A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
Biosphere
1. Warmer winters reduce the advance of tree spring phenology induced by warmer springs in the Alps
"Our results showed that for similar preseason (i.e. after dormancy break) temperatures, warmer winters significantly delayed budburst and flowering along the elevation gradient (+0.9 to +5.6?days?°C−1) except for flowering of Corylus and budburst of Picea. For similar cold winter temperatures, warmer preseasons significantly advanced budburst and flowering along the elevation gradient (−5.3 to −8.4?days?°C−1). On average, the effect of winter warming was 2.3 times lower than the effect of spring warming. We also showed that warmer winter temperature conditions have a significantly larger effect at lower elevations. As a consequence, the observed delaying effect of winter warming might be beneficial to trees by reducing the risk of exposure to late spring frost on a short term. This could further lead to partial dormancy break at lower elevations before the end of the 21st century, which, in turn, may alter bud development and flowering and so tree fitness."
2. Precipitation alters temperature effects on ecosystem respiration in Tibetan alpine meadows
3. Non-uniform time-lag effects of terrestrial vegetation responses to asymmetric warming
"NPP responds to asymmetric warming (AW) with near 12-month lags globally."
"We found that annual growth variability of both species at this site is strongly driven by early summer temperatures, despite their contrasting traits and habitats."
"Warm temperatures in early 2012 caused leaf-out to occur two weeks earlier than in cooler years and led to higher seasonal carbon uptake. However, these warmer temperatures also drove higher winter ecosystem respiration, offsetting much of the springtime carbon gain. Interannual variability in net carbon uptake was high (147 to 364?g?C?m−2?y−1), but unrelated to growing season length. Instead, years with warmer growing seasons had 10% higher respiration and sequestered ∼40% less carbon than cooler years."
6. Limitations to winter and spring photosynthesis of a Rocky Mountain subalpine forest
"We tested the hypothesis that this warming has been significant enough to allow photosynthesis during sunny warm days in winter. Using thermal imagery, we found that foliage in winter was sometimes near the temperature optimum for photosynthesis, but no net carbon gain occurred for most of the cold season."
7. Predatory strategies and behaviours in cephalopods are altered by elevated CO2
8. Drought timing and local climate determine the sensitivity of eastern temperate forests to drought
10. Ocean acidification affects coral growth by reducing skeletal density
"Here, we show that skeletal density is directly sensitive to changes in seawater carbonate ion concentration and thus, to OA, whereas extension is not."
11. Tundra plant above-ground biomass and shrub dominance mapped across the North Slope of Alaska
12. Macroalgal response to a warmer ocean with higher CO2concentration
17. Partitioning of ecosystem respiration in a beech forest
Mankind
18. Understanding the Changes in Global Crop Yields through Changes in Climate and Technology
19. Analysis of the relationship between rainfall and economic growth in Indian states
20. Climate change impacts on regional rice production in China
22. Impacts of 1.5 versus 2.0 °C on cereal yields in the West African Sudan Savanna
23. Economic development and declining vulnerability to climate-related disasters in China
25. Managing Climate Risks on the Ranch with Limited Drought Information
26. Emergence of new knowledge for climate change adaptation
27. Coastal low cloudiness and fog enhance crop water use efficiency in a California agricultural system
28. Not carbon neutral: Assessing the net emissions impact of residues burned for bioenergy
29. Have fossil fuels been substituted by renewables? An empirical assessment for 10 European countries
"The paper provides evidence for the substitution effect in solar PV and hydropower, but not in wind power sources."
30. Multi-model comparison of CO2 emissions peaking in China:Lessons from CEMF01 study
31. Effectiveness of pilot carbon emissions trading systems in China
32. National contributions to climate change mitigation from agriculture: allocating a global target
33. The impact of global dietary guidelines on climate change
"Our results show a wide disparity in the emissions intensity of recommended healthy diets, ranging from 687?kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) capita−1?yr−1 for the guideline Indian diet to the 1579?kg?CO2e capita−1?yr−1 in the USA. Most of this variability is introduced in recommended dairy intake."
