution of climate change to observed forest productivity changes. The PROFOUND DB is available freely as a SQLite relational database or ASCII flat file version (at https://doi.org/10.5880/PIK.2019.008). The data policies of the individual, contributing datasets are provided in the metadata of each data file. The PROFOUND DB can also be accessed via the ProfoundData R-package (https://github.com/COST-FP1304-PROFOUND/ProfoundData), which provides basic functions to explore, plot, and extract the data for model set-up, calibration and evaluation.

scholarly journals The PROFOUND Database for evaluating vegetation models and simulating climate impacts on European forests

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 1295-1320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. O. Reyer ◽  
Ramiro Silveyra Gonzalez ◽  
Klara Dolos ◽  
Florian Hartig ◽  
Ylva Hauf ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nitrogen Deposition ◽  
Forest Stand ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
European Forests ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Vegetation Models

Abstract. Process-based vegetation models are widely used to predict local and global ecosystem dynamics and climate change impacts. Due to their complexity, they require careful parameterization and evaluation to ensure that projections are accurate and reliable. The PROFOUND Database (PROFOUND DB) provides a wide range of empirical data on European forests to calibrate and evaluate vegetation models that simulate climate impacts at the forest stand scale. A particular advantage of this database is its wide coverage of multiple data sources at different hierarchical and temporal scales, together with environmental driving data as well as the latest climate scenarios. Specifically, the PROFOUND DB provides general site descriptions, soil, climate, CO2, nitrogen deposition, tree and forest stand level, and remote sensing data for nine contrasting forest stands distributed across Europe. Moreover, for a subset of five sites, time series of carbon fluxes, atmospheric heat conduction and soil water are also available. The climate and nitrogen deposition data contain several datasets for the historic period and a wide range of future climate change scenarios following the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, RCP8.5). We also provide pre-industrial climate simulations that allow for model runs aimed at disentangling the contribution of climate change to observed forest productivity changes. The PROFOUND DB is available freely as a “SQLite” relational database or “ASCII” flat file version (at https://doi.org/10.5880/PIK.2020.006/; Reyer et al., 2020). The data policies of the individual contributing datasets are provided in the metadata of each data file. The PROFOUND DB can also be accessed via the ProfoundData R package (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ProfoundData; Silveyra Gonzalez et al., 2020), which provides basic functions to explore, plot and extract the data for model set-up, calibration and evaluation.

scholarly journals Climatic and ecological future of the Amazon: likelihood and causes of change

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Cook ◽  
N. Zeng ◽  
J.-H. Yoon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Maintenance Cost ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Central Brazil ◽  
Recent Climate

Abstract. Some recent climate modeling results suggested a possible dieback of the Amazon rainforest under future climate change, a prediction that raised considerable interest as well as controversy. To determine the likelihood and causes of such changes, we analyzed the output of 15 models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC/AR4) and a dynamic vegetation model VEGAS driven by these climate output. Our results suggest that the core of the Amazon rainforest should remain largely stable as rainfall is projected to increase in nearly all models. However, the periphery, notably the southern edge of the Amazon and further south in central Brazil, are in danger of drying out, driven by two main processes. Firstly, a decline in precipitation of 22% in the southern Amazon's dry season (May–September) reduces soil moisture, despite an increase in precipitation during the wet season, due to nonlinear responses in hydrology and ecosystem dynamics. Two dynamical mechanisms may explain the lower dry season rainfall: (1) a general subtropical drying under global warming when the dry season southern Amazon is under the control of the subtropical high pressure; (2) a stronger north-south tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature gradient, and to lesser degree a warmer eastern equatorial Pacific. Secondly, evaporation demand will increase due to the general warming, further reducing soil moisture. In terms of ecosystem response, higher maintenance cost and reduced productivity under warming may also have additional adverse impact. The drying corresponds to a lengthening of the dry season by 11 days. As a consequence, the median of the models projects a reduction of 20% in vegetation carbon stock in the southern Amazon, central Brazil, and parts of the Andean Mountains. Further, VEGAS predicts enhancement of fire risk by 10–15%. The increase in fire is primarily due to the reduction in soil moisture, and the decrease in dry season rainfall, which is when fire danger reaches its peak. Because the southern Amazon is also under intense human influence as a result of deforestation and land use, added pressure to the region's ecosystems from climate change may subject the region to profound changes in the 21st century.

What we can learn from the parallels between the COVID-19 and the future climate change crises

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén D. Manzanedo ◽  
Peter Manning
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Global Population

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak pandemic is now a global crisis. It has caused 1.6+ million confirmed cases and 100 000+ deaths at the time of writing and triggered unprecedented preventative measures that have put a substantial portion of the global population under confinement, imposed isolation, and established ‘social distancing’ as a new global behavioral norm. The COVID-19 crisis has affected all aspects of everyday life and work, while also threatening the health of the global economy. This crisis offers also an unprecedented view of what the global climate crisis may look like. In fact, some of the parallels between the COVID-19 crisis and what we expect from the looming global climate emergency are remarkable. Reflecting upon the most challenging aspects of today’s crisis and how they compare with those expected from the climate change emergency may help us better prepare for the future.

Responses of Irish Vegetation to Future Climate Change

2006 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Jones ◽  
Alison Donnelly ◽  
Fabrizio Albanito
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change

Future climate change and its impacts over small island states

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Lal ◽  
H Harasawa ◽  
K Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Island States ◽  
Small Island States

Investigating Burnt Mounds in Clydesdale during Motorway Construction

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
John A Atkinson ◽  
Camilla Dickson ◽  
Jane Downes ◽  
Paul Robins ◽  
David Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Short Account ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Bronze Age

Summary Two small burnt mounds were excavated as part of the programme to mitigate the impact of motorway construction in the Crawford area. The excavations followed a research strategy designed to address questions of date and function. This paper surveys the various competing theories about burnt mounds and how the archaeological evidence was evaluated against those theories. Both sites produced radiocarbon dates from the Bronze Age and evidence to suggest that they were cooking places. In addition, a short account is presented of two further burnt mounds discovered during the construction of the motorway in Annandale.

Supplemental Material to the A&WMA 2008 Critical Review "Prospects for Future Climate Change and the Reasons for Early Action"

2008 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Edgerton ◽  
Michael MacCracken ◽  
Meng-Dawn Cheng ◽  
Edwin Corporan ◽  
Matthew DeWitt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Early Action
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