scholarly journals A multiannual ground temperature dataset covering sixteen high elevation sites (3493–4377 m a.s.l.) in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander R. Groos ◽  
Janik Niederhauser ◽  
Bruk Lemma ◽  
Mekbib Fekadu ◽  
Wolfgang Zech ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Elevation Gradient ◽  
Ground Surface ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
Ground Temperature ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Thermal Dynamics ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Tropical mountains and highlands in Africa are under pressure because of anthropogenic climate and land-use change. To determine the impacts of global climate change on the afro-alpine environment and to assess the potential socio-economic consequences, the monitoring of essential climate and environmental variables at high elevation is fundamental. However, long-term climate observations on the continent above 3,000 m are very rare. Here we present a consistent multinannual ground temperature dataset for the BaleMountains in the southern Ethiopian Highlands, which comprise Africa's largest tropical alpine area. 29 ground temperature data loggers have been installed at 16 sites since 2017 to characterise and continuously monitor the mountain climate and ecosystem of the Bale Mountains along an elevation gradient from 3493 to 4377 m. At five sites above ∼ 3900 m, the monitoring will be continued to trace long-term changes. The generated time series provide insights in the spatio temporal ground temperature variations at high elevation, the energy exchange between the ground surface and atmosphere, as well as the impact of vegetation and slope orientation on the thermal dynamics of the ground. To promote the further use of the ground temperature dataset by the wider research community dealing with the climate and geo-ecology of tropical mountains in Eastern Africa, it is made freely available via the open-access repository Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5172002 (Groos et al., 2021b).

The Impact of Climate Change on the Long-Term Response of Offshore Structures: A Study Case

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irvin Alberto Mosquera ◽  
Luis Volnei Sudati Sagrilo ◽  
Paulo Maurício Videiro
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Offshore Structures ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Wave Parameter ◽  
Greenhouse Emissions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Term Response

Abstract This paper discusses the influence of the climate change in the long-term response of offshore structures. The case studied is a linear single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system under environmental load wave characterized by the JONSWAP spectrum. The wave parameter data used in the analyses were obtained from running the wind wave WaveWatch III with wind field input data derived from two Global Climate Models (GCMs): HadGEM2-ES and MRI-CGCM3 considering historical and future greenhouse emissions scenarios. The study was carried out for two locations: one in the North Atlantic and the other in Brazilian South East Coast. Environmental contours have been used to estimate the extreme long-term response. The results suggest that climate change would affect the structure response and its impact is highly depend on the structure location, the global climate model and the greenhouse emissions scenario selected.

scholarly journals Analysis of Trends in the FireCCI Global Long Term Burned Area Product (1982–2018)

Fire ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 74
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Otón ◽  
José Miguel C. Pereira ◽  
João M. N. Silva ◽  
Emilio Chuvieco
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Data Series ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Term Data

We present an analysis of the spatio-temporal trends derived from long-term burned area (BA) data series. Two global BA products were included in our analysis, the FireCCI51 (2001–2019) and the FireCCILT11 (1982–2018) datasets. The former was generated from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m reflectance data, guided by 1 km active fires. The FireCCILT11 dataset was generated from Land Long-Term Data Record data (0.05°), which provides a consistent time series for Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer images, acquired from the NOAA satellite series. FireCCILT11 is the longest time series of a BA product currently available, making it possible to carry out temporal analysis of long-term trends. Both products were developed under the FireCCI project of the European Space Agency. The two datasets were pre-processed to correct for temporal autocorrelation. Unburnable areas were removed and the lack of the FireCCILT11 data in 1994 was examined to evaluate the impact of this gap on the BA trends. An analysis and comparison between the two BA products was performed using a contextual approach. Results of the contextual Mann-Kendall analysis identified significant trends in both datasets, with very different regional values. The long-term series presented larger clusters than the short-term ones. Africa displayed significant decreasing trends in the short-term, and increasing trends in the long-term data series, except in the east. In the long-term series, Eastern Africa, boreal regions, Central Asia and South Australia showed large BA decrease clusters, and Western and Central Africa, South America, USA and North Australia presented BA increase clusters.

scholarly journals Taking Students on a Journey to El Yunque

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven McGee ◽  
Jess K. Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Science Curriculum ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
Hurricane Impact ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Long Term Impact ◽  
The Impact

As the developers of Journey to El Yunque, we have taken a different approach to the process of designing a science curriculum. Rather than start with a specific set of concepts or skills to target as learning outcomes, we started by identifying a specific community of practice to which we sought to connect students. Researchers in the El Yunque rainforest in Puerto Rico have been studying the impact of hurricanes on ecosystem dynamics and have been modeling what the long-term impact would be if changes to the global climate increase the frequency of severe hurricanes. Therefore, hurricane impact became the focal phenomenon for the unit. We modeled the process of investigating hurricane impact after the long-term ecological research practices of researchers in El Yunque. Students begin by investigating the long-term impact of hurricanes on the producers in El Yunque. Next students investigate the long-term impact of hurricanes on various consumers in the rainforest. Finally, students investigate how hurricanes impact the cycling of resources directly as well as indirectly through changes in organisms’ use of those resources in the rainforest. A central tension in the design process is how to coherently represent the spatial relationships between the components of the ecosystem and the temporal dynamics of the individual components. In this paper, we present the evolution of the program as we sought to balance that design tension and build an environment that connects students to the central phenomenon and practices of the community of researchers in El Yunque. 

