scholarly journals Socio-ecological Interactions in a Changing Climate: A Review of the Mongolian Pastoral System

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 5883
Author(s):  
Kaoru Kakinuma ◽  
Aki Yanagawa ◽  
Takehiro Sasaki ◽  
Mukund Palat Rao ◽  
Shinjiro Kanae
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Ecological Interactions ◽  
Pastoral System ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Central Regions ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact

Coping with climate change in socio-ecological systems is one of the most urgent issues facing the world. This is particularly true in socio-ecological systems, where climate not only influences social and ecosystem dynamics, but also modulates their interaction. In this paper, we presented a conceptual framework through a literature review and a trend analysis for assessing the impact of climate change that incorporates socio-ecological interactions. In particular, we focused on the Mongolian pastoral system, which has tightly coupled socio-ecological interactions, as a model for describing the framework. Our framework suggests that the flexibility in mobility of herders is the principal factor in determining the vulnerability of the socio-ecological system to climate change. The flexibility varies along a climatic gradient and socio-ecological interactions in each region have evolved to be suited to its local climate regime. Herders in northern and central regions of Mongolia move shorter distances, and less flexible, than those in southern (Gobi) region. Climatic hazards, on the other hand have been increasing across Mongolia with a trend toward warmer and drier conditions since the 1960s. We suggest that further warming and drying would have the greatest impact on northern and central regions due to lower flexibility in mobility among herders there coupled with the much higher livestock density in the regions. The findings support that maintaining flexibility of mobile herding will likely be crucial to reducing the vulnerability of the Mongolian pastoral system to climate change.

scholarly journals Ocean Acidification Amplifies the Olfactory Response to 2-Phenylethylamine: Altered Cue Reception as a Mechanistic Pathway?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Schirrmacher ◽  
Christina C. Roggatz ◽  
David M. Benoit ◽  
Jörg D. Hardege
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Hermit Crabs ◽  
Ecological Interactions ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Mechanistic Pathway ◽  
Sea Lampreys ◽  
Pagurus Bernhardus ◽  
Decreasing Ph ◽  
The Impact

AbstractWith carbon dioxide (CO2) levels rising dramatically, climate change threatens marine environments. Due to increasing CO2 concentrations in the ocean, pH levels are expected to drop by 0.4 units by the end of the century. There is an urgent need to understand the impact of ocean acidification on chemical-ecological processes. To date, the extent and mechanisms by which the decreasing ocean pH influences chemical communication are unclear. Combining behaviour assays with computational chemistry, we explore the function of the predator related cue 2-phenylethylamine (PEA) for hermit crabs (Pagurus bernhardus) in current and end-of-the-century oceanic pH. Living in intertidal environments, hermit crabs face large pH fluctuations in their current habitat in addition to climate-change related ocean acidification. We demonstrate that the dietary predator cue PEA for mammals and sea lampreys is an attractant for hermit crabs, with the potency of the cue increasing with decreasing pH levels. In order to explain this increased potency, we assess changes to PEA’s conformational and charge-related properties as one potential mechanistic pathway. Using quantum chemical calculations validated by NMR spectroscopy, we characterise the different protonation states of PEA in water. We show how protonation of PEA could affect receptor-ligand binding, using a possible model receptor for PEA (human TAAR1). Investigating potential mechanisms of pH-dependent effects on olfactory perception of PEA and the respective behavioural response, our study advances the understanding of how ocean acidification interferes with the sense of smell and thereby might impact essential ecological interactions in marine ecosystems.

scholarly journals Variability of the water availability in a river lake system – A case study of Lake Symsar

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela B. Kuriata-Potasznik ◽  
Sławomir Szymczyk
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Water Retention ◽  
Water Exchange ◽  
Water Losses ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Lake System ◽  
Catchment Areas ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIt is predicted that climate change will result in the diminution of water resources available both on global and regional scales. Local climate change is harder to observe and therefore, while counteracting its effects, it seems advisable to undertake studies on pertinent regional and local conditions. In this research, our aim was to assess the impact of a river and its catchment on fluctuations in the water availability in a natural lake which belongs to a post-glacial river and lake system. River and lake systems behave most often like a single interacting hydrological unit, and the intensity of water exchange in these systems is quite high, which may cause temporary water losses. This study showed that water in the analyzed river and lake system was exchanged approx. every 66 days, which resulted from the total (horizontal and vertical) water exchange. Also, the management of a catchment area seems to play a crucial role in the local water availability, as demonstrated by this research, where water retention was favoured by wooded and marshy areas. More intensive water retention was observed in a catchment dominated by forests, pastures and wetlands. Wasteland and large differences in the land elevation in the tested catchment are unfavourable to water retention because they intensify soil evaporation and accelerate the water run-off outside of the catchment. Among the actions which should be undertaken in order to counteract water deficiencies in catchment areas, rational use and management of the land resources in the catchment are most often mentioned.

