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Impact‐based forecasting for pluvial floods Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2021-01-17 V. Rözer; A. Peche; S. Berkhahn; Y. Feng; L. Fuchs; T. Graf; U. Haberlandt; H. Kreibich; R. Sämann; M. Sester; B. Shehu; J. Wahl; I. Neuweiler
Pluvial floods in urban areas are caused by local, fast storm events with very high rainfall rates, which lead to inundation of streets and buildings before the storm water reaches a watercourse. An increase in frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events and an ongoing urbanization may further increase the risk of pluvial flooding in many urban areas. Currently, warnings for pluvial floods are
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Infrastructure strategies for achieving the global development agendas in small islands Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2021-01-16 Daniel Adshead; Orlando Román García; Scott Thacker; Jim W. Hall
Small island developing states face particular challenges to ensure their infrastructure promotes social, economic, and environmental well‐being. Closing the achievement gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) involves prioritisation and coordination across multiple sectors. With an application to the country of Saint Lucia, this paper develops a stakeholder‐driven analysis framework integrating
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Significant land contributions to interannual predictability of East Asian summer monsoon rainfall Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2021-01-15 Pengfei Shi; Hui Lu; L. Ruby Leung; Yujun He; Bin Wang; Kun Yang; Le Yu; Li Liu; Wenyu Huang; Shiming Xu; Juanjuan Liu; Xiaomeng Huang; Lijuan Li; Yanluan Lin
Marked by large interannual variability, East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) rainfall has profound socio‐economic impacts through its dominant influence on floods and droughts. Improving predictions of the interannual variations of EASM rainfall has important implications for over 20% of the world's population. While coupled modeling systems have demonstrated some prediction skill related to the El Niño
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Landslide hazard and exposure modelling in data‐poor regions: the example of the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2021-01-14 R. A. Emberson; D. B. Kirschbaum; T. Stanley
Landslide hazards significantly affect economies and populations around the world, but locations where the greatest proportional losses occur are in data‐poor regions where capacity to estimate and prepare for these hazards is most limited. Earth observation (EO) data can fill key knowledge gaps, and can be rapidly used in settings with lower analytical capacity. In this study, we describe a novel
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Africa Would Need to Import More Maize in the Future Even Under 1.5°C Warming Scenario Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Ran Zhai; Fulu Tao; Upmanu Lall; Joshua Elliott
Producing enough food to feed a growing population is a great future challenge, especially for vulnerable areas in Africa. There is limited understanding of food security under future climate conditions, particularly under the warming target stipulated in the Paris Agreement. Maize is the most widely cultivated crop in Africa. Taking maize as an example, we present an integrated assessment of maize
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The Value of Urban Flood Modeling Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-27 B. R. Rosenzweig; P. Herreros Cantis; Y. Kim; A. Cohn; K. Grove; J. Brock; J. Yesuf; P. Mistry; C. Welty; T. McPhearson; J. Sauer; H. Chang
Floods are important disturbances to urban socio‐eco‐technical systems and their meteorological drivers are projected to increase through the century due to global climate change. Urban flood models are numerical models that have the capability of representing the features of urban ecosystems and the mechanisms of flooding that impact them. They have the potential to play a critical role in flood risk
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The Asynergies of Structural Disaster Risk Reduction Measures: Comparing Floods and Earthquakes Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-06 Marleen C. de Ruiter; Jens A. de Bruijn; Johanna Englhardt; James E. Daniell; Hans de Moel; Philip J. Ward
Traditionally, building‐level disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures are aimed at a single natural hazard. However, in many countries the society faces the threat of multiple hazards. Building‐level DRR measures that aim to decrease earthquake vulnerability can have opposing or conflicting effects on flood vulnerability, and vice versa. In a case study of Afghanistan, we calculate the risk of floods
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Water Smart Cities Increase Irrigation to Provide Cool Refuge in a Climate Crisis Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-14 Stephen J. Livesley; Valentina Marchionni; Pui Kwan Cheung; Edoardo Daly; Diane E. Pataki