The impact of glaciers on the long-term hydrology of a high-elevation Andean catchment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McCarthy ◽  
Flavia Burger ◽  
Alvaro Ayala ◽  
Stefan Fugger ◽  
Thomas E Shaw ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climatic Variability ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
Hydrological Models ◽  
Glacier Surface ◽  
Surface Mass ◽  
Extensive Field ◽  
Steep Decline ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Impact

<p>The Andean cryosphere is a vital water resource for downstream populations. In recent years, it has been in steep decline as a whole, but shown strong spatio-temporal variability due to climatic events such as the current mega drought in central Chile. Glacio-hydrological models are necessary to understand and predict changes in water availability as a result of changes to the cryosphere. However, due to a lack of data for initialisation, forcing, calibration and validation, they are rarely used, especially in the Andes, for periods longer than a few years or decades. While useful insights can be gained from short-term modelling, there is a gap in our understanding of how glaciers impact hydrology on longer timescales, which may prevent local communities and governments from achieving effective planning and mitigation. Here we use the glacio-hydrological model TOPKAPI-ETH – initialised, forced, calibrated and validated using unique and extensive field and remote sensing datasets – to investigate glacier contributions to the streamflow of the high-elevation Rio Yeso catchment, Chile, over the past 50 years. We focus in particular on: 1) fluctuations in glacier surface mass balance and runoff and associated climatic variability; 2) if peak water has already occurred and when; 3) the effect of supraglacial debris cover on seasonal and long-term hydrographs. We offer insights into some of the challenges of running glacio-hydrological models on longer timescales and discuss the implications of our findings in the context of a shrinking Andean cryosphere.</p>

scholarly journals Long-Term Changes in Hydrological Regime of the Lakes Usma, Burtnieks and Rāzna

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (6) ◽  
pp. 261-270
Author(s):  
Elga Apsīte ◽  
Mārtiņš Kriķītis ◽  
Inese Latkovska ◽  
Andrejs Zubaničs
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Hydrological Regime ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Global Climate Warming ◽  
Regional Features ◽  
Natural Factors ◽  
Ice Regime ◽  
The Impact

Changes in the hydrological regime of the lakes of Latvia have been caused by several natural and human factors. This publication summarises the results of research on the long-term and seasonal changes in the water level, and thermal and ice regimes of the three biggest lakes of Latvia (Usma, Burtnieks, and Râzna) and their regional features in the period from 1926 to 2002. The levels of the lakes Usma and Râzna have been controlled, but it can be considered that changes of the water level in Lake Burtnieks have been due to the impact of natural factors during the period from 1947 to 2002. Global climate warming has caused considerable changes in the hydrological regime of the lakes during the last decades, as the water level and temperature have increased and the number of days with ice cover and the thickness of ice have decreased. A positive trend in the freezing data and statistically reliable negative trend for the ice break-up date were observed for all the lakes. Lake Usma is located in the western part of Latvia, therefore, its hydrological regime, in particular, the thermal and ice regime, differs from those of lakes Burtnieks and Râzna which are located in the northern and eastern part of Latvia, respectively.

scholarly journals Why Do Global Climate Models Struggle to Represent Low-Level Clouds in the West African Summer Monsoon?

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1665-1687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Hannak ◽  
Peter Knippertz ◽  
Andreas H. Fink ◽  
Anke Kniffka ◽  
Gregor Pante
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
West African Monsoon ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
West African ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
The West ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Low Level ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Climate models struggle to realistically represent the West African monsoon (WAM), which hinders reliable future projections and the development of adequate adaption measures. Low-level clouds over southern West Africa (5°–10°N, 8°W–8°E) during July–September are an integral part of the WAM through their effect on the surface energy balance and precipitation, but their representation in climate models has received little attention. Here 30 (20) years of output from 18 (8) models participating in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (Year of Tropical Convection) are used to identify cloud biases and their causes. Compared to ERA-Interim reanalyses, many models show large biases in low-level cloudiness of both signs and a tendency to too high elevation and too weak diurnal cycles. At the same time, these models tend to have too strong low-level jets, the impact of which is unclear because of concomitant effects on temperature and moisture advection as well as turbulent mixing. Part of the differences between the models and ERA-Interim appear to be related to the different subgrid cloud schemes used. While nighttime tendencies in temperature and humidity are broadly realistic in most models, daytime tendencies show large problems with the vertical transport of heat and moisture. Many models simulate too low near-surface relative humidities, leading to insufficient low cloud cover and abundant solar radiation, and thus a too large diurnal cycle in temperature and relative humidity. In the future, targeted model sensitivity experiments will be needed to test possible feedback mechanisms between low clouds, radiation, boundary layer dynamics, precipitation, and the WAM circulation.

