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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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TL;DR: In this article, a synthesis of 61 experimental warming studies, of up to 20 years duration, in tundra sites worldwide, was used to understand the sensitivity of tundras vegetation to climate warming and to forecast future biodiversity and vegetation feedbacks to climate.
Abstract: 35 Abstract Understanding the sensitivity of tundra vegetation to climate warming is critical to forecasting future biodiversity and vegetation feedbacks to climate. In situ warming experiments accelerate climate change on a small scale to forecast responses of local plant communities. Limitations of this approach include the apparent site-specificity of results and uncertainty about the power of short-term studies to anticipate longer term change. We address these issues with a synthesis of 61 experimental warming studies, of up to 20 years duration, in tundra sites worldwide. The response of plant groups to warming often differed with ambient summer temperature, soil moisture and experimental duration. Shrubs increased with warming only where ambient temperature was high, whereas graminoids increased primarily in the coldest study sites. Linear increases in effect size over time were frequently observed. There was little indication of saturating or accelerating effects, as would be predicted if negative or positive vegetation feedbacks were common. These results indicate that tundra vegetation exhibits strong regional variation in response to warming, and that in vulnerable regions, cumulative effects of long-term warming on tundra vegetation - and associated ecosystem consequences - have the potential to be much greater than we have observed to date.

830 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Based on conclusions drawn from general climatic impact assessmentin mountain regions, a review synthesizes results relevant to the European Alps published mainly from 1994 onward in the fields of population genetics, ecophysiology, phenology, phytogeography, modeling, paleoecology and vegetation dynamics as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Based on conclusions drawn from general climatic impact assessmentin mountain regions, the review synthesizes results relevant to the European Alps published mainly from 1994 onward in the fields of population genetics, ecophysiology, phenology, phytogeography, modeling, paleoecology and vegetation dynamics Other important factors of global change interacting synergistically with climatic factors are also mentioned, such as atmospheric CO2 concentration, eutrophication, ozone or changes in land-use Topics addressed are general species distribution and populations (persistence, acclimation, genetic variability, dispersal, fragmentation, plant/animal interaction, species richness, conservation), potential response of vegetation (ecotonal shift – area, physiography – changes in the composition, structural changes), phenology, growth and productivity, and landscape In conclusion, the European Alps appear to have a natural inertia and thus to tolerate an increase of 1–2 K of mean air temperature as far as plant species and ecosystems are concerned in general However, the impact of land-use is very likely to negate this buffer in many areas For a change of the order of 3 K or more, profound changes may be expected

829 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
17 Feb 2011-Nature
TL;DR: A multi-step, physically based ‘probabilistic event attribution’ framework showing that it is very likely that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence in England and Wales in autumn 2000 is presented.
Abstract: Interest in attributing the risk of damaging weather-related events to anthropogenic climate change is increasing1. Yet climate models used to study the attribution problem typically do not resolve the weather systems associated with damaging events2 such as the UK floods of October and November 2000. Occurring during the wettest autumn in England and Wales since records began in 17663, 4, these floods damaged nearly 10,000 properties across that region, disrupted services severely, and caused insured losses estimated at £1.3 billion (refs 5, 6). Although the flooding was deemed a ‘wake-up call’ to the impacts of climate change at the time7, such claims are typically supported only by general thermodynamic arguments that suggest increased extreme precipitation under global warming, but fail8, 9 to account fully for the complex hydrometeorology4, 10 associated with flooding. Here we present a multi-step, physically based ‘probabilistic event attribution’ framework showing that it is very likely that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence in England and Wales in autumn 2000. Using publicly volunteered distributed computing11, 12, we generate several thousand seasonal-forecast-resolution climate model simulations of autumn 2000 weather, both under realistic conditions, and under conditions as they might have been had these greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting large-scale warming never occurred. Results are fed into a precipitation-runoff model that is used to simulate severe daily river runoff events in England and Wales (proxy indicators of flood events). The precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution remains uncertain, but in nine out of ten cases our model results indicate that twentieth-century anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased the risk of floods occurring in England and Wales in autumn 2000 by more than 20%, and in two out of three cases by more than 90%.

828 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper reviews recent literature concerning a wide range of processes through which climate change could potentially impact global-scale agricultural productivity, and presents projections of changes in relevant meteorological, hydrological and plant physiological quantities from a climate model ensemble to illustrate key areas of uncertainty.
Abstract: This paper reviews recent literature concerning a wide range of processes through which climate change could potentially impact global-scale agricultural productivity, and presents projections of changes in relevant meteorological, hydrological and plant physiological quantities from a climate model ensemble to illustrate key areas of uncertainty. Few global-scale assessments have been carried out, and these are limited in their ability to capture the uncertainty in climate projections, and omit potentially important aspects such as extreme events and changes in pests and diseases. There is a lack of clarity on how climate change impacts on drought are best quantified from an agricultural perspective, with different metrics giving very different impressions of future risk. The dependence of some regional agriculture on remote rainfall, snowmelt and glaciers adds to the complexity. Indirect impacts via sea-level rise, storms and diseases have not been quantified. Perhaps most seriously, there is high uncertainty in the extent to which the direct effects of CO2 rise on plant physiology will interact with climate change in affecting productivity. At present, the aggregate impacts of climate change on global-scale agricultural productivity cannot be reliably quantified.

828 citations


Network Information
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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