scholarly journals 30 Years Climate Change Impact on Weather Elements and Green Coverage: GIS and Remote Sensing Geo-Environmental Case Study in Jordan

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1D) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Thair Al-Azzawi

This study deals with climate change and its geo-environmental impact in Jordan for thirty years period (1982-2012). It comprised the building of a geographic information system (GIS) database for the most important basic climatic elements of temperature, rainfall, and relative humidity. Data is obtained from the Meteorological Department of Jordan for the study period. Digital descriptive and statistical analysis methods for the GIS database are implemented using ArcGIS 10.4 software and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index extracted from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite images to forecast that impact on weather elements and green vegetation cover, respectively. Three different criteria are used for analysis and verification to achieve the objectives of the study. The criteria are the average annual minimum and maximum temperature, which is considered the most important criterion for this study, average annual rainfall, and average annual relative humidity. Results showed a speedy increase in the annual rate of the local temperature, particularly since 1990. Despite the local temperatures' average volatility, the increment reached about 1.5-2.0 oC degrees Celsius. An increase in the relative humidity is observed, but with no evident change in the average annual rainfall, both in Jordan's northern and eastern parts. At the same time, there were increases for Jordan's central region during the period 1985-2012. The green vegetation cover area showed a decrease during the studied period 2002-2008 as that is probably due to the evident increase in annual average temperature and evaporation. Results reveal the increase of the greater temperature change region has increased in the northern part of Jordan by eight times for the 1982-2002 period as mentioned in this study. The area of vegetated area decreased to 3725.8 km² in 2008 compared to 9305.5 km² in 2002. The study demonstrated efficiency in applying descriptive and statistical GIS analysis methods on the climatic database, which better understanding of the climate change phenomenon.

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1529-1554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Wang ◽  
M. L. Roderick ◽  
Y. Shen ◽  
F. Sun

Abstract. Terrestrial vegetation dynamics are closely influenced by both climate change and by direct human activities that modify land use and/or land cover (LULCC). Both can change over time in a monotonic way and it can be difficult to separate the effects of climate change from LULCC on vegetation. Here we attempt to attribute the trend of fractional green vegetation cover to climate change and to human activity in Ejina region, a hyper-arid landlocked region in northwest China. This region is dominated by extensive deserts with relatively small areas of irrigation located along the major water courses as is typical throughout much of Central Asia. Variations of fractional vegetation cover from 2000 to 2012 were determined using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation index data with 250 m spatial resolution over 16 day intervals. We found that the fractional vegetation cover in this hyper-arid region is very low, but that the mean growing season vegetation cover has increased from 3.4% in 2000 to 4.5% in 2012. The largest contribution to the overall greening was due to changes in green vegetation cover of the extensive desert areas with a smaller contribution due to changes in the area of irrigated land. Comprehensive analysis with different precipitation data sources found that the greening of the desert was associated with increases in regional precipitation. We found that the area of land irrigated each year was mostly dependent on the runoff gauged one year earlier. Taken together, water availability both from precipitation in the desert and runoff inflow for the irrigation agricultural lands can explain at least 52% of the total variance in regional vegetation cover from 2000 to 2010.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peixin Ren ◽  
Zelin Liu ◽  
Xiaolu Zhou ◽  
Changhui Peng ◽  
Jingfeng Xiao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Vegetation phenology research has largely focused on temperate deciduous forests, thus limiting our understanding of the response of evergreen vegetation to climate change in tropical and subtropical regions. Results Using satellite solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and MODIS enhanced vegetation index (EVI) data, we applied two methods to evaluate temporal and spatial patterns of the end of the growing season (EGS) in subtropical vegetation in China, and analyze the dependence of EGS on preseason maximum and minimum temperatures as well as cumulative precipitation. Our results indicated that the averaged EGS derived from the SIF and EVI based on the two methods (dynamic threshold method and derivative method) was later than that derived from gross primary productivity (GPP) based on the eddy covariance technique, and the time-lag for EGSsif and EGSevi was approximately 2 weeks and 4 weeks, respectively. We found that EGS was positively correlated with preseason minimum temperature and cumulative precipitation (accounting for more than 73% and 62% of the study areas, respectively), but negatively correlated with preseason maximum temperature (accounting for more than 59% of the study areas). In addition, EGS was more sensitive to the changes in the preseason minimum temperature than to other climatic factors, and an increase in the preseason minimum temperature significantly delayed the EGS in evergreen forests, shrub and grassland. Conclusions Our results indicated that the SIF outperformed traditional vegetation indices in capturing the autumn photosynthetic phenology of evergreen forest in the subtropical region of China. We found that minimum temperature plays a significant role in determining autumn photosynthetic phenology in the study region. These findings contribute to improving our understanding of the response of the EGS to climate change in subtropical vegetation of China, and provide a new perspective for accurately evaluating the role played by evergreen vegetation in the regional carbon budget.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Dhungana ◽  
N. Silwal ◽  
S. Upadhaya ◽  
S. K. Regmi ◽  
S. Adhikari

