GLOBAL CHANGES IN THE SEA ICE COVER AND ASSOCIATED SURFACE TEMPERATURE CHANGES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. C. Comiso

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The trends in the sea ice cover in the two hemispheres have been observed to be asymmetric with the rate of change in the Arctic being negative at −3.8 % per decade while that of the Antarctic is positive at 1.7 % per decade. These observations are confirmed in this study through analyses of a more robust data set that has been enhanced for better consistency and updated for improved statistics. With reports of anthropogenic global warming such phenomenon appears physically counter intuitive but trend studies of surface temperature over the same time period show the occurrence of a similar asymmetry. Satellite surface temperature data show that while global warming is strong and dominant in the Arctic, it is relatively minor in the Antarctic with the trends in sea ice covered areas and surrounding ice free regions observed to be even negative. A strong correlation of ice extent with surface temperature is observed, especially during the growth season, and the observed trends in the sea ice cover are coherent with the trends in surface temperature. The trend of global averages of the ice cover is negative but modest and is consistent and compatible with the positive but modest trend in global surface temperature. A continuation of the trend would mean the disappearance of summer ice by the end of the century but modelling projections indicate that the summer ice could be salvaged if anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are kept constant at the current level.

Trends in global warming and evolution of matrix protein 2 family from influenza A virus.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Shao-Min; Wu, Guang

2009-12-01

The global warming is an important factor affecting the biological evolution, and the influenza is an important disease that threatens humans with possible epidemics or pandemics. In this study, we attempted to analyze the trends in global warming and evolution of matrix protein 2 family from influenza A virus, because this protein is a target of anti-flu drug, and its mutation would have significant effect on the resistance to anti-flu drugs. The evolution of matrix protein 2 of influenza A virus from 1959 to 2008 was defined using the unpredictable portion of amino-acid pair predictability. Then the trend in this evolution was compared with the trend in the global temperature, the temperature in north and south hemispheres, and the temperature in influenza A virus sampling site, and species carrying influenza A virus. The results showed the similar trends in global warming and in evolution of M2 proteins although we could not correlate them at this stage of study. The study suggested the potential impact of global warming on the evolution of proteins from influenza A virus.

Analysis of Global Urban Temperature Trends and Urbanization Impacts

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, K. I.; Ryu, J.; Jeon, S. W.

2018-04-01

Due to urbanization, urban areas are shrinking green spaces and increasing concrete, asphalt pavement. So urban climates are different from non-urban areas. In addition, long-term macroscopic studies of urban climate change are becoming more important as global urbanization affects global warming. To do this, it is necessary to analyze the effect of urbanization on the temporal change in urban temperature with the same temperature data and standards for urban areas around the world. In this study, time series analysis was performed with the maximum, minimum, mean and standard values of surface temperature during the from 1980 to 2010 and analyzed the effect of urbanization through linear regression analysis with variables (population, night light, NDVI, urban area). As a result, the minimum value of the surface temperature of the urban area reflects an increase by a rate of 0.28K decade-1 over the past 31 years, the maximum value reflects an increase by a rate of 0.372K decade-1, the mean value reflects an increase by a rate of 0.208 decade-1, and the standard deviation reflects a decrease by rate of 0.023K decade-1. And the change of surface temperature in urban areas is affected by urbanization related to land cover such as decrease of greenery and increase of pavement area, but socioeconomic variables are less influential than NDVI in this study. This study are expected to provide an approach to future research and policy-planning for urban temperature change and urbanization impacts.

Global temperature evolution 1979–2010

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Foster, Grant; Rahmstorf, Stefan

2011-01-01

We analyze five prominent time series of global temperature (over land and ocean) for their common time interval since 1979: three surface temperature records (from NASA/GISS, NOAA/NCDC and HadCRU) and two lower-troposphere (LT) temperature records based on satellite microwave sensors (from RSS and UAH). All five series show consistent global warming trends ranging from 0.014 to 0.018 K yr −1 . When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.

Worldwide surface temperature trends since the mid-19th century

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, D.E.; Folland, C.K.

1990-01-01

Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the period 1856 to the present have been corrected to compensate for the use of uninsulated buckets prior to the early 1940s. Trends in the corrected SST are consistent with trends in independently corrected nighttime marine air temperatures (NMAT). Global-scale patterns of variation of annual anomalies of SST and NMAT, as revealed by the first three covariance eigenvectors, are also in close agreement. The corrected SST anomalies are also compared with those of nearby coastal and island land air temperatures. Global-scale agreement is good except in the early 20th century when the land data were relatively warm by up to 0.2 C. Proposed causes are the siting of thermometers in open-sided thatched sheds in tropical regions at that time, along with a marked tendency to warm westerly atmospheric circulation over Europe in winter. Combined fields of SST and land air temperature are presented. The relative overall coldness of the late 19th century land air temperatures appears to have arisen from inner-continental and high-latitude regions, especially in winter. Combined fields do not yield full global coverage even in the 1980s, so satellite-based SST data need to be blended carefully with the ship-based observations if monitoring of global climate is to be complete

Worldwide surface temperature trends since the mid-19th century

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, D.E.; Folland, C.K.

1991-01-01

Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the period 1856 to the present have been corrected to compensate for the use of uninsulated buckets prior to the early 1940s. Trends in the corrected SST are consistent with trends in independently corrected nighttime marine air temperatures (NMAT). Global-scale patterns of variation of annual anomalies of SST and NMAT, as revealed by the first three covariance eigenvectors, are also in close agreement. The corrected SST anomalies are also compared with those of nearby coastal and island land air temperatures. Global-scale agreement is good except in the early 20th century when the land data were relatively warm by up to 0.2 C. Proposed causes are the siting of thermometers in open-sided thatched sheds in tropical regions at that time, along with a marked tendency to warm westerly atmospheric circulation over Europe in winter. Combined fields of SST and land air temperature are presented. The relative overall coldness of the late 19th century land air temperatures appears to have arisen from inner-continental and high-latitude regions, especially in winter. Combined fields do not yield full global coverage even in the 1980s, so satellite-based SST data need to be blended carefully with the ship-based observations if monitoring of global climate is to be complete. 32 refs.; 16 figs

Attribution of trends in global vegetation greenness from 1982 to 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Z.; Xu, L.; Bi, J.; Myneni, R.; Knyazikhin, Y.

2012-12-01

Time series of remotely sensed vegetation indices data provide evidence of changes in terrestrial vegetation activity over the past decades in the world. However, it is difficult to attribute cause-and-effect to vegetation trends because variations in vegetation productivity are driven by various factors. This study investigated changes in global vegetation productivity first, and then attributed the global natural vegetation with greening trend. Growing season integrated normalized difference vegetation index (GSI NDVI) derived from the new GIMMS NDVI3g dataset (1982-2011was analyzed. A combined time series analysis model, which was developed from simper linear trend model (SLT), autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) and Vogelsang's t-PST model shows that productivity of all vegetation types except deciduous broadleaf forest predominantly showed increasing trends through the 30-year period. The evolution of changes in productivity in the last decade was also investigated. Area of greening vegetation monotonically increased through the last decade, and both the browning and no change area monotonically decreased. To attribute the predominant increase trend of productivity of global natural vegetation, trends of eight climate time series datasets (three temperature, three precipitation and two radiation datasets) were analyzed. The attribution of trends in global vegetation greenness was summarized as relaxation of climatic constraints, fertilization and other unknown reasons. Result shows that nearly all the productivity increase of global natural vegetation was driven by relaxation of climatic constraints and fertilization, which play equally important role in driving global vegetation greenness.; Area fraction and productivity change fraction of IGBP vegetation land cover classes showing statistically significant (10% level) trend in GSI NDVIt;

Characterizing uncertainties in recent trends of global terrestrial net primary production through ensemble modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, W.; Hashimoto, H.; Ganguly, S.; Votava, P.; Nemani, R. R.; Myneni, R. B.

2010-12-01

Large uncertainties exist in our understanding of the trends and variability in global net primary production (NPP) and its controls. This study attempts to address this question through a multi-model ensemble experiment. In particular, we drive ecosystem models including CASA, LPJ, Biome-BGC, TOPS-BGC, and BEAMS with a long-term climate dataset (i.e., CRU-NCEP) to estimate global NPP from 1901 to 2009 at a spatial resolution of 0.5 x 0.5 degree. We calculate the trends of simulated NPP during different time periods and test their sensitivities to climate variables of solar radiation, air temperature, precipitation, vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and atmospheric CO2 levels. The results indicate a large diversity among the simulated NPP trends over the past 50 years, ranging from nearly no trend to an increasing trend of ~0.1 PgC/yr. Spatial patterns of the NPP generally show positive trends in boreal forests, induced mainly by increasing temperatures in these regions; they also show negative trends in the tropics, although the spatial patterns are more diverse. These diverse trends result from different climatic sensitivities of NPP among the tested models. Depending the ecological processes (e.g., photosynthesis or respiration) a model emphasizes, it can be more or less responsive to changes in solar radiation, temperatures, water, or atmospheric CO2 levels. Overall, these results highlight the limit of current ecosystem models in simulating NPP, which cannot be easily observed. They suggest that the traditional single-model approach is not ideal for characterizing trends and variability in global carbon cycling.

Trends '91: A compendium of data on global change---highlights

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boden, T.A.; Sepanski, R.J.; Stoss, F.W.

1992-03-01

The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been prompted to produce the series Trends, a concise inventory of data in response to heightened concern about global environmental issues, in particular climate changes induced by the greenhouse effect. This report contains extracts from Trends '91 to illustrate the content, style, and presentation of data contained in the full 700-page report. This report includes a listing of the investigators contributing data for Trends '91. In addition, it contains the abstract, foreword, and acknowledgments, as well as the introduction and a sample data record from each of the reports's five chapters. The chapters are ''Atmospheric CO 2 ,'' ''Atmospheric CH 4 ,'' ''Other Trace Gases,'' ''CO 2 Emissions,'' and ''Temperature.'' Appendix A provides information about CDIAC and its activities related to global environmental issues. Appendix B lists the contents of the full report. An order form for obtaining a free copy of Trends '91 is found in Appendix C

High Predictive Skill of Global Surface Temperature a Year Ahead

Science.gov (United States)

Folland, C. K.; Colman, A.; Kennedy, J. J.; Knight, J.; Parker, D. E.; Stott, P.; Smith, D. M.; Boucher, O.

2011-12-01

We discuss the high skill of real-time forecasts of global surface temperature a year ahead issued by the UK Met Office, and their scientific background. Although this is a forecasting and not a formal attribution study, we show that the main instrumental global annual surface temperature data sets since 1891 are structured consistently with a set of five physical forcing factors except during and just after the second World War. Reconstructions use a multiple application of cross validated linear regression to minimise artificial skill allowing time-varying uncertainties in the contribution of each forcing factor to global temperature to be assessed. Mean cross validated reconstructions for the data sets have total correlations in the range 0.93-0.95,interannual correlations in the range 0.72-0.75 and root mean squared errors near 0.06oC, consistent with observational uncertainties.Three transient runs of the HadCM3 coupled model for 1888-2002 demonstrate quite similar reconstruction skill from similar forcing factors defined appropriately for the model, showing that skilful use of our technique is not confined to observations. The observed reconstructions show that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) likely contributed to the re-commencement of global warming between 1976 and 2010 and to global cooling observed immediately beforehand in 1965-1976. The slowing of global warming in the last decade is likely to be largely due to a phase-delayed response to the downturn in the solar cycle since 2001-2, with no net ENSO contribution. The much reduced trend in 2001-10 is similar in size to other weak decadal temperature trends observed since global warming resumed in the 1970s. The causes of variations in decadal trends can be mostly explained by variations in the strength of the forcing factors. Eleven real-time forecasts of global mean surface temperature for the year ahead for 2000-2010, based on broadly similar methods, provide an independent test of the

Global interpersonal inequality: Trends and measurement

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel; Roope, Laurence; Tarp, Finn

This paper discusses different approaches to the measurement of global interpersonal in equality. Trends in global interpersonal inequality during 1975-2005 are measured using data from UNU-WIDER’s World Income Inequality Database. In order to better understand the trends, global interpersonal...... inequality is decomposed into within-country and between-country inequality. The paper illustrates that the relationship between global interpersonal inequality and these constituent components is a complex one. In particular, we demonstrate that the changes in China’s and India’s income distributions over...... the past 30 years have simultaneously caused inequality to rise domestically in those countries, while tending to reduce global inter-personal inequality. In light of these findings, we reflect on the meaning and policy relevance of global vis-à-vis domestic inequality measures...

A stable boundary layer perspective on global temperature trends

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McNider, R T; Christy, J R; Biazar, A

2010-01-01

temperatures in the stable boundary layer are not very robust measures of the heat content in the deep atmosphere and climate models do not predict minimum temperatures well, minimum temperatures should not be used as a surrogate for measures of deep atmosphere global warming.

Reconciling divergent trends and millennial variations in Holocene temperatures

Science.gov (United States)

Marsicek, Jeremiah; Shuman, Bryan N.; Bartlein, Patrick J.; Shafer, Sarah L.; Brewer, Simon

2018-02-01

Cooling during most of the past two millennia has been widely recognized and has been inferred to be the dominant global temperature trend of the past 11,700 years (the Holocene epoch). However, long-term cooling has been difficult to reconcile with global forcing, and climate models consistently simulate long-term warming. The divergence between simulations and reconstructions emerges primarily for northern mid-latitudes, for which pronounced cooling has been inferred from marine and coastal records using multiple approaches. Here we show that temperatures reconstructed from sub-fossil pollen from 642 sites across North America and Europe closely match simulations, and that long-term warming, not cooling, defined the Holocene until around 2,000 years ago. The reconstructions indicate that evidence of long-term cooling was limited to North Atlantic records. Early Holocene temperatures on the continents were more than two degrees Celsius below those of the past two millennia, consistent with the simulated effects of remnant ice sheets in the climate model Community Climate System Model 3 (CCSM3). CCSM3 simulates increases in ‘growing degree days’—a measure of the accumulated warmth above five degrees Celsius per year—of more than 300 kelvin days over the Holocene, consistent with inferences from the pollen data. It also simulates a decrease in mean summer temperatures of more than two degrees Celsius, which correlates with reconstructed marine trends and highlights the potential importance of the different subseasonal sensitivities of the records. Despite the differing trends, pollen- and marine-based reconstructions are correlated at millennial-to-centennial scales, probably in response to ice-sheet and meltwater dynamics, and to stochastic dynamics similar to the temperature variations produced by CCSM3. Although our results depend on a single source of palaeoclimatic data (pollen) and a single climate-model simulation, they reinforce the notion that

Temperature Trend Detection in Upper Indus Basin by Using Mann-Kendall Test

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ateeq Ur Rauf

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Global warming and Climate change are commonly acknowledged as the most noteworthy environmental quandary the world is undergoing today. Contemporary studies have revealed that the Earth’s surface air temperature has augmented by 0.6°C – 0.8°C in the course of the 20th century, together with alterations in the hydrological cycle. This study focuses on detecting trends in seasonal temperature for the five selected stations in the Upper Indus Basin. The Mann-Kendall test was run at 5% significance level on time series data for each of the five stations during the time period, 1985 to 2014. The Standard Test Statistic (Zs indicates the presence of trend and whether it is increasing or decreasing. The analysis showed an increasing trend in mean monthly temperature at Astore, Gilgit and Gupiz in March and a decreasing trend for Astore, Drosh, Gilgit and Skardu in September. Gilgit and Gupiz showed unexpected increasing trend in October. This study concludes that the temperature starts increasing in March and stays elevated till the month of June and starts rising again in October thus resulting in expansion of summer season and prolonged glacial melting.

Joint spatiotemporal variability of global sea surface temperatures and global Palmer drought severity index values

Science.gov (United States)

Apipattanavis, S.; McCabe, G.J.; Rajagopalan, B.; Gangopadhyay, S.

2009-01-01

Dominant modes of individual and joint variability in global sea surface temperatures (SST) and global Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) values for the twentieth century are identified through a multivariate frequency domain singular value decomposition. This analysis indicates that a secular trend and variability related to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are the dominant modes of variance shared among the global datasets. For the SST data the secular trend corresponds to a positive trend in Indian Ocean and South Atlantic SSTs, and a negative trend in North Pacific and North Atlantic SSTs. The ENSO reconstruction shows a strong signal in the tropical Pacific, North Pacific, and Indian Ocean regions. For the PDSI data, the secular trend reconstruction shows high amplitudes over central Africa including the Sahel, whereas the regions with strong ENSO amplitudes in PDSI are the southwestern and northwestern United States, South Africa, northeastern Brazil, central Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Australia. An additional significant frequency, multidecadal variability, is identified for the Northern Hemisphere. This multidecadal frequency appears to be related to the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO). The multidecadal frequency is statistically significant in the Northern Hemisphere SST data, but is statistically nonsignificant in the PDSI data.

Key Trends Shaping the Global Logistics Environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Handfield, Robert; Straube, Frank; Pfohl, Hans-Christian

A summary from the full study “Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Embracing Global Logistics Complexity to Drive Market Advantage” (2013).......A summary from the full study “Trends and Strategies in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Embracing Global Logistics Complexity to Drive Market Advantage” (2013)....

Evidence that global evapotranspiration makes a substantial contribution to the global atmospheric temperature slowdown

Science.gov (United States)

Leggett, L. Mark W.; Ball, David A.

2018-02-01

The difference between the time series trend for temperature expected from the increasing level of atmospheric CO2 and that for the (more slowly rising) observed temperature has been termed the global surface temperature slowdown. In this paper, we characterise the single time series made from the subtraction of these two time series as the `global surface temperature gap'. We also develop an analogous atmospheric CO2 gap series from the difference between the level of CO2 and first-difference CO2 (that is, the change in CO2 from one period to the next). This paper provides three further pieces of evidence concerning the global surface temperature slowdown. First, we find that the present size of both the global surface temperature gap and the CO2 gap is unprecedented over a period starting at least as far back as the 1860s. Second, ARDL and Granger causality analyses involving the global surface temperature gap against the major candidate physical drivers of the ocean heat sink and biosphere evapotranspiration are conducted. In each case where ocean heat data was available, it was significant in the models: however, evapotranspiration, or its argued surrogate precipitation, also remained significant in the models alongside ocean heat. In terms of relative scale, the standardised regression coefficient for evapotranspiration was repeatedly of the same order of magnitude as—typically as much as half that for—ocean heat. The foregoing is evidence that, alongside the ocean heat sink, evapotranspiration is also likely to be making a substantial contribution to the global atmospheric temperature outcome. Third, there is evidence that both the ocean heat sink and the evapotranspiration process might be able to continue into the future to keep the temperature lower than the level-of-CO2 models would suggest. It is shown that this means there can be benefit in using the first-difference CO2 to temperature relationship shown in Leggett and Ball (Atmos Chem Phys 15

Spatiotemporal trends in extreme rainfall and temperature indices over Upper Tapi Basin, India

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, Priyank J.; Loliyana, V. D.; S. R., Resmi; Timbadiya, P. V.; Patel, P. L.

2017-12-01

The flood risk across the globe is intensified due to global warming and subsequent increase in extreme temperature and precipitation. The long-term trends in extreme rainfall (1944-2013) and temperature (1969-2012) indices have been investigated at annual, seasonal, and monthly time scales using nonparametric Mann-Kendall (MK), modified Mann-Kendall (MMK), and Sen's slope estimator tests. The extreme rainfall and temperature indices, recommended by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection Monitoring Indices (ETCCDMI), have been analyzed at finer spatial scales for trend detection. The results of trend analyses indicate decreasing trend in annual total rainfall, significant decreasing trend in rainy days, and increasing trend in rainfall intensity over the basin. The seasonal rainfall has been found to decrease for all the seasons except postmonsoon, which could affect the rain-fed agriculture in the basin. The 1- and 5-day annual maximum rainfalls exhibit mixed trends, wherein part of the basin experiences increasing trend, while other parts experience a decreasing trend. The increase in dry spells and concurrent decrease in wet spells are also observed over the basin. The extreme temperature indices revealed increasing trends in hottest and coldest days, while decreasing trends in coldest night are found over most parts of the basin. Further, the diurnal temperature range is also found to increase due to warming tendency in maximum temperature (T max) at a faster rate compared to the minimum temperature (T min). The increase in frequency and magnitude of extreme rainfall in the basin has been attributed to the increasing trend in maximum and minimum temperatures, reducing forest cover, rapid pace of urbanization, increase in human population, and thereby increase in the aerosol content in the atmosphere. The findings of the present study would significantly help in sustainable water resource planning, better decision-making for policy framework, and setting up

Recent Trends in Global Ocean Chlorophyll

Science.gov (United States)

Gregg, Watson; Casey, Nancy

2004-01-01

Recent analyses of SeaWiFS data have shown that global ocean chlorophyll has increased more than 5% since 1998. The North Pacific ocean basin has increased nearly 19%. To understand the causes of these trends we have applied the newly developed NASA Ocean Biogeochemical Assimilation Model (OBAM), which is driven in mechanistic fashion by surface winds, sea surface temperature, atmospheric iron deposition, sea ice, and surface irradiance. The mode1 utilizes chlorophyll from SeaWiFS in a daily assimilation. The model has in place many of the climatic variables that can be expected to produce the changes observed in SeaWiFS data. Ths enables us to diagnose the model performance, the assimilation performance, and possible causes for the increase in chlorophyll.

Temperature trends with reduced impact of ocean air temperature

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lansner, Frank; Pedersen, Jens Olaf Pepke

Temperature data 1900-2010 from meteorological stations across the world have been analysed and it has been found that all areas generally have two different valid temperature trends. Coastal stations and hill stations facing dominant ocean winds are normally more warm-trended than the valley sta...

Temperature trends with reduced impact of ocean air temperature

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lansner, Frank; Pedersen, Jens Olaf Pepke

2018-01-01

Temperature data 1900–2010 from meteorological stations across the world have been analyzed and it has been found that all land areas generally have two different valid temperature trends. Coastal stations and hill stations facing ocean winds are normally more warm-trended than the valley station...

A Global Look at Future Trends in the Renewable Energy Resource

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, S.; Freedman, J. M.; Kirk-Davidoff, D. B.; Brower, M.

2017-12-01

With the aggressive deployment of utility-scale and distributed generation of wind and solar energy systems, an accurate estimate of the uncertainty associated with future resource trends and plant performance is crucial in maintaining financial integrity in the renewable energy markets. With continuing concerns regarding climate change, the move towards energy resiliency, and the cost-competitiveness of renewables, a rapidly expanding fleet of utility-scale wind and solar power facilities and distributed generation of both resources is now being incorporated into the electric distribution grid. Although solar and wind account for about 3% of global power production, renewable energy is now and will continue to be the world's fastest-growing energy source. With deeper penetration of renewables, confidence in future power production output on a spectrum of temporal and spatial scales is crucial to grid stability for long-term planning and achieving national and international targets in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Here, we use output from a diverse subset of Earth System Models (Climate Model Inter-comparison Project-Phase 5 members) to produce projected trends and uncertainties in regional and global seasonal and inter-annual wind and solar power production and respective capacity factors through the end of the 21st century. Our trends and uncertainty analysis focuses on the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. For wind and solar energy production estimates, we extract surface layer wind (extrapolated to hub height), irradiance, cloud fraction, and temperature (air temperature affects density [hence wind power production] and the efficiency of photovoltaic [PV] systems), output from the CMIP5 ensemble mean fields for the period 2020 - 2099 and an historical baseline for POR of 1986 - 2005 (compared with long-term observations and the ERA-Interim Reanalysis). Results include representative statistics such as the

TRENDS 1991: A compendium of data on global change

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boden, T.A.; Sepanski, R.J.; Stoss, F.W. (eds.)

1991-12-01

This document is a source of frequently used global-change data. This second issue of the Trends series expands the coverage of sites recording atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) and methane (CH{sub 4}), and it updates records reported in the first issue. New data for other trace atmospheric gases have been included in this issue; historical data on nitrous oxide (N{sub 2}) from ice cores, modern records of atmospheric concentrations of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-11 and CFC-12) and N{sub 2}O, and estimates of global estimates of CFC-11 and CFC-12. The estimates for global and national CO{sub 2} emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, the production of cement, and gas flaring have been revised and updated. Regional CO{sub 2} emission estimates have been added, and long-term temperature records have been updated and expanded. Data records are presented in four- to six-page formats, each dealing with a specific site, region, or emissions species. The data records include tables and graphs; discussion of methods for collecting, measuring, and reporting the data; trends in the data; and references to literature that provides further information. All data appearing in the document are available on digital media from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center.

TRENDS 1991: A compendium of data on global change

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boden, T.A.; Sepanski, R.J.; Stoss, F.W.

1991-12-01

This document is a source of frequently used global-change data. This second issue of the Trends series expands the coverage of sites recording atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ), and it updates records reported in the first issue. New data for other trace atmospheric gases have been included in this issue; historical data on nitrous oxide (N 2 ) from ice cores, modern records of atmospheric concentrations of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-11 and CFC-12) and N 2 O, and estimates of global estimates of CFC-11 and CFC-12. The estimates for global and national CO 2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, the production of cement, and gas flaring have been revised and updated. Regional CO 2 emission estimates have been added, and long-term temperature records have been updated and expanded. Data records are presented in four- to six-page formats, each dealing with a specific site, region, or emissions species. The data records include tables and graphs; discussion of methods for collecting, measuring, and reporting the data; trends in the data; and references to literature that provides further information. All data appearing in the document are available on digital media from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center

Monitoring sea level and sea surface temperature trends from ERS satellites

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Ole Baltazar; Knudsen, Per; Beckley, B.

2002-01-01

Data from the two ESA satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2 are used in global and regional analysis of sea level and sea surface temperature trends over the last, 7.8 years. T he ERS satellites and in the future the ENVISAT satellite provide unique opportunity for monitoring both changes in sea level and sea...

Statistical analysis of global surface temperature and sea level using cointegration methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schmidt, Torben; Johansen, Søren; Thejll, Peter

2012-01-01

Global sea levels are rising which is widely understood as a consequence of thermal expansion and melting of glaciers and land-based ice caps. Due to the lack of representation of ice-sheet dynamics in present-day physically-based climate models being unable to simulate observed sea level trends......, semi-empirical models have been applied as an alternative for projecting of future sea levels. There is in this, however, potential pitfalls due to the trending nature of the time series. We apply a statistical method called cointegration analysis to observed global sea level and land-ocean surface air...... temperature, capable of handling such peculiarities. We find a relationship between sea level and temperature and find that temperature causally depends on the sea level, which can be understood as a consequence of the large heat capacity of the ocean. We further find that the warming episode in the 1940s...

TRENDS '90: A compendium of data on global change

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sepanski, R.J.; Stoss, F.W. (eds.); Boden, T.A.; Kanciruk, P.; Farrell, M.P.

1990-08-01

This document is a source of frequently used global change data. This first issue includes estimates for global and national CO{sub 2} emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and from the production of cement, historical and modern records of atmospheric CO{sub 2} and methane concentrations, and several long-term temperature records. Included are tabular and graphical presentations of the data, discussions of trends in the data, and references to publications that provide further information. Data are presented in a two-page format, each dealing with a different data set. All data are available in digital form from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center.

Global trends in satellite-based emergency mapping

Science.gov (United States)

Voigt, Stefan; Giulio-Tonolo, Fabio; Lyons, Josh; Kučera, Jan; Jones, Brenda; Schneiderhan, Tobias; Platzeck, Gabriel; Kaku, Kazuya; Hazarika, Manzul Kumar; Czaran, Lorant; Li, Suju; Pedersen, Wendi; James, Godstime Kadiri; Proy, Catherine; Muthike, Denis Macharia; Bequignon, Jerome; Guha-Sapir, Debarati

2016-01-01

Over the past 15 years, scientists and disaster responders have increasingly used satellite-based Earth observations for global rapid assessment of disaster situations. We review global trends in satellite rapid response and emergency mapping from 2000 to 2014, analyzing more than 1000 incidents in which satellite monitoring was used for assessing major disaster situations. We provide a synthesis of spatial patterns and temporal trends in global satellite emergency mapping efforts and show that satellite-based emergency mapping is most intensively deployed in Asia and Europe and follows well the geographic, physical, and temporal distributions of global natural disasters. We present an outlook on the future use of Earth observation technology for disaster response and mitigation by putting past and current developments into context and perspective.

Trends in global CO2 emissions. 2012 Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Olivier, J.G.J.; Peters, J.A.H.W. [PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Den Haag (Netherlands); Janssens-Maenhout, G. [Institute for Environment and Sustainability IES, European Commission' s Joint Research Centre JRC, Ispra (Italy)

2012-07-15

This report discusses the results of a trend assessment of global CO2 emissions up to 2011 and updates last year's assessment. This assessment focusses on the changes in annual CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2011, and includes not only fossil fuel combustion on which the BP reports are based, but also incorporates all other relevant CO2 emissions sources including flaring of waste gas during oil production, cement clinker production and other limestone uses, feedstock and other non-energy uses of fuels, and several other small sources. After a short description of the methods used (Chapter 2), we first present a summary of recent CO2 emission trends, by region and by country, and of the underlying trend of fossil fuel use, non-fossil energy and of other CO2 sources (Chapter 3). To provide a broader context of the global trends we also assess the cumulative global CO2 emissions of the last decade, i.e. since 2000, and compare it with scientific literature that analyse global emissions in relation to the target of 2C maximum global warming in the 21st century, which was adopted in the UN climate negotiations (Chapter 4). Compared to last year's report, Annex 1 includes a more detailed and updated discussion of the uncertainty in national and global CO2 emission estimates.

Trends in global CO2 emissions. 2012 Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Olivier, J. G.J.; Peters, J. A.H.W. [PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Den Haag (Netherlands); Janssens-Maenhout, G. [Institute for Environment and Sustainability IES, European Commission' s Joint Research Centre JRC, Ispra (Italy)

2012-07-15

This report discusses the results of a trend assessment of global CO2 emissions up to 2011 and updates last year's assessment. This assessment focusses on the changes in annual CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2011, and includes not only fossil fuel combustion on which the BP reports are based, but also incorporates all other relevant CO2 emissions sources including flaring of waste gas during oil production, cement clinker production and other limestone uses, feedstock and other non-energy uses of fuels, and several other small sources. After a short description of the methods used (Chapter 2), we first present a summary of recent CO2 emission trends, by region and by country, and of the underlying trend of fossil fuel use, non-fossil energy and of other CO2 sources (Chapter 3). To provide a broader context of the global trends we also assess the cumulative global CO2 emissions of the last decade, i.e. since 2000, and compare it with scientific literature that analyse global emissions in relation to the target of 2C maximum global warming in the 21st century, which was adopted in the UN climate negotiations (Chapter 4). Compared to last year's report, Annex 1 includes a more detailed and updated discussion of the uncertainty in national and global CO2 emission estimates.

Trends in global CO2 emissions. 2013 Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Olivier, J.G.J.; Peters, J.A.H.W. [PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Den Haag (Netherlands); Janssens-Maenhout, G. [Institute for Environment and Sustainability IES, European Commission' s Joint Research Centre JRC, Ispra (Italy); Muntean, M. [Institute for Environment and Sustainability IES, Joint Research Centre JRC, Ispra (Italy)

2013-10-15

This report discusses the results of a trend assessment of global CO2 emissions up to 2012 and updates last year's assessment. This assessment focuses on the changes in annual CO2 emissions from 2011 to 2012, and includes not only fossil-fuel combustion on which the BP reports are based, but also incorporates other relevant CO2 emissions sources including flaring of waste gas during gas and oil production, cement clinker production and other limestone uses, feedstock and other non-energy uses of fuels, and several other small sources. The report clarifies the CO2 emission sources covered, and describes the methodology and data sources. More details are provided in Annex 1 over the 2010-2012 period, including a discussion of the degree of uncertainty in national and global CO2 emission estimates. Chapter 2 presents a summary of recent CO2 emission trends, per main country or region, including a comparison between emissions per capita and per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and of the underlying trend in fossil-fuel production and use, non-fossil energy and other CO2 sources. Specific attention is given to developments in shale gas and oil production and oil sands production and their impact on CO2 emissions. To provide a broader context of global emissions trends, international greenhouse gas mitigation targets and agreements are also presented, including different perspectives of emission accounting per country. In particular, annual trends with respect to the Kyoto Protocol target and Cancun agreements and cumulative global CO2 emissions of the last decade are compared with scientific literature that analyses global emissions in relation to the target of 2{sup 0}C maximum global warming in the 21st century, which was adopted in the UN climate negotiations. In addition, we briefly discuss the rapid development and implementation of various emission trading schemes, because of their increasing importance as a cross-cutting policy instrument for mitigating

Comparison between linear and nonlinear trends in NOAA-15 AMSU-A brightness temperatures during 1998-2010

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Qin, Z. [Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Center of Data Assimilation for Research and Application, Nanjing (China); Zou, X. [Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Center of Data Assimilation for Research and Application, Nanjing (China); Florida State University, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Tallahassee, FL (United States); Weng, F. [NOAA/NESDIS, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, Camp Springs, MD (United States)

2012-10-15

Brightness temperature observations from Microwave Sounding Unit and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) on board National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites have been widely utilized for estimating the global climate trend in the troposphere and stratosphere. A common approach for deriving the trend is linear regression, which implicitly assumes the trend being a straight line over the whole length of a time series and is often highly sensitive to the data record length. This study explores a new adaptive and temporally local data analysis method - Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) - for estimating the global trends. In EEMD, a non-stationary time series is decomposed adaptively and locally into a sequence of amplitude-frequency modulated oscillatory components and a time-varying trend. The AMSU-A data from the NOAA-15 satellite over the time period from October 26, 1998 to August 7, 2010 are employed for this study. Using data over Amazon rainforest areas, it is shown that channel 3 is least sensitive to the orbital drift among four AMSU-A surface sensitive channels. The decadal trends of AMSU-A channel 3 and other eight channels in the troposphere and stratosphere are deduced and compared using both methods. It is shown that the decadal climate trends of most AMSU-A channels are nonlinear except for channels 3-4 in Northern Hemisphere only and channels 12-13. Although the decadal trend variation of the global average brightness temperature is no more than 0.2 K, the regional decadal trend variation could be more (less) than 3 K (-3 K) in high latitudes and over high terrains. (orig.)