Water smart cities are increasing their use of irrigation and misting to cope with extreme heat and drought. This is being enabled by widespread use of rainwater tanks, stormwater capture and storage systems, and recycled sewage wastewater to irrigate street trees as well as private and public green spaces. These alternative water resources provide new options for cities to better withstand and function
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Changes in Biomass Turnover Times in Tropical Forests and Their Environmental Drivers From 2001 to 2012 Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-04 Jingmeng Wang; Wei Li; Philippe Ciais; Ashley Ballantyne; Daniel Goll; Xiaomeng Huang; Zhe Zhao; Lei Zhu
Tropical forests store about 70% of the total living biomass on land and yet very little is known about changes in this vital carbon reservoir. Changes in their biomass stock, determined by changes in carbon input (i.e., net primary production [NPP]) and carbon turnover time (τ), are critical to the global carbon sink. In this study, we calculated transient τ in tropical forest biomass using satellite‐based
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The political complexity of coastal flood risk reduction: lessons for climate adaptation public works in the U.S. Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-28 D.J. Rasmussen; Robert E. Kopp; Rachael Shwom; Michael Oppenheimer
Coastal climate adaptation public works, such as storm surge barriers and levees, are central elements of several current proposals to limit damages from coastal storms and sea‐level rise in the U.S. Academic analysis of these public works projects is dominated by technocratic and engineering‐driven frameworks. However, social conflict, laws, political incentives, governance structures, and other political
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Cold‐Season Arctic Amplification Driven by Arctic Ocean‐Mediated Seasonal Energy Transfer Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-23 Eui‐Seok Chung; Kyung‐Ja Ha; Axel Timmermann; Malte F. Stuecker; Tamas Bodai; Sang‐Ki Lee
The Arctic warming response to greenhouse gas forcing is substantially greater than the rest of the globe. It has been suggested that this phenomenon, commonly referred to as Arctic amplification, and its peak in boreal fall and winter result primarily from the lapse‐rate feedback, which is associated with the vertical structure of tropospheric warming, rather than from the sea‐ice albedo feedback
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Past, Present and Future Pacific Sea Level‐Change Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-22 B.D. Hamlington; T. Frederikse; P.R. Thompson; J.K. Willis; R.S. Nerem; J.T. Fasullo
Satellite altimeters have provided near‐global coverage of the ocean with a continuous record now approaching three decades. These observations have led to definitive evidence of an increase in global mean sea level, while offering a depiction of the spatial variability in sea‐level change. As a result of the increasing length of the altimeter record, studies have sought to understand and detect the
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Tropical Cyclone Compound Flood Hazard Assessment: From Investigating Drivers to Quantifying Extreme Water Levels Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-21 Avantika Gori; Ning Lin; Dazhi Xi
Compound flooding, characterized by the co‐occurrence of multiple flood mechanisms, is a major threat to coastlines across the globe. Tropical cyclones (TCs) are responsible for many compound floods due to their storm surge and intense rainfall. Previous efforts to quantify compound flood hazard have typically adopted statistical approaches that may be unable to fully capture spatio‐temporal dynamics
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The Hidden Costs of Land Degradation in U.S. Maize Agriculture Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-16 W. S. Jang; J. C. Neff; Y. Im; L. Doro; J. E. Herrick
The United States is a world leader in the production of maize and other crops and the agricultural success of the country is directly linked to the intensive use of fertilizers and irrigation. However, even in advanced agricultural systems, soils can become degraded over time due to factors such as soil organic matter loss and erosion. Here, we use a series of scenario‐based model analyses to show
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From Anthropocene to Noosphere: The Great Acceleration Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-14 Boris Shoshitaishvili
The complex set of human‐driven global, social, technological, and environmental changes intensifying dramatically since 1950 has been identified as the “Great Acceleration.” This period of time represents a radical shift in our collective relationship to each other as well as to the Earth System as a whole. In this article I consider two major paradigms now taking shape to offer different perspectives
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Event‐based storylines to address climate risk Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-14 Jana Sillmann; Theodore G. Shepherd; Bart van den Hurk; Wilco Hazeleger; Olivia Martius; Julia Slingo; Jakob Zscheischler