Climate change has negatively impacted the underdeveloped and developing countries including Nepal due to low adaptive capacity and higher dependency in agriculture. Forests are important component of the lives and livelihoods of the community in Nepal, which can offer an important source of climate-resilient livelihood. It is crucial to know the fact that climate change was in the past, which will continue to change in the future. It is essential to understand how communities perceive and adapt to climate change. A study was carried out in Kirepani, Jagreni and Kalika Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) in Lamjung District with an objective of assessing their perceptions on impacts of climate change. The survey was carried out in 62 households along with participatory appraisal to understand the perception of local people on climate change and its impacts. Focus group discussion was held in each CFUG. Climatic data of 29 years (1987–2015) acquired from Khudi, Kuncha and Gharedgunga metereological stations and analysed to supplement the results. Data were analysed using MS-Excel as major computer software and presented as table, trend lines and graphs. The study showed that the locals correctly perceived change in temperature, unpredictable occurrence of rainfall and increased incidence of change in crops phenology, an increase in drought. Based on the perceptions of the community forest users, climate change has affected the biodiversity and societal system differentially. Drought has higher impact to the people affecting their lives and livelihoods. They perceived that the increase in drought, floods, landslide have affected their lives and livelihoods. The results revealed that minimum temperature was increased at the rate of 0.01º C per year whereas the maximum temperature was increased by 0.056° C per year. From the rainfall data of Khudi meteorological station, it was found that annual rainfall was highly decreased at the rate of 25.8 mm per year, which alarms for more disaster such as drought and fire in the area. Our findings suggest that for the innovative climate change adaptation planning and policy it is crucial to incorporate and acknowledge the role of community forest in climate change adaptation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumira Nazir Zaz ◽  
Shakil Ahmad Romshoo ◽  
Ramkumar Thokuluwa Krishnamoorthy ◽  
Yesubabu Viswanadhapalli