scholarly journals Forest carbon allocation modelling under climate change

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 1937-1960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarína Merganičová ◽  
Ján Merganič ◽  
Aleksi Lehtonen ◽  
Giorgio Vacchiano ◽  
Maša Zorana Ostrogović Sever ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Carbon Allocation ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Nonstructural Carbohydrates ◽  
The Past ◽  
Process Understanding ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Carbon allocation plays a key role in ecosystem dynamics and plant adaptation to changing environmental conditions. Hence, proper description of this process in vegetation models is crucial for the simulations of the impact of climate change on carbon cycling in forests. Here we review how carbon allocation modelling is currently implemented in 31 contrasting models to identify the main gaps compared with our theoretical and empirical understanding of carbon allocation. A hybrid approach based on combining several principles and/or types of carbon allocation modelling prevailed in the examined models, while physiologically more sophisticated approaches were used less often than empirical ones. The analysis revealed that, although the number of carbon allocation studies over the past 10 years has substantially increased, some background processes are still insufficiently understood and some issues in models are frequently poorly represented, oversimplified or even omitted. Hence, current challenges for carbon allocation modelling in forest ecosystems are (i) to overcome remaining limits in process understanding, particularly regarding the impact of disturbances on carbon allocation, accumulation and utilization of nonstructural carbohydrates, and carbon use by symbionts, and (ii) to implement existing knowledge of carbon allocation into defence, regeneration and improved resource uptake in order to better account for changing environmental conditions.

scholarly journals Comparison of the Impact of Global Climate Changes and Urbanization on Summertime Future Climate in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (8) ◽  
pp. 1441-1454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachiho A. Adachi ◽  
Fujio Kimura ◽  
Hiroyuki Kusaka ◽  
Tomoshige Inoue ◽  
Hiroaki Ueda
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Temperature Increase ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Tokyo Metropolitan Area ◽  
Global Climate Changes ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn this study, the impact of global climate change and anticipated urbanization over the next 70 years is estimated with regard to the summertime local climate in the Tokyo metropolitan area (TMA), whose population is already near its peak now. First, five climate projections for the 2070s calculated with the aid of general circulation models (GCMs) are used for dynamical downscaling experiments to evaluate the impact of global climate changes using a regional climate model. Second, the sensitivity of future urbanization until the 2070s is examined assuming a simple developing urban scenario for the TMA. These two sensitivity analyses indicate that the increase in the surface air temperature from the 1990s to the 2070s is about 2.0°C as a result of global climate changes under the A1B scenario in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) and about 0.5°C as a result of urbanization. Considering the current urban heat island intensity (UHII) of 1.0°C, the possible UHII in the future reaches an average of 1.5°C in the TMA. This means that the mitigation of the UHII should be one of the ways to adapt to a local temperature increase caused by changes in the future global climate. In addition, the estimation of temperature increase due to global climate change has an uncertainty of about 2.0°C depending on the GCM projection, suggesting that the local climate should be projected on the basis of multiple GCM projections.

scholarly journals A New Framework to Evaluate Urban Design Using Urban Microclimatic Modelling in Future Climatic Conditions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dasaraden Mauree ◽  
Silvia Coccolo ◽  
Dasun Perera ◽  
Vahid Nik ◽  
Jean-Louis Scartezzini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact

Building more energy efficient and sustainable urban areas that will both mitigate the effect of climate change and adapt for the future climate, requires the development new tools and methods that can help urban planners, architect and communities achieve this goal. In the current study, we designed a workflow that links different methodologies developed separately, to derive the energy consumption of a university school campus for the future. Three different scenarios for typical future years (2039, 2069, 2099) were run as well as a renovation scenario (Minergie-P). We analyse the impact of climate change on the heating and cooling demand of the buildings and determined the relevance of the accounting of the local climate in this particular context. The results from the simulations showed that in the future there will a constant decrease in the heating demand while for the cooling demand there will be a significant increase. It was further demonstrated that when the local climate was taken into account there was an even higher rise in the cooling demand but also that the proposed renovations were not sufficient to design resilient buildings. We then discuss the implication of this work on the simulation of building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale and the impact of future local climate on energy system design. We finally give a few perspective regarding improved urban design and possible pathways for the future urban areas.

scholarly journals The Impact of Local Climate Change on Radial Picea abies Growth: A Case Study in Natural Mountain Spruce Stand and Low-Lying Spruce Monoculture

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1118
Author(s):  
Vladimír Šagát ◽  
Ivan Ružek ◽  
Karel Šilhán ◽  
Pavel Beracko
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Picea Abies ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Spruce Forests ◽  
Spruce Stands ◽  
Local Climate Change ◽  
Positive Correlations ◽  
The Impact

