Posted on 23 March 2018 by Ari Jokimäki

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.

The Figure is from paper #16.

Climate change impacts

Mankind

1. Inundation of a low-lying urban atoll island: Majuro, Marshall Islands

"The ocean-facing shorelines of Majuro experience frequent inundation caused by swell waves generated by distant storms from both the north and the south Pacific Ocean. In some instances, complete overwashing of the island by swell waves has been reported. Less frequent, although potentially far more damaging, are inundation events associated with typhoons and tropical storms, with the most recent in 1997. Inundation along the sheltered lagoon-facing shoreline of Majuro has occurred in the absence of waves due to the coincidence of high sea levels during La Niña conditions and seasonally high tides, as in 2011."

2. Assessing heat-related health risk in Europe via the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) (open access)

"An increase in heat stress up to 1 °C is observed during recent decades."

3. Impacts of rainfall extremes on wheat yield in semi-arid cropping systems in eastern Australia

4. Micro-level perception to climate change and adaptation issues: A prelude to mainstreaming climate adaptation into developmental landscape in India

5. Assessing climate change adaptation strategies—the case of drought and heat wave in the French nuclear sector

6. Exposure, vulnerability, and adaptation of major maize-growing areas to extreme temperature

7. Tracing back to move ahead: a review of development pathways that constrain adaptation futures

8. Glacier protection laws: Potential conflicts in managing glacial hazards and adapting to climate change

9. Benefits of adapting to sea level rise: the importance of ecosystem services in the French Mediterranean sandy coastline

"Total benefits of public adaptation options planned in advance could reach €31.2 billion for the period 2010–2100, i.e. €69,000 per inhabitant (in the study area) in 2010 or €135 million/km of coastline."

10. Do climate change adaptation practices improve technical efficiency of smallholder farmers? Evidence from Nepal

11. Evaluating the climate capabilities of the coastal areas of southeastern Iran for tourism: a case study on port of Chabahar

12. Impact assessment of climate change on rice yields using the ORYZA model in the Sichuan Basin, China

13. Modeling domestic water demand in Huaihe River Basin of China under climate change and population dynamics

14. How well do meteorological indicators represent agricultural and forest drought across Europe? (open access)

15. Implications of projected climate change on winter road systems in Ontario’s Far North, Canada

"Results of the FDD threshold measure indicated that climate conditions would possibly be unfavorable during the winter road construction period by mid-century for Moosonee and Kapuskasing and for Lansdowne House and Red Lake by the end of the century. For Big Trout Lake, on the other hand, climate conditions are expected to remain favorable for the winter road construction through the end of 2100."

Biosphere

16. The implications of the United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change for globally significant biodiversity areas (open access)

"We find that without mitigation, on average 33% of each conservation area can act as climate refugium (or 18% if species are unable to disperse), whereas if warming is constrained to 2 °C, the average area of climate refuges doubles to 67% of each conservation area (or, without dispersal, more than doubles to 56% of each area). If the country pledges are fulfilled, an intermediate estimate of 47–52% (or 31–38%, without dispersal) is obtained."

17. Changes in the bee fauna of a German botanical garden between 1997 and 2017, attributable to climate warming, not other parameters

18. Climate change: potential implications for Ireland’s biodiversity

19. Alpine glacial relict species losing out to climate change: The case of the fragmented mountain hare population (Lepus timidus) in the Alps

"The models predicted an average habitat loss of 35% (22%–55%) by 2100, mainly due to an increase in temperature during the reproductive season. An increase in habitat fragmentation was reflected in a 43% decrease in patch size, a 17% increase in the number of habitat patches and a 34% increase in inter-patch distance."

20. Quantifying climate–growth relationships at the stand level in a mature mixed-species conifer forest

21. Drought consistently alters the composition of soil fungal and bacterial communities in grasslands from two continents

22. How Temperature, Pond-Drying, and Nutrients Influence Parasite Infection and Pathology

23. El Niño, Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly and Coral Bleaching in the South Atlantic: A Chain of Events Modeled With a Bayesian Approach

24. Over-calcified forms of the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi in high-CO2 waters are not preadapted to ocean acidification (open access)

"More generally, these results suggest that oceanic planktonic microorganisms, despite their rapid turnover and large population sizes, do not necessarily exhibit adaptations to naturally high-CO2 upwellings, and this ubiquitous coccolithophore may be near the limit of its capacity to adapt to ongoing ocean acidification."