The climate science community is challenged to adopt an actionable risk perspective, which is difficult to align with the traditional focus on model‐based probabilistic climate change projections. Event‐based storylines can provide a way out of this conundrum by putting emphasis on plausibility rather than probability. This links directly to common practices in disaster risk management using "stress‐testing"
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An infrastructure perspective for enhancing multi‐functionality of forests: A conceptual modeling approach Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-10 M. Houballah; J.‐D. Mathias; T. Cordonnier
Many forest resource systems depend heavily on shared and coupled infrastructures in applying their management strategies. Addressing a question of sustainability for relevant contemporary social‐ecological systems can be tackled by understanding how these shared infrastructures mediate the interaction between human and ecological environment. Shared infrastructures, which are mainly composed of roads
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How International Economic Sanctions Harm the Environment Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-09 Kaveh Madani
As soft political tools, economic sanctions aim at isolating a sanctioned state and hurt its economy to force it to change course, policies, and actions. In response to sanctions and to evade their grip, a sanctioned state adopts a range of survivalist, aggressive, and unsustainable policies that reduce the economic pressure of sanctions at the expense of accelerated environmental degradation. While
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Using Biomimicry to Support Resilient Infrastructure Design Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-23 Alysha M. Helmrich; Mikhail V. Chester; Samantha Hayes; Samuel A. Markolf; Cheryl Desha; Nancy B. Grimm
Infrastructure must be resilient to both known and unknown disturbances. In the past, resilient infrastructure design efforts have tended to focus on principles of robustness and recovery against projected failures. This framing has developed independently from resilience principles in biological and ecological systems. As such, there are open questions as to whether the approaches of natural systems
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Rock water as a key resource for patchy ecosystems on shallow soils: Digging deep tree clumps subsidize surrounding surficial grass Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Nicola Montaldo; Roberto Corona; Matteo Curreli; Serena Sirigu; Luca Piroddi; Ram Oren
Mediterranean mountainous areas of shallow soil often display a mosaic of tree clumps surrounded by grass. The combined role and dynamics of water extracted from the underlying rock, and the competition between adjacent patches of trees and grass, has not been investigated. We quantified the role rock water plays in the seasonal dynamics of evapotranspiration (ET), over a patchy landscape in the context
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Impact of quasi‐idealized future land cover scenarios at high latitudes in complex terrain Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 P.A Mooney; H Lee; S Sobolowski
Afforestation is gaining popularity as a climate mitigation policy in many countries, including high latitude regions such as Norway. However, the impacts of afforestation on local‐to‐regional climate is poorly understood. This study uses the Weather Research and Forecasting model to investigate the biogeophysical impacts of different forestry scenarios on the local‐to‐regional climate of Norway. The
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Reservoir governance in world's water towers needs to anticipate multi‐purpose use Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Elke Kellner; Manuela. I. Brunner
Mountains, said to be the world's water towers, are central for the provision of downstream water demands. This provision service is strongly challenged by climate change associated with changes in runoff amount and seasonality caused by the retreat of glaciers, rising snow lines, and changes in precipitation. One potential adaptation strategy is the construction of new water reservoirs or the adjustment
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Synergies among environmental science research and monitoringnetworks: A research agenda Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 J. A. Jones; P. M. Groffman; J. Blair; F. W. Davis; H. Dugan; E. E. Euskirchen; S. D. Frey; T. K. Harms; E. Hinckley; M. Kosmala; S. Loberg; S. Malone; K. Novick; S. Record; A. V. Rocha; B.L. Ruddell; E. H. Stanley; C. Sturtevant; A. Thorpe; T. White; W. R. Wieder; L Zhai; K. Zhu
Many research and monitoring networks in recent decades have provided publicly available data documenting environmental and ecological change, but little is known about the status of efforts to synthesize this information across networks. We convened a working group to assess ongoing and potential cross‐network synthesis research and outline opportunities and challenges for the future, focusing on
