scholarly journals Ocean acidification erodes crucial auditory behaviour in a marine fish

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 917-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Simpson ◽  
Philip L. Munday ◽  
Matthew L. Wittenrich ◽  
Rachel Manassa ◽  
Danielle L. Dixson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Predator Avoidance ◽  
First Century ◽  
Fish Behaviour ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Amphiprion Percula ◽  
Test Conditions ◽  
Choice Chamber ◽  
Auditory Response

Ocean acidification is predicted to affect marine ecosystems in many ways, including modification of fish behaviour. Previous studies have identified effects of CO 2 -enriched conditions on the sensory behaviour of fishes, including the loss of natural responses to odours resulting in ecologically deleterious decisions. Many fishes also rely on hearing for orientation, habitat selection, predator avoidance and communication. We used an auditory choice chamber to study the influence of CO 2 -enriched conditions on directional responses of juvenile clownfish ( Amphiprion percula ) to daytime reef noise. Rearing and test conditions were based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions for the twenty-first century: current-day ambient, 600, 700 and 900 µatm p CO 2 . Juveniles from ambient CO 2 -conditions significantly avoided the reef noise, as expected, but this behaviour was absent in juveniles from CO 2 -enriched conditions. This study provides, to our knowledge, the first evidence that ocean acidification affects the auditory response of fishes, with potentially detrimental impacts on early survival.

Extreme events due to human-induced climate change

2006 ◽  
Vol 364 (1845) ◽  
pp. 2117-2133 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F.B Mitchell ◽  
Jason Lowe ◽  
Richard A Wood ◽  
Michael Vellinga
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Large Change ◽  
Conveyor Belt ◽  
First Century ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Climate Responses

A recent assessment by the intergovernmental panel on climate change concluded that the Earth's climate would be 2–6 °C warmer than in the pre-industrial era by the end of the twenty-first century, due to human-induced increases in greenhouse gases. In the absence of other changes, this would lead to the warmest period on Earth for at least the last 1000 years, and probably the last 100 000 years. The large-scale warming is expected to be accompanied by increased frequency and/or intensity of extreme events, such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall, storms and coastal flooding. There are also several possibilities that this large change could initiate nonlinear climate responses which lead to even more extreme and rapid (on the time-scale of decades) climate change, including the collapse of the ocean ‘conveyor belt’ circulation, the collapse of major ice sheets or the release of large amounts of methane in high latitudes leading to further global warming. Although these catastrophic events are much more speculative than the direct warming due to increased greenhouse gases, their potential impacts are great and therefore should be included in any risk assessment of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change.

scholarly journals When could global warming reach 4°C?

2011 ◽  
Vol 369 (1934) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Betts ◽  
Matthew Collins ◽  
Deborah L. Hemming ◽  
Chris D. Jones ◽  
Jason A. Lowe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
First Century ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Emissions Scenario

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) assessed a range of scenarios of future greenhouse-gas emissions without policies to specifically reduce emissions, and concluded that these would lead to an increase in global mean temperatures of between 1.6°C and 6.9°C by the end of the twenty-first century, relative to pre-industrial. While much political attention is focused on the potential for global warming of 2°C relative to pre-industrial, the AR4 projections clearly suggest that much greater levels of warming are possible by the end of the twenty-first century in the absence of mitigation. The centre of the range of AR4-projected global warming was approximately 4°C. The higher end of the projected warming was associated with the higher emissions scenarios and models, which included stronger carbon-cycle feedbacks. The highest emissions scenario considered in the AR4 (scenario A1FI) was not examined with complex general circulation models (GCMs) in the AR4, and similarly the uncertainties in climate–carbon-cycle feedbacks were not included in the main set of GCMs. Consequently, the projections of warming for A1FI and/or with different strengths of carbon-cycle feedbacks are often not included in a wider discussion of the AR4 conclusions. While it is still too early to say whether any particular scenario is being tracked by current emissions, A1FI is considered to be as plausible as other non-mitigation scenarios and cannot be ruled out. (A1FI is a part of the A1 family of scenarios, with ‘FI’ standing for ‘fossil intensive’. This is sometimes erroneously written as A1F1, with number 1 instead of letter I.) This paper presents simulations of climate change with an ensemble of GCMs driven by the A1FI scenario, and also assesses the implications of carbon-cycle feedbacks for the climate-change projections. Using these GCM projections along with simple climate-model projections, including uncertainties in carbon-cycle feedbacks, and also comparing against other model projections from the IPCC, our best estimate is that the A1FI emissions scenario would lead to a warming of 4°C relative to pre-industrial during the 2070s. If carbon-cycle feedbacks are stronger, which appears less likely but still credible, then 4°C warming could be reached by the early 2060s in projections that are consistent with the IPCC’s ‘likely range’.