Statistical analysis of global surface air temperature and sea level using cointegration methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schmith, Torben; Johansen, Søren; Thejll, Peter

Global sea levels are rising which is widely understood as a consequence of thermal expansion and melting of glaciers and land-based ice caps. Due to physically-based models being unable to simulate observed sea level trends, semi-empirical models have been applied as an alternative for projecting...... of future sea levels. There is in this, however, potential pitfalls due to the trending nature of the time series. We apply a statistical method called cointegration analysis to observed global sea level and surface air temperature, capable of handling such peculiarities. We find a relationship between sea...... level and temperature and find that temperature causally depends on the sea level, which can be understood as a consequence of the large heat capacity of the ocean. We further find that the warming episode in the 1940s is exceptional in the sense that sea level and warming deviates from the expected...

Climatology and trends of mesospheric (58-90) temperatures based upon 1982-1986 SME limb scattering profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Clancy, R. Todd; Rusch, David W.

1989-01-01

Atmospheric temperature profiles for the altitude range 58-90 km were calculated using data on global UV limb radiances from the SME satellite. The major elements of this climatology include a high vertical resolution (about 4 km) and the coverage of the 70-90 km altitude region. The analysis of this extensive data set provides a global definition of mesospheric-lower thermospheric temperature trends over the 1982-1986 period. The observations suggest a pattern of 1-2 K/year decreases in temperatures at 80-90-km altitudes accompanied by 0.5-1.5 K/year increases in temperatures at 65-80-km altitudes.

Mesopause region temperature variability and its trend in southern Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Venturini, Mateus S.; Bageston, José V.; Caetano, Nattan R.; Peres, Lucas V.; Bencherif, Hassan; Schuch, Nelson J.

2018-03-01

Nowadays, the study of the upper atmosphere is increasing, mostly because of the need to understand the patterns of Earth's atmosphere. Since studies on global warming have become very important for the development of new technologies, understanding all regions of the atmosphere becomes an unavoidable task. In this paper, we aim to analyze the temperature variability and its trend in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region during a period of 12 years (from 2003 to 2014). For this purpose, three different heights, i.e., 85, 90 and 95 km, were focused on in order to investigate the upper atmosphere, and a geographic region different to other studies was chosen, in the southern region of Brazil, centered in the city of Santa Maria, RS (29°41'02'' S; 53°48'25'' W). In order to reach the objectives of this work, temperature data from the SABER instrument (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry), aboard NASA's Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics (TIMED) satellite, were used. Finally, two cases were studied related to distinct grids of latitude/longitude used to obtain the mean temperature profiles. The first case considered a grid of 20° × 20° lat/long, centered in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil. In the second case, the region was reduced to a size of 15° × 15° in order to compare the results and discuss the two cases in terms of differences or similarities in temperature trends. Observations show that the size of the geographical area used for the average temperature profiles can influence the results of variability and trend of the temperature. In addition, reducing the time duration of analyses from 24 to 12 h a day also influences the trend significantly. For the smaller geographical region (15° × 15°) and the 12 h daily time window (09:00-21:00 UT) it was found that the main contributions for the temperature variability at the three heights were the annual and semi-annual cycles and the solar flux influence

Global Energy Trends - 2016 edition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2016-01-01

of CO_2 emissions is good news compared to previous years. This is mainly due to the relative weakness of economic growth. Achieving the goals discussed at the COP21 (1.5 to 2 deg. temperature increase by the end of the century), in fact requires a lasting stagnation of global energy consumption and a strong reduction of CO_2 emissions. Thus, with a global GDP growth assumption of 3% per year, this would imply an average carbon intensity reduction target of 5 to 6% per year... (Source: EnerFuture Scenarios - Enerdata) If energy consumption is stagnating, however, we find different trends according to the markets: The oil market is particularly linked to the transport sector; the increase in demand recorded in 2015 (+2%) derives primarily from the increase in vehicle fleet (China, India...) and to a lesser extent from lower prices (particularly in the US). The decline in investments in the upstream sector leaves us to predict, however, a decrease in mid-term production capacity and new pressure on supply/demand.. Gas demand remained stable in 2015: The structural increase continues in the US (replacing coal); in a more cyclical manner, the demand benefited from a colder climate in Europe but fell sharply in Russia (economic recession). At the production level, the US is No. 1 worldwide before Russia, but with a downward trend for several months (shale gas). Coal consumption decreases: Confirming the surprise in 2014: thanks to a new decline observed in China (-3.7%) and in the US (-11%), and despite continued strong growth in India, demand for coal shrinks at the G20 level (-2.7%). Stagnation of power consumption: The demand in power has been stagnant for several years in developed countries. The result is more surprising for non-OECD countries, where growth shrinks significantly. Is this a sign of a slowdown of the increasing weight of power in the overall mix? Power mix continues its slow transformation: In recent years, energy policies have shown visible effects

The relative contributions of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures and atmospheric internal variability to the recent global warming hiatus

Science.gov (United States)

Deser, Clara; Guo, Ruixia; Lehner, Flavio

2017-08-01

The recent slowdown in global mean surface temperature (GMST) warming during boreal winter is examined from a regional perspective using 10-member initial-condition ensembles with two global coupled climate models in which observed tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (TPAC SSTAs) and radiative forcings are specified. Both models show considerable diversity in their surface air temperature (SAT) trend patterns across the members, attesting to the importance of internal variability beyond the tropical Pacific that is superimposed upon the response to TPAC SSTA and radiative forcing. Only one model shows a close relationship between the realism of its simulated GMST trends and SAT trend patterns. In this model, Eurasian cooling plays a dominant role in determining the GMST trend amplitude, just as in nature. In the most realistic member, intrinsic atmospheric dynamics and teleconnections forced by TPAC SSTA cause cooling over Eurasia (and North America), and contribute equally to its GMST trend.

A new integrated and homogenized global monthly land surface air temperature dataset for the period since 1900

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Wenhui; Li, Qingxiang; Jones, Phil; Wang, Xiaolan L.; Trewin, Blair; Yang, Su; Zhu, Chen; Zhai, Panmao; Wang, Jinfeng; Vincent, Lucie; Dai, Aiguo; Gao, Yun; Ding, Yihui

2018-04-01

A new dataset of integrated and homogenized monthly surface air temperature over global land for the period since 1900 [China Meteorological Administration global Land Surface Air Temperature (CMA-LSAT)] is developed. In total, 14 sources have been collected and integrated into the newly developed dataset, including three global (CRUTEM4, GHCN, and BEST), three regional and eight national sources. Duplicate stations are identified, and those with the higher priority are chosen or spliced. Then, a consistency test and a climate outlier test are conducted to ensure that each station series is quality controlled. Next, two steps are adopted to assure the homogeneity of the station series: (1) homogenized station series in existing national datasets (by National Meteorological Services) are directly integrated into the dataset without any changes (50% of all stations), and (2) the inhomogeneities are detected and adjusted for in the remaining data series using a penalized maximal t test (50% of all stations). Based on the dataset, we re-assess the temperature changes in global and regional areas compared with GHCN-V3 and CRUTEM4, as well as the temperature changes during the three periods of 1900-2014, 1979-2014 and 1998-2014. The best estimates of warming trends and there 95% confidence ranges for 1900-2014 are approximately 0.102 ± 0.006 °C/decade for the whole year, and 0.104 ± 0.009, 0.112 ± 0.007, 0.090 ± 0.006, and 0.092 ± 0.007 °C/decade for the DJF (December, January, February), MAM, JJA, and SON seasons, respectively. MAM saw the most significant warming trend in both 1900-2014 and 1979-2014. For an even shorter and more recent period (1998-2014), MAM, JJA and SON show similar warming trends, while DJF shows opposite trends. The results show that the ability of CMA-LAST for describing the global temperature changes is similar with other existing products, while there are some differences when describing regional temperature changes.

Global Trends of Tropospheric NO2 Observed From Space

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, P.; van der A, R. J.

2012-04-01

Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) is one of the major atmospheric pollutants and is primarily emitted by industrial activity and transport. While observations of NO2 are frequently being carried out at air quality stations, such measurements are not able to provide a global perspective of spatial patterns in NO2 concentrations and their associated trends due to the stations' limited spatial representativity and an extremely sparse and often completely non-existent station coverage in developing countries. Satellite observations of tropospheric NO2 are able to overcome this issue and provide an unprecedented global view of spatial patterns in NO2 levels and due to their homogeneity are well suited for studying trends. Here we present results of a global trend analysis from nearly a decade of NO2 observations made by the SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY) instrument onboard the Envisat satellite platform. Using only SCIAMACHY data allows for mapping global and regional trends at an unprecedented spatial resolution since no aggregation to the coarser resolution of other sensors is necessary. Monthly average tropospheric NO2 column data was acquired for the period between August 2002 and August 2011. A trend analysis was subsequently performed by fitting a statistical model including a seasonal cycle and linear trend to the time series extracted at each grid cell. The linear trend component and the trend uncertainty were then mapped spatially at both regional and global scales. The results show that spatially contiguous areas of significantly increasing NO2 levels are found primarily in Eastern China, with absolute trends of up to 4.05 (± 0.41) - 1015 molecules cm-2 yr-1 at the gridcell level and large areas showing rapid relative increases of 10-20 percent per year. In addition, many urban agglomerations in Asia and the Middle East similarly exhibit significantly increasing trends, with Dhaka in Bangladesh being the megacity with

Climate Trend Detection using Sea-Surface Temperature Data-sets from the (A)ATSR and AVHRR Space Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Llewellyn-Jones, D. T.; Corlett, G. K.; Remedios, J. J.; Noyes, E. J.; Good, S. A.

2007-05-01

Sea-Surface Temperature (SST) is an important indicator of global change, designated by GCOS as an essential Climate Variable (ECV). The detection of trends in Global SST requires rigorous measurements that are not only global, but also highly accurate and consistent. Space instruments can provide the means to achieve these required attributes in SST data. This paper presents an analysis of 15 years of SST data from two independent data sets, generated from the (A)ATSR and AVHRR series of sensors respectively. The analyses reveal trends of increasing global temperature between 0.13°C to 0.18 °C, per decade, closely matching that expected from some current predictions. A high level of consistency in the results from the two independent observing systems is seen, which gives increased confidence in data from both systems and also enables comparative analyses of the accuracy and stability of both data sets to be carried out. The conclusion is that these satellite SST data-sets provide important means to quantify and explore the processes of climate change. An analysis based upon singular value decomposition, allowing the removal of gross transitory disturbances, notably the El Niño, in order to examine regional areas of change other than the tropical Pacific, is also presented. Interestingly, although El Niño events clearly affect SST globally, they are found to have a non- significant (within error) effect on the calculated trends, which changed by only 0.01 K/decade when the pattern of El Niño and the associated variations was removed from the SST record. Although similar global trends were calculated for these two independent data sets, larger regional differences are noted. Evidence of decreased temperatures after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 was also observed. The methodology demonstrated here can be applied to other data-sets, which cover long time-series observations of geophysical observations in order to characterise long-term change.

Spatial distribution of unidirectional trends in temperature and temperature extremes in Pakistan

Science.gov (United States)

Khan, Najeebullah; Shahid, Shamsuddin; Ismail, Tarmizi bin; Wang, Xiao-Jun

2018-06-01

Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries of the world to temperature extremes due to its predominant arid climate and geographic location in the fast temperature rising zone. Spatial distribution of the trends in annual and seasonal temperatures and temperature extremes over Pakistan has been assessed in this study. The gauge-based gridded daily temperature data of Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) having a spatial resolution of 1° × 1° was used for the assessment of trends over the period 1960-2013 using modified Mann-Kendall test (MMK), which can discriminate the multi-decadal oscillatory variations from secular trends. The results show an increase in the annual average of daily maximum and minimum temperatures in 92 and 99% area of Pakistan respectively at 95% level of confidence. The annual temperature is increasing faster in southern high-temperature region compared to other parts of the country. The minimum temperature is rising faster (0.17-0.37 °C/decade) compared to maximum temperature (0.17-0.29 °C/decade) and therefore declination of diurnal temperature range (DTR) (- 0.15 to - 0.08 °C/decade) in some regions. The annual numbers of both hot and cold days are increasing in whole Pakistan except in the northern sub-Himalayan region. Heat waves are on the rise, especially in the hot Sindh plains and the Southern coastal region, while the cold waves are becoming lesser in the northern cold region. Obtained results contradict with the findings of previous studies on temperature trends, which indicate the need for reassessment of climatic trends in Pakistan using the MMK test to understand the anthropogenic impacts of climate change.

Stratospheric Temperature Trends Observed by TIMED/SABER

Science.gov (United States)

Xian, T.; Tan, R.

2017-12-01

Trends in the stratospheric temperature are studied based on the temperature profile observation from the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER). The spatially trends are evaluated in different time scales ranging from decadal to monthly resolved. The results indicate a signature of BDC acceleration. There are strong warming trends (up to 9 K/decade) in the middle to upper stratosphere in the high latitude spring, summer, and autumn seasons, accompanied by strong cooling trends in the lower stratosphere. Besides, strong warming trends occurs through the whole stratosphere over the Southern Hemisphere, which confirms Antarctic ozone layer healing since 2000. In addition, the results demonstrate a significant warming trends in the middle of tropical stratosphere, which becomes strongest during June-July-August.

Evaluation of surface air temperature trend and climate change in the north - east of I. R. of Iran

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alireza, Shahabfar

2004-01-01

In this paper maximum, minimum and mean surface air temperature recorded, analysed to reveal spatial and temporal patterns of long-term trends, change points, significant warming (cooling) periods and linear trend per decade. According to this research summer minimum temperatures have generally increased at a larger rate than in spring and autumn minimum temperatures. On the other hand, nighttime warming rates of spring and summer are generally stronger than those that exist in spring and summer daytime temperatures. Considering the significant increasing trends in annual, spring and summer temperatures, it is seen that night-time warming rates are stronger in the northern regions, which are characterized by the Khorasan Province macro climate type: a very hot summer, a relatively hot and late spring and early autumn, and a moderate winter. We have seriously considered the strong warming trends in spring and summer and thus likely in annual minimum air temperatures. It is very likely that significant and very rapid night-time warming trends over much of the province can be related to the widespread, rapid and increased urbanization in Khorasan Province, in addition to long-term and global effects of the human-induced climate change on air temperatures. (Author)

DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN THE GLOBAL DENTAL MARKET

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Veronica BULAT

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The paper analyses the key trends of the market, and segments the global dental equipment and consumables market by components and into various geographic regions in way of market size. It discusses the key market drivers, main players, restraints and opportunities of the global dental equipment and consumables market.

The Sun is the climate pacemaker II. Global ocean temperatures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Douglass, David H., E-mail: douglass@pas.rochester.edu; Knox, Robert S.

2015-04-17

In part I, equatorial Pacific Ocean temperature index SST3.4 was found to have segments during 1990–2014 showing a phase-locked annual signal and phase-locked signals of 2- or 3-year periods. Phase locking is to an inferred solar forcing of 1.0 cycle/yr. Here the study extends to the global ocean, from surface to 700 and 2000 m. The same phase-locking phenomena are found. The El Niño/La Niña effect diffuses into the world oceans with a delay of about two months. - Highlights: • Global ocean temperatures at depths 0–700 m and 0–2000 m from 1990 to 2014 are studied. • The same phase-locked phenomena reported in Paper I are observed. • El Niño/La Niña effects diffuse to the global oceans with a two month delay. • Ocean heat content trends during phase-locked time segments are consistent with zero.

Global Trends in Workplace Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Lung-Sheng; Lai, Chun-Chin

2012-01-01

The paradigm of human resource development has shifted to workplace learning and performance. Workplace can be an organization, an office, a kitchen, a shop, a farm, a website, even a home. Workplace learning is a dynamic process to solve workplace problems through learning. An identification of global trends of workplace learning can help us to…

Global health care leadership development: trends to consider

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MacPhee M

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Maura MacPhee,1 Lilu Chang,2 Diana Lee,3 Wilza Spiri4 1University of British Columbia School of Nursing, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; 2Center for Advancement of Nursing Education, Koo Foundation, Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center, Taipei, Taiwan; 3Nethersole School of Nursing, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 4São Paulo State University, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil Abstract: This paper provides an overview of trends associated with global health care leadership development. Accompanying these trends are propositions based on current available evidence. These testable propositions should be considered when designing, implementing, and evaluating global health care leadership development models and programs. One particular leadership development model, a multilevel identity model, is presented as a potential model to use for leadership development. Other, complementary approaches, such as positive psychology and empowerment strategies, are discussed in relation to leadership identity formation. Specific issues related to global leadership are reviewed, including cultural intelligence and global mindset. An example is given of a nurse leadership development model that has been empirically tested in Canada. Through formal practice–academic–community collaborations, this model has been locally adapted and is being used for nurse leader training in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Brazil. Collaborative work is under way to adapt the model for interprofessional health care leadership development. Keywords: health care leadership, development models, global trends, collective

The Role of the Mean State of Arctic Sea Ice on Near-Surface Temperature Trends

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Linden, van der E.C.; Bintanja, R.; Hazeleger, W.; Katsman, C.A.

2014-01-01

Century-scale global near-surface temperature trends in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations in climate models vary by almost a factor of 2, with greatest intermodel spread in the Arctic region where sea ice is a key climate component. Three factors contribute to the intermodel spread:

Decadal trends in Red Sea maximum surface temperature

KAUST Repository

Chaidez, Veronica; Dreano, Denis; Agusti, Susana; Duarte, Carlos M.; Hoteit, Ibrahim

2017-01-01

Ocean warming is a major consequence of climate change, with the surface of the ocean having warmed by 0.11 °C decade-1 over the last 50 years and is estimated to continue to warm by an additional 0.6 - 2.0 °C before the end of the century1. However, there is considerable variability in the rates experienced by different ocean regions, so understanding regional trends is important to inform on possible stresses for marine organisms, particularly in warm seas where organisms may be already operating in the high end of their thermal tolerance. Although the Red Sea is one of the warmest ecosystems on earth, its historical warming trends and thermal evolution remain largely understudied. We characterized the Red Sea's thermal regimes at the basin scale, with a focus on the spatial distribution and changes over time of sea surface temperature maxima, using remotely sensed sea surface temperature data from 1982 - 2015. The overall rate of warming for the Red Sea is 0.17 ± 0.07 °C decade-1, while the northern Red Sea is warming between 0.40 and 0.45 °C decade-1, all exceeding the global rate. Our findings show that the Red Sea is fast warming, which may in the future challenge its organisms and communities.

Decadal trends in Red Sea maximum surface temperature

KAUST Repository

Chaidez, Veronica

2017-08-09

Ocean warming is a major consequence of climate change, with the surface of the ocean having warmed by 0.11 °C decade-1 over the last 50 years and is estimated to continue to warm by an additional 0.6 - 2.0 °C before the end of the century1. However, there is considerable variability in the rates experienced by different ocean regions, so understanding regional trends is important to inform on possible stresses for marine organisms, particularly in warm seas where organisms may be already operating in the high end of their thermal tolerance. Although the Red Sea is one of the warmest ecosystems on earth, its historical warming trends and thermal evolution remain largely understudied. We characterized the Red Sea\\'s thermal regimes at the basin scale, with a focus on the spatial distribution and changes over time of sea surface temperature maxima, using remotely sensed sea surface temperature data from 1982 - 2015. The overall rate of warming for the Red Sea is 0.17 ± 0.07 °C decade-1, while the northern Red Sea is warming between 0.40 and 0.45 °C decade-1, all exceeding the global rate. Our findings show that the Red Sea is fast warming, which may in the future challenge its organisms and communities.

Decadal trends in Red Sea maximum surface temperature.

Science.gov (United States)

Chaidez, V; Dreano, D; Agusti, S; Duarte, C M; Hoteit, I

2017-08-15

Ocean warming is a major consequence of climate change, with the surface of the ocean having warmed by 0.11 °C decade -1 over the last 50 years and is estimated to continue to warm by an additional 0.6 - 2.0 °C before the end of the century 1 . However, there is considerable variability in the rates experienced by different ocean regions, so understanding regional trends is important to inform on possible stresses for marine organisms, particularly in warm seas where organisms may be already operating in the high end of their thermal tolerance. Although the Red Sea is one of the warmest ecosystems on earth, its historical warming trends and thermal evolution remain largely understudied. We characterized the Red Sea's thermal regimes at the basin scale, with a focus on the spatial distribution and changes over time of sea surface temperature maxima, using remotely sensed sea surface temperature data from 1982 - 2015. The overall rate of warming for the Red Sea is 0.17 ± 0.07 °C decade -1 , while the northern Red Sea is warming between 0.40 and 0.45 °C decade -1 , all exceeding the global rate. Our findings show that the Red Sea is fast warming, which may in the future challenge its organisms and communities.

GLOBAL TRENDS OF ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivan LUCHIAN

2016-08-01

Full Text Available An alternative investment is an investment product other than the traditional investments of stocks, bonds, cash, or property. The term is a relatively loose one and includes tangible assets such as art, wine, antiques, coins, or stamps and some financial assets such as commodities, hedge funds, venture capital,and others. At the moment it was created a global industry opportunities for making investments in nontraditional form. The aim of this paper consists in demonstrating the possibilities of these investments. For this have been studied related main international markets, a fter then deducted world dominant trends. This article is concerned to present some details of alternative investments global market.

A model–data comparison of the Holocene global sea surface temperature evolution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Lohmann

2013-08-01

Full Text Available We compare the ocean temperature evolution of the Holocene as simulated by climate models and reconstructed from marine temperature proxies. We use transient simulations from a coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model, as well as an ensemble of time slice simulations from the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project. The general pattern of sea surface temperature (SST in the models shows a high-latitude cooling and a low-latitude warming. The proxy dataset comprises a global compilation of marine alkenone- and Mg/Ca-derived SST estimates. Independently of the choice of the climate model, we observe significant mismatches between modelled and estimated SST amplitudes in the trends for the last 6000 yr. Alkenone-based SST records show a similar pattern as the simulated annual mean SSTs, but the simulated SST trends underestimate the alkenone-based SST trends by a factor of two to five. For Mg/Ca, no significant relationship between model simulations and proxy reconstructions can be detected. We test if such discrepancies can be caused by too simplistic interpretations of the proxy data. We explore whether consideration of different growing seasons and depth habitats of the planktonic organisms used for temperature reconstruction could lead to a better agreement of model results with proxy data on a regional scale. The extent to which temporal shifts in growing season or vertical shifts in depth habitat can reduce model–data misfits is determined. We find that invoking shifts in the living season and habitat depth can remove some of the model–data discrepancies in SST trends. Regardless whether such adjustments in the environmental parameters during the Holocene are realistic, they indicate that when modelled temperature trends are set up to allow drastic shifts in the ecological behaviour of planktonic organisms, they do not capture the full range of reconstructed SST trends. Results indicate that modelled and reconstructed

Structural Uncertainty in Model-Simulated Trends of Global Gross Primary Production

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Zaichun Zhu

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Projected changes in the frequency and severity of droughts as a result of increase in greenhouse gases have a significant impact on the role of vegetation in regulating the global carbon cycle. Drought effect on vegetation Gross Primary Production (GPP is usually modeled as a function of Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD and/or soil moisture. Climate projections suggest a strong likelihood of increasing trend in VPD, while regional changes in precipitation are less certain. This difference in projections between VPD and precipitation can cause considerable discrepancies in the predictions of vegetation behavior depending on how ecosystem models represent the drought effect. In this study, we scrutinized the model responses to drought using the 30-year record of Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS 3g Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI dataset. A diagnostic ecosystem model, Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS, was used to estimate global GPP from 1982 to 2009 under nine different experimental simulations. The control run of global GPP increased until 2000, but stayed constant after 2000. Among the simulations with single climate constraint (temperature, VPD, rainfall and solar radiation, only the VPD-driven simulation showed a decrease in 2000s, while the other scenarios simulated an increase in GPP. The diverging responses in 2000s can be attributed to the difference in the representation of the impact of water stress on vegetation in models, i.e., using VPD and/or precipitation. Spatial map of trend in simulated GPP using GIMMS 3g data is consistent with the GPP driven by soil moisture than the GPP driven by VPD, confirming the need for a soil moisture constraint in modeling global GPP.

Temperature and ice layer trends in the summer middle atmosphere

Science.gov (United States)

Lübken, F.-J.; Berger, U.

2012-04-01

We present results from our LIMA model (Leibniz Institute Middle Atmosphere Model) which nicely reproduces mean conditions of the summer mesopause region and also mean characteristics of ice layers known as noctilucent clouds. LIMA nudges to ECMWF data in the troposphere and lower stratosphere which influences the background conditions in the mesosphere. We study temperature trends in the mesosphere at middle and polar latitudes and compared with temperature trends from satellites, lidar, and phase height observations. For the first time large observed temperature trends in the summer mesosphere can be reproduced and explained by a model. As will be shown, stratospheric ozone has a major impact on temperature trends in the summer mesosphere. The temperature trend is not uniform in time: it is moderate from 1961 (the beginning of our record) until the beginning of the 1980s. Thereafter, temperatures decrease much stronger until the mid 1990s. Thereafter, temperatures are nearly constant or even increase with time. As will be shown, trends in ozone and carbon dioxide explain most of this behavior. Ice layers in the summer mesosphere are very sensitive to background conditions and are therefore considered to be appropriate tracers for long term variations in the middle atmosphere. We use LIMA background conditions to determine ice layer characteristics in the mesopause region. We compare our results with measurements, for example with albedos from the SBUV satellites, and show that we can nicely reproduce observed trends. It turns out that temperature trends are positive (negative) in the upper (lower) part of the ice layer regime. This complicates an interpretation of NLC long term variations in terms of temperature trends.

Satellite-based detection of global urban heat-island temperature influence

Science.gov (United States)

Gallo, K.P.; Adegoke, Jimmy O.; Owen, T.W.; Elvidge, C.D.

2002-01-01

This study utilizes a satellite-based methodology to assess the urban heat-island influence during warm season months for over 4400 stations included in the Global Historical Climatology Network of climate stations. The methodology includes local and regional satellite retrievals of an indicator of the presence green photosynthetically active vegetation at and around the stations. The difference in local and regional samples of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to estimate differences in mean air temperature. Stations classified as urban averaged 0.90??C (N. Hemisphere) and 0.92??C (S. Hemisphere) warmer than the surrounding environment on the basis of the NDVI-derived temperature estimates. Additionally, stations classified as rural averaged 0.19??C (N. Hemisphere) and 0.16??C (S. Hemisphere) warmer than the surrounding environment. The NDVI-derived temperature estimates were found to be in reasonable agreement with temperature differences observed between climate stations. The results suggest that satellite-derived data sets can be used to estimate the urban heat-island temperature influence on a global basis and that a more detailed analysis of rural stations and their surrounding environment may be necessary to assure that temperature trends derived from assumed rural environments are not influenced by changes in land use/land cover. Copyright 2002 by the American Geophysical Union.

Future trends in global blindness

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Serge Resnikoff

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The objective of this review is to discuss the available data on the prevalence and causes of global blindness, and some of the associated trends and limitations seen. A literature search was conducted using the terms "global AND blindness" and "global AND vision AND impairment", resulting in seven appropriate articles for this review. Since 1990 the estimate of global prevalence of blindness has gradually decreased when considering the best corrected visual acuity definition: 0.71% in 1990, 0.59% in 2002, and 0.55% in 2010, corresponding to a 0.73% reduction per year over the 2002-2010 period. Significant limitations were found in the comparability between the global estimates in prevalence or causes of blindness or visual impairment. These limitations arise from various factors such as uncertainties about the true cause of the impairment, the use of different definitions and methods, and the absence of data from a number of geographical areas, leading to various extrapolation methods, which in turn seriously limit comparability. Seminal to this discussion on limitations in the comparability of studies and data, is that blindness has historically been defined using best corrected visual acuity.

On the causal structure between CO2 and global temperature

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Stips, Adolf; Macias, Diego; Coughlan, Clare; Garcia-Gorriz, Elisa; Liang, X. San

2016-01-01

We use a newly developed technique that is based on the information flow concept to investigate the causal structure between the global radiative forcing and the annual global mean surface temperature anomalies (GMTA) since 1850. Our study unambiguously shows one-way causality between the total Greenhouse Gases and GMTA. Specifically, it is confirmed that the former, especially CO2, are the main causal drivers of the recent warming. A significant but smaller information flow comes from aerosol direct and indirect forcing, and on short time periods, volcanic forcings. In contrast the causality contribution from natural forcings (solar irradiance and volcanic forcing) to the long term trend is not significant. The spatial explicit analysis reveals that the anthropogenic forcing fingerprint is significantly regionally varying in both hemispheres. On paleoclimate time scales, however, the cause-effect direction is reversed: temperature changes cause subsequent CO2/CH4 changes. PMID:26900086

A simple model for variations in global mean temperature: implications for decadal variability, the global warming hiatus, and recent temperature rise

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Hu, S.; Fedorov, A. V.

2017-12-01

Global mean surface temperature (GMST) has steadily risen since the mid-19th century, and at the same time experienced significant variations on interannual and decadal timescales. Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain such variations, ranging from the Pacific decadal oscillation to volcanic eruptions. In this study, we construct a simple, physically-based model of GMST variations that incorporates greenhouse gas emissions, ENSO forcing, and stratospheric sulfate aerosols. The model closely reproduces the history of GMST changes since 1880 with the mean squared error about 0.05°C for the past 60 years, smaller than the typical error of GMST observations (see the figure attached). It also accurately captures decadal GMST variations, including the global warming hiatus in the early 21stcentury. This model can be used to understand the causes of the observed GMST variations and requires little computational resource. Our results confirm that weak El Niño activity was the major cause of the recent global warming hiatus, while the rapid temperature rise since 2014 is due to atmospheric heat release during 2014-2016 El Niño conditions in addition to the continuing background global warming trend. The model can be also used to make predictions for next-year GMST in the short term, and future climate projections in the long term. We will also discuss the implications of this simple model for paleoclimate reconstructions and GCM performance evaluations.

Recently amplified arctic warming has contributed to a continual global warming trend

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Jianbin; Zhang, Xiangdong; Zhang, Qiyi; Lin, Yanluan; Hao, Mingju; Luo, Yong; Zhao, Zongci; Yao, Yao; Chen, Xin; Wang, Lei; Nie, Suping; Yin, Yizhou; Xu, Ying; Zhang, Jiansong

2017-12-01

The existence and magnitude of the recently suggested global warming hiatus, or slowdown, have been strongly debated1-3. Although various physical processes4-8 have been examined to elucidate this phenomenon, the accuracy and completeness of observational data that comprise global average surface air temperature (SAT) datasets is a concern9,10. In particular, these datasets lack either complete geographic coverage or in situ observations over the Arctic, owing to the sparse observational network in this area9. As a consequence, the contribution of Arctic warming to global SAT changes may have been underestimated, leading to an uncertainty in the hiatus debate. Here, we constructed a new Arctic SAT dataset using the most recently updated global SATs2 and a drifting buoys based Arctic SAT dataset11 through employing the `data interpolating empirical orthogonal functions' method12. Our estimate of global SAT rate of increase is around 0.112 °C per decade, instead of 0.05 °C per decade from IPCC AR51, for 1998-2012. Analysis of this dataset shows that the amplified Arctic warming over the past decade has significantly contributed to a continual global warming trend, rather than a hiatus or slowdown.

Wet-bulb, dew point, and air temperature trends in Spain

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Moratiel, R.; Soriano, B.; Centeno, A.; Spano, D.; Snyder, R. L.

2017-10-01

This study analyses trends of mean ( T m), maximum ( T x), minimum ( T n), dew point ( T d), and wet-bulb temperatures ( T w) on an annual, seasonal, and monthly time scale over Spain during the period 1981-2010. The main purpose was to determine how temperature and humidity changes are impacting on T w, which is probably a better measure of climate change than temperature alone. In this study, 43 weather stations were used to detect data trends using the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test and the Sen method to estimate the slope of trends. Significant linear trends observed for T m, T x, and T n versus year were 56, 58, and 47 % of the weather stations, respectively, with temperature ranges between 0.2 and 0.4 °C per decade. The months with bigger trends were April, May, June, and July with the highest trend for T x. The spatial behaviour of T d and T w was variable, with various locations showing trends from -0.6 to +0.3 °C per decade for T d and from -0.4 to +0.5 °C per decade for T w. Both T d and T w showed negative trends for July, August, September, November, and December. Comparing the trends versus time of each variable versus each of the other variables exhibited poor relationships, which means you cannot predict the trend of one variable from the trend of another variable. The trend of T x was not related to the trend of T n. The trends of T x, T m, and T n versus time were unrelated to the trends versus time of either T d or T w. The trend of T w showed a high coefficient of determination with the trend of T d with an annual value of R 2 = 0.86. Therefore, the T w trend is more related to changes in humidity than temperature.