Abstract. The local weather and climate of the Himalayas are sensitive and interlinked with global-scale changes in climate, as the hydrology of this region is mainly governed by snow and glaciers. There are clear and strong indicators of climate change reported for the Himalayas, particularly the Jammu and Kashmir region situated in the western Himalayas. In this study, using observational data, detailed characteristics of long- and short-term as well as localized variations in temperature and precipitation are analyzed for these six meteorological stations, namely, Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Kokarnag, Qazigund, Kupwara and Srinagar during 1980–2016. All of these stations are located in Jammu and Kashmir, India. In addition to analysis of stations observations, we also utilized the dynamical downscaled simulations of WRF model and ERA-Interim (ERA-I) data for the study period. The annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation changes were analyzed by carrying out Mann–Kendall, linear regression, cumulative deviation and Student's t statistical tests. The results show an increase of 0.8 ∘C in average annual temperature over 37 years (from 1980 to 2016) with higher increase in maximum temperature (0.97 ∘C) compared to minimum temperature (0.76 ∘C). Analyses of annual mean temperature at all the stations reveal that the high-altitude stations of Pahalgam (1.13 ∘C) and Gulmarg (1.04 ∘C) exhibit a steep increase and statistically significant trends. The overall precipitation and temperature patterns in the valley show significant decreases and increases in the annual rainfall and temperature respectively. Seasonal analyses show significant increasing trends in the winter and spring temperatures at all stations, with prominent decreases in spring precipitation. In the present study, the observed long-term trends in temperature (∘Cyear-1) and precipitation (mm year−1) along with their respective standard errors during 1980–2016 are as follows: (i) 0.05 (0.01) and −16.7 (6.3) for Gulmarg, (ii) 0.04 (0.01) and −6.6 (2.9) for Srinagar, (iii) 0.04 (0.01) and −0.69 (4.79) for Kokarnag, (iv) 0.04 (0.01) and −0.13 (3.95) for Pahalgam, (v) 0.034 (0.01) and −5.5 (3.6) for Kupwara, and (vi) 0.01 (0.01) and −7.96 (4.5) for Qazigund. The present study also reveals that variation in temperature and precipitation during winter (December–March) has a close association with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Further, the observed temperature data (monthly averaged data for 1980–2016) at all the stations show a good correlation of 0.86 with the results of WRF and therefore the model downscaled simulations are considered a valid scientific tool for the studies of climate change in this region. Though the correlation between WRF model and observed precipitation is significantly strong, the WRF model significantly underestimates the rainfall amount, which necessitates the need for the sensitivity study of the model using the various microphysical parameterization schemes. The potential vorticities in the upper troposphere are obtained from ERA-I over the Jammu and Kashmir region and indicate that the extreme weather event of September 2014 occurred due to breaking of intense atmospheric Rossby wave activity over Kashmir. As the wave could transport a large amount of water vapor from both the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea and dump them over the Kashmir region through wave breaking, it probably resulted in the historical devastating flooding of the whole Kashmir valley in the first week of September 2014. This was accompanied by extreme rainfall events measuring more than 620 mm in some parts of the Pir Panjal range in the south Kashmir.


2013 ◽  
Vol 448-453 ◽  
pp. 916-922
Author(s):  
Yan Rong Yang ◽  
Zhe Kong ◽  
Chun Ming Liu

The relationship between vegetation cover and climate change is one of the most important research fields in global change. Herein Jiangsu province and thereabout in China is chosen to be the research field. Under the support of observations from normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) during years from 1998 to 2008 and corresponding benchmark weather stations, the relationship between vegetation and climate change had been analyzed combined with simulations from regional climate model RegCM3, in perspectives of point vegetation cover amount and area vegetation cover type respectively. Conclusions are: (1) Points observations showed that NDVI had positive correlation with annual total precipitation and negative correlation with annual average temperature. (2) Area simulations showed that two different vegetation types in south and north Jiangsu almost had same 8warming value, but the incremental annual precipitation amount is more significant in south Jiangsu.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Francisca Cardell ◽  
Arnau Amengual ◽  
Romualdo Romero

<p>Europe and particularly, the Mediterranean countries, are among the most visited tourist destinations worldwide, while it is also recognized as one of the most sensitive regions to climate change. Climate is a key resource and even a limiting factor for many types of tourism. Owing to climate change, modified patterns of atmospheric variables such as temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, hours of sunshine and wind speed will likely affect the suitability of the European destinations for certain outdoor leisure activities.</p><p>Perspectives on the future of second-generation climate indices for tourism (CIT) that depend on thermal, aesthetic and physical facets are derived using model projected daily atmospheric data and present climate “observations”. Specifically, daily series of 2-m maximum temperature, accumulated precipitation, 2-m relative humidity, mean cloud cover and 10-m wind speed from ERA-5 reanalysis are used to derive the present climate potential. For projections, the same daily variables have been obtained from a set of regional climate models (RCMs) included in the European CORDEX project, considering the rcp8.5 future emissions scenario. The adoption of a multi-model ensemble strategy allows quantifying the uncertainties arising from the model errors and the GCM-derived boundary conditions. To properly derive CITs at local scale, a quantile–quantile adjustment has been applied to the simulated regional scenarios. The method detects changes in the continuous CIT cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) between the recent past and successive time slices of the simulated climate and applies these changes, once calibrated, to the observed CDFs. </p><p>Assessments on the future climate potential for several types of tourist activities in Europe (i.e., sun, sea and sand (3S) tourism, cycling, cultural, football, golf, nautical and hiking) will be presented by applying suitable quantitative indicators of CIT evolutions adapted to regional contexts. It is expected that such kind of information will ultimately benefit the design of mitigation and adaptation strategies of the tourist sector.</p>