scholarly journals Projection of Global Wave Climate Change toward the End of the Twenty-First Century

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (21) ◽  
pp. 8269-8288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Semedo ◽  
Ralf Weisse ◽  
Arno Behrens ◽  
Andreas Sterl ◽  
Lennart Bengtsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Wave Climate ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
First Century ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Moderate Increase ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Twenty First Century

Abstract Wind-generated waves at the sea surface are of outstanding importance for both their practical relevance in many aspects, such as coastal erosion, protection, or safety of navigation, and for their scientific relevance in modifying fluxes at the air–sea interface. So far, long-term changes in ocean wave climate have been studied mostly from a regional perspective with global dynamical studies emerging only recently. Here a global wave climate study is presented, in which a global wave model [Wave Ocean Model (WAM)] is driven by atmospheric forcing from a global climate model (ECHAM5) for present-day and potential future climate conditions represented by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) A1B emission scenario. It is found that changes in mean and extreme wave climate toward the end of the twenty-first century are small to moderate, with the largest signals being a poleward shift in the annual mean and extreme significant wave heights in the midlatitudes of both hemispheres, more pronounced in the Southern Hemisphere and most likely associated with a corresponding shift in midlatitude storm tracks. These changes are broadly consistent with results from the few studies available so far. The projected changes in the mean wave periods, associated with the changes in the wave climate in the middle to high latitudes, are also shown, revealing a moderate increase in the equatorial eastern side of the ocean basins. This study presents a step forward toward a larger ensemble of global wave climate projections required to better assess robustness and uncertainty of potential future wave climate change.

scholarly journals Conceptualising climate change archaeology

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (329) ◽  
pp. 1039-1048 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van de Noort
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
First Century ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Past Climate ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Past Climate Change ◽  
The Impact

Archaeology claims a long tradition, going back to the middle of the nineteenth century, of undertaking both palaeoclimate research and studies on the impact of past climate change on human communities (Trigger 1996: 130–38). Such research ought to be making a significant contribution to modern climate change debates, such as those led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); but in practice this rarely happens (e.g. McIntosh et al. 2000). This paper will attempt to conceptualise a ‘climate change archaeology’, which is defined here as the contribution of archaeological research to modern climate change debates (cf. Mitchell 2008). Irrespective of whether climate change poses the greatest challenge in the twenty-first century or whether it is just one of many challenges facing humanity (cf. Rowland 2010), the absence of an archaeological voice diminishes the relevance and impact of the debate as a whole.

scholarly journals Consensus on Twenty-First-Century Rainfall Projections in Climate Models More Widespread than Previously Thought

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (11) ◽  
pp. 3792-3809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott B. Power ◽  
François Delage ◽  
Robert Colman ◽  
Aurel Moise
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
First Century ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Projected Change ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Precipitation Projections

Under global warming, increases in precipitation are expected at high latitudes and near major tropical convergence zones in some seasons, while decreases are expected in many subtropical and midlatitude areas in between. In many other areas there is no consensus among models on the sign of the projected change. This is often assumed to indicate that precipitation projections in these regions are highly uncertain. Here, twenty-first century precipitation projections under the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario using 24 World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)/Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) climate models are examined. In areas with no consensus on the sign of projected change there are extensive subregions where the projected change is “very likely” (i.e., probability > 0.90) to be small (relative to, e.g., the size of interannual variability during the late twentieth century) or zero. The statistical significance of and interrelationships between methods used to identify model consensus on projected change in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report are examined, and the impact of interdependency among model projections on statistical significance is investigated. Interdependency among projections is shown to be much weaker than interdependency among simulations of climatology. The results show that there is more widespread consistency among the model projections than one might infer from the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment report. This discovery highlights the broader need to identify regions, variables, and phenomena that are expected to be little affected by anthropogenic climate change and to communicate this information to the wider community. This is especially important for projections of climate for the next 1–3 decades.

Probabilistic climate change predictions applying Bayesian model averaging

2007 ◽  
Vol 365 (1857) ◽  
pp. 2103-2116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Ki Min ◽  
Daniel Simonis ◽  
Andreas Hense
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Bayes Factor ◽  
Bayesian Model Averaging ◽  
Model Averaging ◽  
Surface Air Temperature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Global Mean