Estimation of river and stream temperature trends under haphazard sampling

Science.gov (United States)

Gray, Brian R.; Lyubchich, Vyacheslav; Gel, Yulia R.; Rogala, James T.; Robertson, Dale M.; Wei, Xiaoqiao

2015-01-01

Long-term temporal trends in water temperature in rivers and streams are typically estimated under the assumption of evenly-spaced space-time measurements. However, sampling times and dates associated with historical water temperature datasets and some sampling designs may be haphazard. As a result, trends in temperature may be confounded with trends in time or space of sampling which, in turn, may yield biased trend estimators and thus unreliable conclusions. We address this concern using multilevel (hierarchical) linear models, where time effects are allowed to vary randomly by day and date effects by year. We evaluate the proposed approach by Monte Carlo simulations with imbalance, sparse data and confounding by trend in time and date of sampling. Simulation results indicate unbiased trend estimators while results from a case study of temperature data from the Illinois River, USA conform to river thermal assumptions. We also propose a new nonparametric bootstrap inference on multilevel models that allows for a relatively flexible and distribution-free quantification of uncertainties. The proposed multilevel modeling approach may be elaborated to accommodate nonlinearities within days and years when sampling times or dates typically span temperature extremes.

A Novel Method making direct use of AIRS and IASI Calibrated Radiances for Measuring Trends in Surface Temperatures

Science.gov (United States)

Aumann, H. H.; Ruzmaikin, A.

2014-12-01

Making unbiased measurements of trends in the surface temperatures, particularly on a gobal scale, is challenging: While the non-frozen oceans temperature measurements are plentiful and accurate, land and polar areas are much less accurately or fairly sampled. Surface temperature deduced from infrared radiometers on polar orbiting satellites (e.g. the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) at 1:30PM, the Interferometer Atmosphere Sounding Interferometer (IASI) at 9:30 AM and the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) at 1:30PM), can produce what appear to be well sampled data, but dealing with clouds either by cloud filtering (MODIS, IASI) or cloud-clearing (AIRS) can create sampling bias. We use a novel method: Random Nadir Sampling (RNS) combined with Probability Density Function (PDF) analysis. We analyze the trend in the PDF of st1231, the water vapor absorption corrected brightness temperatures measured in the 1231 cm-1 atmospheric window channel. The advantage of this method is that trends can be directly traced to the known, less than 3 mK/yr trend for AIRS, in st1231. For this study we created PDFs from 22,000 daily RNS from the AIRS and IASI data. We characterized the PDFs by its daily 90%tile value, st1231p90, and analysed the statistical properties of the this time series between 2002 and 2014. The method was validated using the daily NOAA SST (RTGSST) from the non-frozen oceans: The mean, seasonal variability and anomaly trend of st1231p90 agree with the corrsponding values from the RTGSST and the anomaly correlation is larger than 0.9. Preliminary results (August 2014) confirm the global hiatus in the increase of the globally averaged surface temperatures between 2002 and 2014, with a change of less than 10 mK/yr. This uncertainty is dominated by the large interannual variability related to El Niño events. Further insite is gained by analyzing land/ocean, day/night, artic and antarctic trends. We observe a massive warming trend in the

Investigation of Breakpoint and Trend of Daily Air Temperature Range for Mashhad, Iran

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shideh shams

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Air temperature as an important climatic factor can influence variability and distribution of other climatic parameters. Therefore, tracking the changes in air temperature is a popular procedure in climate change studies.. According to the national academy in the last decade, global temperature has raised 0.4 to 0.8⁰C. Instrumental records show that, with the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest year (during the last 150 years, occurred since 2000, and 2014 was the warmest year. Investigation of maximum and minimum air temperature temporal trend indicates that these two parameters behave differently over time. It has been shown that the minimum air temperature raises noticeably more than the maximum air temperature, which causes a reduction in the difference of maximum and minimum daily air temperature (daily temperature range, DTR. There are several factors that have an influence on reducing DTR such as: Urban development, farms’ irrigation and desertification. It has been shown that DTR reduction occurs mostly during winter and is less frequent during summer, which shows the season’s effect on the temperature trend. Considering the significant effects of the climatological factors on economic and agricultural management issues, the aim of this study is to investigate daily air temperature range for yearly, seasonal and monthly time scales, using available statistical methods. Materials and Methods: Daily maximum and minimum air temperature records (from 1950 to 2010 were obtained from Mashhad Meteorological Organization. In order to control the quality of daily Tmax and Tmin data, four different types of quality controls were applied. First of all, gross errors were checked. In this step maximum and minimum air temperature data exceeding unlikely air temperature values, were eliminated from data series. Second, data tolerance was checked by searching for periods longer than a certain number of consecutive days with exactly the

Variability and trends in global drought

Science.gov (United States)

McCabe, Gregory J.; Wolock, David M.

2015-01-01

Monthly precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) from the CRUTS3.1 data set are used to compute monthly P minus PET (PMPE) for the land areas of the globe. The percent of the global land area with annual sums of PMPE less than zero are used as an index of global drought (%drought) for 1901 through 2009. Results indicate that for the past century %drought has not changed, even though global PET and temperature (T) have increased. Although annual global PET and T have increased, annual global P also has increased and has mitigated the effects of increased PET on %drought.

Global trends in significant wave height and marine wind speed from the ERA-20CM

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Aarnes, Ole Johan; Breivik, Øyvind

2016-04-01

The ERA-20CM is one of the latest additions to the ERA-series produced at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). This 10 member ensemble is generated with a version of the Integrated Forecast System (IFS), a coupled atmosphere-wave model. The model integration is run as a AMIP (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project) constrained by CMIP5 recommended radiative forcing and different realizations of sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice cover (SIC) prescribed by the HadISST2 (Met Office Hadley Center). While the ERA-20CM is unable to reproduce the actual synoptic conditions, it is designed to offer a realistic statistical representation of the past climate, spanning the period 1899-2010. In this study we investigate global trends in significant wave height and marine wind speed based on ERA-20CM, using monthly mean data, upper percentiles and monthly/annual maxima. The aim of the study is to assess the quality of the trends and how these estimates are affected by different SST and SIC. Global trends are compared against corresponding estimates obtained with ERA-Interim (1979-2009), but also crosschecked against ERA-20C - an ECMWF pilot reanalysis of the 20th-century, known to most trustworthy in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics. Over the period 1900-2009, the 10 member ensemble yields trends mainly within +/- 5% per century. However, significant trends of opposite signs are found locally. Certain areas, like the eastern equatorial Pacific, highly affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation, show stronger trends. In general, trends based on statistical quantities further into the tail of the distribution are found less reliable.

The Winter Cooling Trend in Eastern China during the Recent Global Warming Hiatus Period and Its Possible Reason

Science.gov (United States)

Lei, T.; Li, S.; Luo, F.; Han, Z.

2017-12-01

The authors analyzed the observed winter surface air temperature in eastern mainland China during the recent global warming hiatus period through 1998-2013. The results suggest a substantial cooling trend of about -1.0°/decade in Eastern China, Northeast China and Southeast China. Mechanism exploration indicates that the displacement of the East Asian upper-tropospheric jet and the associated Rossby wave may have contributed to the cooling trend. A southward shift of the East Asian polar together with a northward shift of the subtropical jet caused the enhancement of the northern East Asian trough and Siberian High. A diagnostic analysis suggests that the Arctic sea ice loss, ENSO and North Atlantic SST all play a role. With the three factors removed, the air temperature trend is -0.35, -0.08 and -0.44°/decade over East China, Northeast China and Southeast China, respectively.

Long-term trends of daily maximum and minimum temperatures for the major cities of South Korea and their implications on human health

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Choi, B. C.; Kim, J.; Lee, D. G.; Kyselý, Jan

2007-01-01

Roč. 17, č. 2 (2007), s. 171-183 ISSN N R&D Projects: GA ČR GC205/07/J044 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z30420517 Keywords : Temperature trends * Biometeorology * Climate change * Global warming * Human health * Temperature extremes * Urbanization Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology

Digital Library Education: Global Trends and Issues

Science.gov (United States)

Shem, Magaji

2015-01-01

The paper examines trends and issues in digital education programmes globally, drawing examples of developmental growth of Library Information Science (LIS), schools and digital education courses in North America, Britain, and Southern Asia, the slow growth of LIS schools and digital education in Nigeria and some countries in Africa and India. The…

Variations of global gravity waves derived from 14 years of SABER temperature observations

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiao; Yue, Jia; Xu, Jiyao; Garcia, Rolando R.; Russell, James M.; Mlynczak, Martin; Wu, Dong L.; Nakamura, Takuji

2017-06-01

The global gravity wave (GW) potential energy (PE) per unit mass is derived from SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) temperature profiles over the past 14 years (2002-2015). Since the SABER data cover longer than one solar cycle, multivariate linear regression is applied to calculate the trend (means linear trend from 2002 to 2015) of global GW PE and the responses of global GW PE to solar activity, to QBO (quasi-biennial oscillation) and to ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation). We find a significant positive trend of GW PE at around 50°N during July from 2002 to 2015, in agreement with ground-based radar observations at a similar latitude but from 1990 to 2010. Both the monthly and the deseasonalized trends of GW PE are significant near 50°S. Specifically, the deseasonalized trend of GW PE has a positive peak of 12-15% per decade at 40°S-50°S and below 60 km, which suggests that eddy diffusion is increasing in some places. A significant positive trend of GW PE near 50°S could be due to the strengthening of the polar stratospheric jets, as documented from Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications wind data. The response of GW PE to solar activity is negative in the lower and middle latitudes. The response of GW PE to QBO (as indicated by 30 hPa zonal winds over the equator) is negative in the tropical upper stratosphere and extends to higher latitudes at higher altitudes. The response of GW PE to ENSO (as indicated by the Multivariate ENSO Index) is positive in the tropical upper stratosphere.

A Global Assessment of Long-Term Greening and Browning Trends in Pasture Lands Using the GIMMS LAI3g Dataset

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Benjamin I. Cook

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Pasture ecosystems may be particularly vulnerable to land degradation due to the high risk of human disturbance (e.g., overgrazing, burning, etc., especially when compared with natural ecosystems (non-pasture, non-cultivated where direct human impacts are minimal. Using maximum annual leaf area index (LAImax as a proxy for standing biomass and peak annual aboveground productivity, we analyze greening and browning trends in pasture areas from 1982–2008. Inter-annual variability in pasture productivity is strongly controlled by precipitation (positive correlation and, to a lesser extent, temperature (negative correlation. Linear temporal trends are significant in 23% of pasture cells, with the vast majority of these areas showing positive LAImax trends. Spatially extensive productivity declines are only found in a few regions, most notably central Asia, southwest North America, and southeast Australia. Statistically removing the influence of precipitation reduces LAImax trends by only 13%, suggesting that precipitation trends are only a minor contributor to long-term greening and browning of pasture lands. No significant global relationship was found between LAImax and pasture intensity, although the magnitude of trends did vary between cells classified as natural versus pasture. In the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, the median rate of greening in pasture cells is significantly higher than for cells dominated by natural vegetation. In the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropics, conversely, greening of natural areas is 2–4 times the magnitude of greening in pasture areas. This analysis presents one of the first global assessments of greening and browning trends in global pasture lands, including a comparison with vegetation trends in regions dominated by natural ecosystems. Our results suggest that degradation of pasture lands is not a globally widespread phenomenon and, consistent with much of the terrestrial biosphere, there have been widespread

HIV/AIDS: global trends, global funds and delivery bottlenecks

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Hadingham Jacqui

2005-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Globalisation affects all facets of human life, including health and well being. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has highlighted the global nature of human health and welfare and globalisation has given rise to a trend toward finding common solutions to global health challenges. Numerous international funds have been set up in recent times to address global health challenges such as HIV. However, despite increasingly large amounts of funding for health initiatives being made available to poorer regions of the world, HIV infection rates and prevalence continue to increase world wide. As a result, the AIDS epidemic is expanding and intensifying globally. Worst affected are undoubtedly the poorer regions of the world as combinations of poverty, disease, famine, political and economic instability and weak health infrastructure exacerbate the severe and far-reaching impacts of the epidemic. One of the major reasons for the apparent ineffectiveness of global interventions is historical weaknesses in the health systems of underdeveloped countries, which contribute to bottlenecks in the distribution and utilisation of funds. Strengthening these health systems, although a vital component in addressing the global epidemic, must however be accompanied by mitigation of other determinants as well. These are intrinsically complex and include social and environmental factors, sexual behaviour, issues of human rights and biological factors, all of which contribute to HIV transmission, progression and mortality. An equally important factor is ensuring an equitable balance between prevention and treatment programmes in order to holistically address the challenges presented by the epidemic.

Can climate models be tuned to simulate the global mean absolute temperature correctly?

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Duan, Q.; Shi, Y.; Gong, W.

2016-12-01

The Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already issued five assessment reports (ARs), which include the simulation of the past climate and the projection of the future climate under various scenarios. The participating models can simulate reasonably well the trend in global mean temperature change, especially of the last 150 years. However, there is a large, constant discrepancy in terms of global mean absolute temperature simulations over this period. This discrepancy remained in the same range between IPCC-AR4 and IPCC-AR5, which amounts to about 3oC between the coldest model and the warmest model. This discrepancy has great implications to the land processes, particularly the processes related to the cryosphere, and casts doubts over if land-atmosphere-ocean interactions are correctly considered in those models. This presentation aims to explore if this discrepancy can be reduced through model tuning. We present an automatic model calibration strategy to tune the parameters of a climate model so the simulated global mean absolute temperature would match the observed data over the last 150 years. An intermediate complexity model known as LOVECLIM is used in the study. This presentation will show the preliminary results.

Trends of the global radiation and sunshine hours in 1961-1998 and their relationships in China

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Rensheng; Kang Ersi; Ji Xibin; Yang Jianping; Zhang Zhihui

2006-01-01

Trends of the yearly global radiation E g , annual sunshine hours S, yearly precipitation P and yearly averaged air temperature T at 51 stations in 1961-1998 in China were detected, and the significance test method was the F-test. A total of 47 stations showed decreasing trend in the E g series of which 35 passed the F-test at the 5% significant level. At 42 stations, the trend of S was also decreasing, and 36 of them passed the F-test at the 5% significant level. The P series did not change largely in 1961-1998 and at 37 stations showed a positive trend, while the positive trend or reduced trend at 39 stations did not pass the F-test at the 25% significant level. The positive trend of the T series was shown at 49 stations, of which 29 passed the F-test at the 1% significant level. In the yearly scale, the empirical relationship between E g and S at any station was very low because the length of the E g series was too short. When using all the data at the used 51 stations together to simulate E g , the results were good. Using the longitude λ, latitude φ and altitude H, or/and P and T, of the used stations to adjust the parameters a and b of the Angstroem model, respectively, or just to adjust the parameter a, the results will be better. The parameter b of the Angstroem model was little affected by the geographical position of the used stations. At last, a simple equation is recommended to use for simulation of the yearly global radiation in China

Three modes of interdecadal trends in sea surface temperature and sea surface height

Science.gov (United States)

Gnanadesikan, A.; Pradal, M.

2013-12-01

It might be thought that sea surface height and sea surface temperature would be tightly related. We show that this is not necessarily the case on a global scale. We analysed this relationship in a suite of coupled climate models run under 1860 forcing conditions. The models are low-resolution variants of the GFDL Earth System Model, reported in Galbraith et al. (J. Clim. 2011). 1. Correlated changes in global sea surface height and global sea surface temperature. This mode corresponds to opening and closing of convective chimneys in the Southern Ocean. As the Southern Ocean destratifies, sea ice formation is suppressed during the winter and more heat is taken up during the summer. This mode of variability is highly correlated with changes in the top of the atmosphere radiative budget and weakly correlated with changes in the deep ocean circulation. 2. Uncorrelated changes in global sea surface height and global sea surface temperature. This mode of variability is associated with interdecadal variabliity in tropical winds. Changes in the advective flux of heat to the surface ocean play a critical role in driving these changes, which also result in significant local changes in sea level. Changes sea ice over the Southern Ocean still result in changes in solar absorption, but these are now largely cancelled by changes in outgoing longwave radiation. 3. Anticorrelated changes in global sea surface height and global sea surface temperatures. By varying the lateral diffusion coefficient in the ocean model, we are able to enhance and suppress convection in the Southern and Northern Pacific Oceans. Increasing the lateral diffusion coefficients shifts the balance sources of deep water away from the warm salty deep water of the North Atlantic and towards cold fresh deep water from the other two regions. As a result, even though the planet as a whole warms, the deep ocean cools and sea level falls, with changes of order 30 cm over 500 years. The increase in solar absorption

Using Global Trends as Catalysts for City Transition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gebalska, Bogna Anna

2017-01-01

and acting in response to the events or it can miss the chance, losing in the global competition. There is a considerable interest in finding, what influences city's prosperity. Global trends and the socio-demographic evolution are recognized as main overall powers. This study examines how these forces...... stimulate cities and how to employ them in a development process, in order to achieve a successful city transition. Searching for essential elements directing towards inclusive and successful city transition, the urbanization is studied. Global processes influence cities significantly with individual......, different outcomes, what is examined in case study part. Case study provides cross sector analyses of three European cities, basing on national statistics, international and local databases. The study indicates that global forces and local conditions are of similar significance for city development. Case...

Spatio-temporal long-term (1950-2009) temperature trend analysis in North Carolina, United States

Science.gov (United States)

Sayemuzzaman, Mohammad; Jha, Manoj K.; Mekonnen, Ademe

2015-04-01

This study analyzed long-term (1950-2009) annual and seasonal time series data of maximum and minimum temperature from 249 uniformly distributed stations across the State of North Carolina, United States. The Mann-Kendall and Theil-Sen approach were applied to quantify the significance and magnitude of trend, respectively. A pre-whitening technique was applied to eliminate the effect of lag-1 serial correlation. For most stations over the period of the past 60 years, the difference between minimum and maximum temperatures was found decreasing with an overall increasing trend in the mean temperature. However, significant trends (confidence level ≥ 95 %) in the mean temperature analysis were detected only in 20, 3, 23, and 20 % of the stations in summer, winter, autumn, and spring, respectively. The magnitude of the highest warming trend in minimum temperature and the highest cooling trend in maximum temperature was +0.073 °C/year in the autumn season and -0.12 °C/year in the summer season, respectively. Additional analysis in mean temperature trend was conducted on three regions of North Carolina (mountain, piedmont, and coastal). The results revealed a warming trend for the coastal zone, a cooling trend for the mountain zone, and no distinct trend for the piedmont zone. The Sequential Mann-Kendall test results indicated that the significant increasing trends in minimum temperature and decreasing trend in maximum temperature had begun around 1970 and 1960 (change point), respectively, in most of the stations. Finally, the comparison between mean surface air temperature (SAT) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) concluded that the variability and trend in SAT can be explained partially by the NAO index for North Carolina.

Global Warming Estimation From Microwave Sounding Unit

Science.gov (United States)

Prabhakara, C.; Iacovazzi, R., Jr.; Yoo, J.-M.; Dalu, G.

1998-01-01

Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) Ch 2 data sets, collected from sequential, polar-orbiting, Sun-synchronous National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operational satellites, contain systematic calibration errors that are coupled to the diurnal temperature cycle over the globe. Since these coupled errors in MSU data differ between successive satellites, it is necessary to make compensatory adjustments to these multisatellite data sets in order to determine long-term global temperature change. With the aid of the observations during overlapping periods of successive satellites, we can determine such adjustments and use them to account for the coupled errors in the long-term time series of MSU Ch 2 global temperature. In turn, these adjusted MSU Ch 2 data sets can be used to yield global temperature trend. In a pioneering study, Spencer and Christy (SC) (1990) developed a procedure to derive the global temperature trend from MSU Ch 2 data. Such a procedure can leave unaccounted residual errors in the time series of the temperature anomalies deduced by SC, which could lead to a spurious long-term temperature trend derived from their analysis. In the present study, we have developed a method that avoids the shortcomings of the SC procedure, the magnitude of the coupled errors is not determined explicitly. Furthermore, based on some assumptions, these coupled errors are eliminated in three separate steps. Such a procedure can leave unaccounted residual errors in the time series of the temperature anomalies deduced by SC, which could lead to a spurious long-term temperature trend derived from their analysis. In the present study, we have developed a method that avoids the shortcomings of the SC procedures. Based on our analysis, we find there is a global warming of 0.23+/-0.12 K between 1980 and 1991. Also, in this study, the time series of global temperature anomalies constructed by removing the global mean annual temperature cycle compares favorably with a similar

Comparison of Decadal Water Storage Trends from Global Hydrological Models and GRACE Satellite Data

Science.gov (United States)

Scanlon, B. R.; Zhang, Z. Z.; Save, H.; Sun, A. Y.; Mueller Schmied, H.; Van Beek, L. P.; Wiese, D. N.; Wada, Y.; Long, D.; Reedy, R. C.; Doll, P. M.; Longuevergne, L.

2017-12-01

Global hydrology is increasingly being evaluated using models; however, the reliability of these global models is not well known. In this study we compared decadal trends (2002-2014) in land water storage from 7 global models (WGHM, PCR-GLOBWB, and GLDAS: NOAH, MOSAIC, VIC, CLM, and CLSM) to storage trends from new GRACE satellite mascon solutions (CSR-M and JPL-M). The analysis was conducted over 186 river basins, representing about 60% of the global land area. Modeled total water storage trends agree with those from GRACE-derived trends that are within ±0.5 km3/yr but greatly underestimate large declining and rising trends outside this range. Large declining trends are found mostly in intensively irrigated basins and in some basins in northern latitudes. Rising trends are found in basins with little or no irrigation and are generally related to increasing trends in precipitation. The largest decline is found in the Ganges (-12 km3/yr) and the largest rise in the Amazon (43 km3/yr). Differences between models and GRACE are greatest in large basins (>0.5x106 km2) mostly in humid regions. There is very little agreement in storage trends between models and GRACE and among the models with values of r2 mostly store water over decadal timescales that is underrepresented by the models. The storage capacity in the modeled soil and groundwater compartments may be insufficient to accommodate the range in water storage variations shown by GRACE data. The inability of the models to capture the large storage trends indicates that model projections of climate and human-induced changes in water storage may be mostly underestimated. Future GRACE and model studies should try to reduce the various sources of uncertainty in water storage trends and should consider expanding the modeled storage capacity of the soil profiles and their interaction with groundwater.

Spatiotemporal trends in mean temperatures and aridity index over Rwanda

Science.gov (United States)

Muhire, I.; Ahmed, F.

2016-01-01

This study aims at quantifying the trends in mean temperatures and aridity index over Rwanda for the period of 1961-1992, based on analysis of climatic data (temperatures, precipitations, and potential evapotranspiration). The analysis of magnitude and significance of trends in temperatures and aridity index show the degree of climate change and mark the level of vulnerability to extreme events (e.g., droughts) in different areas of the country. The study reveals that mean temperatures increased in most parts of the country, with a significant increase observed in the eastern lowlands and in the southwestern parts. The highlands located in the northwest and the Congo-Nile crest showed a nonsignificant increase in mean temperatures. Aridity index increased only in March, April, October, and November, corresponding with the rainy seasons. The remaining months of the year showed a decreasing trend. At an annual resolution, the highlands and the western region showed a rise in aridity index with a decreasing pattern over the eastern lowlands and the central plateau. Generally, the highlands presented a nonsignificant increase in mean temperatures and aridity index especially during the rainy seasons. The eastern lowlands showed a significant increase in mean temperatures and decreasing trends in aridity index. Therefore, these areas are bound to experience more droughts, leading to reduced water and consequent decline in agricultural production. On the other hand, the north highlands and southwest region will continue to be more productive.

An updated global grid point surface air temperature anomaly data set: 1851--1990

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sepanski, R.J.; Boden, T.A.; Daniels, R.C.

1991-10-01

This document presents land-based monthly surface air temperature anomalies (departures from a 1951--1970 reference period mean) on a 5{degree} latitude by 10{degree} longitude global grid. Monthly surface air temperature anomalies (departures from a 1957--1975 reference period mean) for the Antarctic (grid points from 65{degree}S to 85{degree}S) are presented in a similar way as a separate data set. The data were derived primarily from the World Weather Records and the archives of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office. This long-term record of temperature anomalies may be used in studies addressing possible greenhouse-gas-induced climate changes. To date, the data have been employed in generating regional, hemispheric, and global time series for determining whether recent (i.e., post-1900) warming trends have taken place. This document also presents the monthly mean temperature records for the individual stations that were used to generate the set of gridded anomalies. The periods of record vary by station. Northern Hemisphere station data have been corrected for inhomogeneities, while Southern Hemisphere data are presented in uncorrected form. 14 refs., 11 figs., 10 tabs.

Reassessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature trends at an urban station of North China

Science.gov (United States)

Bian, Tao; Ren, Guoyu

2017-11-01

Based on a homogenized data set of monthly mean temperature, minimum temperature, and maximum temperature at Shijiazhuang City Meteorological Station (Shijiazhuang station) and four rural meteorological stations selected applying a more sophisticated methodology, we reanalyzed the urbanization effects on annual, seasonal, and monthly mean surface air temperature (SAT) trends for updated time period 1960-2012 at the typical urban station in North China. The results showed that (1) urbanization effects on the long-term trends of annual mean SAT, minimum SAT, and diurnal temperature range (DTR) in the last 53 years reached 0.25, 0.47, and - 0.50 °C/decade, respectively, all statistically significant at the 0.001 confidence level, with the contributions from urbanization effects to the overall long-term trends reaching 67.8, 78.6, and 100%, respectively; (2) the urbanization effects on the trends of seasonal mean SAT, minimum SAT, and DTR were also large and statistically highly significant. Except for November and December, the urbanization effects on monthly mean SAT, minimum SAT, and DTR were also all statistically significant at the 0.05 confidence level; and (3) the annual, seasonal, and monthly mean maximum SAT series at the urban station registered a generally weaker and non-significant urbanization effect. The updated analysis evidenced that our previous work for this same urban station had underestimated the urbanization effect and its contribution to the overall changes in the SAT series. Many similar urban stations were being included in the current national and regional SAT data sets, and the results of this paper further indicated the importance and urgency for paying more attention to the urbanization bias in the monitoring and detection of global and regional SAT change based on the data sets.

Hiatus in global warming - example of water temperature of the Danube River at Bogojevo gauge (Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ducić Vladan

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The research included trends in water temperature of the Danube River at Bogojevo gauge and surface air temperature at the nearby meteorological station Sombor, as well as an analysis of the results obtained in relation to the claims of the existence of the hiatus in global air temperature increase in the period 1998-2012. In the period 1961-2013, there was a statistically significant increase in the mean annual water temperature (0.039°C/year, as well as all the average monthly values. However, with annual values for the period 1998-2013, there was a decrease. The longest periods of negative trend (27 years were recorded for January and February. A high correlation was found between the surface air temperature and water temperature for all monthly and seasonal values. In the mean annual air temperature the presence of the hiatus is not observed, but a negative trend is recorded in March (32 years, December (43 years and February (49 years. The highest correlations between water temperature and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO, Arctic Oscillation (AO and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO were obtained for the NAO in January (0.60, the AMO in autumn (0.52 and the NAO in winter (0.51. For surface air temperature, the highest correlations were registered for the AMO in summer (0.49 and the NAO in winter (0.42. The results indicate the dominant role of natural factors in the decrease of winter air temperature and water temperature of the Danube. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III47007

Does the correlation between solar cycle lengths and Northern Hemisphere land temperatures rule out any significant global warming from greenhouse gases?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laut, Peter; Gundermann, Jesper

1998-01-01

Since the discovery of a striking correlation between solar cycle lengths and Northern Hemisphere land temperatures there have been widespread speculations as to whether these findings would rule out any significant contributions to global warming from the enhanced concentrations of greenhouse...... gases. The present analysis shows that a similar degree of correlation is obtained when testing the solar data against a couple of fictitious temperature series representing different global warming trends. Therefore, the correlation cannot be used to estimate the magnitude of a possible contribution...... to global warming from human activities, nor to rule out a sizable contribution from that source....

Timescales for determining temperature and dissolved oxygen trends in the Long Island Sound (LIS) estuary

Science.gov (United States)

Staniec, Allison; Vlahos, Penny

2017-12-01

Long-term time series represent a critical part of the oceanographic community's efforts to discern natural and anthropogenically forced variations in the environment. They provide regular measurements of climate relevant indicators including temperature, oxygen concentrations, and salinity. When evaluating time series, it is essential to isolate long-term trends from autocorrelation in data and noise due to natural variability. Herein we apply a statistical approach, well-established in atmospheric time series, to key parameters in the U.S. east coast's Long Island Sound estuary (LIS). Analysis shows that the LIS time series (established in the early 1990s) is sufficiently long to detect significant trends in physical-chemical parameters including temperature (T) and dissolved oxygen (DO). Over the last two decades, overall (combined surface and deep) LIS T has increased at an average rate of 0.08 ± 0.03 °C yr-1 while overall DO has dropped at an average rate of 0.03 ± 0.01 mg L-1yr-1 since 1994 at the 95% confidence level. This trend is notably faster than the global open ocean T trend (0.01 °C yr-1), as might be expected for a shallower estuarine system. T and DO trends were always significant for the existing time series using four month data increments. Rates of change of DO and T in LIS are strongly correlated and the rate of decrease of DO concentrations is consistent with the expected reduced solubility of DO at these higher temperatures. Thus, changes in T alone, across decadal timescales can account for between 33 and 100% of the observed decrease in DO. This has significant implications for other dissolved gases and the long-term management of LIS hypoxia.

Global models underestimate large decadal declining and rising water storage trends relative to GRACE satellite data

Science.gov (United States)

Scanlon, Bridget R.; Zhang, Zizhan; Save, Himanshu; Sun, Alexander Y.; van Beek, Ludovicus P. H.; Wiese, David N.; Reedy, Robert C.; Longuevergne, Laurent; Döll, Petra; Bierkens, Marc F. P.

2018-01-01

Assessing reliability of global models is critical because of increasing reliance on these models to address past and projected future climate and human stresses on global water resources. Here, we evaluate model reliability based on a comprehensive comparison of decadal trends (2002–2014) in land water storage from seven global models (WGHM, PCR-GLOBWB, GLDAS NOAH, MOSAIC, VIC, CLM, and CLSM) to trends from three Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite solutions in 186 river basins (∼60% of global land area). Medians of modeled basin water storage trends greatly underestimate GRACE-derived large decreasing (≤−0.5 km3/y) and increasing (≥0.5 km3/y) trends. Decreasing trends from GRACE are mostly related to human use (irrigation) and climate variations, whereas increasing trends reflect climate variations. For example, in the Amazon, GRACE estimates a large increasing trend of ∼43 km3/y, whereas most models estimate decreasing trends (−71 to 11 km3/y). Land water storage trends, summed over all basins, are positive for GRACE (∼71–82 km3/y) but negative for models (−450 to −12 km3/y), contributing opposing trends to global mean sea level change. Impacts of climate forcing on decadal land water storage trends exceed those of modeled human intervention by about a factor of 2. The model-GRACE comparison highlights potential areas of future model development, particularly simulated water storage. The inability of models to capture large decadal water storage trends based on GRACE indicates that model projections of climate and human-induced water storage changes may be underestimated. PMID:29358394

Global temperature stability by rule induction: An interdisciplinary bridge

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gunn, J.D.; Grzymala-Busse, J.W.

1994-01-01

Rules incorporating influences on global temperature, an estimate of radiation balance, were induced from astronomical, geophysical, and anthropogenic variables. During periods of intermediate global temperatures (generally like the present century), the influences assume canceling roles; influences cancel the effects of extreme states potentially imposed by other influences because they are, in aggregate, most likely to be assuming opposite values. This imparts an overall stability to the global temperature. To achieve cold or hot global temperature, influences assume reinforcing roles. CO 2 is an active influence on global temperature. By virtue of its constancy in the atmosphere, it can be expected to sponsor frequent hot years in combination with the other influences as they cycle through their periods. If measures were implemented to maintain warm or cool global temperatures, it could retain the status quo of present global agricultural regions. They are probably more productive than hot world regions would be because of narrow storm tracks

Global Trends in Space Access and Utilization

Science.gov (United States)

Rahman, Shamim A.; Keim, Nicholas S.; Zeender, Peter E.