Author(s):  
Femi S. Omotayo ◽  
Philip G. Oguntunde ◽  
Ayorinde A. Olufayo

This study was carried to determine the trend of cocoa yield and climatic variables and assessment of the impact of climate change on the future yield of cocoa in Ondo State, Nigeria. Annual trend statistics for cocoa yield and climatic variables were analyzed for the state using Mann-Kendall test for trend and Sen’s slope estimates. Downscaled data from six Global Circulation Models (GCMs) were used to examine the impact of climate change on the future yield of cocoa in the study area. The results of trends analysis in Ondo State showed that yield decreased monotonically at the rate of 492.18 tonnes/yr (P<0.05). An increased significant trend was established in annual rainfall trend. While Maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and mean temperature all increased at the rate of 0.02/yr (P<0.001). The ensemble of all the GCMs projected a mid-term future decrease of about 9,334 tonnes/yr by 2050 and a long-term future decrease of 13,504 tonnes/yr of cocoa by 2100. The economic implication of these is that, if the projected change in the yield of cocoa as predicted by the ensemble of all the GCMs should hold for the future, it means that Ondo state may experience a loss of about $22,470,018.22 and $32,308,584.32 by the year 2050 and 2100 respectively according to the present price of the commodity in the world market. Measures are to be taken by the government and farmers to find a way of mitigating the impacts of climate change on the future yield of the cocoa study area. This research should be extended to other cocoa producing areas in Nigeria.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-275
Author(s):  
Neeraj Kumar ◽  

Navsari district of rainfall was shows highest increasing rainfall trend obtained September and negative January, July, October, November and December. The regression slope of the yearly time series is about 12.35 mm/36 years. Maximum temperature shows the highest increasing trend in month October, followed by December and August. The month highest decreasing trend was noticed that January, followed by February and July. The regression slope of the yearly time series is about 0.025°C/36 years. Minimum temperature highest values of the slope (0.109°C/36 year) with high value of regression Slope of determination (0.111°C), the annual Kendall’s tau statistic (0.492°C/36 year), the Kendall Score (310). All the month January to December shows increasing trend. The highest increasing trend found that November, followed by March and July, respectively. This finding shows that all the month shows increasing trend with the range between 0.308°C to 0.390°C. In case of RH-I the highest increasing trend shows September, followed by April and June. Similarly decreasing trend was found that January, followed by February and October, respectively. Relative humidity-II increasing trend was found only at the September month 0.084%, the increasing trend was detected in January to August and October to December, respectively. The strongest trend in the Bright sunshine hour’s decline of all month’s average daily sunshine hours was for the Navsari district. No significant trends were detected in all months and seasons for all weather elements. A similar trend was found in Sen’s slope and regression slope all the months for all the weather elements.