25. Impact of dynamic vegetation phenology on the simulated pan-Arctic land surface state

26. Delineating limits: confronting predicted climatic suitability to field performance in mistletoe populations

27. Snowmelt-driven tradeoffs between early and late season productivity negatively impact forest carbon uptake during drought

28. Effect of drought on productivity in a Costa Rican tropical dry forest (open access)

29. Global change-driven effects on dissolved organic matter composition:Implications for food webs of northern lakes

30. Short-term responses to warming vary between native vs. exotic species and with latitude in an early successional plant community

Other impacts

31. Recent increases in wildfires in the Himalayas and surrounding regions detected in central Tibetan ice core records

Climate change mitigation

32. Shades of green energy: Geographies of small hydropower in Yunnan, China and the challenges of over-development

33. A financial analysis and life-cycle carbon emissions assessment of oil palm waste biochar exports from Indonesia for use in Australian broad-acre agriculture

34. The Risk of Termination Shock From Solar Geoengineering (open access)

35. Political ecology of Costa Rica’s climate policy: contextualizing climate governance

36. Testing supply-side climate policies for the global steam coal market—can they curb coal consumption?

37. The effect of symbolic racism on environmental concern and environmental action

38. City-networks, global climate governance, and the road to 1.5 °C

39. Silent transformation to 1.5°C — with China's encumbered leading

"Highlights

• Historical Western thought is not good at thinking about movement and change.

• China is culturally gifted to think about transformation and transition.

• Silent transformations involve both modification and continuation at the same time.

• Ordinary people are able to lead ordinary actions and get extraordinary results.

• China must be understood and recognized as a strategic partner in the 1.5°C goal."

40. Environmental justice and the expanding geography of wind power conflicts

41. Investing for rapid decarbonization in cities (open access)

42. Carbon Tax, Emission Standards, and Carbon Leak Under Price Competition

43. A sunny future: expert elicitation of China's solar photovoltaic technologies (open access)

44. Improvement of economic traits and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in sheep and goats in Central Asia

45. Marginal cost to increase soil organic carbon using no-till on U.S. cropland

46. Co-controlling CO₂ and NOx emission in China's cement industry: An optimal development pathway study (open access)

47. Oil palm land conversion in Pará, Brazil, from 2006–2014: evaluating the 2010 Brazilian Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program (open access)

Climate change

48. On climate prediction: how much can we expect from climate memory?

Temperature, precipitation, and wind

49. Time scales and sources of European temperature variability

"We find that eastern Europe is dominated by sub?decadal SAT variability associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation, whereas interdecadal and multi?decadal SAT variability over northern and southern Europe are thermodynamically driven by ocean temperature anomalies. Our results provide evidence that temperature anomalies in the North Atlantic Ocean are advected over land by the mean westerly winds, and, hence, provide a mechanism through which ocean temperature controls the variability and provides predictability of European SAT."

50. Model Assessment of Observed Precipitation Trends Over Land Regions: Detectable Human Influences and Possible Low Bias in Model Trends

51. Observed and modelled temperature and precipitation extremes over Southeast Asia from 1972 to 2010

52. The sea surface temperature configuration of Greenland Sea–subpolar region of North Atlantic and the summer rainfall anomaly in low-latitude highlands of China (open access)

53. Inter-annual and inter-decadal variability of early- and late-summer precipitation over northeast China and their background circulation

54. Intra-lake heterogeneity of thermal responses to climate change: A study of large Northern Hemisphere lakes

55. Historical simulations and climate change projections over India by NCAR CCSM4: CMIP5 vs. NEX-GDDP

56. Temporal and spatial changes in estimated near-surface air temperature lapse rates on Tibetan Plateau

57. Changes in a suite of indicators of extreme temperature and precipitation under 1.5 and 2 degrees warming (open access)

58. Changes in duration of dry and wet spells associated with air temperatures in Russia (open access)

59. Near-surface temperature inversion during summer at Summit, Greenland, and its relation to MODIS-derived surface temperatures (open access)

60. Future precipitation projections over central and southern Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean: What causes the changes and the uncertainty?

61. Maps of wind hazard over South Eastern South America considering climate change

Extreme events

62. ENSO and IOD analysis on the occurrence of floods in Pakistan

"During the study period maximum number of floods was observed during summer monsoon season. However, further analysis shows that after 1970, Pakistan observed the highest percentage of floods occurred per year during El Nino, Non-ENSO and positive IOD years."

63. Effects of hurricane Odile on the infrastructure of Baja California Sur, Mexico

64. On the long-term changes of drought over China (1948–2012) from different methods of potential evapotranspiration estimations

65. Climate conditions and drought assessment with the Palmer Drought Severity Index in Iran: evaluation of CORDEX South Asia climate projections (2070–2099)

66. Spatiotemporal variations of aridity in Iran using high-resolution gridded data

67. Defining single extreme weather events in a climate perspective

68. Quantitative observations on tropical cyclone tracks in the Arabian Sea

69. Defining Flood Zone Transitions in Low-Gradient Coastal Regions

70. Cold-season Tornado Risk Communication: Case Studies from November 2016 –February 2017

71. Distributed probability of slope failure in Thailand under climate change (open access)

72. Concurrent Changes to Hadley Circulation and the Meridional Distribution of Tropical Cyclones

Forcings and feedbacks

73. Carbon dioxide physiological forcing dominates projected Eastern Amazonian drying

"We find that increasing carbon dioxide reduces east Amazonian rainfall, and this is due to the response of plant stomata to carbon dioxide. Plant stomata do not open as wide when carbon dioxide is increased, which is known as the physiological effect. The physiological effect reduces evaporation from plants which means there is less moisture available to fuel rainfall. We construct a simple model to estimate future rainfall changes over the Amazon to help fully understand the importance of physiological effects. The simple model shows that the physiological effect of carbon dioxide is the main driver of future drying over the eastern Amazon. This implies that future changes in rainfall are independent of how much the climate warms."