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Increase in Population Exposure Due to Dry and Wet Extremes in India Under a Warming Climate Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-05 Rohini Kumar; Vimal Mishra
Dry and wet extremes affect agricultural production, infrastructure, and socioeconomic well‐being of about 1.4 billion people in India. Despite the profound implications of dry and wet extremes, their changes in the observed and projected climate in India are not well quantified. Here, using the observations from multiple sources, we show that the area affected by dry extremes during the monsoon season
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Potential for electric vehicle adoption to mitigate extreme air quality events in China Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-12-04 J.L. Schnell; D.R. Peters; D.C. Wong; X. Lu; H. Guo; H. Zhang; P.L. Kinney; D.E. Horton
Electric vehicle (EV) adoption promises potential air pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction co‐benefits. As such, China has aggressively incentivized EV adoption, however much remains unknown with regard to EVs’ mitigation potential, including optimal vehicle type prioritization, power generation contingencies, effects of Clean Air regulations, and the ability of EVs to reduce acute impacts
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“Certain Uncertainty: The Role of Internal Climate Variability in Projections of Regional Climate Change and Risk Management” Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-17 Clara Deser
Internal climate variability co‐exists with anthropogenic climate change and places limits on the accuracy of regional climate projections due to its inherent unpredictability. This “certain” uncertainty in regional projections introduced by internal variability contrasts with uncertainty resulting from structural differences amongst climate models, which is potentially reducible as climate models
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The State of the Art in Modeling Waterlogging Impacts on Plants: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-21 Ke Liu; Matthew Tom Harrison; Sergey Shabala; Holger Meinke; Ibrahim Ahmed; Yunbo Zhang; Xiaohai Tian; Meixue Zhou
Models are key tools in our quest to better understand the impacts of soil waterlogging on plant growth and crop production. Here, we reviewed the state of the art of modeling approaches and compared the conceptual design of these models with recent experimental findings. We show that many models adopt an aeration stress (AS) principle where surplus water reduces air‐filled porosity, with implications
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Projecting Exposure to Extreme Climate Impact Events Across Six Event Categories and Three Spatial Scales Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-13 Stefan Lange; Jan Volkholz; Tobias Geiger; Fang Zhao; Iliusi Vega; Ted Veldkamp; Christopher P. O. Reyer; Lila Warszawski; Veronika Huber; Jonas Jägermeyr; Jacob Schewe; David N. Bresch; Matthias Büchner; Jinfeng Chang; Philippe Ciais; Marie Dury; Kerry Emanuel; Christian Folberth; Dieter Gerten; Simon N. Gosling; Manolis Grillakis; Naota Hanasaki; Alexandra‐Jane Henrot; Thomas Hickler; Yasushi Honda;
The extent and impact of climate‐related extreme events depend on the underlying meteorological, hydrological, or climatological drivers as well as on human factors such as land use or population density. Here we quantify the pure effect of historical and future climate change on the exposure of land and population to extreme climate impact events using an unprecedentedly large ensemble of harmonized
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Future Risks of Unprecedented Compound Heat Waves Over Three Vast Urban Agglomerations in China Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-05 Jun Wang; Jinming Feng; Zhongwei Yan; Yang Chen
Accounting for only a limited fraction of Earth's land surface, urban areas accommodate more than half the global population. The projected increasing severe heat waves with global warming exert a profound threat to the dense urban population and infrastructure. Despite abundant past studies on heat waves, there was a lack of attention to the daytime‐nighttime compound heat waves. Here, we categorize
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Improving the Use of Calibrated Language in U.S. Climate Assessments Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-23 Allison Crimmins
The use of calibrated language in climate assessments has evolved over time and is an important tool for better characterizing climate risk. Despite improvements in communication, likelihood and confidence terms continue to be misinterpreted by nontechnical audiences. Public understanding of scientific certainty in climate impacts, particularly at the extreme tails of likelihood distribution, is inadequate
