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Climate change

About: Climate change is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 99222 publications have been published within this topic receiving 3572006 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
17 Nov 2005-Nature
TL;DR: The growing evidence that climate–health relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change is reviewed and that the warming trend over recent decades has already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality in many regions of the world.
Abstract: The World Health Organisation estimates that the warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change of the past 30 years already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Many prevalent human diseases are linked to climate fluctuations, from cardiovascular mortality and respiratory illnesses due to heatwaves, to altered transmission of infectious diseases and malnutrition from crop failures. Uncertainty remains in attributing the expansion or resurgence of diseases to climate change, owing to lack of long-term, high-quality data sets as well as the large influence of socio-economic factors and changes in immunity and drug resistance. Here we review the growing evidence that climate-health relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change and that the warming trend over recent decades has already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality in many regions of the world. Potentially vulnerable regions include the temperate latitudes, which are projected to warm disproportionately, the regions around the Pacific and Indian oceans that are currently subjected to large rainfall variability due to the El Nino/Southern Oscillation sub-Saharan Africa and sprawling cities where the urban heat island effect could intensify extreme climatic events.

2,552 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: There is a direct influence of global warming on precipitation as mentioned in this paper, as the water holding capacity of air increases by about 7% per 1°C warming, which leads to increased water vapor in the atmosphere.
Abstract: There is a direct influence of global warming on precipitation. Increased heating leads to greater evaporation and thus surface drying, thereby increasing the intensity and duration of drought. However, the water holding capacity of air increases by about 7% per 1°C warming, which leads to increased water vapor in the atmosphere. Hence, storms, whether individual thunderstorms, extratropical rain or snow storms, or tropical cyclones, supplied with increased moisture, produce more intense precipitation events. Such events are observed to be widely occurring, even where total precipitation is decreasing: 'it never rains but it pours!' This increases the risk of flooding. The atmo- spheric and surface energy budget plays a critical role in the hydrological cycle, and also in the slower rate of change that occurs in total precipitation than total column water vapor. With modest changes in winds, patterns of precipitation do not change much, but result in dry areas becoming drier (generally throughout the subtropics) and wet areas becoming wetter, especially in the mid- to high latitudes: the 'rich get richer and the poor get poorer'. This pattern is simulated by climate mod- els and is projected to continue into the future. Because, with warming, more precipitation occurs as rain instead of snow and snow melts earlier, there is increased runoff and risk of flooding in early spring, but increased risk of drought in summer, especially over continental areas. However, with more precipitation per unit of upward motion in the atmosphere, i.e. 'more bang for the buck', atmo- spheric circulation weakens, causing monsoons to falter. In the tropics and subtropics, precipitation patterns are dominated by shifts as sea surface temperatures change, with El Nino a good example. The volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 led to an unprecedented drop in land precipitation and runoff, and to widespread drought, as precipitation shifted from land to oceans and evaporation faltered, providing lessons for possible geoengineering. Most models simulate precipitation that occurs prematurely and too often, and with insufficient intensity, resulting in recycling that is too large and a lifetime of moisture in the atmosphere that is too short, which affects runoff and soil moisture.

2,525 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article presented a review of climate change projections over the Mediterranean region based on the most recent and comprehensive ensembles of global and regional climate change simulations completed as part of international collaborative projects.

2,524 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
09 Sep 2004-Nature
TL;DR: An undisturbed climate record from a North Greenland ice core, which extends back to 123,000 years before the present, within the last interglacial period, shows a slow decline in temperatures that marked the initiation of the last glacial period.
Abstract: High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period

2,522 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
24 Feb 2011-Nature
TL;DR: The challenges to understand when evolution will occur and to identify potential evolutionary winners as well as losers, such as species lacking adaptive capacity living near physiological limits can be met through realistic models of evolutionary change linked to experimental data across a range of taxa.
Abstract: Evolutionary adaptation can be rapid and potentially help species counter stressful conditions or realize ecological opportunities arising from climate change. The challenges are to understand when evolution will occur and to identify potential evolutionary winners as well as losers, such as species lacking adaptive capacity living near physiological limits. Evolutionary processes also need to be incorporated into management programmes designed to minimize biodiversity loss under rapid climate change. These challenges can be met through realistic models of evolutionary change linked to experimental data across a range of taxa.

2,505 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20253
20247
202312,805
202223,277
20217,120
20206,646