74. Influence of geomagnetic activity on mesopause temperature over Yakutia (open access)

75. How a European network may help with estimating methane emissions on the French national scale (open access)

Cryosphere

76. Antarctic summer sea ice trend in the context of high latitude atmospheric circulation changes

77. Can Barents Sea ice decline in spring enhance summer hot drought events over northeastern China?

78. Episodic Reversal of Autumn Ice Advance Caused by Release of Ocean Heat in the Beaufort Sea

"We observed a four?day storm event in the western Arctic Ocean in October 2015 with strong winds (up to 20 m/s) and large waves (over four meters). As a result, heat from the upper ocean was mixed to the surface, melting approximately 5?cm thick ice over a vast area. This event temporarily reversed autumn ice advance and resulted in a thinner winter ice cover."

79. Wave Attenuation and Gas Exchange Velocity in Marginal Sea Ice Zone

80. Impact of rheology on probabilistic forecasts of sea ice trajectories: application for search and rescue operations in the Arctic (open access)

Hydrosphere

81. Coastal freshening prevents fjord bottom water renewal in Northeast Greenland – a mooring study from 2003-2015

82. Impacts of climate change on reference evapotranspiration in the Qilian Mountains of China: Historical trends and projected changes

83. Reversal of Increasing Tropical Ocean Hypoxia Trends with Sustained Climate Warming

"In tropical intermediate waters between 200m and 1000m, the model predicts a steady decline of O2 and an expansion of oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) during the 21st century. By 2150, however, the trend reverses with oxygen concentration increasing and OMZ volume shrinking through 2300." ... "The tropical O2recovery is caused mainly by reductions in tropical biological export, coupled with a modest increase in ventilation after 2200. The time-evolving oxygen distribution impacts marine nitrogen cycling, with potentially important climate feedbacks."

84. Extreme sea level implications of 1.5 °C, 2.0 °C, and 2.5 °C temperature stabilization targets in the 21st and 22nd centuries (open access)

85. Observation-Driven Estimation of the Spatial Variability of 20th Century Sea Level Rise

86. What are the implications of sea-level rise for a 1.5, 2 and 3 °C rise in global mean temperatures in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and other vulnerable deltas? (open access)

87. Sea-Level Trend Uncertainty With Pacific Climatic Variability and Temporally-Correlated Noise

Carbon cycle

88. The eMLR(C*) method to determine decadal changes in the global ocean storage of anthropogenic CO2

89. Minor contribution of small thaw ponds to the pools of carbon and methane in the inland waters of the permafrost-affected part of the Western Siberian Lowland (open access)

90. A spatial assessment of the forest carbon budget for Ukraine (open access)

"The application of both stock-based and flux-based methods shows that Ukrainian forests have served as a net carbon sink, absorbing 11.4 ± 1.7 Tg C year−1 in 2010, which is around 25% less than the official values reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change."

Atmospheric and oceanic circulation

91. Influence of Barrier Wind Forcing on Heat Delivery Towards the Greenland Ice Sheet

92. Spectral signatures of moisture-convection feedbacks over the Indian Ocean

93. Ocean-atmosphere feedback during extreme rainfall events in eastern Northeast Brazil

Other papers

Environmental issues

94. Amphibian recovery after a decrease in acidic precipitation

Palaeoclimatology

95. Lack of cool, not warm, extremes distinguishes late 20th Century climate in 979-year Tasmanian summer temperature reconstruction (open access)

"The reconstructions highlight the occurrence of numerous individual years, especially in the 15th−17th Centuries, for which temperatures were comparable with those of the late 20th Century. The 1950−1999 period, however, stands out as the warmest 50-year period on average for the past 979 years, with a sustained shift away from relatively low mean temperatures, the length of which is unique in the 979-year record."

96. Spurious additional warming reconstructed from borehole temperatures corrected for the effect of the Last Glacial Cycle

97. Bayesian analysis of the glacial-interglacial methane increase constrained by stable isotopes and Earth System modelling

98. Large changes in sea ice triggered by small changes in Atlantic water temperature

99. Hydrological and climate changes in southeast Siberia over the last 33?kyr