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Projected Changes in Compound Flood Hazard From Riverine and Coastal Floods in Northwestern Europe Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-05 Poulomi Ganguli; Dominik Paprotny; Mehedi Hasan; Andreas Güntner; Bruno Merz
Compound flooding in coastal regions, that is, the simultaneous or successive occurrence of high sea levels and high river flows, is expected to increase in a warmer world. To date, however, there is no robust evidence on projected changes in compound flooding for northwestern Europe. We combine projected storm surges and river floods with probabilistic, localized relative sea‐level rise (SLR) scenarios
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Changes in Global and Regional Characteristics of Heat Stress Waves in the 21st Century Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-10 Xi Chen; Ning Li; Jiawei Liu; Zhengtao Zhang; Yuan Liu; Chengfang Huang
Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), a combined measure of temperature and humidity effects on thermal comfort, is used to define heat stress waves (HSWs). While emerging research has raised concerns on future changes in heat stress, for the first time, this study examines spatiotemporal changes in multiple HSW characteristics (intensity, duration, frequency, and cumulative mean intensity) in the 21st
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Projected Changes in Reference Evapotranspiration in California and Nevada: Implications for Drought and Wildland Fire Danger Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-29 Daniel J. McEvoy; David W. Pierce; Julie F. Kalansky; Daniel R. Cayan; John T. Abatzoglou
Recent high impact wildfires and droughts in California and Nevada have been linked to extremes in the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), respectively. Both indices are dependent on reference evapotranspiration (ET0). Future changes in ET0 for California and Nevada are examined, calculated from global climate model simulations downscaled
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Can Exploratory Modeling of Water Scarcity Vulnerabilities and Robustness Be Scenario Neutral? Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-13 J. D. Quinn; A. Hadjimichael; P. M. Reed; S. Steinschneider
Planning under deep uncertainty, when probabilistic characterizations of the future are unknown, is a major challenge in water resources management. Many planning frameworks advocate for “scenario‐neutral” analyses in which alternative policies are evaluated over plausible future scenarios with no assessment of their likelihoods. Instead, these frameworks use sensitivity analysis to discover which
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Greater Contribution From Agricultural Sources to Future Reactive Nitrogen Deposition in the United States Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-20 Yilin Chen; Huizhong Shen; Jhih‐Shyang Shih; Armistead G. Russell; Shuai Shao; Yongtao Hu; Mehmet Talat Odman; Athanasios Nenes; Gertrude K. Pavur; Yufei Zou; Zhihong Chen; Richard A. Smith; Dallas Burtraw; Charles T. Driscoll
Many sensitive ecosystems in areas protected for biodiversity conservation in the United States suffer from exposure to excess reactive nitrogen (Nr) released by fossil fuel combustion and agricultural practices and deposited onto the land surface and water bodies. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model was applied over the contiguous United States to link emissions and climate change to
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Prepare Scientists to Engage in Science‐Policy Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-07 Erika von Schneidemesser; Megan Melamed; Julia Schmale
There is a dire need for deeper science‐policy engagement to face recent developments such as entering into the Anthropocene and our dependence as a species on technological and scientific advancements. However, there is a lack of preparedness and training of scientists about what science‐policy engagement is and how to get involved, with substantial discrepancies globally. We present four gaps and
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Causes of the Widespread 2019–2020 Australian Bushfire Season Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-11-03 Proloy Deb; Hamid Moradkhani; Peyman Abbaszadeh; Anthony S. Kiem; Johanna Engström; David Keellings; Ashish Sharma
The recent bushfires (2019–2020) in New South Wales (NSW) Australia were catastrophic by claiming human and animal lives, affecting ecosystems, destroying infrastructure, and more. Recent studies have investigated relationships between hydroclimatic signals and past bushfires, and very recently, a few commentary papers claimed drought and fuel moisture content as the probable causes for the widespread
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Can Reservoir Regulation Along the Yellow River Be a Sustainable Way to Save a Sinking Delta? Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-29 Xiao Wu; Naishuang Bi; Jaia Syvitski; Yoshiki Saito; Jingping Xu; Jeffrey A. Nittrouer; Thomas S. Bianchi; Zuosheng Yang; Houjie Wang