2010-01-01

In the not-so-distant past, space access and air/space technology superiority were within the purview of the U.S. and former Soviet Union's respective space agencies, both vying for global leadership in space exploitation. In more recent years, with the emergence of the European Space Agency (ESA) member countries and Asian countries joining the family of space-faring nations, it is truer now more than ever that space access and utilization has become a truly global enterprise. In fact, according to the Space Report 2007, this enterprise is a $251-billion economy. It is possible to gauge the vitality of worldwide efforts from open sources in today's transparent, media-based society. In particular, print and web broadcasters regularly report and catalog global space activities for defense and civil purposes. For the purposes of this paper, a representative catalog of missions is used to illustrate the nature of the emerging "globalization." This paper highlights global trends in terms of not only the providers of space access, but also the end-users for the various recently accomplished missions. With well over 50 launches per year, in recent years, the launch-log reveals a surprising percentage of "cooperative or co-dependent missions" where different agencies, countries, and/or commercial entities are so engaged presumably to the benefit of all who participate. Statistics are cited and used to show that recently over d0% of the 50-plus missions involved multiple nations working collectively to deliver payloads to orbit. Observers, space policy professionals, and space agency leaders have eloquently proposed that it might require the combined resources and talents of multiple nations to advance human exploration goals beyond low earth orbit. This paper does not intend to offer new information with respect to whether international collaboration is necessary but to observe that, in continuing to monitor global trends, the results seem to support the thesis that a

Detecting Variation Trends of Temperature and Precipitation for the Dadu River Basin, China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ying Wu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This study analyzes the variation trends of temperature and precipitation in the Dadu River Basin of China based on observed records from fourteen meteorological stations. The magnitude of trends was estimated using Sen’s linear method while its statistical significance was evaluated using Mann-Kendall’s test. The results of analysis depict increase change from northwest to southeast of annual temperature and precipitation in space. In temporal scale, the annual temperature showed significant increase trend and the annual precipitation showed increase trend. For extreme indices, the trends for temperature are more consistent in the region compared to precipitation. This paper has practical meanings for an effective management of climate risk and provides a foundation for further study of hydrological situation in this river basin.

Global Warming Estimation from MSU

Science.gov (United States)

Prabhakara, C.; Iacovazzi, Robert, Jr.

1999-01-01

In this study, we have developed time series of global temperature from 1980-97 based on the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) Ch 2 (53.74 GHz) observations taken from polar-orbiting NOAA operational satellites. In order to create these time series, systematic errors (approx. 0.1 K) in the Ch 2 data arising from inter-satellite differences are removed objectively. On the other hand, smaller systematic errors (approx. 0.03 K) in the data due to orbital drift of each satellite cannot be removed objectively. Such errors are expected to remain in the time series and leave an uncertainty in the inferred global temperature trend. With the help of a statistical method, the error in the MSU inferred global temperature trend resulting from orbital drifts and residual inter-satellite differences of all satellites is estimated to be 0.06 K decade. Incorporating this error, our analysis shows that the global temperature increased at a rate of 0.13 +/- 0.06 K decade during 1980-97.

Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability

Science.gov (United States)

Cox, Peter M.; Huntingford, Chris; Williamson, Mark S.

2018-01-01

Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) remains one of the most important unknowns in climate change science. ECS is defined as the global mean warming that would occur if the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration were instantly doubled and the climate were then brought to equilibrium with that new level of CO2. Despite its rather idealized definition, ECS has continuing relevance for international climate change agreements, which are often framed in terms of stabilization of global warming relative to the pre-industrial climate. However, the ‘likely’ range of ECS as stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has remained at 1.5-4.5 degrees Celsius for more than 25 years. The possibility of a value of ECS towards the upper end of this range reduces the feasibility of avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, as required by the Paris Agreement. Here we present a new emergent constraint on ECS that yields a central estimate of 2.8 degrees Celsius with 66 per cent confidence limits (equivalent to the IPCC ‘likely’ range) of 2.2-3.4 degrees Celsius. Our approach is to focus on the variability of temperature about long-term historical warming, rather than on the warming trend itself. We use an ensemble of climate models to define an emergent relationship between ECS and a theoretically informed metric of global temperature variability. This metric of variability can also be calculated from observational records of global warming, which enables tighter constraints to be placed on ECS, reducing the probability of ECS being less than 1.5 degrees Celsius to less than 3 per cent, and the probability of ECS exceeding 4.5 degrees Celsius to less than 1 per cent.

Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability.

Science.gov (United States)

Cox, Peter M; Huntingford, Chris; Williamson, Mark S

2018-01-17

Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) remains one of the most important unknowns in climate change science. ECS is defined as the global mean warming that would occur if the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration were instantly doubled and the climate were then brought to equilibrium with that new level of CO 2 . Despite its rather idealized definition, ECS has continuing relevance for international climate change agreements, which are often framed in terms of stabilization of global warming relative to the pre-industrial climate. However, the 'likely' range of ECS as stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has remained at 1.5-4.5 degrees Celsius for more than 25 years. The possibility of a value of ECS towards the upper end of this range reduces the feasibility of avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, as required by the Paris Agreement. Here we present a new emergent constraint on ECS that yields a central estimate of 2.8 degrees Celsius with 66 per cent confidence limits (equivalent to the IPCC 'likely' range) of 2.2-3.4 degrees Celsius. Our approach is to focus on the variability of temperature about long-term historical warming, rather than on the warming trend itself. We use an ensemble of climate models to define an emergent relationship between ECS and a theoretically informed metric of global temperature variability. This metric of variability can also be calculated from observational records of global warming, which enables tighter constraints to be placed on ECS, reducing the probability of ECS being less than 1.5 degrees Celsius to less than 3 per cent, and the probability of ECS exceeding 4.5 degrees Celsius to less than 1 per cent.

Long-Term Trend Analysis of Precipitation and Air Temperature for Kentucky, United States

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Somsubhra Chattopadhyay

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Variation in quantities such as precipitation and temperature is often assessed by detecting and characterizing trends in available meteorological data. The objective of this study was to determine the long-term trends in annual precipitation and mean annual air temperature for the state of Kentucky. Non-parametric statistical tests were applied to homogenized and (as needed pre-whitened annual series of precipitation and mean air temperature during 1950–2010. Significant trends in annual precipitation were detected (both positive, averaging 4.1 mm/year for only two of the 60 precipitation-homogenous weather stations (Calloway and Carlisle counties in rural western Kentucky. Only three of the 42 temperature-homogenous stations demonstrated trends (all positive, averaging 0.01 °C/year in mean annual temperature: Calloway County, Allen County in southern-central Kentucky, and urbanized Jefferson County in northern-central Kentucky. In view of the locations of the stations demonstrating positive trends, similar work in adjacent states will be required to better understand the processes responsible for those trends and to properly place them in their larger context, if any.

Signal detection in global mean temperatures after "Paris": an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Visser, Hans; Dangendorf, Sönke; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Bregman, Bram; Petersen, Arthur C.

2018-02-01

In December 2015, 195 countries agreed in Paris to hold the increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) well below 2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. Since large financial flows will be needed to keep GMSTs below these targets, it is important to know how GMST has progressed since pre-industrial times. However, the Paris Agreement is not conclusive as regards methods to calculate it. Should trend progression be deduced from GCM simulations or from instrumental records by (statistical) trend methods? Which simulations or GMST datasets should be chosen, and which trend models? What is pre-industrial and, finally, are the Paris targets formulated for total warming, originating from both natural and anthropogenic forcing, or do they refer to anthropogenic warming only? To find answers to these questions we performed an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis where datasets and model choices have been varied. For all cases we evaluated trend progression along with uncertainty information. To do so, we analysed four trend approaches and applied these to the five leading observational GMST products. We find GMST progression to be largely independent of various trend model approaches. However, GMST progression is significantly influenced by the choice of GMST datasets. Uncertainties due to natural variability are largest in size. As a parallel path, we calculated GMST progression from an ensemble of 42 GCM simulations. Mean progression derived from GCM-based GMSTs appears to lie in the range of trend-dataset combinations. A difference between both approaches appears to be the width of uncertainty bands: GCM simulations show a much wider spread. Finally, we discuss various choices for pre-industrial baselines and the role of warming definitions. Based on these findings we propose an estimate for signal progression in GMSTs since pre-industrial.

Variations and Trends in Global and Regional Precipitation Based on the 22-year GPCP (Global Precipitation Climatology Project) and Three-year TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) Data Sets

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, R.; Curtis, S.; Huffman, G.; Bolvin, D.; Nelkin, E.

2001-05-01

This paper gives an overview of the analysis of global precipitation over the last few decades and the impact of the new TRMM precipitation observations. The 20+ year, monthly, globally complete precipitation analysis of the World Climate Research Program's (WCRP/GEWEX) Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) is used to study global and regional variations and trends and is compared to the much shorter TRMM(Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) tropical data set. The GPCP data set shows no significant trend in global precipitation over the twenty years, unlike the positive trend in global surface temperatures over the past century. The global trend analysis must be interpreted carefully, however, because the inhomogeneity of the data set makes detecting a small signal very difficult, especially over this relatively short period. The relation of global (and tropical) total precipitation and ENSO events is quantified with no significant signal when land and ocean are combined. Identifying regional trends in precipitation may be more practical. From 1979 to 2000 the tropics have pattern of regional rainfall trends that has an ENSO-like pattern with features of both the El Nino and La Nina. This feature is related to a possible trend in the frequency of ENSO events (either El Nino or La Nina) over the past 20 years. Monthly anomalies of precipitation are related to ENSO variations with clear signals extending into middle and high latitudes of both hemispheres. The El Nino and La Nina mean anomalies are near mirror images of each other and when combined produce an ENSO signal with significant spatial continuity over large distances. A number of the features are shown to extend into high latitudes. Positive anomalies extend in the Southern Hemisphere (S.H.) from the Pacific southeastward across Chile and Argentina into the south Atlantic Ocean. In the Northern Hemisphere (N.H.) the counterpart feature extends across the southern U.S. and Atlantic Ocean into Europe

Observed and simulated temperature extremes during the recent warming hiatus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sillmann, Jana; Donat, Markus G; Fyfe, John C; Zwiers, Francis W

2014-01-01

The discrepancy between recent observed and simulated trends in global mean surface temperature has provoked a debate about possible causes and implications for future climate change projections. However, little has been said in this discussion about observed and simulated trends in global temperature extremes. Here we assess trend patterns in temperature extremes and evaluate the consistency between observed and simulated temperature extremes over the past four decades (1971–2010) in comparison to the recent 15 years (1996–2010). We consider the coldest night and warmest day in a year in the observational dataset HadEX2 and in the current generation of global climate models (CMIP5). In general, the observed trends fall within the simulated range of trends, with better consistency for the longer period. Spatial trend patterns differ for the warm and cold extremes, with the warm extremes showing continuous positive trends across the globe and the cold extremes exhibiting a coherent cooling pattern across the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes that has emerged in the recent 15 years and is not reproduced by the models. This regional inconsistency between models and observations might be a key to understanding the recent hiatus in global mean temperature warming. (letters)

Hot stuff. Global warming as a giant trend

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brunstad, Bjoern

2007-01-01

The article presents various aspects of global warming with focus on meteorological data, global discharges, estimated surface temperature increments, ocean level elevations and net warming effects of various human activities. The consequences for the economic and social developments are discussed. Some action possibilities are mentioned. (tk)

Characterizing and attributing the warming trend in sea and land surface temperatures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Estrada, Francisco; Martins, Luis Filipe; Perron, Pierre

2017-01-01

Because of low-frequency internal variability, the observed and underlying warming trends in temperature series can be markedly different. Important differences in the observed nonlinear trends in hemispheric temperature series suggest that the northern and southern hemispheres have responded

International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank - Stage 3 Monthly

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Global Land Surface Temperature Databank contains monthly timescale mean, maximum, and minimum temperature for approximately 40,000 stations globally. It was...

Global long-term ozone trends derived from different observed and modelled data sets

Science.gov (United States)

Coldewey-Egbers, M.; Loyola, D.; Zimmer, W.; van Roozendael, M.; Lerot, C.; Dameris, M.; Garny, H.; Braesicke, P.; Koukouli, M.; Balis, D.

2012-04-01

The long-term behaviour of stratospheric ozone amounts during the past three decades is investigated on a global scale using different observed and modelled data sets. Three European satellite sensors GOME/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/ENVISAT, and GOME-2/METOP are combined and a merged global monthly mean total ozone product has been prepared using an inter-satellite calibration approach. The data set covers the 16-years period from June 1995 to June 2011 and it exhibits an excellent long-term stability, which is required for such trend studies. A multiple linear least-squares regression algorithm using different explanatory variables is applied to the time series and statistically significant positive trends are detected in the northern mid latitudes and subtropics. Global trends are also estimated using a second satellite-based Merged Ozone Data set (MOD) provided by NASA. For few selected geographical regions ozone trends are additionally calculated using well-maintained measurements of individual Dobson/Brewer ground-based instruments. A reasonable agreement in the spatial patterns of the trends is found amongst the European satellite, the NASA satellite, and the ground-based observations. Furthermore, two long-term simulations obtained with the Chemistry-Climate Models E39C-A provided by German Aerospace Center and UMUKCA-UCAM provided by University of Cambridge are analysed.

Urban and peri-urban precipitation and air temperature trends in mega cities of the world using multiple trend analysis methods

Science.gov (United States)

Ajaaj, Aws A.; Mishra, Ashok K.; Khan, Abdul A.

2018-04-01

Urbanization plays an important role in altering local to regional climate. In this study, the trends in precipitation and the air temperature were investigated for urban and peri-urban areas of 18 mega cities selected from six continents (representing a wide range of climatic patterns). Multiple statistical tests were used to examine long-term trends in annual and seasonal precipitation and air temperature for the selected cities. The urban and peri-urban areas were classified based on the percentage of land imperviousness. Through this study, it was evident that removal of the lag-k serial correlation caused a reduction of approximately 20 to 30% in significant trend observability for temperature and precipitation data. This observation suggests that appropriate trend analysis methodology for climate studies is necessary. Additionally, about 70% of the urban areas showed higher positive air temperature trends, compared with peri-urban areas. There were not clear trend signatures (i.e., mix of increase or decrease) when comparing urban vs peri-urban precipitation in each selected city. Overall, cities located in dry areas, for example, in Africa, southern parts of North America, and Eastern Asia, showed a decrease in annual and seasonal precipitation, while wetter conditions were favorable for cities located in wet regions such as, southeastern South America, eastern North America, and northern Europe. A positive relationship was observed between decadal trends of annual/seasonal air temperature and precipitation for all urban and peri-urban areas, with a higher rate being observed for urban areas.

International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank - Stage 2 Daily

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The global land surface temperature databank contains monthly timescale mean, max, and min temperature for approximately 40,000 stations globally. It was developed...

International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank - Stage 2 Monthly

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The global land surface temperature databank contains monthly timescale mean, max, and min temperature for approximately 40,000 stations globally. It was developed...

International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank - Stage 1 Monthly

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The global land surface temperature databank contains monthly timescale mean, max, and min temperature for approximately 40,000 stations globally. It was developed...

International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) Global Land Surface Temperature Databank - Stage 1 Daily

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The global land surface temperature databank contains monthly timescale mean, max, and min temperature for approximately 40,000 stations globally. It was developed...

Labour Markets Trends, Financial Globalization and the current crisis in Developing Countries

NARCIS (Netherlands)

R.E. van der Hoeven (Rolph)

2010-01-01

textabstractThe current wave of globalization has profound labour market effects, accentuated, in many cases, by the current financial and economic crisis. This paper reviews general labour market trends and country examples, arguing that the current globalization process makes labour’s position

Rising Temperatures Reduce Global Wheat Production

Science.gov (United States)

Asseng, S.; Ewert, F.; Martre, P.; Rötter, R. P.; Lobell, D. B.; Cammarano, D.; Kimball, B. A.; Ottman, M. J.; Wall, G. W.; White, J. W.;

Trends in the Indian Ocean Climatology due to anthropogenic induced global warming

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Meyer, AA

2009-09-01

Full Text Available clearly show that due to global warming the South West Indian Ocean Climatology has been changing and that this changing trend will continue into the future as global warming continues. The impacts of regional oceanic climate change on the regions coastal...

Trends in global warming and evolution of nucleoproteins from influenza A viruses since 1918.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, S; Wu, G

2010-12-01

Global warming affects not only the environment where we live, but also all living species to different degree, including influenza A virus. We recently conducted several studies on the possible impact of global warming on the protein families of influenza A virus. More studies are needed in order to have a full picture of the impact of global warming on living organisms, especially its effect on viruses. In this study, we correlate trends in global warming with evolution of the nucleoprotein from influenza A virus and then analyse the trends with respect to northern/southern hemispheres, virus subtypes and sampling species. The results suggest that global warming may have an impact on the evolution of the nucleoprotein from influenza A virus. © 2010 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

NOAA Global Surface Temperature (NOAAGlobalTemp)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA Global Surface Temperature Dataset (NOAAGlobalTemp) is a merged land–ocean surface temperature analysis (formerly known as MLOST) (link is external). It is...

Trend Analysis of Monthly and Annual Temperature Series of Quetta, Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Farhat Iqbal

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The monthly average temperature series of Quetta – Pakistan from 1950 – 2000 is examined. A straight line is fitted to the data and seasonal variation and trend in temperature for each month of the year were obtained. An overall model is constructed as large variations in the monthly slopes were observed. In order to describe the seasonal pattern and trend in temperature, corresponding to the different months, both sine/cosine waves and sine/cosine waves multiplied by the time were included in the model as independent variables. The lag-1 autocorrelation was found in the residual of the model and hence another model was fitted to the pre-whiten series that shows a good fit ( and is free from correlated residuals. Both parametric and non-parametric tests applied to each month temperature show significant trend in all months except February and March.

The role of philosophy in global bioethics: introducing four trends.

Science.gov (United States)

Hellsten, Sirkku K

2015-04-01

This article examines the relationship between philosophy and culture in global bioethics. First, it studies what is meant by the term "global" in global bioethics. Second, the author introduces four different types, or recognizable trends, in philosophical inquiry in bioethics today. The main argument is that, in order to make better sense of the complexity of the ethical questions and challenges we face today across the globe, we need to embrace the universal nature of self-critical and analytical philosophical analysis and argumentation, rather than using seemingly philosophical approaches to give unjustified normative emphasis on different cultural approaches to bioethics.

Global Cooling: Effect of Urban Albedo on Global Temperature

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Akbari, Hashem; Menon, Surabi; Rosenfeld, Arthur

2007-05-22

In many urban areas, pavements and roofs constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20-25%, pavements about 40%). The roof and the pavement albedo can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.10, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. Many studies have demonstrated building cooling-energy savings in excess of 20% upon raising roof reflectivity from an existing 10-20% to about 60%. We estimate U.S. potential savings in excess of $1 billion (B) per year in net annual energy bills. Increasing albedo of urban surfaces can reduce the summertime urban temperature and improve the urban air quality. Increasing the urban albedo has the added benefit of reflecting more of the incoming global solar radiation and countering the effect of global warming. We estimate that increasing albedo of urban areas by 0.1 results in an increase of 3 x 10{sup -4} in Earth albedo. Using a simple global model, the change in air temperature in lowest 1.8 km of the atmosphere is estimated at 0.01K. Modelers predict a warming of about 3K in the next 60 years (0.05K/year). Change of 0.1 in urban albedo will result in 0.01K global cooling, a delay of {approx}0.2 years in global warming. This 0.2 years delay in global warming is equivalent to 10 Gt reduction in CO2 emissions.

Improvement of Global and Regional Mean Sea Level Trends Derived from all Altimetry Missions.

Science.gov (United States)

Ablain, Michael; Benveniste, Jérôme; Faugere, Yannice; Larnicol, Gilles; Cazenave, Anny; Johannessen, Johnny A.; Stammer, Detlef; Timms, Gary

2012-07-01

The global mean sea level (GMSL) has been calculated on a continual basis since January 1993 using data from satellite altimetry missions. The global mean sea level (MSL) deduced from TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 is increasing with a global trend of 3.2 mm from 1993 to 2010 applying the post glacial rebound (MSL Aviso website http://www.jason.oceanobs.com/msl). Besides, the regional sea level trends bring out an inhomogeneous repartition of the ocean elevation with local MSL slopes ranging from +/- 8 mm/year. A study published in 2009 [Ablain et al., 2009] has shown that the global MSL trend uncertainty was estimated at +/-0.6 mm/year with a confidence interval of 90%. The main sources of errors at global and regional scales are due to the orbit calculation and the wet troposphere correction. But others sea-level components have also a significant impact on the long-term stability of MSL as for instance the stability of instrumental parameters and the atmospheric corrections. Thanks to recent studies performed in Sea Level Essential Climate Variable Project in the frame of the Climate Change Initiative, an ESA Programme, in addition to activities performed within the SALP/CNES, strong improvements have been provided for the estimation of the global and regional MSL trends. In this paper, we propose to describe them; they concern the orbit calculation thanks to new gravity fields, the atmospheric corrections thanks to ERA-interim reanalyses, the wet troposphere corrections thanks to the stability improvement, and also empirical corrections allowing us to link regional time series together better. These improvements are described at global and regional scale for all the altimetry missions.

Variability and trends of wet season temperature in the Sudano-Sahelian zone and relationships with precipitation

Science.gov (United States)

Oueslati, Boutheina; Camberlin, Pierre; Zoungrana, Joël; Roucou, Pascal; Diallo, Saliou

2018-02-01

The relationships between precipitation and temperature in the central Sudano-Sahelian belt are investigated by analyzing 50 years (1959-2008) of observed temperature (Tx and Tn) and rainfall variations. At daily time-scale, both Tx and Tn show a marked decrease as a response to rainfall occurrence, with a strongest departure from normal 1 day after the rainfall event (-0.5 to -2.5 °C depending on the month). The cooling is slightly larger when heavy rainfall events (>5 mm) are considered. The temperature anomalies weaken after the rainfall event, but are still significant several days later. The physical mechanisms accounting for the temperature response to precipitation are analysed. The Tx drop is accounted for by reduced incoming solar radiation associated with increased cloud cover and increased surface evaporation following surface moistening. The effect of evaporation becomes dominant a few days after the rainfall event. The reduced daytime heat storage and the subsequent sensible heat flux result in a later negative Tn anomaly. The effect of rainfall variations on temperature is significant for long-term warming trends. The rainfall decrease experienced between 1959 and 2008 accounts for a rainy season Tx increase of 0.15 to 0.3 °C, out of a total Tx increase of 1.3 to 1.5 °C. These results have strong implications on the assessment of future temperature changes. The dampening or amplifying effects of precipitation are determined by the sign of future precipitation trends. Confidence on temperature changes under global warming partly depend on the robustness of precipitation projections.

The phase lag of temperature behind global solar radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

El Hussainy, F.M.

1995-08-01

This paper presented the relationship between the air temperature and the global solar radiation, which can be conveniently represented by the three characteristics: mean, amplitude and phase lag of the first harmonic of global radiation and air temperatures. A good correlation between the air temperature and the global solar radiation has been found when the phase lag between them is nearly of 30 days. (author). 4 refs, 9 figs, 1 tab

Interannual variations and trends in global land surface phenology derived from enhanced vegetation index during 1982-2010

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xiaoyang; Tan, Bin; Yu, Yunyue

2014-05-01

Land surface phenology is widely retrieved from satellite observations at regional and global scales, and its long-term record has been demonstrated to be a valuable tool for reconstructing past climate variations, monitoring the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems in response to climate impacts, and predicting biological responses to future climate scenarios. This study detected global land surface phenology from the advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from 1982 to 2010. Based on daily enhanced vegetation index at a spatial resolution of 0.05 degrees, we simulated the seasonal vegetative trajectory for each individual pixel using piecewise logistic models, which was then used to detect the onset of greenness increase (OGI) and the length of vegetation growing season (GSL). Further, both overall interannual variations and pixel-based trends were examined across Koeppen's climate regions for the periods of 1982-1999 and 2000-2010, respectively. The results show that OGI and GSL varied considerably during 1982-2010 across the globe. Generally, the interannual variation could be more than a month in precipitation-controlled tropical and dry climates while it was mainly less than 15 days in temperature-controlled temperate, cold, and polar climates. OGI, overall, shifted early, and GSL was prolonged from 1982 to 2010 in most climate regions in North America and Asia while the consistently significant trends only occurred in cold climate and polar climate in North America. The overall trends in Europe were generally insignificant. Over South America, late OGI was consistent (particularly from 1982 to 1999) while either positive or negative GSL trends in a climate region were mostly reversed between the periods of 1982-1999 and 2000-2010. In the Northern Hemisphere of Africa, OGI trends were mostly insignificant, but prolonged GSL was evident over individual climate regions during the last 3

Global trends and their impact on city logistics management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tadić Snežana R.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Changes in economic and social environments are more dynamic, and survival in the market requires a wide range, increase efficiency and quality of logistics services. The competitiveness of the region and the city, as the leader of economic development, depends on the efficiency of logistics solutions that must be adaptive to new conditions and demands of the market. This paper presents some of the most important global trends in terms of impact on the urban logistics. In order to define sustainable solutions, the analysis of presented social, economic, technological, environmental and other trends should be integral part of the city logistics planning and management.

Seasonal and elevational contrasts in temperature trends in Central Chile between 1979 and 2015

Science.gov (United States)

Burger, F.; Brock, B.; Montecinos, A.

2018-03-01

We analyze trends in temperature from 18 temperature stations and one upper air sounding site at 30°-35° S in central Chile between 1979-2015, to explore geographical and season temperature trends and their controls, using regional ocean-atmosphere indices. Significant warming trends are widespread at inland stations, while trends are non-significant or negative at coastal sites, as found in previous studies. However, ubiquitous warming across the region in the past 8 years, suggests the recent period of coastal cooling has ended. Significant warming trends are largely restricted to austral spring, summer and autumn seasons, with very few significant positive or negative trends in winter identified. Autumn warming is notably strong in the Andes, which, together with significant warming in spring, could help to explain the negative mass balance of snow and glaciers in the region. A strong Pacific maritime influence on regional temperature trends is inferred through correlation with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) index and coastal sea surface temperature, but the strength of this influence rapidly diminishes inland, and the majority of valley, and all Andes, sites are independent of the IPO index. Instead, valley and Andes sites, and mid-troposphere temperature in the coastal radiosonde profile, show correlation with the autumn Antarctic Oscillation which, in its current positive phase, promotes subsidence and warming at the latitude of central Chile.

Solar variations and their influence on trends in upper stratospheric ozone and temperature

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wuebbles, D.J.; Kinnison, D.E.; Lean, J.L.

1990-10-01

Over the past decade, knowledge of the magnitude and temporal structure of the variations in the sun's ultraviolet irradiance has increased steadily. A number of theoretical modeling studies have shown that changes in the solar ultraviolet flux during the 11-year solar cycle can have a significant effect on stratospheric ozone concentrations. With the exception of Brasseur et al., who examined a very broad range of solar flux variations, all of these studies assumed much larger changes in the ultraviolet flux than measurements now indicate. These studies either calculated the steady-state effect at solar maximum and solar minimum or assumed sinusoidal variations in the solar flux changes with time. It is now possible to narrow the uncertainty range of the expected effects on upper stratospheric ozone and temperature resulting from the 11-year solar cycle. A more accurate representation of the solar flux changes with time is used in this analysis, as compared to previous published studies. This study also evaluates the relative roles of solar flux variations and increasing concentrations of long-lived trace gases in determining the observed trends in upper stratospheric ozone and temperature. The LLNL two-dimensional chemical-radiative-transport model of the global atmosphere is used to evaluate the combined effects on the stratosphere from changes in solar ultraviolet irradiances and trace gas concentrations over the last several decades. Derived trends in upper stratospheric ozone concentrations and temperature are then compared with available analyses of ground-based and satellite measurements over this time period

An analysis of surface air temperature trends and variability along the Andes

Science.gov (United States)

Franquist, Eric S.

Climate change is difficult to study in mountainous regions such as the Andes since steep changes in elevation cannot always be resolved by climate models. However, it is important to examine temperature trends in this region as rises in surface air temperature are leading to the melting of tropical glaciers. Local communities rely on the glacier-fed streamflow to get their water for drinking, irrigation, and livestock. Moreover, communities also rely on the tourism of hikers who come to the region to view the glaciers. As the temperatures increase, these glaciers are no longer in equilibrium with their current climate and are receding rapidly and decreasing the streamflow. This thesis examines surface air temperature from 858 weather stations across Ecuador, Peru, and Chile in order to analyze changes in trends and variability. Three time periods were studied: 1961--1990, 1971--2000, and 1981--2010. The greatest warming occurred during the period of 1971--2000 with 92% of the stations experiencing positive trends with a mean of 0.24°C/decade. There was a clear shift toward cooler temperatures at all latitudes and below elevations of 500 m during the most recent time period studied (1981--2010). Station temperatures were more strongly correlated with the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), than the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). A principal component analysis confirmed ENSO as the main contributor of variability with the most influence in the lower latitudes. There were clear multidecadal changes in correlation strength for the PDO. The PDO contributed the most to the increases in station temperature trends during the 1961--1990 period, consistent with the PDO shift to the positive phase in the middle of this period. There were many strong positive trends at individual stations during the 1971--2000 period; however, these trends could not fully be attributed to ENSO, PDO, or SAM, indicating anthropogenic effects of

Scaling future tropical cyclone damage with global mean temperature

Science.gov (United States)

Geiger, T.; Bresch, D.; Frieler, K.

2017-12-01

Tropical cyclones (TC) are one of the most damaging natural hazards and severely affectmany countries around the globe each year. Their nominal impact is projected to increasesubstantially as the exposed coastal population grows, per capita income increases, andanthropogenic climate change manifests. The magnitude of this increase, however, variesacross regions and is obscured by the stochastic behaviour of TCs, so far impeding arigorous quantification of trends in TC damage with global mean temperature (GMT) rise. Here, we build on the large sample of spatially explicit TCs simulations generated withinISIMIP(2b) for 1) pre-industrial conditions, 2) the historical period, and 3) future projectionsunder RCP2.6 and RCP6.0 to estimate future TC damage assuming fixed present-daysocio-economic conditions or SSP-based future projections of population patterns andincome. Damage estimates will be based on region-specific empirical damage modelsderived from reported damages and accounting for regional characteristics of vulnerability.Different combinations of 1) socio-economic drivers with pre-industrial climate or 2) changingclimate with fixed socio-economic conditions will be used to derive functional relationshipsbetween regionally aggregated changes in damages on one hand and global meantemperature and socio-economic predictors on the other hand. The obtained region-specific scaling of future TC damage with GMT provides valuable inputfor IPCC's special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C by quantifying theincremental changes in impact with global warming. The approach allows for an update ofdamage functions used in integrated assessment models, and contributes to assessing theadequateness of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Global trends in wildfire - perceptions and realities in a changing world

Science.gov (United States)

Doerr, Stefan; Santin, Cristina

2017-04-01

Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth's surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. Whilst fire and associated impacts have indeed increased in some regions, such parts of western North America, Canada and Russia, fire has been decreasing in other regions such as African savannas. Overall, global area burned appears to have changed little over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning may indeed be on the rise, however, they remain insufficiently quantified to be thoroughly examined. Notwithstanding these general observations, the changes in global fire distribution are of concern due to, for example, their detrimental impacts on peat and soil carbon stores in boreal and some tropical regions, or air pollution levels in SE-Asia. These and other impacts are likely to accelerate in a future warmer climate. This presentation aims to contribute to reducing misconceptions in fire trends and to facilitating a more informed understanding of the realities of global fire.

Analysis of global water vapour trends from satellite measurements in the visible spectral range

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Mieruch

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Global water vapour total column amounts have been retrieved from spectral data provided by the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME flying on ERS-2, which was launched in April 1995, and the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY (SCIAMACHY onboard ENVISAT launched in March 2002. For this purpose the Air Mass Corrected Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (AMC-DOAS approach has been used. The combination of the data from both instruments provides us with a long-term global data set spanning more than 11 years with the potential of extension up to 2020 by GOME-2 data on MetOp.

Using linear and non-linear methods from time series analysis and standard statistics the trends of H₂O columns and their errors have been calculated. In this study, factors affecting the trend such as the length of the time series, the magnitude of the variability of the noise, and the autocorrelation of the noise are investigated. Special emphasis has been placed on the calculation of the statistical significance of the observed trends, which reveal significant local changes from −5% per year to +5% per year. These significant trends are distributed over the whole globe. Increasing trends have been calculated for Greenland, East Europe, Siberia and Oceania, whereas decreasing trends have been observed for the northwest USA, Central America, Amazonia, Central Africa and the Arabian Peninsular.

Trends of climatic changes considering over years 1894-1993 and 1894-2003 for Sarajevo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Majstorovic, Zeljko; Toromanovic, Aida; Halilovic, Senada

2004-01-01

Linear trends of changes in climatic parameters have been observed for Sarajevo and we considered correlation with world's trends and mutual correlation of years .1894-1993 and 1894-2003, both for the same meteorological station Sarajevo. In purpose of ascertaining correlation with global climate's changes, Sarajevo's records have been studied over the primary climatic parameters: average annual temperatures, absolute annual maximum and minimum temperatures, annual sum of rainfalls and drought index. We used method of adding of linear trends. Correlation with global tendency of climate has be shown as follow: - We notice increase of average temperature about 0.7 o C in past 100 years - We notice a rapid increase of absolute minimum temperature in compare with values of absolute maximum temperatures. - Annual sum of rainfalls doesn't show drastic changes. - We notice asymmetry trend for some actual seasons. - We notice increase of drought. During correlation of trends for years 1894-1993 and 1894-2003 has been noticed rapid increase of temperature and drought-index, while considering rainfalls there has not been drastic changes. (Author)

Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production.

