ABSTRACT: In recent years, maize production in South Africa has faced challenges related to climate change which have prompted farmers to adapt their production activities. We assessed factors informing the adaptive decision-making of maize farmers in the Vaal catchment by examining linkages between farmers’ experiences, their perceptions of climate change and the adaptation strategies they use. Data

ABSTRACT: Decadal climate variability (DCV) phenomena are ocean-based conditions that have climate influences persisting for a decade or more. Few studies have addressed the coupled agricultural and economic implications of these phenomena. Here, we investigate the economic value of DCV information in a South Central Texas case study along with the nature of possible adaptations to the information

ABSTRACT: An analysis of the evolution of annual and seasonal mean temperatures on the Spanish mainland (western Mediterranean basin) was carried out, using the new MOnthly TEmperature Dataset of Spain century (MOTEDAS_century) data set. This data set was developed by combining archives from the National Meteorological Agency and newly digitised legacy data from the Annual Books published between 1916

ABSTRACT: Sunshine duration (SD) has recently received a great deal of attention as it relates to climatic research under global climate change. Here, we explored the spatiotemporal variability of SD in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in mainland China during 1960-2018. A novel equation was proposed to assess the relative influence of 5 climatic variables on variability in SD based on random forest (RF)

ABSTRACT: Numerical models of the heat index time series and spatio-temporal fields can be used for a variety of purposes, from the study of the dynamics of heat waves to projections of the influence of future climate on humans. To conduct these studies one must have efficient numerical models that successfully reproduce key features of the real weather processes. In this study, 2 numerical stochastic

ABSTRACT: The old idea of climatic determinism of people’s thinking and acting is misleading because people continuously strive to create control over their lives. Perceived control over courses of action is often reduced by cold-induced or heat-induced stress. To restore control, rich people tend to use active internal strategies (e.g. buying or organizing) whereas poor people tend to adopt passive

ABSTRACT: We investigated the effects of variations in the 4 primary mid-latitude large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns on nutrients potentially limiting phytoplankton growth in the Mediterranean Sea (nitrate and phosphate), with a focus on the key deep convective areas of the basin (Gulf of Lions, Southern Adriatic Sea, Southern Aegean Sea and Rhodes Gyre). Monthly indices of these 4 modes

ABSTRACT: To evaluate and clarify the daily precipitation characteristics (i.e. amount, frequency and intensity) of the regional climate models (RCMs) in China, long-term simulations were carried out using RegCM4.5 and Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), which were nested within the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)’s 20th century reanalysis (ERA-20C) between 1901

ABSTRACT: Climate extremes have large impacts on human societies and natural ecosystems. Projection of changes in climate extremes is very important for long-term planning. The current study investigated future changes in extreme precipitation events over Iran based on 18 CMIP5 models for the period 2006-2100. National gridded data from the Asfazari database were used to evaluate climate model simulation

ABSTRACT: Characterizing the errors in satellite-based precipitation estimations for drought monitoring is of great importance, as these estimations provide both spatially and temporally complete records. The aim of this study was to evaluate satellite-based quantitative precipitation estimates to monitor meteorological drought in southwestern Iran. The reliability of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring

ABSTRACT: Recent drought and a surge in days with weather conditions conducive to wildfire occurrence during 2015-2019 reminded the Czech Republic that it is not immune to this type of natural hazard. Although Central Europe has not been at the center of such events, observed climate data and climate projections suggest a tendency toward more years with wet and mild winters and dry and hot summers

ABSTRACT: This paper demonstrates an early application of local climate zones (LCZs) in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. The main goal was to assess the thermal properties within the areas of influence (sectors) of 10 meteorological stations in the city, classified into the LCZ scheme. Air temperature observations at 07:00, 13:00 and 19:00 h (T7:00, T13:00 and T19:00) and daily measurements were obtained

ABSTRACT: Cloudiness is an important climate parameter, and it is closely related to insolation, temperature, and precipitation. Total cloud cover (TCC) data along with the number of cloudless (CL) and overcast (OC) days from 18 stations in Montenegro during the period 1961-2017 were used to determine the seasonal trends and possible causes of cloudiness variability. The Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s

ABSTRACT: Future warming in West Africa will have a detrimental effect on the communities living there. To support assessments of climate change impacts, we propose a method for refining regional temperature projections and demonstrate its application to West Africa for the mid-21st century. Our focus is on characterising uncertainty more comprehensively by considering projections of global warming

ABSTRACT: The present study is an analysis of recent changes (1981-2016) in air temperature across the north-eastern region of Italy (NERI), located in a transition zone influenced by the Mediterranean and continental climatological regimes. Annual and seasonal trends in mean maximum and minimum temperatures as well as in selected extreme indices are investigated using high-quality and homogenised