2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 1056
Author(s):  
Raimundo Mainar Medeiros ◽  
Paulo Roberto Megna Francisco ◽  
Alexandra Lima Tavares

A partir das séries climatológicas normais de 1931-1960 e 1961-1990 dos elementos meteorológicos realizaram-se os cálculos do balanço hídrico climatológico, a classificação e as análises das indicações de mudanças climáticas no município de Sobral, estado do Ceará, utilizando O programa do BHnorm  elaborado em planilhas eletrônicas no pacote Excel por Sentelhas et al. (1999) e a metodologia de cálculo do Balanço Hídrico Climático de Thornthwaite & Mather (1955) e a classificação de Thornthwaite (1955), com o objetivo de contribuir para a sustentabilidade do homem no campo. Identificou-se que o clima da área de estudo classifica-se como Megatérmico semiárido e o tipo climático passou do tipo dw2w2d’ para dw2Dd’ com reduções da temperatura mínima e com oscilações de -0,1 a -0,8ºC e temperatura máxima com variações de -1,7 à 2,1ºC.  A umidade relativa do ar ocorreu flutuações positivas de 0,3 à 3,4%. A evapotranspiração potencial oscilou em -71,0 mm em relação aos períodos para o mês de outubro. Os índices de umidade; aridez e hídricos demonstraram valores de 28,6%, -23,9% e -47,5%, respectivamente. Observou-se que todas estas variabilidades ocorreram devido aos efeitos causados pelo homem na estrutura da cidade. Palavras-chave: Meteorologia. Balanço Hídrico Climático. Clima.  Classification and Analysis of Indications of Climate Change in the City of Sobral – Ceará  ABSTRACTFrom the series 1931-1960 climatological normal from 1961-1990 and meteorological elements were carried out calculations of the climatic water balance, classification and analysis of the indications of climate change in the city of Sobral, Ceará State, using the program BHnorm prepared in Excel spreadsheets in the package by Sentelhas et al. (1999) and the methodology of calculation of the Climatic Water Balance of Thornthwaite & Mather (1955) and the classification of Thornthwaite (1955), in order to contribute to the sustainability of the man in the field. It was found that the climate of the study area is classified as megathermal semiarid climate and the type has type dw2w2d 'to dw2Dd' with reductions in the minimum temperature fluctuations and from -0.1 to -0.8 º C and maximum temperature variations with 2.1 to -1.7 ° C. The relative humidity was positive fluctuations of 0.3 to 3.4%. The potential evapotranspiration fluctuated -71.0 mm for the periods for the month of October. The contents of moisture, drought and water showed values ​​of 28.6% -23.9% and -47.5%, respectively. It was observed that all these effects occurred due to variability caused by man in the structure of the city.  Keywords: Meteorology. Climatic Water Balance. Climate.


Author(s):  
Emmanuel Nyadzi ◽  
Enoch Bessah ◽  
Gordana Kranjac-Berisavljevic ◽  
Fulco Ludwig

AbstractThe Nasia catchment is the reservoir with significant surface water resources in Northern Ghana and home to numerous subsistence farmers engaged in rainfed and dry season irrigation farming. Yet, there is little understanding of the hydro-climatic and land use/cover conditions of this basin. This study investigated trends, relationships and changes in hydro-climatic variables and land use/cover in addition to implications of the observable changes in the Nasia catchment over a period of 50 years. Parameters used for the study were minimum (Tmin) and maximum temperature (Tmax), wind speed (WS), sunshine duration (S), rainfall (R), relative humidity (RH), discharge (D) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) data, 15 years of remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data and 30 years of land use/cover image data. Results show that Tmin, Tmax, WS and PET have increased significantly (p < 0.05) over time. RH and S significantly declined. R, D and NDVI have not decreased significantly (p > 0.05). A significant abrupt change in almost all hydro-climatic variables started in the 1980s, a period that coincides with the occurrence of drought events in the region, except WS in 2001, R in 1968 and D in 1975, respectively. Also, D showed a positive significant correlation with RH, R and PET, but an insignificant positive relationship with S. D also showed a negative insignificant correlation with Tmin, Tmax and WS. Areas covered with shrubland and settlement/bare lands have increased to the disadvantage of cropland, forest, grassland and water bodies. It was concluded that climate change impact is quite noticeable in the basin, indicating water scarcity and possibilities of droughts. The analysis performed herein is a vital foundation for further studies to simulate and predict the effect of climate change on the water resources, agriculture and livelihoods in the Nasia catchment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document