Science.gov (United States)

Burke, Marshall; Hsiang, Solomon M; Miguel, Edward

2015-11-12

Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature, while poor countries respond only linearly. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human-natural systems and to anticipating the global impact of climate change. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to climate change, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses many times larger than leading models indicate.

Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production

Science.gov (United States)

Burke, Marshall; Hsiang, Solomon M.; Miguel, Edward

2015-11-01

Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature, while poor countries respond only linearly. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human-natural systems and to anticipating the global impact of climate change. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to climate change, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses many times larger than leading models indicate.

Change features and regional distribution of temperature trend and variability joint mode in mainland China

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Xi; Li, Ning; Zhang, Zhengtao; Feng, Jieling; Wang, Ye

2018-05-01

Adaption for temperature should be suitable to local conditions for regional differences in temperature change features. This paper proposed to utilize nine temperature modes that joint the trend (increasing/decreasing/unchanged) with variability (intensifying/weakening/unchanged) to investigate features of temperature change in mainland China. Monthly temperature data over the period 1960-2013 were obtained from 522 national basic and reference meteorological stations. Here, temperature trend (TT) was reflected by the trend of mean annual temperature (MAT) and the uptrend (downtrend) of inter-monthly sliding standard deviation (SSD) series with a sliding length of 29 years (348 months) was used for representing the intensification (weakening) of temperature variability (TV). The Mann-Kendall method and the least squares method were applied to assess the significance and quantify the magnitude of trend in MAT and SSD time series, respectively. The results show that there is a consistent warming trend throughout the country except for only three stations in which a cooling trend is identified. Moreover, the overall increasing rate in the north of 35° N is the highest, over 0.4 °C/decade for most stations. TV is weakened for almost 98% of the stations, indicating the low instability of temperature at a national scale. Finally, temperature mode (TM), for more than 90% of the stations, is the combination of an increasing TT with a weakened TV (mode 8). So, it is more important for people to adapt to the increasing temperature in these regions. Compared to using annual temperature data to calculate SSD, monthly data can accurately reflect the inter-monthly change of temperature and reserve more initial characteristics of temperature.

Sectoral trends in global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

de Ia Rue du Can, Stephane; Price, Lynn

2008-01-01

Integrated assessment models have been used to project both baseline and mitigation greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Results of these scenarios are typically presented for a number of world regions and end-use sectors, such as industry, transport, and buildings. Analysts interested in particular technologies and policies, however, require more detailed information to understand specific mitigation options in relation to business-as-usual trends. This paper presents sectoral trend for two of the scenarios produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. Global and regional historical trends in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions over the past 30 years are examined and contrasted with projections over the next 30 years. Macro-activity indicators are analyzed as well as trends in sectoral energy and carbon demand. This paper also describes a methodology to calculate primary energy and carbon dioxide emissions at the sector level, accounting for the full energy and emissions due to sectoral activities. (author)

Drivers of Global Vegetation Biomass Trends between 1988 and 2008

KAUST Repository

McCabe, Matthew; Liu, Yi; Evans, Jason; De Jeu, Richard; van Dijk, Albert

2013-01-01

Vegetation optical depth (VOD) is an indicator of the vegetation water content of both woody and leaf components in terrestrial biomass as derived from passive microwave observations. VOD is distinctly different from products derived from optical remote sensing: it is less prone to saturation in dense canopy; is sensitive to both photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic biomass; is less affected by atmospheric conditions; and is of coarser spatial resolution. Here, VOD retrievals from a series of sensors are blended to produce a time series from 1988 through to 2008, and a global analysis is undertaken to quantify and attribute global VOD trends over the same period. We conduct Mann-Kendall linear trend tests on annual average VOD to identify regions of significant change. Patterns for these regions were evaluated against independent datasets to diagnose the underlying cause of the observed trends. Results indicate that: (1) over grassland and shrubland, VOD patterns correspond strongly to temporal precipitation patterns; (2) over croplands, annual average VOD shows a general increase that corresponds to reported crop yield patterns and can be attributed to a combination of precipitation patterns and agricultural improvement; (3) over humid tropical forest, the spatial pattern of VOD decline agrees well with deforestation patterns identified in previous studies; and (4) over boreal forests, regional VOD declines can be attributed to a combination of fires and logging. We conclude that VOD can be used to estimate and interpret global changes in total above ground vegetation biomass. We expect that this new observationally based remote sensing data source will be of considerable interest to hydrological, agricultural, climate change and carbon cycle studies, and provide new insights into these and related process investigations.

Drivers of Global Vegetation Biomass Trends between 1988 and 2008

KAUST Repository

McCabe, Matthew

2013-12-01

Vegetation optical depth (VOD) is an indicator of the vegetation water content of both woody and leaf components in terrestrial biomass as derived from passive microwave observations. VOD is distinctly different from products derived from optical remote sensing: it is less prone to saturation in dense canopy; is sensitive to both photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic biomass; is less affected by atmospheric conditions; and is of coarser spatial resolution. Here, VOD retrievals from a series of sensors are blended to produce a time series from 1988 through to 2008, and a global analysis is undertaken to quantify and attribute global VOD trends over the same period. We conduct Mann-Kendall linear trend tests on annual average VOD to identify regions of significant change. Patterns for these regions were evaluated against independent datasets to diagnose the underlying cause of the observed trends. Results indicate that: (1) over grassland and shrubland, VOD patterns correspond strongly to temporal precipitation patterns; (2) over croplands, annual average VOD shows a general increase that corresponds to reported crop yield patterns and can be attributed to a combination of precipitation patterns and agricultural improvement; (3) over humid tropical forest, the spatial pattern of VOD decline agrees well with deforestation patterns identified in previous studies; and (4) over boreal forests, regional VOD declines can be attributed to a combination of fires and logging. We conclude that VOD can be used to estimate and interpret global changes in total above ground vegetation biomass. We expect that this new observationally based remote sensing data source will be of considerable interest to hydrological, agricultural, climate change and carbon cycle studies, and provide new insights into these and related process investigations.

On nonstationarity and antipersistency in global temperature series

Science.gov (United States)

KäRner, O.

2002-10-01

Statistical analysis is carried out for satellite-based global daily tropospheric and stratospheric temperature anomaly and solar irradiance data sets. Behavior of the series appears to be nonstationary with stationary daily increments. Estimating long-range dependence between the increments reveals a remarkable difference between the two temperature series. Global average tropospheric temperature anomaly behaves similarly to the solar irradiance anomaly. Their daily increments show antipersistency for scales longer than 2 months. The property points at a cumulative negative feedback in the Earth climate system governing the tropospheric variability during the last 22 years. The result emphasizes a dominating role of the solar irradiance variability in variations of the tropospheric temperature and gives no support to the theory of anthropogenic climate change. The global average stratospheric temperature anomaly proceeds like a 1-dim random walk at least up to 11 years, allowing good presentation by means of the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models for monthly series.

Global ocean carbon uptake: magnitude, variability and trends

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R. Wanninkhof

2013-03-01

Full Text Available The globally integrated sea–air anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2 flux from 1990 to 2009 is determined from models and data-based approaches as part of the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP project. Numerical methods include ocean inverse models, atmospheric inverse models, and ocean general circulation models with parameterized biogeochemistry (OBGCMs. The median value of different approaches shows good agreement in average uptake. The best estimate of anthropogenic CO2 uptake for the time period based on a compilation of approaches is −2.0 Pg C yr−1. The interannual variability in the sea–air flux is largely driven by large-scale climate re-organizations and is estimated at 0.2 Pg C yr−1 for the two decades with some systematic differences between approaches. The largest differences between approaches are seen in the decadal trends. The trends range from −0.13 (Pg C yr−1 decade−1 to −0.50 (Pg C yr−1 decade−1 for the two decades under investigation. The OBGCMs and the data-based sea–air CO2 flux estimates show appreciably smaller decadal trends than estimates based on changes in carbon inventory suggesting that methods capable of resolving shorter timescales are showing a slowing of the rate of ocean CO2 uptake. RECCAP model outputs for five decades show similar differences in trends between approaches.

A century of climate and ecosystem change in Western Montana: What do temperature trends portend?

Science.gov (United States)

Pederson, G.T.; Graumlich, L.J.; Fagre, D.B.; Kipfer, T.; Muhlfeld, C.C.

2010-01-01

The physical science linking human-induced increases in greenhouse gasses to the warming of the global climate system is well established, but the implications of this warming for ecosystem processes and services at regional scales is still poorly understood. Thus, the objectives of this work were to: (1) describe rates of change in temperature averages and extremes for western Montana, a region containing sensitive resources and ecosystems, (2) investigate associations between Montana temperature change to hemispheric and global temperature change, (3) provide climate analysis tools for land and resource managers responsible for researching and maintaining renewable resources, habitat, and threatened/endangered species and (4) integrate our findings into a more general assessment of climate impacts on ecosystem processes and services over the past century. Over 100 years of daily and monthly temperature data collected in western Montana, USA are analyzed for long-term changes in seasonal averages and daily extremes. In particular, variability and trends in temperature above or below ecologically and socially meaningful thresholds within this region (e.g., -17.8??C (0??F), 0??C (32??F), and 32.2??C (90??F)) are assessed. The daily temperature time series reveal extremely cold days (??? -17.8??C) terminate on average 20 days earlier and decline in number, whereas extremely hot days (???32??C) show a three-fold increase in number and a 24-day increase in seasonal window during which they occur. Results show that regionally important thresholds have been exceeded, the most recent of which include the timing and number of the 0??C freeze/thaw temperatures during spring and fall. Finally, we close with a discussion on the implications for Montana's ecosystems. Special attention is given to critical processes that respond non-linearly as temperatures exceed critical thresholds, and have positive feedbacks that amplify the changes. ?? Springer Science + Business Media B

Impacts of Global Manufacturing Trends on Port Development: The Case of Hong Kong1

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Abraham Zhang

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Global manufacturing trends may have profound implications for regional port development. This paper studies Hong Kong port (HKP, which has been one of the world's busiest container ports since the 1990s. In recent years, global manufacturers have started to move away from its primary cargo base, the Chinese Pearl River Delta. This study investigates impacts of the emerging global manufacturing trends on HKP development. It is found that relocation of manufacturing to Western Guangdong benefits HKP, while other relocation destinations make HKP less attractive or even irrelevant. Based on the findings, government policies are discussed that may be formulated to support the growth of the port and wider port-related economy.

Global Surface Warming Hiatus Analysis Data

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — These data were used to conduct the study of the global surface warming hiatus, an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998....

Global distribution of methane emissions, emission trends, and OH trends inferred from an inversion of GOSAT data for 2010-2015

Science.gov (United States)

Maasakkers, J. D.; Jacob, D.; Payer Sulprizio, M.; Hersher, M.; Scarpelli, T.; Turner, A. J.; Sheng, J.; Bloom, A. A.; Bowman, K. W.; Parker, R.

2017-12-01

We present a global inversion of methane sources and sinks using GOSAT satellite data from 2010 up to 2015. The inversion optimizes emissions and their trends at 4° × 5° resolution as well as the interannual variability of global OH concentrations. It uses an analytical approach that quantifies the information content from the GOSAT observations and provides full error characterization. We show how the analytical approach can be applied in log-space, ensuring the positivity of the posterior. The inversion starts from state-of-science a priori emission inventories including the Gridded EPA inventory for US anthropogenic emissions, detailed oil and gas emissions for Canada and Mexico, EDGAR v4.3.2 for anthropogenic emissions in other countries, the WetCHARTs product for wetlands, and our own estimates for geological seeps. Inversion results show lower emissions over Western Europe and China than predicted by EDGAR v4.3.2 but higher emissions over Japan. In contrast to previous inversions that used incorrect patterns in a priori emissions, we find that the EPA inventory does not underestimate US anthropogenic emissions. Results for trends show increasing emissions in the tropics combined with decreasing emissions in Europe, and a decline in OH concentrations contributing to the global methane trend.

Temperature and Heat-Related Mortality Trends in the Sonoran and Mojave Desert Region

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Polioptro F. Martinez-Austria

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Extreme temperatures and heat wave trends in five cities within the Sonoran Desert region (e.g., Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, in the United States and Ciudad Obregon and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora; and Mexicali, Baja California, in Mexico and one city within the Mojave Desert region (e.g., Las Vegas, Nevada were assessed using field data collected from 1950 to 2014. Instead of being selected by watershed, the cities were selected because they are part of the same arid climatic region. The data were analyzed for maximum temperature increases and the trends were confirmed statistically using Spearman’s nonparametric test. Temperature trends were correlated with the mortality information related with extreme heat events in the region. The results showed a clear trend of increasing maximum temperatures during the months of June, July, and August for five of the six cities and statically confirmed using Spearman’s rho values. Las Vegas was the only city where the temperature increase was not confirmed using Spearman’s test, probably because it is geographically located outside of the Sonoran Desert or because of its proximity to the Hoover Dam. The relationship between mortality and temperature was analyzed for the cities of Mexicali, Mexico and Phoenix. Arizona.

Incidence and mortality of lung cancer: global trends and association with socioeconomic status.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Martin C S; Lao, Xiang Qian; Ho, Kin-Fai; Goggins, William B; Tse, Shelly L A

2017-10-30

We examined the correlation between lung cancer incidence/mortality and country-specific socioeconomic development, and evaluated its most recent global trends. We retrieved its age-standardized incidence rates from the GLOBOCAN database, and temporal patterns were assessed from global databases. We employed simple linear regression analysis to evaluate their correlations with Human Development Index (HDI) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. The average annual percent changes (AAPC) of the trends were evaluated from join-point regression analysis. Country-specific HDI was strongly correlated with age-standardized incidence (r = 0.70) and mortality (r = 0.67), and to a lesser extent GDP (r = 0.24 to 0.55). Among men, 22 and 30 (out of 38 and 36) countries showed declining incidence and mortality trends, respectively; whilst among women, 19 and 16 countries showed increasing incidence and mortality trends, respectively. Among men, the AAPCs ranged from -2.8 to -0.6 (incidence) and -3.6 to -1.1 (mortality) in countries with declining trend, whereas among women the AAPC range was 0.4 to 8.9 (incidence) and 1 to 4.4 (mortality) in countries with increasing trend. Among women, Brazil, Spain and Cyprus had the greatest incidence increase, and all countries in Western, Southern and Eastern Europe reported increasing mortality. These findings highlighted the need for targeted preventive measures.

Brief Communication: Likelihood of societal preparedness for global change: trend detection

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R. M. Vogel

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Anthropogenic influences on earth system processes are now pervasive, resulting in trends in river discharge, pollution levels, ocean levels, precipitation, temperature, wind, landslides, bird and plant populations and a myriad of other important natural hazards relating to earth system state variables. Thousands of trend detection studies have been published which report the statistical significance of observed trends. Unfortunately, such studies only concentrate on the null hypothesis of "no trend". Little or no attention is given to the power of such statistical trend tests, which would quantify the likelihood that we might ignore a trend if it really existed. The probability of missing the trend, if it exists, known as the type II error, informs us about the likelihood of whether or not society is prepared to accommodate and respond to such trends. We describe how the power or probability of detecting a trend if it exists, depends critically on our ability to develop improved multivariate deterministic and statistical methods for predicting future trends in earth system processes. Several other research and policy implications for improving our understanding of trend detection and our societal response to those trends are discussed.

Global Trends in Seasonality of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI, 1982–2011

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Assaf Anyamba

2013-09-01

Full Text Available A 30-year series of global monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI imagery derived from the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS NDVI3g archive was analyzed for the presence of trends in changing seasonality. Using the Seasonal Trend Analysis (STA procedure, over half (56.30% of land surfaces were found to exhibit significant trends. Almost half (46.10% of the significant trends belonged to three classes of seasonal trends (or changes. Class 1 consisted of areas that experienced a uniform increase in NDVI throughout the year, and was primarily associated with forested areas, particularly broadleaf forests. Class 2 consisted of areas experiencing an increase in the amplitude of the annual seasonal signal whereby increases in NDVI in the green season were balanced by decreases in the brown season. These areas were found primarily in grassland and shrubland regions. Class 3 was found primarily in the Taiga and Tundra biomes and exhibited increases in the annual summer peak in NDVI. While no single attribution of cause could be determined for each of these classes, it was evident that they are primarily found in natural areas (as opposed to anthropogenic land cover conversions and that they are consistent with climate-related ameliorations of growing conditions during the study period.

A physically based model of global freshwater surface temperature

Science.gov (United States)

van Beek, Ludovicus P. H.; Eikelboom, Tessa; van Vliet, Michelle T. H.; Bierkens, Marc F. P.

2012-09-01

Temperature determines a range of physical properties of water and exerts a strong control on surface water biogeochemistry. Thus, in freshwater ecosystems the thermal regime directly affects the geographical distribution of aquatic species through their growth and metabolism and indirectly through their tolerance to parasites and diseases. Models used to predict surface water temperature range between physically based deterministic models and statistical approaches. Here we present the initial results of a physically based deterministic model of global freshwater surface temperature. The model adds a surface water energy balance to river discharge modeled by the global hydrological model PCR-GLOBWB. In addition to advection of energy from direct precipitation, runoff, and lateral exchange along the drainage network, energy is exchanged between the water body and the atmosphere by shortwave and longwave radiation and sensible and latent heat fluxes. Also included are ice formation and its effect on heat storage and river hydraulics. We use the coupled surface water and energy balance model to simulate global freshwater surface temperature at daily time steps with a spatial resolution of 0.5° on a regular grid for the period 1976-2000. We opt to parameterize the model with globally available data and apply it without calibration in order to preserve its physical basis with the outlook of evaluating the effects of atmospheric warming on freshwater surface temperature. We validate our simulation results with daily temperature data from rivers and lakes (U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), limited to the USA) and compare mean monthly temperatures with those recorded in the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) data set. Results show that the model is able to capture the mean monthly surface temperature for the majority of the GEMS stations, while the interannual variability as derived from the USGS and NOAA data was captured reasonably well. Results are poorest for

Trends and inter-annual variability of methane emissions derived from 1979-1993 global CTM simulations

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F. Dentener

2003-01-01

Full Text Available The trend and interannual variability of methane sources are derived from multi-annual simulations of tropospheric photochemistry using a 3-D global chemistry-transport model. Our semi-inverse analysis uses the fifteen years (1979--1993 re-analysis of ECMWF meteorological data and annually varying emissions including photo-chemistry, in conjunction with observed CH4 concentration distributions and trends derived from the NOAA-CMDL surface stations. Dividing the world in four zonal regions (45--90 N, 0--45 N, 0--45 S, 45--90 S we find good agreement in each region between (top-down calculated emission trends from model simulations and (bottom-up estimated anthropogenic emission trends based on the EDGAR global anthropogenic emission database, which amounts for the period 1979--1993 2.7 Tg CH4 yr-1. Also the top-down determined total global methane emission compares well with the total of the bottom-up estimates. We use the difference between the bottom-up and top-down determined emission trends to calculate residual emissions. These residual emissions represent the inter-annual variability of the methane emissions. Simulations have been performed in which the year-to-year meteorology, the emissions of ozone precursor gases, and the stratospheric ozone column distribution are either varied, or kept constant. In studies of methane trends it is most important to include the trends and variability of the oxidant fields. The analyses reveals that the variability of the emissions is of the order of 8Tg CH4 yr-1, and likely related to wetland emissions and/or biomass burning.

Precipitation and temperature trends over central Italy (Abruzzo Region): 1951-2012

Science.gov (United States)

Scorzini, Anna Rita; Leopardi, Maurizio

2018-02-01

This study analyses spatial and temporal trends of precipitation and temperatures over Abruzzo Region (central Italy), using historical climatic data from a dense observation network. The results show a general, although not significant, negative trend in the regionally averaged annual precipitation (- 1.8% of the yearly mean rainfall per decade). This reduction is particularly evident in winter, especially at mountain stations (average - 3% change/decade). Despite this general decreasing trend, a partial rainfall recovery is observed after the 1980s. Furthermore, the majority of meteorological stations register a significant warming over the last 60 years, (mean annual temperature increase of + 0.15 °C/decade), which reflects a rise in both minimum and maximum temperatures, with the latter generally increasing at a faster rate. Spring and summer are the seasons which contribute most to the general temperature increase, in particular at high elevation sites, which exhibit a more pronounced warming (+ 0.24 °C/decade). However, this tendency has not been uniform over 1951-2012, but it has been characterised by a cooling phenomenon in the first 30 years (1951-1981), followed by an even stronger warming during the last three decades (1982-2012). Finally, correlations between the climatic variables and the dominant teleconnection patterns in the Mediterranean basin are analysed to identify the potential influence of large-scale atmospheric dynamics on observed trends in Abruzzo. The results highlight the dominant role of the East-Atlantic pattern on seasonal temperatures, while more spatially heterogeneous associations, depending on the complex topography of the region, are identified between winter precipitation and the North Atlantic Oscillation, East-Atlantic and East-Atlantic/Western Russian patterns.

The digital divide: Trends in global mobile and broadband Internet access from 2000-2010.

Science.gov (United States)

Ronquillo, Charlene; Currie, Leanne

2012-01-01

The digital divide is described as the gap between those who do and do not have access to digital information and communications technologies (ICT). ICTs are viewed as an indicator of infrastructure and potential for development, and are a growing platform for health information and services delivery. This study compares the penetration of mobile and broadband Internet technologies by global region from 2000 to 2010. Results illustrate the rapid growth of mobile cellular telephone subscriptions in all global regions with trends suggesting a continued increase. Little to modest gains were made in fixed broadband Internet subscriptions globally. There is a growing popularity of mobile subscriptions with use of data communications, exceeding the numbers of fixed Internet subscriptions. This comparison reveals current strengths that can be built on and highlights the importance of awareness of global trends and using such knowledge to inform design and delivery of ICT-based health services.

New Temperature-based Models for Predicting Global Solar Radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hassan, Gasser E.; Youssef, M. Elsayed; Mohamed, Zahraa E.; Ali, Mohamed A.; Hanafy, Ahmed A.

2016-01-01

Highlights: • New temperature-based models for estimating solar radiation are investigated. • The models are validated against 20-years measured data of global solar radiation. • The new temperature-based model shows the best performance for coastal sites. • The new temperature-based model is more accurate than the sunshine-based models. • The new model is highly applicable with weather temperature forecast techniques. - Abstract: This study presents new ambient-temperature-based models for estimating global solar radiation as alternatives to the widely used sunshine-based models owing to the unavailability of sunshine data at all locations around the world. Seventeen new temperature-based models are established, validated and compared with other three models proposed in the literature (the Annandale, Allen and Goodin models) to estimate the monthly average daily global solar radiation on a horizontal surface. These models are developed using a 20-year measured dataset of global solar radiation for the case study location (Lat. 30°51′N and long. 29°34′E), and then, the general formulae of the newly suggested models are examined for ten different locations around Egypt. Moreover, the local formulae for the models are established and validated for two coastal locations where the general formulae give inaccurate predictions. Mostly common statistical errors are utilized to evaluate the performance of these models and identify the most accurate model. The obtained results show that the local formula for the most accurate new model provides good predictions for global solar radiation at different locations, especially at coastal sites. Moreover, the local and general formulas of the most accurate temperature-based model also perform better than the two most accurate sunshine-based models from the literature. The quick and accurate estimations of the global solar radiation using this approach can be employed in the design and evaluation of performance for

Oxygen-isotope trends and seawater temperature changes across the Late Cambrian Steptoean positive carbon-isotope excursion (SPICE event)

Science.gov (United States)

Elrick, M.; Rieboldt, S.; Saltzman, M.; McKay, R.M.

2011-01-01

The globally recognized Late Cambrian Steptoean positive C-isotope excursion (SPICE) is characterized by a 3???-5??? positive ??13C shift spanning SPICE represents a widespread ocean anoxic event leading to enhanced burial/preservation of organic matter (Corg) and pyrite. We analyzed ??18O values of apatitic inarticulate brachiopods from three Upper Cambrian successions across Laurentia to evaluate paleotemperatures during the SPICE. ??18O values range from ~12.5??? to 16.5???. Estimated seawater temperatures associated with the SPICE are unreasonably warm, suggesting that the brachiopod ??18O values were altered during early diagenesis. Despite this, all three localities show similar trends with respect to the SPICE ??13C curve, suggesting that the brachiopod apatite preserves a record of relative ??18O and temperature changes. The trends include relatively high ??18O values at the onset of the SPICE, decreasing and lowest values during the main event, and an increase in values at the end of the event. The higher ??18O values during the global extinction at the onset of the SPICE suggests seawater cooling and supports earlier hypotheses of upwelling of cool waters onto the shallow shelf. Decreasing and low ??18O values coincident with the rising limb of the SPICE support the hypothesis that seawater warming and associated reduced thermohaline circulation rates contributed to decreased dissolved O2 concentrations, which enhanced the preservation/burial of Corg causing the positive ??13C shift. ?? 2011 Geological Society of America.

Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP) Data, 1985-present

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP) develops and maintains a global ocean temperature and salinity resource with data that are both up-to-date...

Trend analysis and change point detection of annual and seasonal temperature series in Peninsular Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Suhaila, Jamaludin; Yusop, Zulkifli

2017-06-01

Most of the trend analysis that has been conducted has not considered the existence of a change point in the time series analysis. If these occurred, then the trend analysis will not be able to detect an obvious increasing or decreasing trend over certain parts of the time series. Furthermore, the lack of discussion on the possible factors that influenced either the decreasing or the increasing trend in the series needs to be addressed in any trend analysis. Hence, this study proposes to investigate the trends, and change point detection of mean, maximum and minimum temperature series, both annually and seasonally in Peninsular Malaysia and determine the possible factors that could contribute to the significance trends. In this study, Pettitt and sequential Mann-Kendall (SQ-MK) tests were used to examine the occurrence of any abrupt climate changes in the independent series. The analyses of the abrupt changes in temperature series suggested that most of the change points in Peninsular Malaysia were detected during the years 1996, 1997 and 1998. These detection points captured by Pettitt and SQ-MK tests are possibly related to climatic factors, such as El Niño and La Niña events. The findings also showed that the majority of the significant change points that exist in the series are related to the significant trend of the stations. Significant increasing trends of annual and seasonal mean, maximum and minimum temperatures in Peninsular Malaysia were found with a range of 2-5 °C/100 years during the last 32 years. It was observed that the magnitudes of the increasing trend in minimum temperatures were larger than the maximum temperatures for most of the studied stations, particularly at the urban stations. These increases are suspected to be linked with the effect of urban heat island other than El Niño event.

The paradox of cooling streams in a warming world: Regional climate trends do not parallel variable local trends in stream temperature in the Pacific continental United States

Science.gov (United States)

Arismendi, Ivan; Johnson, Sherri; Dunham, Jason B.; Haggerty, Roy; Hockman-Wert, David

2012-01-01

Temperature is a fundamentally important driver of ecosystem processes in streams. Recent warming of terrestrial climates around the globe has motivated concern about consequent increases in stream temperature. More specifically, observed trends of increasing air temperature and declining stream flow are widely believed to result in corresponding increases in stream temperature. Here, we examined the evidence for this using long-term stream temperature data from minimally and highly human-impacted sites located across the Pacific continental United States. Based on hypothesized climate impacts, we predicted that we should find warming trends in the maximum, mean and minimum temperatures, as well as increasing variability over time. These predictions were not fully realized. Warming trends were most prevalent in a small subset of locations with longer time series beginning in the 1950s. More recent series of observations (1987-2009) exhibited fewer warming trends and more cooling trends in both minimally and highly human-influenced systems. Trends in variability were much less evident, regardless of the length of time series. Based on these findings, we conclude that our perspective of climate impacts on stream temperatures is clouded considerably by a lack of long-termdata on minimally impacted streams, and biased spatio-temporal representation of existing time series. Overall our results highlight the need to develop more mechanistic, process-based understanding of linkages between climate change, other human impacts and stream temperature, and to deploy sensor networks that will provide better information on trends in stream temperatures in the future.

Analysed foundation sea surface temperature, global

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The through-cloud capabilities of microwave radiometers provide a valuable picture of global sea surface temperature (SST). To utilize this, scientists at Remote...

The Status Quo and Developing Trend Analysis of Global Carbon Finance

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Liu Qian; Wang Yao

2011-01-01

This paper gives a systematic view of the new trends of global carbon finance innovation under the challenge of global climate change and in the process of transition to achieve economic growth from ＂high carbon＂ to ＇low carbon＇, covering the following aspects： the structure, status quo and developing trend of global carbon market. The paper discusses the innovation in financial organization and service systems and governments＇ overall guidance and policy support, and draws the conclusion that the world is undergoing massive changes with governments actively responding to carbon finance to embrace the tremendous opportunities for clean energy and climate change in financial industry. To seize the opportunity, a complete and overall carbon finance system of China should be put in the top of the agenda. Given the current tasks of energy conservation and pollution reduction and the growing demand for capital input, China needs to construct an clear of policy guidance, a diversified financia service system, and a multi-approach carbon finance system to intensify and widen the participation of financial industry, to expand financing channels for sustainable economy and spread risks, and finally, work out an inexpensive solution to the realization of China＇s low carbon target.

NOAA Global Surface Temperature Dataset, Version 4.0

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA Global Surface Temperature Dataset (NOAAGlobalTemp) is derived from two independent analyses: the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST)...

Signal detection in global mean temperatures after “Paris”: an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Visser

2018-02-01

Full Text Available In December 2015, 195 countries agreed in Paris to hold the increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST well below 2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. Since large financial flows will be needed to keep GMSTs below these targets, it is important to know how GMST has progressed since pre-industrial times. However, the Paris Agreement is not conclusive as regards methods to calculate it. Should trend progression be deduced from GCM simulations or from instrumental records by (statistical trend methods? Which simulations or GMST datasets should be chosen, and which trend models? What is pre-industrial and, finally, are the Paris targets formulated for total warming, originating from both natural and anthropogenic forcing, or do they refer to anthropogenic warming only? To find answers to these questions we performed an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis where datasets and model choices have been varied. For all cases we evaluated trend progression along with uncertainty information. To do so, we analysed four trend approaches and applied these to the five leading observational GMST products. We find GMST progression to be largely independent of various trend model approaches. However, GMST progression is significantly influenced by the choice of GMST datasets. Uncertainties due to natural variability are largest in size. As a parallel path, we calculated GMST progression from an ensemble of 42 GCM simulations. Mean progression derived from GCM-based GMSTs appears to lie in the range of trend–dataset combinations. A difference between both approaches appears to be the width of uncertainty bands: GCM simulations show a much wider spread. Finally, we discuss various choices for pre-industrial baselines and the role of warming definitions. Based on these findings we propose an estimate for signal progression in GMSTs since pre-industrial.

Digitalization and the global technology trends

Science.gov (United States)

Ignat, V.

2017-08-01

Digitalization, connected products and services, and shortening innovation cycles are widely discussed topics in management practice and theory and demand for new concepts. We analysed how companies innovated their business models and how are the new the technology trends. We found out, that have a positive approach to digitalization but the technology strategy still runs its original business model. Digitalization forces to new solution orientation. For companies it is necessary to master the digital transformation, new innovations have to be developed. Furthermore, digitalization / Industry 4.0 linking the real-life factory with virtual reality, will play an increasingly important role in global manufacturing. Companies have to obtain new digital capabilities, in order to make their company sustainable for the future. A long term growth and welfare in Europe could be guaranteed only by new technology innovation.

Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Global Temperature Time Series

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The global temperature time series provides time series charts using station based observations of daily temperature. These charts provide information about the...

Warming Trends and Bleaching Stress of the World’s Coral Reefs 1985-2012

Science.gov (United States)

Heron, Scott F.; Maynard, Jeffrey A.; van Hooidonk, Ruben; Eakin, C. Mark

2016-12-01

Coral reefs across the world’s oceans are in the midst of the longest bleaching event on record (from 2014 to at least 2016). As many of the world’s reefs are remote, there is limited information on how past thermal conditions have influenced reef composition and current stress responses. Using satellite temperature data for 1985-2012, the analysis we present is the first to quantify, for global reef locations, spatial variations in warming trends, thermal stress events and temperature variability at reef-scale (~4 km). Among over 60,000 reef pixels globally, 97% show positive SST trends during the study period with 60% warming significantly. Annual trends exceeded summertime trends at most locations. This indicates that the period of summer-like temperatures has become longer through the record, with a corresponding shortening of the ‘winter’ reprieve from warm temperatures. The frequency of bleaching-level thermal stress increased three-fold between 1985-91 and 2006-12 - a trend climate model projections suggest will continue. The thermal history data products developed enable needed studies relating thermal history to bleaching resistance and community composition. Such analyses can help identify reefs more resilient to thermal stress.

Trends and Variability in Temperature Sensitivity of Lilac Flowering Phenology

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Huanjiong; Dai, Junhu; Rutishauser, This; Gonsamo, Alemu; Wu, Chaoyang; Ge, Quansheng

2018-03-01

The responses of plant phenology to temperature variability have many consequences for ecological processes, agriculture, forestry, and human health. Temperature sensitivity (ST) of phenology could measure how and to what degree plant could phenologically track climate change. The long-term trends and spatial patterns in ST have been well studied for vegetative phenology such as leaf unfolding, but trends to be expected for reproductive phenology in the future remain unknown. Here we investigate trends and factors driving the temporal variation of ST of first bloom date (FBD). Using the long-term FBD records during 1963-2013 for common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) from 613 stations in Europe, we compared changes in ST from the beginning to the end of the study period. The Spearman partial correlations were used to assess the importance of four influencing factors. The results showed that the temporal changes in ST of FBD varied considerably among time scales. Mean ST decreased significantly by 0.92 days °C-1 from 1963-1972 to 2004-2013 (P plant species in other climates and environments using similar methods to our study.