This study explores the sensitivity of probabilistic predictions of the twenty-first century surface air temperature (SAT) changes to different multi-model averaging methods using available simulations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fourth assessment report. A way of observationally constrained prediction is provided by training multi-model simulations for the second half of the twentieth century with respect to long-term components. The Bayesian model averaging (BMA) produces weighted probability density functions (PDFs) and we compare two methods of estimating weighting factors: Bayes factor and expectation–maximization algorithm. It is shown that Bayesian-weighted PDFs for the global mean SAT changes are characterized by multi-modal structures from the middle of the twenty-first century onward, which are not clearly seen in arithmetic ensemble mean (AEM). This occurs because BMA tends to select a few high-skilled models and down-weight the others. Additionally, Bayesian results exhibit larger means and broader PDFs in the global mean predictions than the unweighted AEM. Multi-modality is more pronounced in the continental analysis using 30-year mean (2070–2099) SATs while there is only a little effect of Bayesian weighting on the 5–95% range. These results indicate that this approach to observationally constrained probabilistic predictions can be highly sensitive to the method of training, particularly for the later half of the twenty-first century, and that a more comprehensive approach combining different regions and/or variables is required.

scholarly journals The reef-building coral Siderastrea siderea exhibits parabolic responses to ocean acidification and warming

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1797) ◽  
pp. 20141856 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl D. Castillo ◽  
Justin B. Ries ◽  
John F. Bruno ◽  
Isaac T. Westfield
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Coral Species ◽  
Thermal Conditions ◽  
First Century ◽  
Calcification Rate ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Coral Calcification ◽  
Surface Ocean ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Reef Zones

Anthropogenic increases in atmospheric CO 2 over this century are predicted to cause global average surface ocean pH to decline by 0.1–0.3 pH units and sea surface temperature to increase by 1–4°C. We conducted controlled laboratory experiments to investigate the impacts of CO 2 -induced ocean acidification ( p CO 2 = 324, 477, 604, 2553 µatm) and warming (25, 28, 32°C) on the calcification rate of the zooxanthellate scleractinian coral Siderastrea siderea , a widespread, abundant and keystone reef-builder in the Caribbean Sea. We show that both acidification and warming cause a parabolic response in the calcification rate within this coral species. Moderate increases in p CO 2 and warming, relative to near-present-day values, enhanced coral calcification, with calcification rates declining under the highest p CO 2 and thermal conditions. Equivalent responses to acidification and warming were exhibited by colonies across reef zones and the parabolic nature of the corals' response to these stressors was evident across all three of the experiment's 30-day observational intervals. Furthermore, the warming projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the end of the twenty-first century caused a fivefold decrease in the rate of coral calcification, while the acidification projected for the same interval had no statistically significant impact on the calcification rate—suggesting that ocean warming poses a more immediate threat than acidification for this important coral species.

Denouement: World Politics, Systemic Leadership, and Climate Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
World Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Climate Fluctuations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Agrarian Economy ◽  
Historical Processes

In this final chapter, we conclude by recapitulating our argument and evidence. One goal of this work has been to improve our understanding of the patterns underlying the evolution of world politics over the past one thousand years. How did we get to where we are now? Where and when did the “modern” world begin? How did we shift from a primarily agrarian economy to a primarily industrial one? How did these changes shape world politics? A related goal was to examine more closely the factors that led to the most serious attempts by states to break free of agrarian constraints. We developed an interactive model of the factors that we thought were most likely to be significant. Finally, a third goal was to examine the linkages between the systemic leadership that emerged from these historical processes and the global warming crisis of the twenty-first century. Climate change means that the traditional energy platforms for system leadership—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—have become counterproductive. The ultimate irony is that we thought that the harnessing of carbon fuels made us invulnerable to climate fluctuations, while the exact opposite turns out to be true. The more carbon fuels are consumed, the greater the damage done to the atmosphere. In many respects, the competition for systemic leadership generated this problem. Yet it is unclear whether systemic leadership will be up to the task of resolving it.

scholarly journals Global evidence of constraints and limits to human adaptation

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adelle Thomas ◽  
Emily Theokritoff ◽  
Alexandra Lesnikowski ◽  
Diana Reckien ◽  
Kripa Jagannathan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Behavioral Adaptation ◽  
Human Adaptation ◽  
Small Islands ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Adaptation Response ◽  
Cultural Constraints ◽  
Global Evidence

AbstractConstraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change. We conduct a systematic review of 1,682 academic studies on human adaptation responses to identify patterns in constraints and limits to adaptation for different regions, sectors, hazards, adaptation response types, and actors. Using definitions of constraints and limits provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that most literature identifies constraints to adaptation but that there is limited literature focused on limits to adaptation. Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater constraints and both hard and soft limits to adaptation. Technological, infrastructural, and ecosystem-based adaptation suggest more evidence of constraints and hard limits than other types of responses. Individuals and households face economic and socio-cultural constraints which also inhibit behavioral adaptation responses and may lead to limits. Finance, governance, institutional, and policy constraints are most prevalent globally. These findings provide early signposts for boundaries of human adaptation and are of high relevance for guiding proactive adaptation financing and governance from local to global scales.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document