Today's deltas are impacted negatively by (1) accelerated subsidence (e.g., from ground fluid extraction), (2) global eustatic sea level rise, and (3) decreased sediment supply, which increasingly starves these landforms of sediment necessary to sustain their footprint. This growing vulnerability threatens many megacities that have developed due to the rich resources offered by deltas and therefore
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Increased Flood Exposure Due to Climate Change and Population Growth in the United States Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-30 D. L. Swain; O. E. J. Wing; P. D. Bates; J. M. Done; K. A. Johnson; D. R. Cameron
Precipitation extremes are increasing globally due to anthropogenic climate change. However, there remains uncertainty regarding impacts upon flood occurrence and subsequent population exposure. Here, we quantify changes in population exposure to flood hazard across the contiguous United States. We combine simulations from a climate model large ensemble and a high‐resolution hydrodynamic flood model—allowing
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Exploring the Emission Characteristics and Reduction Potential of Air Pollutants From Chinese Aluminum Industry: 2005–2025 Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-17 Ke Cheng; Jiayu Zhang; Peng Yi; Guifen Zhu; Weiwei Hao; Wanwan Ji; Hezhong Tian; Yan Wang
Amidst the rising desire for environmental governance in China, the aluminum industry has aroused more extensive attention because of the intensive energy consumption. Based on the process‐based life cycle assessment (PLCA) method, emissions of nine typical air pollutants (PM, SO2, NOX, VOCs, CO, CO2, fluoride, asphalt fume, and PFCs) by the primary aluminum industry in China over the period 2005–2017
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From Pleistocene to Pyrocene: Fire Replaces Ice Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-17 S. J. Pyne
Fire offers a special perspective by which to understand the Earth being remade by humans. Fire is integrative, so intrinsically interdisciplinary. Fire use is unique to humans, so a tracer of humanity's ecological impacts. Anthropogenic fire history shows the long influence of humans on Earth and even climate; in particular, it tracks the continuities between the burning of living landscapes and the
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Spatially Explicit Inventory of Sources of Nitrogen Inputs to the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea for the Period 1970–2010 Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-08-17 Junjie Wang; Arthur H. W. Beusen; Xiaochen Liu; Rita Van Dingenen; Frank Dentener; Qingzhen Yao; Bochao Xu; Xiangbin Ran; Zhigang Yu; Alexander F. Bouwman
Symptoms of eutrophication (including biodiversity loss, harmful algal blooms, and hypoxia) are an increasing problem in Chinese seas. Nutrient enrichment is primarily caused by accelerated human activities that cause nutrient pollution of the aquatic environment. In this study, the Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment–Global Nutrient Model (IMAGE‐GNM) was used to estimate nitrogen inputs
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Establishing a Field of Collaboration for Engineers, Scientists, and Community Groups: Incentives, Barriers, and Potential Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-25 J. L. Boucher; A. M. Levenda; J. Morales‐Guerrero; M. M. Macias; D. M. A. Karwat
With the aim of mobilizing engineers and scientists to address environmental, climate, and energy justice challenges in the United States, this study examines how engineers and scientists view their incentives, barriers, and potential for community‐based collaborations. Through a purposive convenience sample (n = 281) and an online questionnaire, we investigate the attitudes and experiences of engineers
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Detectability of Artificial Ocean Alkalinization and Stratospheric Aerosol Injection in MPI‐ESM Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-14 Friederike Fröb; Sebastian Sonntag; Julia Pongratz; Hauke Schmidt; Tatiana Ilyina
To monitor the success of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) or solar radiation management (SRM) that offset anthropogenic climate change, the forced response to any external forcing is required to be detectable against internal variability. Thus far, only the detectability of SRM has been examined using both a stationary and nonstationary detection and attribution method. Here, the spatiotemporal detectability
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Responses of Precipitation and Runoff to Climate Warming and Implications for Future Drought Changes in China Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-30 Lei Gu; Jie Chen; Jiabo Yin; Chong‐Yu Xu; Jianzhong Zhou
The Clausius‐Clapeyron relationship holds that the atmospheric water vapor content enhances with warming temperatures, suggesting intensifications of precipitable water and also altering runoff generation. Drought conditions are determined by variations in water fluxes such as precipitation and runoff, which tightly connect with temperature scaling characteristics. However, whether and how water fluxes'