ABSTRACT: It is clearly known that precipitation is essential for fauna and flora. Studies have shown that location and temporal factors have an effect on precipitation. Accurate prediction of precipitation is very important for water resource management, and artificial intelligence methods are frequently used to make such predictions. In this study, the deep-learning and geographic information system

ABSTRACT: Droughts—major natural disasters with a complex development and evolution process—cause enormous losses for society, especially in the agriculture sector. We analyzed the spatiotemporal evolution of drought frequency in China at grid level during 1981-2019 with the nonparametric Mann-Kendall trend method, using a high temporal resolution vegetation health index dataset at week-scale. Results

ABSTRACT: Precipitation and temperature over the Lake Maggiore watershed greatly influence its water balance. Local communities from both Italy and Switzerland rely on the watershed for agriculture, tourism and hydropower production. Accurate climate projections in this area are vital in dealing with their impacts and yet are still lacking. Future climate was assessed by applying the Statistical DownScaling

ABSTRACT: Urban climate research is essential for sustainable development. Few review papers have focused on long-term research and planning applications in China. We conducted a bibliometric review by using CiteSpace to elaborate changes in hot spots, frontiers, development processes, and applications of urban climate research from 1963 to 2018. The identified research could be categorized into 4

ABSTRACT: A substantial increase in food production is needed for global food security. Europe is the largest wheat producer, delivering 35% of wheat globally, but its future genetic yield potential is yet unknown. We estimated the genetic yield potential of wheat in Europe under 2050 climate by designing in silico wheat ideotypes based on genetic variation in wheat germplasm. To evaluate the importance

ABSTRACT: In the present study, we examined the exposure of the Tamil Nadu region, India, to droughts and extreme rainfall events using the Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and a classification scheme based on daily rainfall. We used high-resolution temperature and rainfall observations from the India Meteorological Department for the period 1951-2016. The robustness of the

ABSTRACT: Studies regarding species distribution, resilience and adaptability of different ecosystems as well as the response of human society are linked with our ability to identify past and predict future changes. Climate change, together with other changes like land use, land cover and invasive alien species, are important to establish the background for further modelling approaches (e.g. species

ABSTRACT: Adaptation will be essential in many sectors, including agriculture, as a certain level of warming is anticipated even after substantial climate mitigation. However, global adaptation costs and adaptation limits in agriculture are understudied. Here, we estimate the global adaptation cost and residual damage (climate change impacts after adaptation) for maize, rice, wheat and soybean using

ABSTRACT: Historical temperature reconstructions at high altitudes are still insufficient in southwestern China, which is considered one of the most sensitive areas to climate change in the world. Here we developed a tree ring-width chronology of Faxon fir Abies fargesii var. faxoniana at the upper timber line on Zhegu Mountain, Miyaluo Scenic Area, western Sichuan, China. The climate-tree growth relationship

ABSTRACT: Large-scale agricultural production in North China makes the study of precipitation in this area vital. The performance of the Integrated Merged Multisatellite Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) and the Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH) precipitation products for 2015 was evaluated against daily precipitation data from 404 rain gauges in North

ABSTRACT: Changes in extreme climate have caused widespread concern, and it is important to understand how climate extremes will link to global warming intensity at the regional scale. Based on the daily minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation outputs from 25 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models under the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario

ABSTRACT: Projections of Köppen-Geiger climate classifications under future climate change for the Iberian Peninsula are investigated using a 7-ensemble mean of regional climate models obtained from EURO-CORDEX. Maps with predicted future scenarios for temperature, precipitation and Köppen-Geiger classification are analyzed for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in Iberia. Widespread statistically significant shifts

ABSTRACT: The regional climate model RegCM version 4.6, developed by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis, was used to simulate the radiation budget over China. Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) satellite data were utilized to evaluate the simulation results based on 4 radiative components: net shortwave (NSW) radiation at the surface of the earth and

ABSTRACT: Grain maize production exceeds the demand for grain maize in China. Methods for harvesting good-quality silage maize urgently need a theoretical basis and reference data in order to ensure its benefits to farmers. However, research on silage maize is limited, and very few studies have focused on its energetic value and quality. Here, we calibrated the CERES-Maize model for 24 cultivars with

ABSTRACT: Long-term changes in the soil freezing-thawing depth are an important indicator of climate change. Based on data from 764 meteorological stations across China, we analysed the climatology and variability in the seasonal freezing depth (SFD) during 1965-2013 and investigated the connections among changes in the SFD, meteorological factors (temperature, precipitation, snow depth, freezing index

ABSTRACT: We used climate models to assess the effects of 2 distinct anthropogenic forcings on the water budget in the Amazon basin: (1) increasing global greenhouse gases under the RCP8.5 scenario, and (2) land cover change caused by deforestation. The Eta regional climate model, driven by the Brazilian Earth System Model version 2.5 (BESM 2.5), was used to simulate the climate response under the