Sensitivity of regional climate to global temperature and forcing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tebaldi, Claudia; O’Neill, Brian; Lamarque, Jean-François

2015-01-01

The sensitivity of regional climate to global average radiative forcing and temperature change is important for setting global climate policy targets and designing scenarios. Setting effective policy targets requires an understanding of the consequences exceeding them, even by small amounts, and the effective design of sets of scenarios requires the knowledge of how different emissions, concentrations, or forcing need to be in order to produce substantial differences in climate outcomes. Using an extensive database of climate model simulations, we quantify how differences in global average quantities relate to differences in both the spatial extent and magnitude of climate outcomes at regional (250–1250 km) scales. We show that differences of about 0.3 °C in global average temperature are required to generate statistically significant changes in regional annual average temperature over more than half of the Earth’s land surface. A global difference of 0.8 °C is necessary to produce regional warming over half the land surface that is not only significant but reaches at least 1 °C. As much as 2.5 to 3 °C is required for a statistically significant change in regional annual average precipitation that is equally pervasive. Global average temperature change provides a better metric than radiative forcing for indicating differences in regional climate outcomes due to the path dependency of the effects of radiative forcing. For example, a difference in radiative forcing of 0.5 W m −2 can produce statistically significant differences in regional temperature over an area that ranges between 30% and 85% of the land surface, depending on the forcing pathway. (letter)

Global Energy Trends - 2016 report. Towards a Peak in Energy Demand and CO2 Emissions?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2016-06-01

Celebrating the 20. anniversary of this yearly publication, Enerdata has newly released its annual Global Energy Trends publication for 2016. The full report presents in-depth information on the energy markets as well as upcoming trends for all energies in the G20. With over 400 premium sources, Enerdata analysts highlight major developments in 2015 concerning global demand, supply and key indicators across the globe. The main trends outlined in the report are: - Economic slowdown: the lowest growth since 2002; - Almost no growth in energy consumption; - New decrease of energy intensity; - Stabilization of CO 2 -energy emissions; - INDC targets achievement requires a double breakthrough. The Global Energy Trends Analysis also provides additional graphs about trends by energy: - Coal: most consumed energy source in G20 countries; - Oil: fall in prices to around 40-50 US$/bbl; - Oil production: USA overtake Russia and catch up with Saudi Arabia; - Gas: Stabilisation of gas demand for the 2. consecutive year; - Electricity: Stagnation of electricity consumption; - Wind Power and Solar PV: Asia engine of development. Growth in energy consumption (%/year) for G20 countries: - Second consecutive year of decline: low growth and decrease in energy intensity; - India drives the energy consumption growth; - Near stagnation in China (after a first sharp slowdown in 2014); - Economic recession in Brazil and Russia; - USA: decrease primarily linked to the industrial sector (energy efficiency + less energy-intensive industry); - Rebound in Europe: economic growth + climate effect 2015/2014

Current trends in the global tourism industry: evidence from the United States

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nejdet Delener

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Tourism is one of the largest U.S. industries, serving millions of international and domestic tourists yearly. Tourists visit the U.S. to see natural wonders, cities, historic landmarks, and entertainment venues. Americans seek similar attractions as well as recreation and vacation areas. Tourism competes in the global market, so it is important to understand current trends in the U.S. travel industry. Therefore, this article offers insight into important trends and suggests strategies for policy makers involved in the travel and tourism industry.

Analysis of monotonic greening and browning trends from global NDVI time-series

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jong, de R.; Bruin, de S.; Wit, de A.J.W.; Schaepman, M.E.; Dent, D.L.

2011-01-01

Remotely sensed vegetation indices are widely used to detect greening and browning trends; especially the global coverage of time-series normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data which are available from 1981. Seasonality and serial auto-correlation in the data have previously been dealt

Global population trends and policy options.

Science.gov (United States)

Ezeh, Alex C; Bongaarts, John; Mberu, Blessing

2012-07-14

Rapid population growth is a threat to wellbeing in the poorest countries, whereas very low fertility increasingly threatens the future welfare of many developed countries. The mapping of global trends in population growth from 2005-10 shows four distinct patterns. Most of the poorest countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are characterised by rapid growth of more than 2% per year. Moderate annual growth of 1-2% is concentrated in large countries, such as India and Indonesia, and across north Africa and western Latin America. Whereas most advanced-economy countries and large middle-income countries, such as China and Brazil, are characterised by low or no growth (0-1% per year), most of eastern Europe, Japan, and a few western European countries are characterised by population decline. Countries with rapid growth face adverse social, economic, and environmental pressures, whereas those with low or negative growth face rapid population ageing, unsustainable burdens on public pensions and health-care systems, and slow economic growth. Countries with rapid growth should consider the implementation of voluntary family planning programmes as their main policy option to reduce the high unmet need for contraception, unwanted pregnancies, and probirth reproductive norms. In countries with low or negative growth, policies to address ageing and very low fertility are still evolving. Further research into the potential effect of demographic policies on other social systems, social groups, and fertility decisions and trends is therefore recommended. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluating the Long-term Water Cycle Trends at a Global-scale using Satellite and Assimilation Datasets

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, H.; Lakshmi, V.

2017-12-01

Global-scale soil moisture and rainfall products retrieved from remotely sensed and assimilation datasets provide an effective way to monitor near surface soil moisture content and precipitation with sub-daily temporal resolution. In the present study, we employed the concept of the stored precipitation fraction Fp(f) in order to examine the long-term water cycle trends at a global-scale. The analysis was done for Fp(f) trends with the various geophysical aspects such as climate zone, land use classifications, amount of vegetation, and soil properties. Furthermore, we compared a global-scale Fp(f) using different microwave-based satellite soil moisture datasets. The Fp(f) is calculated by utilized surface soil moisture dataset from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, Advanced Scatterometer, Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2, and precipitation information from Global Precipitation Measurement Mission and Global Land Data Assimilation System. Different results from microwave-based soil moisture dataset showed discordant results particularly over arid and highly vegetated regions. The results of this study provide us new insights of the long-term water cycle trends over different land surface areas. Thereby also highlighting the advantages of the recently available GPM and SMAP datasets for the uses in various hydrometeorological applications.

Global predictability of temperature extremes

Science.gov (United States)

Coughlan de Perez, Erin; van Aalst, Maarten; Bischiniotis, Konstantinos; Mason, Simon; Nissan, Hannah; Pappenberger, Florian; Stephens, Elisabeth; Zsoter, Ervin; van den Hurk, Bart

2018-05-01

Extreme temperatures are one of the leading causes of death and disease in both developed and developing countries, and heat extremes are projected to rise in many regions. To reduce risk, heatwave plans and cold weather plans have been effectively implemented around the world. However, much of the world’s population is not yet protected by such systems, including many data-scarce but also highly vulnerable regions. In this study, we assess at a global level where such systems have the potential to be effective at reducing risk from temperature extremes, characterizing (1) long-term average occurrence of heatwaves and coldwaves, (2) seasonality of these extremes, and (3) short-term predictability of these extreme events three to ten days in advance. Using both the NOAA and ECMWF weather forecast models, we develop global maps indicating a first approximation of the locations that are likely to benefit from the development of seasonal preparedness plans and/or short-term early warning systems for extreme temperature. The extratropics generally show both short-term skill as well as strong seasonality; in the tropics, most locations do also demonstrate one or both. In fact, almost 5 billion people live in regions that have seasonality and predictability of heatwaves and/or coldwaves. Climate adaptation investments in these regions can take advantage of seasonality and predictability to reduce risks to vulnerable populations.

CLIMATE CHANGE. Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus.

Science.gov (United States)

Karl, Thomas R; Arguez, Anthony; Huang, Boyin; Lawrimore, Jay H; McMahon, James R; Menne, Matthew J; Peterson, Thomas C; Vose, Russell S; Zhang, Huai-Min

2015-06-26

Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming "hiatus." Here, we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than those reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a "slowdown" in the increase of global surface temperature. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Trends in extreme daily temperatures and humidex index in the United Arab Emirates over 1948-2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, H. W.; Ouarda, T.

2015-12-01

This study deals with the analysis of the characteristics of extreme temperature events in the Middle East, using NCEP reanalysis gridded data, for the summer (May-October) and winter (November-April) seasons. Trends in the occurrences of three types of heat spells during 1948-2014 are studied by both Linear Regression (LR) and Mann-Kendall (MK) test. Changes in the diurnal temperature range (DTR) are also investigated. To better understand the effects of heat spells on public health, the Humidex, a combination index of ambient temperature and relative humidity, is also used. Using percentile threshold, temperature (Humidex) Type-A and Type-B heat spells are defined respectively by daily maximum and minimum temperature (Humidex). Type-C heat spells are defined as the joint occurrence of Type-A and Type-B heat spells at the same time. In the Middle East, it is found that no coherent trend in temperature Type-A heat spells is observed. However, the occurrences of temperature Type-B and C heat spells have consistently increased since 1948. For Humidex heat spells, coherently increased activities of all three types of heat spells are observed in the area. During the summer, the magnitude of the positive trends in Humidex heat spells are generally stronger than temperature heat spells. More than half of the locations in the area show significantly negative DTR trends in the summer, but the trends vary according to the region in the winter. Annual mean temperature has increased an average by 0.5°C, but it is mainly associated with the daily minimum temperature which has warmed up by 0.84°C.Daily maximum temperature showed no significant trends. The warming is hence stronger in minimum temperatures than in maximum temperatures resulting in a decrease in DTR by 0.16 °C per decade. This study indicates hence that the UAE has not become hotter, but it has become less cold during 1948 to 2014.

The relationship of long term global temperature change and human fertility.

Science.gov (United States)

Fisch, Harry; Andrews, Howard F; Fisch, Karen S; Golden, Robert; Liberson, Gary; Olsson, Carl A

2003-07-01

According to the United Nations, global fertility has declined in the last century as reflected by a decline in birth rates. The earth's surface air temperature has increased considerably and is referred to as global warming. Since changes in temperature are well known to influence fertility we sought to determine if a statistical relationship exists between long-term changes in global air temperatures and birth rates. The most complete and reliable birth rate data in the 20th century was available in 19 industrialized countries. Using bivariate and multiple regression analysis, we compared yearly birth rates from these countries to global air temperatures from 1900 to 1994.A common pattern of change in birth rates was noted for the 19 industrialized countries studied. In general, birth rates declined markedly throughout the century except during the baby boom period of approximately 1940 to 1964. An inverse relationship was found between changes in global temperatures and birth rates in all 19 countries. Controlling for the linear yearly decline in birth rates over time, this relationship remained statistically significant for all the 19 countries in aggregate and in seven countries individually (phuman fertility may have been influenced by change in environmental temperatures.

2014 Global Energy Trends: a year full of surprises. Based on its 2014 data for G20 countries, Enerdata analyses the trends in the world energy demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2015-01-01

According to the 2014 Global Energy Trends publication, Enerdata points out 2014 as a remarkable year with a near stagnation in energy demand and CO_2 emissions despite economic growth. The G20's 2014 Key Energy figures: +3.5% Economic Growth; +0.3% (10.8 Gtep) Energy consumption stagnation; -0.2% (26 GtCO_2) CO_2 emissions stabilizations. The main trends derived from the publication are: - Historical stagnation in energy consumption; - Stabilisation in CO_2 emissions; - Global energy consumption stabilisation is reflected everywhere: - 0 growth for gas, - Fall in coal consumption, - Slight increase in electricity consumption. The Global Energy Trends Analysis also provides additional graphs on such topics as: Coal: most consumed energy source in G20 countries; Oil: 50% fall in international prices; Oil: demand continues to slightly increase; Gas: high impact of climate on gas consumption. (authors)

Long-term trends in stratospheric ozone, temperature, and water vapor over the Indian region

Science.gov (United States)

Thankamani Akhil Raj, Sivan; Venkat Ratnam, Madineni; Narayana Rao, Daggumati; Venkata Krishna Murthy, Boddam

2018-01-01

We have investigated the long-term trends in and variabilities of stratospheric ozone, water vapor and temperature over the Indian monsoon region using the long-term data constructed from multi-satellite (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS MLS and HALOE, 1993-2005), Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS, 2004-2015), Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER, 2002-2015) on board TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics)) observations covering the period 1993-2015. We have selected two locations, namely, Trivandrum (8.4° N, 76.9° E) and New Delhi (28° N, 77° E), covering northern and southern parts of the Indian region. We also used observations from another station, Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), for comparison. A decreasing trend in ozone associated with NOx chemistry in the tropical middle stratosphere is found, and the trend turned to positive in the upper stratosphere. Temperature shows a cooling trend in the stratosphere, with a maximum around 37 km over Trivandrum (-1.71 ± 0.49 K decade-1) and New Delhi (-1.15 ± 0.55 K decade-1). The observed cooling trend in the stratosphere over Trivandrum and New Delhi is consistent with Gadanki lidar observations during 1998-2011. The water vapor shows a decreasing trend in the lower stratosphere and an increasing trend in the middle and upper stratosphere. A good correlation between N2O and O3 is found in the middle stratosphere (˜ 10 hPa) and poor correlation in the lower stratosphere. There is not much regional difference in the water vapor and temperature trends. However, upper stratospheric ozone trends over Trivandrum and New Delhi are different. The trend analysis carried out by varying the initial year has shown significant changes in the estimated trend.

The digital divide: Trends in global mobile and broadband Internet access from 2000–2010

Science.gov (United States)

Ronquillo, Charlene; Currie, Leanne

2012-01-01

The digital divide is described as the gap between those who do and do not have access to digital information and communications technologies (ICT). ICTs are viewed as an indicator of infrastructure and potential for development, and are a growing platform for health information and services delivery. This study compares the penetration of mobile and broadband Internet technologies by global region from 2000 to 2010. Results illustrate the rapid growth of mobile cellular telephone subscriptions in all global regions with trends suggesting a continued increase. Little to modest gains were made in fixed broadband Internet subscriptions globally. There is a growing popularity of mobile subscriptions with use of data communications, exceeding the numbers of fixed Internet subscriptions. This comparison reveals current strengths that can be built on and highlights the importance of awareness of global trends and using such knowledge to inform design and delivery of ICT-based health services. PMID:24199118

Dancing with Global Trends: Higher Education Policy and University Governance in Hong Kong, 1997-2012

Science.gov (United States)

Lo, William Yat Wai; Tang, Hei-Hang Hayes

2017-01-01

This article examines the significance of global trends in higher education (HE) development in Hong Kong between 1997 and 2012. Two trends, massification and internationalisation, are considered key driving forces that shaped Hong Kong's HE policy during the period. The former refers to government measures to widen participation in HE. The latter…

Depiction of global trends in publications on mobile health

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shahla Foozonkhah

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Background: Variety of mobile health initiatives in different levels have been undertaken across many countries. Trends of these initiatives can be reflected in the research published in m-health domain. Aim: This paper aims to depict global trends in the published works on m-health topic. Materials and Methods: The Web of Science database was used to identify all relevant published papers on mobile health domain worldwide. The search was conducted on documents published from January 1898 to December 2014. The criteria for searching were set to be “mHealth” or “Mobile health” or “m health” or “m_health” or “m-health” in topics. Results: Findings revealed an increasing trend of citations and publications on m-health research since 2012. English was the first most predominant language of the publication. The US had the highest number of publication with 649 papers; however, the Netherlands ranked first after considering publication number in terms of countries population. “Studies in Health Technology and Informatics” was the source title with highest number of publications on mobile health topics. Conclusion: Trend of research observed in this study indicates the continuing growth is happening in mobile health domain. This may imply that the new model of health-care delivery is emerging. Further research is needed to specify directions of mobile health research. It is necessary to identify and prioritize the research gaps in this domain.

Regional acidification trends in Florida shellfish estuaries: A 20+ year look at pH, oxygen, temperature, and salinity

Science.gov (United States)

Robbins, Lisa L.; Lisle, John T.

2018-01-01

Increasing global CO2 and local land use changes coupled with increased nutrient pollution are threatening estuaries worldwide. Local changes of estuarine chemistry have been documented, but regional associations and trends comparing multiple estuaries latitudinally have not been evaluated. Rapid climate change has impacted the annual and decadal chemical trends in estuaries, with local ecosystem processes enhancing or mitigating the responses. Here, we compare pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and salinity data from 10 Florida shellfish estuaries and hundreds of shellfish bed stations. Over 80,000 measurements, spanning from 1980 to 2008, taken on Atlantic Ocean and West Florida coast showed significant regional trends of consistent pH decreases in 8 out of the 10 estuaries, with an average rate of decrease on the Gulf of Mexico side estuaries of Florida of 7.3 × 10−4 pH units year−1, and average decrease on the Atlantic Coast estuaries of 5.0 × 10−4 pH units year−1. The rates are approximately 2–3.4 times slower than observed in pH decreases associated with ocean acidification in the Atlantic and Pacific. Other significant trends observed include decreasing dissolved oxygen in 9 out of the 10 estuaries, increasing salinity in 6 out of the 10, and temperature increases in 3 out of the 10 estuaries. The data provide a synoptic regional view of Florida estuary trends which reflect the complexity of changing climate and coastal ocean acidification superimposed on local conditions. These data provide context for understanding, and interpreting the past and predicting future of regional water quality health of shellfish and other organisms of commercial and ecological significance along Florida’s coasts.

Regional acidification trends in Florida shellfish estuaries: A 20+ year look at pH, oxygen, temperature and salinity

Science.gov (United States)

Robbins, Lisa L.; Lisle, John T.

2018-01-01

Increasing global CO2 and local land use changes coupled with increased nutrient pollution are threatening estuaries worldwide. Local changes of estuarine chemistry have been documented, but regional associations and trends comparing multiple estuaries latitudinally have not been evaluated. Rapid climate change has impacted the annual and decadal chemical trends in estuaries, with local ecosystem processes enhancing or mitigating the responses. Here, we compare pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and salinity data from 10 Florida shellfish estuaries and hundreds of shellfish bed stations. Over 80,000 measurements, spanning from 1980 to 2008, taken on Atlantic Ocean and West Florida coast showed significant regional trends of consistent pH decreases in 8 out of the 10 estuaries, with an average rate of decrease on the Gulf of Mexico side estuaries of Florida of 7.3 × 10−4 pH units year−1, and average decrease on the Atlantic Coast estuaries of 5.0 × 10−4 pH units year−1. The rates are approximately 2–3.4 times slower than observed in pH decreases associated with ocean acidification in the Atlantic and Pacific. Other significant trends observed include decreasing dissolved oxygen in 9 out of the 10 estuaries, increasing salinity in 6 out of the 10, and temperature increases in 3 out of the 10 estuaries. The data provide a synoptic regional view of Florida estuary trends which reflect the complexity of changing climate and coastal ocean acidification superimposed on local conditions. These data provide context for understanding, and interpreting the past and predicting future of regional water quality health of shellfish and other organisms of commercial and ecological significance along Florida’s coasts.

Isolating the Roles of Different Forcing Agents in Global Stratospheric Temperature Changes Using Model Integrations with Incrementally Added Single Forcings

Science.gov (United States)

Aquila, V.; Swartz, W. H.; Waugh, D. W.; Colarco, P. R.; Pawson, S.; Polvani, L. M.; Stolarski, R. S.

2016-01-01

Satellite instruments show a cooling of global stratospheric temperatures over the whole data record (1979-2014). This cooling is not linear and includes two descending steps in the early 1980s and mid-1990s. The 1979-1995 period is characterized by increasing concentrations of ozone depleting substances (ODS) and by the two major volcanic eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Mount Pinatubo (1991). The 1995-present period is characterized by decreasing ODS concentrations and by the absence of major volcanic eruptions. Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations increase over the whole time period. In order to isolate the roles of different forcing agents in the global stratospheric temperature changes, we performed a set of AMIP-style simulations using the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model (GEOSCCM). We find that in our model simulations the cooling of the stratosphere from 1979 to present is mostly driven by changes in GHG concentrations in the middle and upper stratosphere and by GHG and ODS changes in the lower stratosphere. While the cooling trend caused by increasing GHGs is roughly constant over the satellite era, changing ODS concentrations cause a significant stratospheric cooling only up to the mid-1990s, when they start to decrease because of the implementation of the Montreal Protocol. Sporadic volcanic events and the solar cycle have a distinct signature in the time series of stratospheric temperature anomalies but do not play a statistically significant role in the long-term trends from 1979 to 2014. Several factors combine to produce the step-like behavior in the stratospheric temperatures: in the lower stratosphere, the flattening starting in the mid-1990s is due to the decrease in ozone-depleting substances; Mount Pinatubo and the solar cycle cause the abrupt steps through the aerosol-associated warming and the volcanically induced ozone depletion. In the middle and upper stratosphere, changes in solar irradiance are largely

Global rainbow refractometry for droplet temperature measurement

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pascal Lemaitre; Emmanuel Porcheron; Amandine Nuboer; Philippe Brun; Pierre Cornet; Jeanne Malet; Jacques Vendel; Laurent Bouilloux [Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire DSU/SERAC, BP 68, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex (France); Gerard Grehan [UMR 6614 CORIA, Laboratoire d' Electromagnetisme et Systemes Particulaires Site Universitaire du Madrillet, Avenue de l' universite BP 12, 76 801 Saint Etienne du Rouvray Cedex, (France)

2005-07-01

Full text of publication follows: In order to establish an accurate database to characterize the heat and mass transfers between a spray and the atmosphere with thermal-hydraulic conditions representative of a hypothetical nuclear reactor accident in the containment enclosure of a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (IRSN) has developed the TOSQAN experimental facility. This experiment is highly instrumented with non-intrusive diagnostics allowing to measure droplet size and velocity and gas concentrations [1]. The aim of this work is to present the Global Rainbow Thermometry (GRT), which is an advanced non-intrusive optical diagnostic, developed to measure the mean temperature of a set of falling droplets, in a measurement volume of 1 cm{sup 3}. The final paper will be divided in three parts. In the first one, we will explain the principle of the rainbow formation and how droplet temperature can be deduced from the rainbow analysis [2]. This part will be illustrated with the theoretical background on the rainbow and numerical simulations of the global rainbow. The second part will be devoted to present the global rainbow experimental set-up we have developed on optical table, its experimental qualification and finally its implementation on the TOSQAN facility [3]. Finally, we will present the temperature measurements achieved in TOSQAN for thermal-hydraulic conditions representative of a hypothetical nuclear reactor accident. These measurements are useful to characterize the heat and mass transfers between the spraying droplets and the air-steam mixture composing the atmosphere. This analysis will be exposed in a two companion papers. References: [1] E. Porcheron, P. Brun, P. Cornet, J. Malet, J. Vendel. Optical diagnostics applied for single and multi-phase flow characterization in the TOSQAN facility dedicated for thermal hydraulic containment studies. NURETH-10 Seoul, Korea, October 5-9, 2003. [2] P

Global rainbow refractometry for droplet temperature measurement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pascal Lemaitre; Emmanuel Porcheron; Amandine Nuboer; Philippe Brun; Pierre Cornet; Jeanne Malet; Jacques Vendel; Laurent Bouilloux; Gerard Grehan

2005-01-01

Full text of publication follows: In order to establish an accurate database to characterize the heat and mass transfers between a spray and the atmosphere with thermal-hydraulic conditions representative of a hypothetical nuclear reactor accident in the containment enclosure of a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (IRSN) has developed the TOSQAN experimental facility. This experiment is highly instrumented with non-intrusive diagnostics allowing to measure droplet size and velocity and gas concentrations [1]. The aim of this work is to present the Global Rainbow Thermometry (GRT), which is an advanced non-intrusive optical diagnostic, developed to measure the mean temperature of a set of falling droplets, in a measurement volume of 1 cm 3 . The final paper will be divided in three parts. In the first one, we will explain the principle of the rainbow formation and how droplet temperature can be deduced from the rainbow analysis [2]. This part will be illustrated with the theoretical background on the rainbow and numerical simulations of the global rainbow. The second part will be devoted to present the global rainbow experimental set-up we have developed on optical table, its experimental qualification and finally its implementation on the TOSQAN facility [3]. Finally, we will present the temperature measurements achieved in TOSQAN for thermal-hydraulic conditions representative of a hypothetical nuclear reactor accident. These measurements are useful to characterize the heat and mass transfers between the spraying droplets and the air-steam mixture composing the atmosphere. This analysis will be exposed in a two companion papers. References: [1] E. Porcheron, P. Brun, P. Cornet, J. Malet, J. Vendel. Optical diagnostics applied for single and multi-phase flow characterization in the TOSQAN facility dedicated for thermal hydraulic containment studies. NURETH-10 Seoul, Korea, October 5-9, 2003. [2] P

A two-dimensional model study of past trends in global ozone

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wuebbles, D.J.; Kinnison, D.E.

1988-08-01

Emissions and atmospheric concentrations of several trace gases important to atmospheric chemistry are known to have increased substantially over recent decades. Solar flux variations and the atmospheric nuclear test series are also likely to have affected stratospheric ozone. In this study, the LLNL two-dimensional chemical-radiative-transport model of the troposphere and stratosphere has been applied to an analysis of the effects that these natural and anthropogenic influences may have had on global ozone concentrations over the last three decades. In general, model determined species distributions and the derived ozone trends agree well with published analyses of land-based and satellite-based observations. Also, the total ozone and ozone distribution trends derived from CFC and other trace gas effects have a different response with latitude than the derived trends from solar flux variations, thus providing a ''signature'' for anthropogenic effects on ozone. 24 refs., 5 figs

Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Bing; Asseng, Senthold; Müller, Christoph

2016-01-01

The potential impact of global temperature change on global crop yield has recently been assessed with different methods. Here we show that grid-based and point-based simulations and statistical regressions (from historic records), without deliberate adaptation or CO2 fertilization effects, produ......-method ensemble, it was possible to quantify ‘method uncertainty’ in addition to model uncertainty. This significantly improves confidence in estimates of climate impacts on global food security.......The potential impact of global temperature change on global crop yield has recently been assessed with different methods. Here we show that grid-based and point-based simulations and statistical regressions (from historic records), without deliberate adaptation or CO2 fertilization effects, produce...... similar estimates of temperature impact on wheat yields at global and national scales. With a 1 °C global temperature increase, global wheat yield is projected to decline between 4.1% and 6.4%. Projected relative temperature impacts from different methods were similar for major wheat-producing countries...

Trends and Variability of Global Fire Emissions Due To Historical Anthropogenic Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Daniel S.; Shevliakova, Elena; Malyshev, Sergey; Rabin, Sam

2018-01-01

Globally, fires are a major source of carbon from the terrestrial biosphere to the atmosphere, occurring on a seasonal cycle and with substantial interannual variability. To understand past trends and variability in sources and sinks of terrestrial carbon, we need quantitative estimates of global fire distributions. Here we introduce an updated version of the Fire Including Natural and Agricultural Lands model, version 2 (FINAL.2), modified to include multiday burning and enhanced fire spread rate in forest crowns. We demonstrate that the improved model reproduces the interannual variability and spatial distribution of fire emissions reported in present-day remotely sensed inventories. We use FINAL.2 to simulate historical (post-1700) fires and attribute past fire trends and variability to individual drivers: land use and land cover change, population growth, and lightning variability. Global fire emissions of carbon increase by about 10% between 1700 and 1900, reaching a maximum of 3.4 Pg C yr-1 in the 1910s, followed by a decrease to about 5% below year 1700 levels by 2010. The decrease in emissions from the 1910s to the present day is driven mainly by land use change, with a smaller contribution from increased fire suppression due to increased human population and is largest in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Interannual variability of global fire emissions is similar in the present day as in the early historical period, but present-day wildfires would be more variable in the absence of land use change.

Spatial and Temporal Variability and Trends in 2001-2016 Global Fire Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Earl, Nick; Simmonds, Ian

2018-03-01

Fire regimes across the globe have great spatial and temporal variability, and these are influence by many factors including anthropogenic management, climate, and vegetation types. Here we utilize the satellite-based "active fire" product, from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors, to statistically analyze variability and trends in fire activity from the global to regional scales. We split up the regions by economic development, region/geographical land use, clusters of fire-abundant areas, or by religious/cultural influence. Weekly cycle tests are conducted to highlight and quantify part of the anthropogenic influence on fire regime across the world. We find that there is a strong statistically significant decline in 2001-2016 active fires globally linked to an increase in net primary productivity observed in northern Africa, along with global agricultural expansion and intensification, which generally reduces fire activity. There are high levels of variability, however. The large-scale regions exhibit either little change or decreasing in fire activity except for strong increasing trends in India and China, where rapid population increase is occurring, leading to agricultural intensification and increased crop residue burning. Variability in Canada has been linked to a warming global climate leading to a longer growing season and higher fuel loads. Areas with a strong weekly cycle give a good indication of where fire management is being applied most extensively, for example, the United States, where few areas retain a natural fire regime.

Time series modelling of global mean temperature for managerial decision-making.

Science.gov (United States)

Romilly, Peter

2005-07-01

Climate change has important implications for business and economic activity. Effective management of climate change impacts will depend on the availability of accurate and cost-effective forecasts. This paper uses univariate time series techniques to model the properties of a global mean temperature dataset in order to develop a parsimonious forecasting model for managerial decision-making over the short-term horizon. Although the model is estimated on global temperature data, the methodology could also be applied to temperature data at more localised levels. The statistical techniques include seasonal and non-seasonal unit root testing with and without structural breaks, as well as ARIMA and GARCH modelling. A forecasting evaluation shows that the chosen model performs well against rival models. The estimation results confirm the findings of a number of previous studies, namely that global mean temperatures increased significantly throughout the 20th century. The use of GARCH modelling also shows the presence of volatility clustering in the temperature data, and a positive association between volatility and global mean temperature.

Multilingual trends in a globalized world prospects and challenges

CERN Document Server

Singh, Navin Kumar

2013-01-01

This book presents evolving language education trends by drawing examples and case studies from around the world. Over the past few decades, significant economic and political changes have taken place around the world which have had a significant impact on language teaching and learning practices across the globe. With globalization, the focus of language education has shifted from monolingualism towards bilingualism and multilingualism, in that multilingual practices have become the norm rather than the exception in most parts of the world. This book brings together some of latest controversi

The Effects of Chinese Dietary Trends on Global and Local Land Use

Science.gov (United States)

Anthony, J.

2015-12-01

Global land scarcity is a major concern, which, due to climate change, lifestyle changes, and population growth, will only continue to worsen. It is a major driver of global environmental degradation, famine, and sociopolitical conflicts. With some 33% of the world's dwindling supply of arable land dedicated to grossly inefficient animal husbandry or animal feed production, it is easy to see that dietary consumption patterns play an important role. Although population growth in East Asia has stagnated, changing dietary trends mean that China is now the world's largest consumers of meat, consuming 25% of global meat production, despite having less than half of the American per capita equivalent. This paper assesses changing dietary consumption patterns of Taiwan, whose current per capita meat consumption surpasses all other East Asian countries, over the past 30 years and considers the relationship this has had on overall land consumption. We then consider dietary trends of Mainland China, which shares a common cultural heritage and whose current Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is similar to Taiwanese PPP levels in 1985. Finally we retrospectively project three alternative Taiwanese consumption patterns over the past 30 years, consider the effect of each scenario on per capita land consumption, and finally consider these results in terms of culturally analogues Mainland China.

Trends in Mean Annual Minimum and Maximum Near Surface Temperature in Nairobi City, Kenya

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George Lukoye Makokha

2010-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the long-term urban modification of mean annual conditions of near surface temperature in Nairobi City. Data from four weather stations situated in Nairobi were collected from the Kenya Meteorological Department for the period from 1966 to 1999 inclusive. The data included mean annual maximum and minimum temperatures, and was first subjected to homogeneity test before analysis. Both linear regression and Mann-Kendall rank test were used to discern the mean annual trends. Results show that the change of temperature over the thirty-four years study period is higher for minimum temperature than maximum temperature. The warming trends began earlier and are more significant at the urban stations than is the case at the sub-urban stations, an indication of the spread of urbanisation from the built-up Central Business District (CBD to the suburbs. The established significant warming trends in minimum temperature, which are likely to reach higher proportions in future, pose serious challenges on climate and urban planning of the city. In particular the effect of increased minimum temperature on human physiological comfort, building and urban design, wind circulation and air pollution needs to be incorporated in future urban planning programmes of the city.