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Impact of Droughts on Water Supply in U.S. Watersheds: The Role of Renewable Surface and Groundwater Resources Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-12 Tushar Apurv; Ximing Cai
We use a simplified water supply system model based on the water availability assessment via the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrologic model to analyze water supply droughts (WSDs), which are periods with deficient water supply. The model is applied to 27 representative watersheds of the contiguous U.S. to explore how different management strategies can be more effective in mitigating WSDs
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Resilience of School Systems Following Severe Earthquakes Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-04 Emad M. Hassan; Hussam N. Mahmoud; Bruce R. Ellingwood
Natural disasters may have catastrophic and long‐lasting impacts on communities' physical, economic, and social infrastructure. Slow recovery of educational services following such events is likely to cause traumatic stress in children, lead families to out‐migrate, and affect the community's overall social stability. Methods for quantifying and assessing the restoration process of educational systems
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Legacy Effects from Historical Environmental Changes Dominate Future Terrestrial Carbon Uptake Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-05 A. Krause; A. Arneth; P. Anthoni; A. Rammig
Ecosystems continuously adapt to interacting environmental drivers that change over time. Consequently, the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystem may presently still be affected by past anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., deforestation) and other environmental changes (e.g., climate change). However, even though such so‐called “legacy effects” are implicitly included in many carbon cycle modeling studies
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More Trees Are Dying Due to Drought and Wildfire but Do Not Lose Sight of Forest Pathogens Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-05 Frank W. Davis
Accelerated forest dieback has been documented at many locations around the world that have experienced severe drought, warming, and wildfires associated with global climate change. Exotic forest diseases pose a comparably large threat to wild forests. Synthesizing surveillance plot data to parameterize spatial epidemiological models, Cobb et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001500) estimate
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Projections of Mountain Snowpack Loss for Wolverine Denning Elevations in the Rocky Mountains Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-10-13 Joseph J. Barsugli; Andrea J. Ray; Ben Livneh; Candida F. Dewes; Aaron Heldmyer; Imtiaz Rangwala; John M. Guinotte; Stephen Torbit
Future reduction in mountain snowpack due to anthropogenic climate change poses a threat to many snow‐adapted species worldwide. Mountain topography exerts a strong control on snowpack not only due to elevation but also through the effect of slope and aspect on the surface energy balance. We develop high‐resolution projections of snowpack in order to provide improved, physically based estimates of
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Implications of CMIP6 Projected Drying Trends for 21st Century Amazonian Drought Risk Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-29 L. A. Parsons
Recent exceptionally hot droughts in Amazonia have highlighted the potential role of global warming in driving changes in rainfall and temperatures in the region. The previous generation of global climate models projected that eastern Amazonia would receive less future precipitation while western Amazonia would receive more precipitation, but many of these models disagreed on future precipitation trends
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Nearly Half of Global Vegetated Area Experienced Inconsistent Vegetation Growth in Terms of Greenness, Cover, and Productivity Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-08-27 Z. Ding; J. Peng; S. Qiu; Y. Zhao
The considerable interest in detecting global vegetation changes based on satellite observations is increasing. However, studies rely on single indices to explore the driving mechanisms of the greening trend might exacerbate uncertainties of global ecosystem change. Thus, vegetation growth dynamics from various biophysical properties required to be monitored comprehensively. In this study, a consistent
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Rethinking Reef Island Stability in Relation to Anthropogenic Sea Level Rise Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-07 Haunani H. Kane; Charles H. Fletcher
Unprecedented rates of anthropogenic sea level rise (ASLR) and attendant wave‐driven flooding and salinization threaten the stability (and habitability) of atoll islands. Thus, there is doubt regarding the continued existence of sovereign atoll nations and unique, place‐based indigenous atoll cultures. Evidence that some atoll islands may have originally formed in the latter stages of post‐glacial