Picea abies L. Karst is undeniably one of the most important tree species growing in Slovakia. In addition to natural mountain spruce forests, monocultures planted in lower areas are also quite common. In this article, we analyze the climate–growth response differences between these two types of spruce stands in the context of local climate change consequences. The study area representing natural mountain spruce forests is located under Osobitá Mt. (Tatra Mountains, Slovakia), while the analyzed low-lying planted monoculture is situated near Biely kríž (Malé Karpaty Mountains, Slovakia). Temporal variation of the dendroclimatological relationships was expressed by the running Spearman correlation coefficient during the observed period 1961–2018. The results showed crucial differences in the dendroclimatological relationships between the selected study areas. For the natural mountain spruce stand, consistent, weak, and positive correlations to the temperature variables were typical, with negative relationships to precipitation during the growing season. In this case, the negative impact of a recent temperature rise was limited. In contrast, the monoculture reacted to the temperature variation during the growing season with fluctuations, while in the case of precipitation, almost no dependence was found. Such incoherency may be a consequence of worsened health conditions, as well as insufficient resiliency to climate-driven stress. The importance of this paper is in its wide applicability, mainly in forestry.

scholarly journals Utilization of Climate Files Predicting Future Weather in Dynamic Building Performance Simulation – A review

2021 ◽  
Vol 2069 (1) ◽  
pp. 012070
Author(s):  
C N Nielsen ◽  
J Kolarik
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Dynamical Downscaling ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
The Impact

Abstract As the climate is changing and buildings are designed with a life expectancy of 50+ years, it is sensible to take climate change into account during the design phase. Data representing future weather are needed so that building performance simulations can predict the impact of climate change. Currently, this usually requires one year of weather data with a temporal resolution of one hour, which represents local climate conditions. However, both the temporal and spatial resolution of global climate models is generally too coarse. Two general approaches to increase the resolution of climate models - statistical and dynamical downscaling have been developed. They exist in many variants and modifications. The present paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of future weather application as well as critical insights in the model and method selection. The results indicate a general trend to select the simplest methods, which often involves a compromise on selecting climate models.

Signature of LULC induced Regional Climate Change over Eastern India: A Modeling and Observational Approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Partha Pratim Gogoi ◽  
Velu Vinoj
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Budget ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Surface Energy Budget ◽  
Specific Humidity ◽  
Radiation Absorption ◽  
Wave Radiation ◽  
Temperature Pattern ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
The Impact

<p>The impact of local climate change induced by urbanization or changes in the Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) has been contributing as much as ~50% of the total rise in surface air temperature over the Eastern Indian state of Odisha. While analysing the physical mechanism of such rise, it is found that the changes in the specific heat capacity of the surface regulates the changes in the surface energy budget of the region. A slight change in the energy budget may significantly disturb the regional/local climate balance thereby simulating the primary meteorological parameters such as the temperature and surface heat fluxes. LULC which characterises the surface properties can contribute immensely to the energy budget cycle through biophysical and biochemical processes like evaporation, evapotranspiration, shortwave and long wave radiation, absorption and reflection. In this study, we used observational and modeling techniques to quantify the ramifications of LULC changes on the climate of Odisha during the period 2004-2015. A significant change in the spatial pattern of temperature has been observed towards the eastern part of the region.  We try to find out whether this shift in temperature pattern is because of LULC or global climate forcing. Significant diversification in the agricultural practices have also been noticed in the region in the recent times.  To evaluate such effects, Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale modeling system has been enforced to visualize how significantly changes in LULC have impacted parameters like surface temperature, heat fluxes, humidity etc. However, the modeling results also follow consistency with that of the observational signatures and a rise of ~0.5-1.0 <sup>o</sup>C has been observed. Along with the spatial analysis, vertical profiles are also studied where we found significant impact of changed LULC on specific humidity and temperature. This study discusses the dynamics of land-atmosphere interactions instigated by local LULC effects.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: LULC, urbanization, remote sensing, numerical modeling, climate change </p>

scholarly journals Assessing the Impact of Projected Climate Change on Zoo Visitation in Toronto (Canada)

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah J. Hewer ◽  
William A. Gough
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
The Impact

Weather and climate have been widely recognised as having an important influence on tourism and recreational activities. However, the nature of these relationships varies depending on the type, timing and location of these activities. Climate change is expected to have considerable and diverse impacts on recreation and tourism. Nonetheless, the potential impact of climate change on zoo visitation has yet to be assessed in a scientific manner. This case study begins by establishing the baseline conditions and statistical relationship between weather and zoo visitation in Toronto, Canada. Regression analysis, relying on historical weather and visitation data, measured at the daily time scale, formed the basis for this analysis. Climate change projections relied on output produced by Global Climate Models (GCMs) for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, ranked and selected using the herein defined Selective Ensemble Approach. This seasonal GCM output was then used to inform daily, local, climate change scenarios, generated using Statistical Down-Scaling Model Version 5.2. A series of seasonal models were then used to assess the impact of projected climate change on zoo visitation. While accounting for the negative effects of precipitation and extreme heat, the models suggested that annual visitation to the zoo will likely increase over the course of the 21st century due to projected climate change: from +8% in the 2020s to +18% by the 2080s, for the least change scenario; and from +8% in the 2020s to +34% in the 2080s, for the greatest change scenario. The majority of the positive impact of projected climate change on zoo visitation in Toronto will likely occur in the shoulder season (spring and fall); with only moderate increases in the off season (winter) and potentially negative impacts associated with the peak season (summer), especially if warming exceeds 3.5 °C.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document