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article was to explore the impacts of climate change on human health in Australia in general, and the state of Queensland in particular. We evaluated health-related services and adaptation challenges in the health sector and indicate possible remedies. The scientific consensus on the evidence for anthropogenic climate change is convincing. Climate change will have potentially

ABSTRACT: Mesoscale convective complexes (MCCs) are meteorological events that result in severe storms, hail, flood, and tornadoes, but they are difficult to forecast. In South America (SA), MCCs are usually larger and last longer than those in the USA. Southern Brazil (SB) is one of their preferred regions of occurrence. This study’s objective was to contribute to the identification of the main physical

ABSTRACT: Within the context of analyzing daily heavy precipitation events in the Mediterranean under enhanced greenhouse gas forcing in the 21st century, a new method considering non-stationarities in the relationships of large-scale circulation predictors and regional precipitation extremes was applied. The Mediterranean area was split into up to 22 precipitation regions, and analyses were performed

ABSTRACT: Low streamflows caused by natural and anthropogenic forcings affect ecosystems and societies, especially on large timescales. We analysed the main basins of central-north Argentina (CNA) using centennial streamflow data. This study is focussed on describing spatial and temporal variability of hydrological drought events, and evaluating the atmospheric and oceanic drivers under hydrological

ABSTRACT: Hydroelectric sources are a major contributor to power generation in Brazil. The constant evaluation of climate change impacts is relevant for guiding Brazilian energy policy. This research presents a methodological framework composed of the calibration of a hydrological model and verification of a climate model in the ‘present’ climate (1961-1990), in addition to future scenarios (2011-2100)

ABSTRACT: Mid-latitude mesoscale weather during the climatological summer is strongly influenced by fluctuations in synoptic-scale circulation patterns. Previous research has linked Arctic amplification to alterations in summer synoptic climatology, leading to more extreme weather events in the mid-latitudes. In this study, seasonal (JJA) upper-level (500 hPa) atmospheric flow is reconstructed in the

ABSTRACT: Previous investigations have documented relationships between global-scale forcings and Northeast United States moisture conditions, yet the physical pathways from global-scale forcing to sub-regional moisture deficit or surplus are not well understood. This research uses eigenvector-based regionalization to confirm the existence of sub-regional moisture environments within the Northeast

ABSTRACT: Vulnerability assessment frameworks are used in many countries to provide a primary assessment status of marine fish stocks and their susceptibility to change in response to external factors. With increasing evidence that the marine fisheries of India are likely to face major impacts of changing climate along with other natural and anthropogenic factors, a study was carried out to determine

ABSTRACT: Variation in the onset, cessation, and length of the rainy season (ORS, CRS, and LRS, respectively) influences crop growth and food security. In this study, we used the cumulative precipitation anomaly method, spline interpolation, Mann-Kendall trend test, and linear regression to investigate the ORS, CRS, LRS, and rainfall amount during the rainy season (ARS), and their temporal trends,

ABSTRACT: Reviewing the results of environmental epidemiology, post-volcanic climatology, and environmental history, we focused exclusively on volcanic eruption-ENSO and ENSO-cholera connections in order to establish a hypothesis that large tropical and Northern Hemisphere volcanic eruptions trigger an environmentally driven cascade process via post-volcanic ENSO anomalies. This cascade process has

ABSTRACT: Projecting land-use changes can help with identifying potential threats to biodiversity and ecosystem function, thus mitigating impacts on human livelihoods. We examined changes in 6 land-use categories in Japan: paddy fields, croplands, forests, wastelands, built-up areas, and other artificial land cover. Land-use changes were projected to the year 2100 while considering effects from climate

ABSTRACT: Cloud amounts, their spatial distribution, and the sky view factor (SVF) all have effects on the nocturnal upwelling longwave radiation and result in different degrees of urban-rural radiation cooling, which are widely investigated in studies of the urban heat island phenomenon. Currently, most research studies discuss the influence of synoptic conditions and urban geometric morphology on

ABSTRACT: The impacts of climate change on the heat budget of the eastern China seas (ECSs) are estimated under the historical representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios using an atmosphere-ocean coupled regional climate model system (REMO/MPIOM). The results suggest that recent and future ocean warming over the ECSs is linked overall to increased oceanic heat transport by

ABSTRACT: Variation in the amount and intensity of precipitation is one of the most important factors determining how biological systems respond to anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, given the importance of climate projections for influencing (inter)national policy, there is a pressing need to contextualise contemporary projections with observed trends to better inform environmental strategy and