Spatial and Temporal Inter-Relationship between Anomalies and Trends of Temperature, Moisture, Cloud Cover and OLR as Observed by AIRS/AMSU on Aqua

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Susskind, Joel; Molnar, Gyula

2009-01-01

AIRS/AMSU is the advanced IR/MW atmospheric sounding system launched on EOS Aqua in May 2002. Products derived from AIRS/AMSU by the AIRS Science Team include surface skin temperature and atmospheric temperature profiled; atmospheric humidity profiles, fractional cloud clover and cloud top pressure, and OLR. Products covering the period September 2002 through the present have been derived from AIRS/AMSU using the AIRS Science Team Version 5 retrieval algorithm. In this paper, we will show results covering the time period September 2006 - November 2008. This time period is marked by a substantial warming trend of Northern Hemisphere Extra-tropical land surface skin temperatures, as well as pronounced El Nino - La Nina episodes. These both influence the spatial and temporal anomaly patterns of atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, as well as of cloud cover and Clear Sky and All Sky OLR. The relationships between temporal and spatial anomalies of these parameters over this time period, as determined from AIRS/AMSU observations, will be shown with particular emphasis on which contribute significantly to OLR anomalies in each of the tropics and extra-tropics. Results will also be shown to evaluate the anomalies and trends of temperature profiles and OLR as determined from analysis of AIRS/AMSU data. Global and regional trends during the 6 1/3 year time period are not necessarily indicative of what has happened in the past, or what may happen in the future. Nevertheless, the inter-relationships of spatial and temporal anomalies of atmospheric geophysical parameters with those of surface skin temperature are indicative of climate processes, and can be used to test the performance of climate models when driven by changes in surface temperatures.

Long-term temperature trends and variability on Spitsbergen: the extended Svalbard Airport temperature series, 1898–2012

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Øyvind Nordli

2014-01-01

Full Text Available One of the few long instrumental records available for the Arctic is the Svalbard Airport composite series that hitherto began in 1911, with observations made on Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard Archipelago. This record has now been extended to 1898 with the inclusion of observations made by hunting and scientific expeditions. Temperature has been observed almost continuously in Svalbard since 1898, although at different sites. It has therefore been possible to create one composite series for Svalbard Airport covering the period 1898–2012, and this valuable new record is presented here. The series reveals large temperature variability on Spitsbergen, with the early 20th century warming as one striking feature: an abrupt change from the cold 1910s to the local maxima of the 1930s and 1950s. With the inclusion of the new data it is possible to show that the 1910s were colder than the years at the start of the series. From the 1960s, temperatures have increased, so the present temperature level is significantly higher than at any earlier period in the instrumental history. For the entire period, and for all seasons, there are positive, statistically significant trends. Regarding the annual mean, the total trend is 2.6°C/century, whereas the largest trend is in spring, at 3.9°C/century. In Europe, it is the Svalbard Archipelago that has experienced the greatest temperature increase during the latest three decades. The composite series may be downloaded from the home page of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and should be used with reference to the present article.

A diagnostic study of temperature controls on global terrestrial carbon exchange

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vukicevic, Tomislava; Schimel, David

2001-01-01

The observed interannual variability of atmospheric CO 2 reflects short-term variability in sources and sinks of CO 2 . Analyses using 13 C and O 2 suggest that much of the observed interannual variability is due to changes in terrestrial CO 2 exchange. First principles, empirical correlations and process models suggest a link between climate variation and net ecosystem exchange, but the scaling of ecological process studies to the globe is notoriously difficult. We sought to identify a component of global CO 2 exchange that varied coherently with land temperature anomalies using an inverse modeling approach. We developed a family of simplified spatially aggregated ecosystem models (designated K-model versions) consisting of five compartments: atmospheric CO 2 , live vegetation, litter, and two soil pools that differ in turnover times. The pools represent cumulative differences from mean storage due to temperature variability and can thus have positive or negative values. Uptake and respiration of CO 2 are assumed to be linearly dependent on temperature. One model version includes a simple representation of the nitrogen cycle in which changes in the litter and soil carbon pools result in stoichiometric release of plant-available nitrogen, the other omits the nitrogen feedback. The model parameters were estimated by inversion of the model against global temperature and CO 2 anomaly data using the variational method. We found that the temperature sensitivity of carbon uptake (NPP) was less than that of respiration in all model versions. Analyses of model and data also showed that temperature anomalies trigger ecosystem changes on multiple, lagged time-scales. Other recent studies have suggested a more active land biosphere at Northern latitudes in response to warming and longer growing seasons. Our results indicate that warming should increase NPP, consistent with this theory, but that respiration should increase more than NPP, leading to decreased or negative NEP. A

Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Pakistan: National Trends and Global Perspective

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Hafeez Bhatti, Abu Bakar; Dar, Faisal Saud; Waheed, Anum; Shafique, Kashif; Sultan, Faisal; Shah, Najmul Hassan

2016-01-01

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ranks second amongst all causes of cancer deaths globally. It is on a rise in Pakistan and might represent the most common cancer in adult males. Pakistan contributes significantly to global burden of hepatitis C, which is a known risk factor for HCC, and has one of the highest prevalence rates (>3%) in the world. In the absence of a national cancer registry and screening programs, prevalence of hepatitis and HCC only represents estimates of the real magnitude of this problem. In this review, we present various aspects of HCC in Pakistan, comparing and contrasting it with the global trends in cancer care. There is a general lack of awareness regarding risk factors of HCC in Pakistani population and prevalence of hepatitis C has increased. In addition, less common risk factors are also on a rise. Majority of patients present with advanced HCC and are not eligible for definitive treatment. We have attempted to highlight issues that have a significant bearing on HCC outcome in Pakistan. A set of strategies have been put forth that can potentially help reduce incidence and improve HCC outcome on national level. PMID:26955390

Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Pakistan: National Trends and Global Perspective

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Abu Bakar Hafeez Bhatti

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC ranks second amongst all causes of cancer deaths globally. It is on a rise in Pakistan and might represent the most common cancer in adult males. Pakistan contributes significantly to global burden of hepatitis C, which is a known risk factor for HCC, and has one of the highest prevalence rates (>3% in the world. In the absence of a national cancer registry and screening programs, prevalence of hepatitis and HCC only represents estimates of the real magnitude of this problem. In this review, we present various aspects of HCC in Pakistan, comparing and contrasting it with the global trends in cancer care. There is a general lack of awareness regarding risk factors of HCC in Pakistani population and prevalence of hepatitis C has increased. In addition, less common risk factors are also on a rise. Majority of patients present with advanced HCC and are not eligible for definitive treatment. We have attempted to highlight issues that have a significant bearing on HCC outcome in Pakistan. A set of strategies have been put forth that can potentially help reduce incidence and improve HCC outcome on national level.

Microwave sounding units and global warming

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Gary, Bruce L.; Keihm, Stephen J.

1991-01-01

A recent work of Spencer and Christy (1990) on precise monitoring of global temperature trends from satellites is critically examined. It is tentatively concluded in the present comment that remote sensing using satellite microwave radiometers can in fact provide a means for the monitoring of troposphere-averaged air temperature. However, for this to be successful more than one decade of data will be required to overcome the apparent inherent variability of global average air temperature. It is argued that the data set reported by Spencer and Christy should be subjected to careful review before it is interpreted as evidence of the presence or absence of global warming. In a reply, Christy provides specific responses to the commenters' objections.

Scientometric trends and knowledge maps of global health systems research.

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Yao, Qiang; Chen, Kai; Yao, Lan; Lyu, Peng-hui; Yang, Tian-an; Luo, Fei; Chen, Shan-quan; He, Lu-yang; Liu, Zhi-yong

2014-06-05

In the last few decades, health systems research (HSR) has garnered much attention with a rapid increase in the related literature. This study aims to review and evaluate the global progress in HSR and assess the current quantitative trends. Based on data from the Web of Science database, scientometric methods and knowledge visualization techniques were applied to evaluate global scientific production and develop trends of HSR from 1900 to 2012. HSR has increased rapidly over the past 20 years. Currently, there are 28,787 research articles published in 3,674 journals that are listed in 140 Web of Science subject categories. The research in this field has mainly focused on public, environmental and occupational health (6,178, 21.46%), health care sciences and services (5,840, 20.29%), and general and internal medicine (3,783, 13.14%). The top 10 journals had published 2,969 (10.31%) articles and received 5,229 local citations and 40,271 global citations. The top 20 authors together contributed 628 papers, which accounted for a 2.18% share in the cumulative worldwide publications. The most productive author was McKee, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, with 48 articles. In addition, USA and American institutions ranked the first in health system research productivity, with high citation times, followed by the UK and Canada. HSR is an interdisciplinary area. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries showed they are the leading nations in HSR. Meanwhile, American and Canadian institutions and the World Health Organization play a dominant role in the production, collaboration, and citation of high quality articles. Moreover, health policy and analysis research, health systems and sub-systems research, healthcare and services research, health, epidemiology and economics of communicable and non-communicable diseases, primary care research, health economics and health costs, and pharmacy of hospital have been identified as the

Possible impact of global warming on the evolution of hemagglutinins from influenza a viruses.

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Yan, Shaomin; Wu, Guang

2011-02-01

To determine if global warming has an impact on the evolution of hemagglutinins from influenza A viruses, because both global warming and influenza pandemics/epidemics threaten the world. 4 706 hemagglutinins from influenza A viruses sampled from 1956 to 2009 were converted to a time-series to show their evolutionary process and compared with the global, northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere temperatures, to determine if their trends run in similar or opposite directions. Point-to-point comparisons between temperature and quantified hemagglutinins were performed for all species and for the major prevailing species. The comparisons show that the trends for both hemagglutinin evolution and temperature change run in a similar direction. Global warming has a consistent and progressive impact on the hemagglutinin evolution of influenza A viruses.

Temperature and Precipitation trends in Kashmir valley, North Western Himalayas

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Shafiq, Mifta Ul; Rasool, Rehana; Ahmed, Pervez; Dimri, A. P.

2018-01-01

Climate change has emerged as an important issue ever to confront mankind. This concern emerges from the fact that our day-to-day activities are leading to impacts on the Earth's atmosphere that has the potential to significantly alter the planet's shield and radiation balance. Developing countries particularly whose income is particularly derived from agricultural activities are at the forefront of bearing repercussions due to changing climate. The present study is an effort to analyze the changing trends of precipitation and temperature variables in Kashmir valley along different elevation zones in the north western part of India. As the Kashmir valley has a rich repository of glaciers with its annual share of precipitation, slight change in the temperature and precipitation regime has far reaching environmental and economic consequences. The results from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) data of the period 1980-2014 reveals that the annual mean temperature of Kashmir valley has increased significantly. Accelerated warming has been observed during 1980-2014, with intense warming in the recent years (2001-2014). During the period 1980-2014, steeper increase, in annual mean maximum temperature than annual mean minimum temperature, has been observed. In addition, mean maximum temperature in plain regions has shown higher rate of increase when compared with mountainous areas. In case of mean minimum temperature, mountainous regions have shown higher rate of increase. Analysis of precipitation data for the same period shows a decreasing trend with mountainous regions having the highest rate of decrease which can be quite hazardous for the fragile mountain environment of the Kashmir valley housing a large number of glaciers.

Application of wavelet analysis in determining the periodicity of global warming

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Feng, Xiao

2018-04-01

In the last two decades of the last century, the global average temperature has risen by 0.48 ° C over 100 years ago. Since then, global warming has become a hot topic. Global warming will have complex and potential impacts on humans and the Earth. However, the negative impacts far outweigh the positive impacts. The most obvious external manifestation of global warming is temperature. Therefore, this study uses wavelet analysis study the characteristics of temperature time series, solve the periodicity of the sequence, find out the trend of temperature change and predict the extent of global warming in the future, so as to take the necessary precautionary measures.

The warming trend of ground surface temperature in the Choshui Alluvial Fan, western central Taiwan

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Chen, W.; Chang, M.; Chen, J.; Lu, W.; Huang, C. C.; Wang, Y.

2013-12-01

Heat storage in subsurface of the continents forms a fundamental component of the global energy budget and plays an important role in the climate system. Several researches revealed that subsurface temperatures were being increased to 1.8-2.8°C higher in mean ground surface temperature (GST) for some Asian cities where are experiencing a rapid growth of population. Taiwan is a subtropic-tropic island with densely populated in the coastal plains surrounding its mountains. We investigate the subsurface temperature distribution and the borehole temperature-depth profiles by using groundwater monitoring wells in years 2000 and 2010. Our data show that the western central Taiwan plain also has been experiencing a warming trend but with a higher temperatures approximately 3-4 °C of GST during the last 250 yrs. We suggest that the warming were mostly due to the land change to urbanization and agriculture. The current GSTs from our wells are approximately 25.51-26.79 °C which are higher than the current surface air temperature (SAT) of 23.65 °C. Data from Taiwan's weather stations also show 1-1.5 °C higher for the GST than the SAT at neighboring stations. The earth surface heat balance data indicate that GST higher than SAT is reasonable. More researches are needed to evaluate the interaction of GST and SAT, and how a warming GST's impact to the SAT and the climate system of the Earth.

An assessment of historical Antarctic precipitation and temperature trend using CMIP5 models and reanalysis datasets

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Tang, Malcolm S. Y.; Chenoli, Sheeba Nettukandy; Samah, Azizan Abu; Hai, Ooi See

2018-03-01

The study of Antarctic precipitation has attracted a lot of attention recently. The reliability of climate models in simulating Antarctic precipitation, however, is still debatable. This work assess the precipitation and surface air temperature (SAT) of Antarctica (90 oS to 60 oS) using 49 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts "Interim" reanalysis (ERA-Interim); the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR); the Japan Meteorological Agency 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55); and the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) datasets for 1979-2005 (27 years). For precipitation, the time series show that the MERRA and JRA-55 have significantly increased from 1979 to 2005, while the ERA-Int and CFSR have insignificant changes. The reanalyses also have low correlation with one another (generally less than +0.69). 37 CMIP5 models show increasing trend, 18 of which are significant. The resulting CMIP5 MMM also has a significant increasing trend of 0.29 ± 0.06 mm year-1. For SAT, the reanalyses show insignificant changes and have high correlation with one another, while the CMIP5 MMM shows a significant increasing trend. Nonetheless, the variability of precipitation and SAT of MMM could affect the significance of its trend. One of the many reasons for the large differences of precipitation is the CMIP5 models' resolution.

Global fertility and population trends.

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Bongaarts, John

2015-01-01

Over the past several decades, the world and most countries have undergone unprecedented demographic change. The most obvious example of this change is the rise in human numbers, and there are also important trends in fertility, family structure, mortality, migration, urbanization, and population aging. This paper summarizes past trends and projections in fertility and population. After reaching 2.5 billion in 1950, the world population grew rapidly to 7.2 billion in 2013 and the projections expect this total to be 10.9 billion by 2100. World regions differ widely in their demographic trends, with rapid population growth and high fertility continuing in the poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, while population decline, population aging, and very low fertility are now a key concern in many developed countries. These trends have important implications for human welfare and are of interest to policy makers. The conclusion comments briefly on policy options to address these adverse trends. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Long-term trends in stratospheric ozone, temperature, and water vapor over the Indian region

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S. T. Akhil Raj

2018-01-01

Full Text Available We have investigated the long-term trends in and variabilities of stratospheric ozone, water vapor and temperature over the Indian monsoon region using the long-term data constructed from multi-satellite (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS MLS and HALOE, 1993–2005, Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS, 2004–2015, Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER, 2002–2015 on board TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics observations covering the period 1993–2015. We have selected two locations, namely, Trivandrum (8.4° N, 76.9° E and New Delhi (28° N, 77° E, covering northern and southern parts of the Indian region. We also used observations from another station, Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E, for comparison. A decreasing trend in ozone associated with NOx chemistry in the tropical middle stratosphere is found, and the trend turned to positive in the upper stratosphere. Temperature shows a cooling trend in the stratosphere, with a maximum around 37 km over Trivandrum (−1.71 ± 0.49 K decade−1 and New Delhi (−1.15 ± 0.55 K decade−1. The observed cooling trend in the stratosphere over Trivandrum and New Delhi is consistent with Gadanki lidar observations during 1998–2011. The water vapor shows a decreasing trend in the lower stratosphere and an increasing trend in the middle and upper stratosphere. A good correlation between N2O and O3 is found in the middle stratosphere (∼ 10 hPa and poor correlation in the lower stratosphere. There is not much regional difference in the water vapor and temperature trends. However, upper stratospheric ozone trends over Trivandrum and New Delhi are different. The trend analysis carried out by varying the initial year has shown significant changes in the estimated trend.

Evaluation of trends in high temperature extremes in north-western Europe in regional climate models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Min, E; Hazeleger, W; Van Oldenborgh, G J; Sterl, A

2013-01-01

Projections of future changes in weather extremes on the regional and local scale depend on a realistic representation of trends in extremes in regional climate models (RCMs). We have tested this assumption for moderate high temperature extremes (the annual maximum of the daily maximum 2 m temperature, T ann.max ). Linear trends in T ann.max from historical runs of 14 RCMs driven by atmospheric reanalysis data are compared with trends in gridded station data. The ensemble of RCMs significantly underestimates the observed trends over most of the north-western European land surface. Individual models do not fare much better, with even the best performing models underestimating observed trends over large areas. We argue that the inability of RCMs to reproduce observed trends is probably not due to errors in large-scale circulation. There is also no significant correlation between the RCM T ann.max trends and trends in radiation or Bowen ratio. We conclude that care should be taken when using RCM data for adaptation decisions. (letter)

MGIMO-University in “Go To Think Tanks” 2015 Ranking: Global Trends, Local Responses

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Maxim V. Kharkevich

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the latest issue of Go to think tank ranking and MGIMO position in it. It also considers global trends related to changes in the environment and forms of activities of research centers, identified by the ranking. In particular, it notes the changes in the system of financing think tanks from the few large grants for an extended period of time to a small but numerous grants for short periods for specific projects. It also notes the increasing state pressure on think tanks from around the world. In addition, it points to increased competition on the market of ideas and scientific expertise. Research centers have to adapt to these changes. In view of these trends the experience of one of the research centers of MGIMO, the Center for Military-Political Studies is considered. Innovation activities of the Centre on a whole corresponds to global trends. The center is seeking to diversify its sources of funding and enhances the focus of research topics - long-term forecasting of the international military and political relations.

Global trends and priorities for agriculture development in the beginning of the xxi century

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Pavel Vasil’evich Smekalov

2011-12-01

Full Text Available This paper pays attention to global issues related to the growth of population and food production: reduced growth rate of agricultural production, reduction of resource potential of agriculture and others. Critical factors and trends of structural changes in agriculture are identified. Results of comparative analysis of the development of farms in European countries and Russia are presented. Studies have shown that at the end of the last century there have been the following trends in the global agriculture: there has been a trend of farm consolidation in size, new controls and control of production are were introduced as well as more stringent quality standards of ecology were launched, which, in turn, require introduction of new technics and technologies; the processes of plants and animals development become more controllable and manageable. Conseptual foresights of pricing in the food market are given. Priority areas of agricultural policy aimed at creating conditions for sustainable rural development and accelerated growth in agricultural production by improving its competitiveness are identified

Regional amplification of projected changes in extreme temperatures strongly controlled by soil moisture-temperature feedbacks

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Vogel, M. M.; Orth, R.; Cheruy, F.; Hagemann, S.; Lorenz, R.; Hurk, B. J. J. M.; Seneviratne, S. I.

2017-02-01

Regional hot extremes are projected to increase more strongly than global mean temperature, with substantially larger changes than 2°C even if global warming is limited to this level. We investigate the role of soil moisture-temperature feedbacks for this response based on multimodel experiments for the 21st century with either interactive or fixed (late 20th century mean seasonal cycle) soil moisture. We analyze changes in the hottest days in each year in both sets of experiments, relate them to the global mean temperature increase, and investigate processes leading to these changes. We find that soil moisture-temperature feedbacks significantly contribute to the amplified warming of the hottest days compared to that of global mean temperature. This contribution reaches more than 70% in Central Europe and Central North America. Soil moisture trends are more important for this response than short-term soil moisture variability. These results are relevant for reducing uncertainties in regional temperature projections.

Comparison of global observations and trends of total precipitable water derived from microwave radiometers and COSMIC radio occultation from 2006 to 2013

Science.gov (United States)

Ho, Shu-Peng; Peng, Liang; Mears, Carl; Anthes, Richard A.

2018-01-01

We compare atmospheric total precipitable water (TPW) derived from the SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave Imager) and SSMIS (Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder) radiometers and WindSat to collocated TPW estimates derived from COSMIC (Constellation System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate) radio occultation (RO) under clear and cloudy conditions over the oceans from June 2006 to December 2013. Results show that the mean microwave (MW) radiometer - COSMIC TPW differences range from 0.06 to 0.18 mm for clear skies, from 0.79 to 0.96 mm for cloudy skies, from 0.46 to 0.49 mm for cloudy but non-precipitating conditions, and from 1.64 to 1.88 mm for precipitating conditions. Because RO measurements are not significantly affected by clouds and precipitation, the biases mainly result from MW retrieval uncertainties under cloudy and precipitating conditions. All COSMIC and MW radiometers detect a positive TPW trend over these 8 years. The trend using all COSMIC observations collocated with MW pixels for this data set is 1.79 mm decade-1, with a 95 % confidence interval of (0.96, 2.63), which is in close agreement with the trend estimated by the collocated MW observations (1.78 mm decade-1 with a 95 % confidence interval of 0.94, 2.62). The sample of MW and RO pairs used in this study is highly biased toward middle latitudes (40-60° N and 40-65° S), and thus these trends are not representative of global average trends. However, they are representative of the latitudes of extratropical storm tracks and the trend values are approximately 4 to 6 times the global average trends, which are approximately 0.3 mm decade-1. In addition, the close agreement of these two trends from independent observations, which represent an increase in TPW in our data set of about 6.9 %, are a strong indication of the positive water vapor-temperature feedback on a warming planet in regions where precipitation from extratropical storms is already large.

Evolution of Diurnal Asymmetry of Surface Temperature over Different Climatic Zones

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Rajendran, V.; C T, D.; Chakravorty, A.; AghaKouchak, A.

2016-12-01

The increase in drought, flood, diseases, crop failure etc. in the recent past has created an alarm amongst the researchers. One of the main reasons behind the intensification of these environmental hazards is the recent revelation of climate change, which is generally attributed to the human induced global warming, represented by an increase in global mean temperature. However, in order to formulate policies to mitigate and prevent the threats due to global warming, its key driving factors should be analysed at high spatial and temporal resolution. Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR) is one of the indicators of global warming. The study of the evolution of the DTR is crucial, since it affects agriculture, health, ecosystems, transport, etc. Recent studies reveal that diurnal asymmetry has decreased globally, whereas a few regional studies report a contradictory pattern and attributed them to localized feedback processes. However, an evident conclusion cannot be made using the linear trend approaches employed in the past studies and the evolution of diurnal asymmetry should be investigated using non-linear trend approach for better perception. Hence, the regional evolution of DTR trend has been analysed using the spatially-temporally Multidimensional Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (MEEMD) method over India and observed a positive trend in over-all mean of DTR, while its rate of increase has declined in the recent decades. Further, the grids showing negative trend in DTR is observed in arid deserts and warm-temperate grasslands and positive trend over the west coast and sub-tropical forest in the North-East. This transition predominantly began from the west coast and is stretched with an increase in magnitude. These changes are more pronounced during winter and post-monsoon seasons, especially in the arid desert and warm-temperate grasslands, where the rate of increase in minimum temperature is higher than that of the maximum temperature. These analyses suggest

Warming Trends and Bleaching Stress of the World’s Coral Reefs 1985–2012

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Heron, Scott F.; Maynard, Jeffrey A.; van Hooidonk, Ruben; Eakin, C. Mark

2016-01-01

Coral reefs across the world’s oceans are in the midst of the longest bleaching event on record (from 2014 to at least 2016). As many of the world’s reefs are remote, there is limited information on how past thermal conditions have influenced reef composition and current stress responses. Using satellite temperature data for 1985–2012, the analysis we present is the first to quantify, for global reef locations, spatial variations in warming trends, thermal stress events and temperature variability at reef-scale (~4 km). Among over 60,000 reef pixels globally, 97% show positive SST trends during the study period with 60% warming significantly. Annual trends exceeded summertime trends at most locations. This indicates that the period of summer-like temperatures has become longer through the record, with a corresponding shortening of the ‘winter’ reprieve from warm temperatures. The frequency of bleaching-level thermal stress increased three-fold between 1985–91 and 2006–12 – a trend climate model projections suggest will continue. The thermal history data products developed enable needed studies relating thermal history to bleaching resistance and community composition. Such analyses can help identify reefs more resilient to thermal stress. PMID:27922080

Can trade opportunities and returns be generated in a trend persistent series? Evidence from global indices

Science.gov (United States)

Mitra, S. K.; Bawa, Jaslene

2017-03-01

In this study, we explore the possibility of generating trade opportunities and returns when a financial stock index series is trend persistent. Through application of Hurst coefficient based on the modified range to standard deviation analysis (Weron, 2002) in a sample of 31 leading global indices during the period December 2000 to November 2015, we found periods of trend persistence. We developed and tested a set of trading strategies on these periods of trend persistent in the financial series and found that significant positive returns can be generated when a series displayed upward trend persistence.

 Project Management as a Global Trend for Organization Work

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kampf, Constance

in multination and global companies, understanding the power of visual rhetoric, genre and writing processes in the context of project management documentation can be an advantage for technical communicators.  In addition, project management tools and online documentation spaces are objects which cross...... Project Management as a Global Trend for Organization Work: Implications for Technical Communication Project Management tools and processes offer a visual approach to producing knowledge about a project in order to complete it.  As project management practices are used with increasing frequency......-cultural teams use to function.  This presentation will explore the potential of Project Management to be tightly integrated in Technical Communication curricula through a communications approach to project management.  Questions for discussion include: How tightly is project management integrated into different...

Diurnal temperature range trend over North Carolina and the associated mechanisms

Science.gov (United States)

Sayemuzzaman, Mohammad; Mekonnen, Ademe; Jha, Manoj K.

2015-06-01

This study seeks to investigate the variability and presence of trend in the diurnal surface air temperature range (DTR) over North Carolina (NC) for the period 1950-2009. The significance trend test and the magnitude of trends were determined using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test and the Theil-Sen approach, respectively. Statewide significant trends (p < 0.05) of decreasing DTR were found in all seasons and annually during the analysis period. Highest (lowest) temporal DTR trends of magnitude - 0.19 (- 0.031) °C/decade were found in summer (winter). Potential mechanisms for the presence/absence of trend in DTR have been highlighted. Historical data sets of the three main moisture components (precipitation, total cloud cover (TCC), and soil moisture) and the two major atmospheric circulation modes (North Atlantic Oscillation and Southern Oscillation) were used for correlation analysis. The DTRs were found to be negatively correlated with the precipitation, TCC and soil moisture across the state for all the seasons and annual basis. It appears that the moisture components related better to the DTR than to the atmospheric circulation modes.

Similar Estimates of Temperature Impacts on Global Wheat Yield by Three Independent Methods

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Bing; Asseng, Senthold; Muller, Christoph; Ewart, Frank; Elliott, Joshua; Lobell, David B.; Martre, Pierre; Ruane, Alex C.; Wallach, Daniel; Jones, James W.;

Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent methods

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Bing; Asseng, Senthold; Müller, Christoph; Ewert, Frank; Elliott, Joshua; Lobell, David B.; Martre, Pierre; Ruane, Alex C.; Wallach, Daniel; Jones, James W.; Rosenzweig, Cynthia; Aggarwal, Pramod K.; Alderman, Phillip D.; Anothai, Jakarat; Basso, Bruno; Biernath, Christian; Cammarano, Davide; Challinor, Andy; Deryng, Delphine; Sanctis, Giacomo De; Doltra, Jordi; Fereres, Elias; Folberth, Christian; Garcia-Vila, Margarita; Gayler, Sebastian; Hoogenboom, Gerrit; Hunt, Leslie A.; Izaurralde, Roberto C.; Jabloun, Mohamed; Jones, Curtis D.; Kersebaum, Kurt C.; Kimball, Bruce A.; Koehler, Ann-Kristin; Kumar, Soora Naresh; Nendel, Claas; O'Leary, Garry J.; Olesen, Jørgen E.; Ottman, Michael J.; Palosuo, Taru; Prasad, P. V. Vara; Priesack, Eckart; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Reynolds, Matthew; Rezaei, Ehsan E.; Rötter, Reimund P.; Schmid, Erwin; Semenov, Mikhail A.; Shcherbak, Iurii; Stehfest, Elke; Stöckle, Claudio O.; Stratonovitch, Pierre; Streck, Thilo; Supit, Iwan; Tao, Fulu; Thorburn, Peter; Waha, Katharina; Wall, Gerard W.; Wang, Enli; White, Jeffrey W.; Wolf, Joost; Zhao, Zhigan; Zhu, Yan

2016-12-01

The potential impact of global temperature change on global crop yield has recently been assessed with different methods. Here we show that grid-based and point-based simulations and statistical regressions (from historic records), without deliberate adaptation or CO2 fertilization effects, produce similar estimates of temperature impact on wheat yields at global and national scales. With a 1 °C global temperature increase, global wheat yield is projected to decline between 4.1% and 6.4%. Projected relative temperature impacts from different methods were similar for major wheat-producing countries China, India, USA and France, but less so for Russia. Point-based and grid-based simulations, and to some extent the statistical regressions, were consistent in projecting that warmer regions are likely to suffer more yield loss with increasing temperature than cooler regions. By forming a multi-method ensemble, it was possible to quantify `method uncertainty’ in addition to model uncertainty. This significantly improves confidence in estimates of climate impacts on global food security.

Non-uniform interhemispheric temperature trends over the past 550 years

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Duncan, Richard P. [Landcare Research, PO Box 40, Lincoln (New Zealand); Lincoln University, Bio-Protection Research Centre, PO Box 84, Lincoln (New Zealand); Fenwick, Pavla; Palmer, Jonathan G. [Gondwana Tree-ring Laboratory, PO Box 14, Canterbury (New Zealand); McGlone, Matt S. [Landcare Research, PO Box 40, Lincoln (New Zealand); Turney, Chris S.M. [University of Exeter, School of Geography, Exeter (United Kingdom)

2010-12-15

The warming trend over the last century in the northern hemisphere (NH) was interrupted by cooling from ad 1940 to 1975, a period during which the southern hemisphere experienced pronounced warming. The cause of these departures from steady warming at multidecadal timescales are unclear; the prevailing explanation is that they are driven by non-uniformity in external forcings but recent models suggest internal climate drivers may play a key role. Paleoclimate datasets can help provide a long-term perspective. Here we use tree-rings to reconstruct New Zealand mean annual temperature over the last 550 years and demonstrate that this has frequently cycled out-of-phase with NH mean annual temperature at a periodicity of around 30-60 years. Hence, observed multidecadal fluctuations around the recent warming trend have precedents in the past, strongly implicating natural climate variation as their cause. We consider the implications of these changes in understanding and modelling future climate change. (orig.)

Surface Temperature Data Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, James; Ruedy, Reto

2012-01-01

Small global mean temperature changes may have significant to disastrous consequences for the Earth's climate if they persist for an extended period. Obtaining global means from local weather reports is hampered by the uneven spatial distribution of the reliably reporting weather stations. Methods had to be developed that minimize as far as possible the impact of that situation. This software is a method of combining temperature data of individual stations to obtain a global mean trend, overcoming/estimating the uncertainty introduced by the spatial and temporal gaps in the available data. Useful estimates were obtained by the introduction of a special grid, subdividing the Earth's surface into 8,000 equal-area boxes, using the existing data to create virtual stations at the center of each of these boxes, and combining temperature anomalies (after assessing the radius of high correlation) rather than temperatures.

Spatially explicit trends in the global conservation status of vertebrates.

Science.gov (United States)

Rodrigues, Ana S L; Brooks, Thomas M; Butchart, Stuart H M; Chanson, Janice; Cox, Neil; Hoffmann, Michael; Stuart, Simon N

2014-01-01

The world's governments have committed to preventing the extinction of threatened species and improving their conservation status by 2020. However, biodiversity is not evenly distributed across space, and neither are the drivers of its decline, and so different regions face very different challenges. Here, we quantify the contribution of regions and countries towards recent global trends in vertebrate conservation status (as measured by the Red List Index), to guide action towards the 2020 target. We found that>50% of the global deterioration in the conservation status of birds, mammals and amphibians is concentrated in nations (e.g. Cook Islands, Fiji, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Tonga), have achieved net improvements. Per capita wealth does not explain these patterns, with two of the richest countries - United States and Australia - fairing conspicuously poorly. Different countries were affected by different combinations of threats. Reducing global rates of biodiversity loss will require investment in the regions and countries with the highest responsibility for the world's biodiversity, focusing on conserving those species and areas most in peril and on reducing the drivers with the highest impacts.

International nurse migrations: Global trends

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivković Marija

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents global trends of migration of nurses, as specific qualified personnel in high demand. In the last couple of decades, and especially in the last couple of years, many countries have faced the problem of insufficient healthcare workers, particularly nurses. Reasons for this occurrence might be found in the deficiencies of their education systems, as well as the population aging of northern and western countries. As a response to this deficiency, those countries have begun intensive recruitment of foreign qualified female healthcare workers, which has led to the point that nurse migration today presents a very intense, and by many accounts specific migration flow. Female migrating work force is often in pursuit of low-wage and lowqualified work. Nurse migration is actually an example of motion of qualified female migrants in pursuit for better employment opportunities. While such a way of filling up the vacant positions works for the “importing” countries as a temporary solution, departure of trained female personnel presents a significant loss for the originating countries. In this paper we pay special attention to the countries who are the main “importers”, but also to those who are “exporters” of nursing personnel, and to specific national strategies these countries have applied.