35. Optimize emission reduction commitments for international environmental agreements
36. The challenge of coordinated civic climate change education
39. Integrated Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Removal
42. Household air pollution, health, and climate change: cleaning the air
43. Observation-based detection and attribution of 21st century climate change
Temperature and precipitation
45. Human influence on Canadian temperatures
"Most of the observed warming of 1.7 °C increase in annual mean temperature during 1948–2012 [90% confidence interval (1.1°, 2.2 °C)] can only be explained by external forcing on the climate system, with anthropogenic influence being the dominant factor. It is estimated that anthropogenic forcing has contributed 1.0 °C (0.6°, 1.5 °C) and natural external forcing has contributed 0.2 °C (0.1°, 0.3 °C) to the observed warming. Up to 0.5 °C of the observed warming trend may be associated with low frequency variability of the climate such as that represented by the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic oscillation (NAO)."
46. Northern Galápagos corals reveal twentieth century warming in the eastern tropical Pacific
48. Air temperature changes in Toru? (central Poland) from 1871 to 2010
"Because of ICV, local and regional P trends may remain statistically insignificant and differ greatly among individual model simulations over most of the globe until the later part of the twenty-first century even under a high emissions scenario, while local Tas trends since 1979 are already statistically significant over many low-latitude regions and are projected to become significant over most of the globe by the 2030s."
50. Underestimated interannual variability of East Asian summer rainfall under climate change
51. Contributions of natural climate changes and human activities to the trend of extreme precipitation
53. An assessment of high-resolution gridded temperature datasets over California
54. Precipitation and temperature trends over central Italy (Abruzzo Region): 1951–2012
Forcings and feedbacks
57. A New Research Approach for Observing and Characterizing Land-Atmosphere Feedback
58. WIVERN: A new satellite concept to provide global in-cloud winds, precipitation and cloud properties
59. Long-term series and trends in surface solar radiation in Athens, Greece
61. Changing response of the North Atlantic/European winter climate to the 11 year solar cycle
62. The role of the water vapor feedback in the ITCZ response to hemispherically asymmetric forcings
Cryosphere
64. Changes in glacier dynamics in the northern Antarctic Peninsula since 1985
"Since 1985 a total frontal retreat of 238 km2 and since 1992 regional mean changes in ice flow by up to 58 % are observed. The trends in ice dynamics are correlated with geometric parameters of the glacier catchments and regional climatic settings."
66. Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation modulates the impacts of Arctic sea ice decline
"Approximately 88 % of the permafrost area in the 1960s has been thermally degraded in the past half century over the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. The mean elevations of the very cold, cold, cool, warm, very warm, and likely thawing permafrost areas increased by 88 m, 97 m, 155 m, 185 m, 161 m, and 250 m, respectively. This degradation may lead to increases in risks to infrastructure, flood, reductions in ecosystem resilience, and positive climate feedback."
70. Greenland iceberg melt variability from high-resolution satellite observations
Hydrosphere
71. Limited predictability of extreme decadal changes in the Arctic Ocean freshwater content
Extreme events
72. Historical and future drought in Bangladesh using copula-based bivariate regional frequency analysis
73. Future heat-waves, droughts and floods in 571 European cities
"We find that HW days increase across all cities, but especially in southern Europe, whilst the greatest HW temperature increases are expected in central European cities. For the low impact scenario, drought conditions intensify in southern European cities while river flooding worsens in northern European cities. However, the high impact scenario projects that most European cities will see increases in both drought and river flood risks. Over 100 cities are particularly vulnerable to two or more climate impacts. Moreover, the magnitude of impacts exceeds those previously reported highlighting the substantial challenge cities face to manage future climate risks."
76. Territorial early warning systems for rainfall-induced landslides
"Temperature and snow accumulation records from the annually dated Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core show that for the past 2 700 years, the eastern Ross Sea warmed, while the western Ross Sea showed no trend and West Antarctica cooled. From the 17th century onwards, this dipole relationship changed. Now all three regions show concurrent warming, with snow accumulation declining in West Antarctica and the eastern Ross Sea."
81. Sensitivity of the Eocene climate to CO2 and orbital variability
"In the Eocene (~ 55 million years ago), the Earth had high levels of atmospheric CO2, so studies of the Eocene can provide insights into the likely effects of present-day fossil fuel burning. We ran a low-resolution but very fast climate model with 50 combinations of CO2 and orbital parameters, and an Eocene layout of the oceans and continents. Climatic effects of CO2 are dominant but precession and obliquity strongly influence monsoon rainfall and ocean–land temperature contrasts, respectively."
82. Differentiation of high-latitude and polar marine faunas in a greenhouse world
Posted by Ari Jokimäki on Friday, 2 March, 2018
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