ABSTRACT: Summer heat wave (HW) events have disastrous consequences for human health, economies, and ecosystems. The present study investigates the variability of HWs and estimates the recurrence probabilities of the severe 2003 and 2013 hot summers in Zhejiang Province, southeast China. We define a HW event as ≥3 consecutive days having a daily maximum temperature ≥35°C. Considering this definition

ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the analysis of time trends for European average temperature anomalies for the period from 1655 to 2017 using a dataset based on the Central England Temperatures (CET) and other meteorological stations. The reason for this study is to determine first if long memory is present in the data, and then to estimate the time trends in a more rigorous way. The results indicate

ABSTRACT: This study evaluates possible spatial and temporal changes in precipitation extremes over China under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios using the regional climate model system ‘Provide Regional Climates for Impacts Studies’ (PRECIS), driven with HadGEM2-ES. The extreme precipitation indices applied are consecutive dry days (CDDs), simple daily precipitation intensity index

ABSTRACT: Most of the studies that investigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture have concentrated on the effects of changes in mean temperature and precipitation even though the importance of volatility and risk on farmers’ decision making is well documented. This study examines the empirical importance of the effects of risk associated with the impacts of climate change on farm land allocations

ABSTRACT: Ecological studies based on gridded climate data are increasingly common, but the effect of the uncertainty of climate data on ecological estimations is rarely assessed. Here, we assessed the effect of the uncertainty of local and global climate data (LCD and GCD, respectively) on ecological land classifications, using the Holdridge life zones and the country of Argentina as a case study

ABSTRACT: We present a new method for identifying historic tropical cyclone activity utilizing frequencies of intra-annual density fluctuations in longleaf pine in western Florida. In addition, in this work we provide information about the causal factors that determine the formation of intra-annual density fluctuations (IADFs) in longleaf pine latewood. Specifically, we test the viability of using

ABSTRACT: Common perception holds that tropical cyclones occur exclusively within the latitudinal range of 5° to 20°S. However, a few storms have been recorded poleward of this range each decade over the past half century. This study explores tropical cyclone occurrence south of the Tropic of Capricorn in the southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO; defined as 0°-30°S; African East coast up to 110°E). Using observational

ABSTRACT: The assessment of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions performance is crucial to make policies for abatement. This study applies the parameterized quadratic directional output distance function to estimate the technical inefficiency, abatement potential and shadow price of CO2 emissions from fuel combustion in China’s secondary industry during 2001-2015. The CO2 emissions performances in 3 major

ABSTRACT: Robust statistical techniques are required to estimate the trend in meteorological data, where data are available only for a limited period with too many missing observations. We examined the application of a dynamic linear model (DLM) for estimating changes in time series meteorological data. For this purpose, we used maximum and minimum monthly temperatures recorded over 36 yr at 6 meteorological

ABSTRACT: The Arctic Oscillation (AO) is commonly recognized as a dominant large-scale mode influencing climate over the Northern Hemisphere. Here, the influences of May AO on summer (JJA) extreme precipitation events and summer extreme warm days over the middle reaches of Yangtze River Valley for the period 1961-2014 are investigated. Following a positive May AO, there are usually fewer summer extreme

ABSTRACT: The increase in the number of tropical nights (TN; minimum temperature ‡20°C) constitutes important evidence of the global warming process throughout the Mediterranean region. A significant increase in the number of these events has been recorded since the second half of the 20th century. From the meteorological observations in the period 1950-2014 in the regions of Valencia and Murcia, in

ABSTRACT: Sugar and acid accumulation dynamics in grapes Vitis vinifera L. play a key role in the production of high-quality wines, and changes in mean climate and variability, expected in the coming decades, may affect these dynamics and result in poor grape yield and quality. Simulation models may be useful tools for predicting grape quality changes under warmer conditions and thus provide fundamental

ABSTRACT: The response of small rodents to rainfall is largely species-specific. There is a need to widely survey the effects of rainfall among varied rodent species, particularly arboreal rodents to accurately understand their response to rainfall. Therefore, in this study, we examined changes in the activity patterns of Japanese dormice Glirulus japonicus in relation to rainfall. We undertook extensive

ABSTRACT: Climate analogues are a comprehensive approach for learning how to deal with the expected climatic future from current examples. Existing literature on climate analogues struggles with 2 methodological challenges: how to deal with the unavoidable uncertainty of climate projections and how to define reasonable lower limits of similarity for climate analogues. Here, we suggest a new method

ABSTRACT: Droughts are one of the multifaceted meteorological disasters affecting agriculture, livestock and water resources worldwide. Pakistan has a semiarid climate system with a high degree of interannual rainfall variability. This study evaluates the applicability and comparison of 3 drought indices (deciles index [DI], standardized precipitation index [SPI] and reconnaissance drought index [RDI])