scholarly journals Shifts in phenology due to global climate change: the need for a yardstick

2005 ◽  
Vol 272 (1581) ◽  
pp. 2561-2569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel E Visser ◽  
Christiaan Both
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Natural World ◽  
First Approximation ◽  
Taxonomic Groups ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Species Shifts

Climate change has led to shifts in phenology in many species distributed widely across taxonomic groups. It is, however, unclear how we should interpret these shifts without some sort of a yardstick: a measure that will reflect how much a species should be shifting to match the change in its environment caused by climate change. Here, we assume that the shift in the phenology of a species' food abundance is, by a first approximation, an appropriate yardstick. We review the few examples that are available, ranging from birds to marine plankton. In almost all of these examples, the phenology of the focal species shifts either too little (five out of 11) or too much (three out of 11) compared to the yardstick. Thus, many species are becoming mistimed due to climate change. We urge researchers with long-term datasets on phenology to link their data with those that may serve as a yardstick, because documentation of the incidence of climate change-induced mistiming is crucial in assessing the impact of global climate change on the natural world.

scholarly journals Ecological niche modelling predicts significant impacts of future climate change on two endemic rodents in eastern Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 18164-18176
Author(s):  
Aditya Srinivasulu ◽  
Alembrhan Assefa ◽  
Chelmala Srinivasulu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Niche Modelling ◽  
Climatic Scenarios ◽  
Bioclimatic Conditions ◽  
The Impact

The impact of climate change on rodents is well studied, however, many of these studies are restricted to the Americas.  Small- to medium-sized rodents, especially murids, are restricted in their home range and microclimatic niche breadth, and are known to be more sensitive to changes in bioclimatic conditions over time.  We analyzed the effect of future climatic scenarios in the near and distant future, using two global climate models (CanESM5 and MIROC-ES2L) for two shared socio-economic pathways (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5), on two eastern Africa endemic small-bodied mice: Stenocephalemys albipes and Mastomys awashensis. Our results indicate that while S. albipes showed increases in area of climatic suitability in the future, M. awashensis is predicted to suffer severe decline in the area of its fundamental niche.    

scholarly journals Insurance as a risk management system in green construction

2022 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 06003
Author(s):  
Kheda Murtazova ◽  
Salambek Aliyev
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Green Building ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Corporate Strategies ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Risk Management System ◽  
The Impact

The study of the problems of the impact of climate change on economic development has become in recent years one of the main directions of economic research. At the same time, along with the development of a global macroeconomic policy in the field of climate and green building, more and more attention is paid to the analysis of corporate strategies to reduce risks and adapt to the consequences of climate change. Without large-scale business investments in green innovative technologies and the introduction of corporate standards for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is impossible to achieve long-term targets for reducing global climate risks.

scholarly journals Fluctuations in annual climatic extremes are associated with reproductive variation in resident mountain chickadees

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 171604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dovid Y. Kozlovsky ◽  
Carrie L. Branch ◽  
Angela M. Pitera ◽  
Vladimir V. Pravosudov
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Elevation Gradient ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
Climatic Extremes ◽  
Extreme Climate ◽  
Mountain Chickadees

Mounting evidence suggests that we are experiencing rapidly accelerating global climate change. Understanding how climate change may affect life is critical to identifying species and populations that are vulnerable. Most current research focuses on investigating how organisms may respond to gradual warming, but another effect of climate change is extreme annual variation in precipitation associated with alternations between drought and unusually heavy precipitation, like that exhibited in the western regions of North America. Understanding climate change effects on animal reproductive behaviour is especially important, because it directly impacts population persistence. Here, we present data on reproduction in nest-box breeding, resident mountain chickadees inhabiting high and low elevations in the Sierra Nevada across 5 years. These 5 years of data represent the full range of climatic variation from the largest drought in five centuries to one of the heaviest snow years on record. There were significant differences in most reproductive characteristics associated with variation in climate. Both climate extremes were negatively associated with reproductive success at high and low elevations, but low-elevation chickadees had worse reproductive success in the largest drought year while high-elevation chickadees had worse reproductive success in the heaviest snow year. Considering that the frequency of extreme climate swings between drought and snow is predicted to increase, such swings may have negative effects on chickadee populations across the entire elevation gradient, as climatic extremes should favour different adaptations. Alternatively, it is possible that climate fluctuations might favour preserving genetic variation allowing for higher resilience. It is too early to make specific predictions regarding how increased frequency of extreme climate fluctuation may impact chickadees; however, our data suggest that even the most common species may be susceptible.

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