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Interacting Infrastructure Disruptions Due to Environmental Events and Long‐Term Climate Change Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-10 Michelle A. Hummel; Alain Tcheukam Siwe; Aaron Chow; Mark T. Stacey; Samer M. Madanat
Climate change places additional stress on critical infrastructure systems as demand for resources (e.g., water and electricity) increases and environmental disruptions (e.g., flooding and wildfires) become more frequent and severe. Interconnected infrastructure systems may be particularly vulnerable, as disruptions in one system can cascade to other systems and increase the severity of impacts. To
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Assessing Shifts in Regional Hydroclimatic Conditions of U.S. River Basins in Response to Climate Change over the 21st Century Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-08-29 Hadi Heidari; Mazdak Arabi; Travis Warziniack; Shih‐Chieh Kao
Characterization of shifts in regional hydroclimatic conditions helps reduce negative consequences on agriculture, environment, economy, society, and ecosystem. This study assesses shifts in regional hydroclimatic conditions across the conterminous United States in response to climate change over the 21st century. The hydrological responses of five downscaled climate models from the Multivariate Adaptive
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The Impact on the Ozone Layer of a Potential Fleet of Civil Hypersonic Aircraft Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-12 Douglas Kinnison; Guy P. Brasseur; Steven L. Baughcum; Jun Zhang; Donald Wuebbles
The aeronautical community is currently researching technology that might lead to commercial hypersonic aircraft that would cruise at Mach 5–8 in the middle or upper stratosphere and would transfer passengers from London to New York or from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just a couple of hours. Depending on the engine technology to be adopted, these aircraft will potentially release substantial amounts of
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Quantifying On‐Farm Nitrous Oxide Emission Reductions in Food Supply Chains Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-01 A. J. Eagle; E. L. McLellan; E. M. Brawner; M. H. Chantigny; E. A. Davidson; J. B. Dickey; B. A. Linquist; T. M. Maaz; D. E. Pelster; C. M. Pittelkow; C. van Kessel; T. J. Vyn; K. G. Cassman
Reducing nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from agriculture is critical to limiting future global warming. In response, a growing number of food retailers and manufacturers have committed to reducing N2O emissions from their vast networks of farmer suppliers by providing technical assistance and financial incentives. A key challenge for such companies is demonstrating that their efforts are leading to
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The Upper Tail of Precipitation in Convection‐Permitting Regional Climate Models and Their Utility in Nonstationary Rainfall and Flood Frequency Analysis Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-08-13 Guo Yu; Daniel B. Wright; Zhe Li
Computational advances have made atmospheric modeling at convection‐permitting (≤4 km) grid spacings increasingly feasible. These simulations hold great promise in the projection of climate change impacts including rainfall and flood extremes. The relatively short model runs that are currently feasible, however, inhibit the assessment of the upper tail of rainfall and flood quantiles using conventional
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Bridging the Gap Between Biofuels and Biodiversity Through Monetizing Environmental Services of Miscanthus Cultivation Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-08-19 Moritz Von Cossel; Bastian Winkler; Anja Mangold; Jan Lask; Moritz Wagner; Iris Lewandowski; Berien Elbersen; Michiel van Eupen; Stephan Mantel; Andreas Kiesel
Carbon neutrality in the transport sector is a key challenge for the growing bioeconomy as the share of biofuels has stagnated over the past decade. This can be attributed to basic economics and a lack of a robust market for these technologies. Consequently, more sustainable biomass supply concepts are required that reduce negative impacts on the environment and at the same time promote environmental
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Global Spatio‐Temporal Assessment of Changes in Multiple Ecosystem Services Under Four IPCC SRES Land‐use Scenarios Earths Future (IF 6.141) Pub Date : 2020-09-02 S. Sun; Q. Shi
Social development and technological advancement have led to land use changes, influencing the structure of ecosystem services and severely impacting ecological balance. This study spatially and quantitatively assesses the effects of land‐use changes on ecosystem services based on the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and using the Integrated Valuation
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