The Past and Future Trends of Heat Stress Based On Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Index in Outdoor Environment of Tehran City, Iran.

Science.gov (United States)

Habibi Mohraz, Majid; Ghahri, Asghar; Karimi, Mehrdad; Golbabaei, Farideh

2016-06-01

The workers who are working in the open and warm environments are at risk of health effects of climate and heat changes. It is expected that the risk is increase with global warming. This study aimed to investigate the changes of Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) index in the past and to predict their trend of future changes in Tehran, capital of Iran. The meteorological data recorded in Tehran, Iran during the statistical period between 1961 and 2009 were obtained from the Iran Meteorological Organization and based on them, WBGT index was calculated and processed using Man-Kendall correlation test. The results of Man-Kendall correlation test showed that the trend of changes of annual mean WBGT during the statistical period under study (1961-2009) has been significantly increasing. In addition, the result of proposed predictive model estimated that an increase of about 1.55 degree in WBGT index will be seen over 40 years from 2009 to 2050 in Tehran. Climate change in Tehran has had an effect on person's exposure to heat stresses consistent with global warming.

A global single-sensor analysis of 2002-2011 tropospheric nitrogen dioxide trends observed from space

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, P.; van der A, R. J.

2012-08-01

A global nine-year archive of monthly tropospheric NO2 data acquired by the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY (SCIAMACHY) instrument was analyzed with respect to trends between August 2002 and August 2011. In the past, similar studies relied on combining data from multiple sensors; however, the length of the SCIAMACHY data set now for the first time allows utilization of a consistent time series from just a single sensor for mapping NO2 trends at comparatively high horizontal resolution (0.25°). This study provides an updated analysis of global patterns in NO2 trends and finds that previously reported decreases in tropospheric NO2 over Europe and the United States as well as strong increases over China and several megacities in Asia have continued in recent years. Positive trends of up to 4.05 (±0.41) × 1015 molecules cm-2 yr-1 and up to 19.7 (±1.9) % yr-1 were found over China, with the regional mean trend being 7.3 (±3.1) % yr-1. The megacity with the most rapid relative increase was found to be Dhaka in Bangladesh. Subsequently focusing on Europe, the study further analyzes trends by country and finds significantly decreasing trends for seven countries ranging from -3.0 (±1.6) % yr-1 to -4.5 (±2.3) % yr-1. A comparison of the satellite data with station data indicates that the trends derived from both sources show substantial differences on the station scale, i.e., when comparing a station trend directly with the equivalent satellite-derived trend at the same location, but provide quite similar large-scale spatial patterns. Finally, the SCIAMACHY-derived NO2 trends are compared with equivalent trends in NO2concentration computed using the Co-operative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe (EMEP) model. The results show that the spatial patterns in trends computed from both data sources mostly agree in Central and Western Europe, whereas substantial differences

Global temperature definition affects achievement of long-term climate goals

Science.gov (United States)

Richardson, Mark; Cowtan, Kevin; Millar, Richard J.

2018-05-01

The Paris Agreement on climate change aims to limit ‘global average temperature’ rise to ‘well below 2 °C’ but reported temperature depends on choices about how to blend air and water temperature data, handle changes in sea ice and account for regions with missing data. Here we use CMIP5 climate model simulations to estimate how these choices affect reported warming and carbon budgets consistent with the Paris Agreement. By the 2090s, under a low-emissions scenario, modelled global near-surface air temperature rise is 15% higher (5%–95% range 6%–21%) than that estimated by an approach similar to the HadCRUT4 observational record. The difference reduces to 8% with global data coverage, or 4% with additional removal of a bias associated with changing sea-ice cover. Comparison of observational datasets with different data sources or infilling techniques supports our model results regarding incomplete coverage. From high-emission simulations, we find that a HadCRUT4 like definition means higher carbon budgets and later exceedance of temperature thresholds, relative to global near-surface air temperature. 2 °C warming is delayed by seven years on average, to 2048 (2035–2060), and CO2 emissions budget for a >50% chance of <2 °C warming increases by 67 GtC (246 GtCO2).

On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anders S. G. Andrae

2015-04-01

Full Text Available This work presents an estimation of the global electricity usage that can be ascribed to Communication Technology (CT between 2010 and 2030. The scope is three scenarios for use and production of consumer devices, communication networks and data centers. Three different scenarios, best, expected, and worst, are set up, which include annual numbers of sold devices, data traffic and electricity intensities/efficiencies. The most significant trend, regardless of scenario, is that the proportion of use-stage electricity by consumer devices will decrease and will be transferred to the networks and data centers. Still, it seems like wireless access networks will not be the main driver for electricity use. The analysis shows that for the worst-case scenario, CT could use as much as 51% of global electricity in 2030. This will happen if not enough improvement in electricity efficiency of wireless access networks and fixed access networks/data centers is possible. However, until 2030, globally-generated renewable electricity is likely to exceed the electricity demand of all networks and data centers. Nevertheless, the present investigation suggests, for the worst-case scenario, that CT electricity usage could contribute up to 23% of the globally released greenhouse gas emissions in 2030.

Maximum And Minimum Temperature Trends In Mexico For The Last 31 Years

Science.gov (United States)

Romero-Centeno, R.; Zavala-Hidalgo, J.; Allende Arandia, M. E.; Carrasco-Mijarez, N.; Calderon-Bustamante, O.

2013-05-01

Based on high-resolution (1') daily maps of the maximum and minimum temperatures in Mexico, an analysis of the last 31-year trends is performed. The maps were generated using all the available information from more than 5,000 stations of the Mexican Weather Service (Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, SMN) for the period 1979-2009, along with data from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR). The data processing procedure includes a quality control step, in order to eliminate erroneous daily data, and make use of a high-resolution digital elevation model (from GEBCO), the relationship between air temperature and elevation by means of the average environmental lapse rate, and interpolation algorithms (linear and inverse-distance weighting). Based on the monthly gridded maps for the mentioned period, the maximum and minimum temperature trends calculated by least-squares linear regression and their statistical significance are obtained and discussed.

Road structural elements temperature trends diagnostics using sensory system of own design

Science.gov (United States)

Dudak, Juraj; Gaspar, Gabriel; Sedivy, Stefan; Pepucha, Lubomir; Florkova, Zuzana

2017-09-01

A considerable funds is spent for the roads maintenance in large areas during the winter. The road maintenance is significantly affected by the temperature change of the road structure. In remote locations may occur a situation, when it is not clear whether the sanding is actually needed because the lack of information on road conditions. In these cases, the actual road conditions are investigated by a personal inspection or by sending out a gritting vehicle. Here, however, is a risk of unnecessary trip the sanding vehicle. This situation is economically and environmentally unfavorable. The proposed system solves the problem of measuring the temperature profile of the road and the utilization of the predictive model to determine the future development trend of temperature. The system was technically designed as a set of sensors to monitor environmental values such as the temperature of the road, ambient temperature, relative air humidity, solar radiation and atmospheric pressure at the measuring point. An important part of the proposal is prediction model which based on the inputs from sensors and historical measurements can, with some probability, predict temperature trends at the measuring point. The proposed system addresses the economic and environmental aspects of winter road maintenance.

Observed trends in climate over Southern Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Davis-Reddy, Claire L

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The body of work on historical climate trends has been steadily increasing during the last decade. Global mean annual temperatures have increased by 0.85°C since 1880 and are projected to increase by 0.3 to 2.5 °C by 2050, relative to the 1985...

Impact of Environmental Changes and Global Warming on Temperature in Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ishtiaq Hassan

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Environmental changes and global warming have direct impact on human life. Estimation of these changes in various parameters of hydrologic cycle is necessary for future planning and development of a country. In this paper the impact of environmental changes and global warming on temperatures of Pakistan has been studied. The temperature changes in Pakistan have been extracted from simulations made using EdGCM model developed at Columbia University. Simulation study to the end of 21st century is executed using the model for GHG (Greenhouse Gases scenario with doubled_CO2 and scenario of Modern_Predicted SST (Sea Surface Temperature. The model analysis has been carried out for seasonal and annual changes for an average of last 5 years period from 2096-2100. Maps are generated to depict global temperature variations. The study divides Pakistan into five (05 main areas for twenty six (26 stations. A part-plan of globe focusing Pakistan is generated showing the five divisions for twenty six (26 data stations of Pakistan. This part plan is made compatible with grid-box resolution of EdGCM. Eagle-Point Engineering software has been used to generate isohyets of interval (0.5oC for downscaling GCM (Global Climate Model grid data to data stations. The station values of different seasons and annual changes are then compared with the values of base period data to determine changes in temperature. It is observed that impact of global environmental changes on temperature are higher (i.e. there is an increase in annual temperature for double_CO2 experiment at places near the Arabian Sea than areas located away from this sea. It is also observed that the temperature increase will be more in winter than that in other seasons for Pakistan.

Recent trends in rainfall and temperature over North West India during 1871-2016

Science.gov (United States)

Saxena, Rani; Mathur, Prasoon

2018-03-01

Rainfall and temperature are the most important environmental factors influencing crop growth, development, and yield. The northwestern (NW) part of India is one of the main regions of food grain production of the country. It comprises of six meteorological subdivisions (Haryana, Punjab, West Rajasthan, East Rajasthan, Gujarat and Saurashtra, Kutch and Diu). In this study, attempts were made to study variability and trends in rainfall and temperature during 30-year climate normal periods (CN) and 10-year decadal excess or deficit rainfall frequency during the historical period from 1871 to 2016. The Mann-Kendall and Spearman's rank correlation (Spearman's rho) tests were used to determine significance of trends. Least square linear fitting method was adopted to find out the slopes of the trend lines. The long-term mean annual rainfall over North West India is 587.7 mm (standard deviation of 153.0 mm and coefficient of variation 26.0). There was increasing trend in minimum and maximum temperatures during post monsoon season in entire study period and current climate normal period (1991-2016) due to which the sowing of rabi season crops may be delayed and there may be germination problem too. There was a non-significant decreasing trend in rainfall during monsoon season and an increasing trend in rainfall during post monsoon over North West India during entire study period. During current CN5 (1991-2016), all the subdivision (except the Saurashtra region) showed a decreasing trend in rainfall during monsoon season which is a matter of concern for kharif crops and those rabi crops which are grown as rainfed on conserved soil moisture. The decadal annual and seasonal frequencies of excess and deficit years results revealed that the annual total deficit rainfall years (24) exceeded total excess rainfall years (22) in North West India during the entire study period. While during the current decadal period (2011 to 2016), single year was the excess year and 2 years were

Global epidemiological trends and variations in the burden of gallbladder cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Are, Chandrakanth; Ahmad, Humera; Ravipati, Advaitaa; Croo, Darren; Clarey, Dillon; Smith, Lynette; Price, Ray R; Butte, Jean M; Gupta, Sameer; Chaturvedi, Arun; Chowdhury, Sanjib

2017-04-01

The aim of this study is to describe the trends and variations in the global burden of gallbladder cancer (GBC) with an emphasis on geographic variations and female gender. Data (2012-2030) relating to GBC was extracted from GLOBOCAN 2012 database and analyzed. The results of our study document a rising global burden of GBC with geographic and gender variations. The highest burden was noted in the WPRO region (based on WHO regions), Asia (based on continents) and India, Chile, and China (based on countries). The less developed regions of the world account for the majority of the global burden of GBC. The geographic variations are also present within individual countries such as in India and Chile. Females are afflicted at a much higher rate with GBC and this predilection is exaggerated in countries with higher incidence such as India and Chile. In females, people of certain ethnic groups and lower socio-economic standing are at a higher risk. Our study demonstrates a rising global burden of GBC with some specific data on geographic and gender-based variations which can be used to develop strategies at the global as well as the high-risk individual country level. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

How consistent are global long-term satellite LAI products in terms of interannual variability and trend?

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, C.; Ryu, Y.; Fang, H.

2016-12-01

Proper usage of global satellite LAI products requires comprehensive evaluation. To address this issue, the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Land Product Validation (LPV) subgroup proposed a four-stage validation hierarchy. During the past decade, great efforts have been made following this validation framework, mainly focused on absolute magnitude, seasonal trajectory, and spatial pattern of those global satellite LAI products. However, interannual variability and trends of global satellite LAI products have been investigated marginally. Targeting on this gap, we made an intercomparison between seven global satellite LAI datasets, including four short-term ones: MODIS C5, MODIS C6, GEOV1, MERIS, and three long-term products ones: LAI3g, GLASS, and GLOBMAP. We calculated global annual LAI time series for each dataset, among which we found substantial differences. During the overlapped period (2003 - 2011), MODIS C5, GLASS and GLOBMAP have positive correlation (r > 0.6) between each other, while MODIS C6, GEOV1, MERIS, and LAI3g are highly consistent (r > 0.7) in interannual variations. However, the previous three datasets show negative trends, all of which use MODIS C5 reflectance data, whereas the latter four show positive trends, using MODIS C6, SPOT/VGT, ENVISAT/MERIS, and NOAA/AVHRR, respectively. During the pre-MODIS era (1982 - 1999), the three AVHRR-based datasets (LAI3g, GLASS and GLOBMAP) agree well (r > 0.7), yet all of them show oscillation related with NOAA platform changes. In addition, both GLASS and GLOBMAP show clear cut-points around 2000 when they move from AVHRR to MODIS. Such inconsistency is also visible for GEOV1, which uses SPOT-4 and SPOT-5 before and after 2002. We further investigate the map-to-map deviations among these products. This study highlights that continuous sensor calibration and cross calibration are essential to obtain reliable global LAI time series.

CO2 and solar radiation: cause of global warming?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bayona Gabriel; Garcia, Yuri C.; Sarmiento Heiner R

2010-01-01

A cause-effect relationship between global temperature as a climatic change indicator and some of the main forcing mechanisms (Atmospheric CO 2 concentration, solar radiation and volcanic activity) are analyzed in this paper through time series analysis for the 1610-1990 AD period comparing trends and variability for the frequency spectrums. Temperature seems to fit the CO 2 trend for the last century, but we found no cause-effect relationship for this interval. The frequency analysis shows a correlation between radiation and temperature for a period of 22 years. Volcanism presents an inverse relationship with temperature better seen at a decadal scale.

Global Changes of the Water Cycle Intensity

Science.gov (United States)

Bosilovich, Michael G.; Schubert, Siegfried D.; Walker, Gregory K.

2003-01-01

In this study, we evaluate numerical simulations of the twentieth century climate, focusing on the changes in the intensity of the global water cycle. A new diagnostic of atmospheric water vapor cycling rate is developed and employed, that relies on constituent tracers predicted at the model time step. This diagnostic is compared to a simplified traditional calculation of cycling rate, based on monthly averages of precipitation and total water content. The mean sensitivity of both diagnostics to variations in climate forcing is comparable. However, the new diagnostic produces systematically larger values and more variability than the traditional average approach. Climate simulations were performed using SSTs of the early (1902-1921) and late (1979- 1998) twentieth century along with the appropriate C02 forcing. In general, the increase of global precipitation with the increases in SST that occurred between the early and late twentieth century is small. However, an increase of atmospheric temperature leads to a systematic increase in total precipitable water. As a result, the residence time of water in the atmosphere increased, indicating a reduction of the global cycling rate. This result was explored further using a number of 50-year climate simulations from different models forced with observed SST. The anomalies and trends in the cycling rate and hydrologic variables of different GCMs are remarkably similar. The global annual anomalies of precipitation show a significant upward trend related to the upward trend of surface temperature, during the latter half of the twentieth century. While this implies an increase in the hydrologic cycle intensity, a concomitant increase of total precipitable water again leads to a decrease in the calculated global cycling rate. An analysis of the land/sea differences shows that the simulated precipitation over land has a decreasing trend while the oceanic precipitation has an upward trend consistent with previous studies and the

Trends in Global Gender Inequality

Science.gov (United States)

Dorius, Shawn F.; Firebaugh, Glenn

2010-01-01

This study investigates trends in gender inequality throughout the world. Using data encompassing a large majority of the world's population, we examine trends in recent decades for key indicators of gender inequality in education, mortality, political representation and economic activity. We find that gender inequality is declining in virtually…

Melting of major Glaciers in the western Himalayas: evidence of climatic changes from long term MSU derived tropospheric temperature trend (1979–2008

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A. K. Prasad

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Global warming or the increase of the surface and atmospheric temperatures of the Earth, is increasingly discernible in the polar, sub-polar and major land glacial areas. The Himalayan and Tibetan Plateau Glaciers, which are the largest glaciers outside of the Polar Regions, are showing a large-scale decrease of snow cover and an extensive glacial retreat. These glaciers such as Siachen and Gangotri are a major water resource for Asia as they feed major rivers such as the Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. Due to scarcity of ground measuring stations, the long-term observations of atmospheric temperatures acquired from the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU since 1979–2008 is highly useful. The lower and middle tropospheric temperature trend based on 30 years of MSU data shows warming of the Northern Hemisphere's mid-latitude regions. The mean month-to-month warming (up to 0.048±0.026°K/year or 1.44°K over 30 years of the mid troposphere (near surface over the high altitude Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau is prominent and statistically significant at a 95% confidence interval. Though the mean annual warming trend over the Himalayas (0.016±0.005°K/year, and Tibetan Plateau (0.008±0.006°K/year is positive, the month to month warming trend is higher (by 2–3 times, positive and significant only over a period of six months (December to May. The factors responsible for the reversal of this trend from June to November are discussed here. The inequality in the magnitude of the warming trends of the troposphere between the western and eastern Himalayas and the IG (Indo-Gangetic plains is attributed to the differences in increased aerosol loading (due to dust storms over these regions. The monthly mean lower-tropospheric MSU-derived temperature trend over the IG plains (dust sink region; up to 0.032±0.027°K/year and dust source regions (Sahara desert, Middle East, Arabian region, Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan and Thar Desert regions; up to 0.068±0.033�

Impacts of precipitation and temperature trends on different time scales on the water cycle and water resource availability in mountainous Mediterranean catchments.

Science.gov (United States)

José Pérez-Palazón, María; Pimentel, Rafael; Herrero, Javier; José Polo, María

2017-04-01

Climatology trends, precipitation and temperature variations condition the hydrological evolution of the river flow response at basin and sub-basin scales. The link between both climate and flow trends is crucial in mountainous areas, where small variations in temperature can produce significant impacts on precipitation (occurrence as rainfall or snowfall), snowmelt and evaporation, and consequently very different flow signatures. This importance is greater in semiarid regions, where the high variability of the climatic annual and seasonal regimes usually amplifies this impact on river flow. The Sierra Nevada National Park (Southern Spain), with altitudes ranging from 2000 to 3500 m.a.s.l., is part of the global climate change observatories network and a clear example of snow regions in a semiarid environment. This mountain range is head of different catchments, being the Guadalfeo River Basin one of the most influenced by the snow regime. This study shows the observed 55-year (1961-2015) trends of annual precipitation and daily mean temperature, and the associated impacts on snowfall and snow persistence, and the resulting trend of the annual river flow in the Guadalfeo River Basin (Southern Spain), a semiarid abrupt mountainous area (up to 3450 m a.s.l.) facing the Mediterranean Sea where the Alpine and Mediterranean climates coexist in a domain highly influenced by the snow regime, and a significant seasonality in the flow regime. The annual precipitation and annual daily mean temperature experimented a decreasing trend of 2.05 mm/year and an increasing trend of 0.037 °C/year, respectively, during the study period, with a high variability on a decadal basis. However, the torrential precipitation events are more frequent in the last few years of the study period, with an apparently increasing associated dispersion. The estimated annual snowfall trend shows a decreasing trend of 0.24 mm/year, associated to the decrease of precipitation rather than to temperature

Long-term dynamics of OH * temperatures over central Europe: trends and solar correlations

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C. Kalicinsky

2016-12-01

Full Text Available We present the analysis of annual average OH* temperatures in the mesopause region derived from measurements of the Ground-based Infrared P-branch Spectrometer (GRIPS at Wuppertal (51° N, 7° E in the time interval 1988 to 2015. The new study uses a temperature time series which is 7 years longer than that used for the latest analysis regarding the long-term dynamics. This additional observation time leads to a change in characterisation of the observed long-term dynamics. We perform a multiple linear regression using the solar radio flux F10.7 cm (11-year cycle of solar activity and time to describe the temperature evolution. The analysis leads to a linear trend of (−0.089 ± 0.055 K year−1 and a sensitivity to the solar activity of (4.2 ± 0.9 K (100 SFU−1 (r2 of fit 0.6. However, one linear trend in combination with the 11-year solar cycle is not sufficient to explain all observed long-term dynamics. In fact, we find a clear trend break in the temperature time series in the middle of 2008. Before this break point there is an explicit negative linear trend of (−0.24 ± 0.07 K year−1, and after 2008 the linear trend turns positive with a value of (0.64 ± 0.33 K year−1. This apparent trend break can also be described using a long periodic oscillation. One possibility is to use the 22-year solar cycle that describes the reversal of the solar magnetic field (Hale cycle. A multiple linear regression using the solar radio flux and the solar polar magnetic field as parameters leads to the regression coefficients Csolar = (5.0 ± 0.7 K (100 SFU−1 and Chale = (1.8 ±  0.5 K (100 µT−1 (r2 = 0.71. The second way of describing the OH* temperature time series is to use the solar radio flux and an oscillation. A least-square fit leads to a sensitivity to the solar activity of (4.1 ± 0.8 K (100 SFU−1, a period P  =  (24.8 ± 3.3 years, and

Trend analysis of air temperature and precipitation time series over Greece: 1955-2010

Science.gov (United States)

Marougianni, G.; Melas, D.; Kioutsioukis, I.; Feidas, H.; Zanis, P.; Anandranistakis, E.

2012-04-01

In this study, a database of air temperature and precipitation time series from the network of Hellenic National Meteorological Service has been developed in the framework of the project GEOCLIMA, co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship" of the Research Funding Program COOPERATION 2009. Initially, a quality test was applied to the raw data and then missing observations have been imputed with a regularized, spatial-temporal expectation - maximization algorithm to complete the climatic record. Next, a quantile - matching algorithm was applied in order to verify the homogeneity of the data. The processed time series were used for the calculation of temporal annual and seasonal trends of air temperature and precipitation. Monthly maximum and minimum surface air temperature and precipitation means at all available stations in Greece were analyzed for temporal trends and spatial variation patterns for the longest common time period of homogenous data (1955 - 2010), applying the Mann-Kendall test. The majority of the examined stations showed a significant increase in the summer maximum and minimum temperatures; this could be possibly physically linked to the Etesian winds, because of the less frequent expansion of the low over the southeastern Mediterranean. Summer minimum temperatures have been increasing at a faster rate than that of summer maximum temperatures, reflecting an asymmetric change of extreme temperature distributions. Total annual precipitation has been significantly decreased at the stations located in western Greece, as well as in the southeast, while the remaining areas exhibit a non-significant negative trend. This reduction is very likely linked to the positive phase of the NAO that resulted in an increase in the frequency and persistence of anticyclones over the Mediterranean.

Local warming: daily temperature change influences belief in global warming.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ye; Johnson, Eric J; Zaval, Lisa

2011-04-01

Although people are quite aware of global warming, their beliefs about it may be malleable; specifically, their beliefs may be constructed in response to questions about global warming. Beliefs may reflect irrelevant but salient information, such as the current day's temperature. This replacement of a more complex, less easily accessed judgment with a simple, more accessible one is known as attribute substitution. In three studies, we asked residents of the United States and Australia to report their opinions about global warming and whether the temperature on the day of the study was warmer or cooler than usual. Respondents who thought that day was warmer than usual believed more in and had greater concern about global warming than did respondents who thought that day was colder than usual. They also donated more money to a global-warming charity if they thought that day seemed warmer than usual. We used instrumental variable regression to rule out some alternative explanations.

Getting caught with our plants down: the risks of a global crop yield slowdown from climate trends in the next two decades

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lobell, David B; Tebaldi, Claudia

2014-01-01

In many discussions of climate change impacts in agriculture, the large magnitudes of expected impacts toward the end of the century are used to emphasize that most of the risks are to future generations. However, this perspective misses the important fact that demand growth for food is expected to be much slower after 2050 than before it, and that the next two decades represent the bulk of growth before 2050. Thus, impacts of smaller magnitude in the near-term can be as or more consequential for food prices or food security as larger magnitude impacts in the future. Here we estimate the risks that climate trends over the next 10 or 20 years could have large impacts on global yields of wheat and maize, with a focus on scenarios that would cut the expected rates of yield gains in half. We find that because of global warming, the chance of climate trends over a 20 year period causing a 10% yield loss has increased from a less than 1 in 200 chance arising from internal climate variability alone, to a 1 in 10 chance for maize and 1 in 20 chance for wheat. Estimated risks for maize are higher because of a greater geographic concentration than wheat, as well as a slightly more negative aggregate temperature sensitivity. Global warming has also greatly increased the chance of climate trends large enough to halve yield trends over a 10 year period, with a roughly 1 in 4 chance for maize and 1 in 6 chance for wheat. Estimated risks are slightly larger when using climate projections from a large ensemble of a single climate model that more fully explores internal climate variability, than a multi-model ensemble that more fully explores model uncertainty. Although scenarios of climate impacts large enough to halve yield growth rates are still fairly unlikely, they may warrant consideration by institutions potentially affected by associated changes in international food prices. (paper)

Trends in extremes of temperature, dew point, and precipitation from long instrumental series from central Europe

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Kürbis, K.; Mudelsee, M.; Tetzlaff, G.; Brázdil, R.

2009-09-01

For the analysis of trends in weather extremes, we introduce a diagnostic index variable, the exceedance product, which combines intensity and frequency of extremes. We separate trends in higher moments from trends in mean or standard deviation and use bootstrap resampling to evaluate statistical significances. The application of the concept of the exceedance product to daily meteorological time series from Potsdam (1893 to 2005) and Prague-Klementinum (1775 to 2004) reveals that extremely cold winters occurred only until the mid-20th century, whereas warm winters show upward trends. These changes were significant in higher moments of the temperature distribution. In contrast, trends in summer temperature extremes (e.g., the 2003 European heatwave) can be explained by linear changes in mean or standard deviation. While precipitation at Potsdam does not show pronounced trends, dew point does exhibit a change from maximum extremes during the 1960s to minimum extremes during the 1970s.

Comparison of global observations and trends of total precipitable water derived from microwave radiometers and COSMIC radio occultation from 2006 to 2013

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S.-P. Ho

2018-01-01

Full Text Available We compare atmospheric total precipitable water (TPW derived from the SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave Imager and SSMIS (Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder radiometers and WindSat to collocated TPW estimates derived from COSMIC (Constellation System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate radio occultation (RO under clear and cloudy conditions over the oceans from June 2006 to December 2013. Results show that the mean microwave (MW radiometer – COSMIC TPW differences range from 0.06 to 0.18 mm for clear skies, from 0.79 to 0.96 mm for cloudy skies, from 0.46 to 0.49 mm for cloudy but non-precipitating conditions, and from 1.64 to 1.88 mm for precipitating conditions. Because RO measurements are not significantly affected by clouds and precipitation, the biases mainly result from MW retrieval uncertainties under cloudy and precipitating conditions. All COSMIC and MW radiometers detect a positive TPW trend over these 8 years. The trend using all COSMIC observations collocated with MW pixels for this data set is 1.79 mm decade−1, with a 95 % confidence interval of (0.96, 2.63, which is in close agreement with the trend estimated by the collocated MW observations (1.78 mm decade−1 with a 95 % confidence interval of 0.94, 2.62. The sample of MW and RO pairs used in this study is highly biased toward middle latitudes (40–60° N and 40–65° S, and thus these trends are not representative of global average trends. However, they are representative of the latitudes of extratropical storm tracks and the trend values are approximately 4 to 6 times the global average trends, which are approximately 0.3 mm decade−1. In addition, the close agreement of these two trends from independent observations, which represent an increase in TPW in our data set of about 6.9 %, are a strong indication of the positive water vapor–temperature feedback on a warming planet in regions where precipitation from extratropical

Global trends in milk quality: implications for the irish dairy industry

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More SJ

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract The quality of Irish agricultural product will become increasingly important with the ongoing liberalisation of international trade. This paper presents a review of the global and Irish dairy industries; considers the impact of milk quality on farm profitability, food processing and human health, examines global trends in quality; and explores several models that are successfully being used to tackle milk quality concerns. There is a growing global demand for dairy products, fuelled in part by growing consumer wealth in developing countries. Global dairy trade represents only 6.2% of global production and demand currently outstrips supply. Although the Irish dairy industry is small by global standards, approximately 85% of annual production is exported annually. It is also the world's largest producer of powdered infant formula. Milk quality has an impact on human health, milk processing and on-farm profitability. Somatic cell count (SCC is a key measure of milk quality, with a SCC not exceeding 400,000 cells/ml (the EU milk quality standard generally accepted as the international export standard. There have been ongoing improvements in milk quality among both established and emerging international suppliers. A number of countries have developed successful industry-led models to tackle milk quality concerns. Based on international experiences, it is likely that problems with effective translation of knowledge to practice, rather than incomplete knowledge per se, are the more important constraints to national progress towards improved milk quality.

Trends in global approvals of biotech crops (1992-2014).

Science.gov (United States)

Aldemita, Rhodora R; Reaño, Ian Mari E; Solis, Renando O; Hautea, Randy A

2015-01-01

With the increasing number of genetically modified (GM) events, traits, and crops that are developed to benefit the global population, approval of these technologies for food, feed, cultivation and import in each country may vary depending on needs, demand and trade interest. ISAAA established a GMO Approval Database to document global approvals of biotech crops. GM event name, crops, traits, developer, year of approval for cultivation, food/feed, import, and relevant dossiers were sourced from credible government regulatory websites and biosafety clearinghouses. This paper investigates the trends in GM approvals for food, feed and cultivation based on the number of approving countries, GM crops, events, and traits in the last 23 y (1992-2014), rationale for approval, factors influencing approvals, and their implications in GM crop adoption. Results show that in 2014, there was an accumulative increase in the number of countries granting approvals at 29 (79% developing countries) for commercial cultivation and 31 (70% developing countries) for food and 19 (80% developing developing) for feed; 2012 had the highest number of approving countries and cultivation approvals; 2011 had the highest number of country approvals for feed, and 2014 for food approvals. Herbicide tolerance trait had the highest events approved, followed by insect tolerance traits. Approvals for food product quality increased in the second decade. Maize had the highest number of events approved (single and stacked traits), and stacked traits product gradually increased which is already 30% of the total trait approvals. These results may indicate understanding and acceptance of countries to enhance regulatory capability to be able to benefit from GM crop commercialization. Hence, the paper provided information on the trends on the growth of the GM crop industry in the last 23 y which may be vital in predicting future GM crops and traits.

Global cooling as a driver of diversification in a major marine clade

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Katie E.; Hill, Jon; Astrop, Tim I.; Wills, Matthew A.

2016-10-01

Climate is a strong driver of global diversity and will become increasingly important as human influences drive temperature changes at unprecedented rates. Here we investigate diversification and speciation trends within a diverse group of aquatic crustaceans, the Anomura. We use a phylogenetic framework to demonstrate that speciation rate is correlated with global cooling across the entire tree, in contrast to previous studies. Additionally, we find that marine clades continue to show evidence of increased speciation rates with cooler global temperatures, while the single freshwater clade shows the opposite trend with speciation rates positively correlated to global warming. Our findings suggest that both global cooling and warming lead to diversification and that habitat plays a role in the responses of species to climate change. These results have important implications for our understanding of how extant biota respond to ongoing climate change and are of particular importance for conservation planning of marine ecosystems.

Lived experience of economic and political trends related to globalization.

Science.gov (United States)

Cushon, Jennifer A; Muhajarine, Nazeem; Labonte, Ronald

2010-01-01

A multi-method case study examined how the economic and political processes of globalization have influenced the determinants of health among low-income children in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. This paper presents the results from the qualitative interview component of the case study. The purpose of the interviews was to uncover the lived experience of low-income families and their children in Saskatoon with regards to political and economic trends related to globalization, an important addition to the usual globalization and health research that relies primarily on cross-country regressions in which the personal impacts remain hidden. In-depth phenomenological interviews with 26 low-income parents of young children (aged zero to five) who were residents of Saskatoon. A combination of volunteer and criterion sampling was used. Interview questions were open-ended and based upon an analytical framework. Analysis proceeded through immersion in the data, a process of open coding, and finally through a process of selective coding. The larger case study and interviews indicate that globalization has largely not been benefiting low-income parents with young children. Low-income families with young children were struggling to survive, despite the tremendous economic growth occurring in Saskatchewan and Saskatoon at the time of the interviews. This often led to participants expressing a sense of helplessness, despair, isolation, and/or anger. Respondents' experiences suggest that globalization-related changes in social conditions and public policies and programs have great potential to negatively affect family health through either psychosocial effects in individuals and/or decreased levels of social cohesion in the community.

Global Trends and Development Prospects for Oil and the Oil Products Market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Dorozhkina

2006-03-01

Full Text Available This article discusses the important issue of the development of the global market of oil and oil products. It offers an overview of how this market was formed and its current status, classification, location and potential of countries in the oil and oil processing business. It analyzes the Ukrainian oil products market. The article discusses the shortcomings and strategic areas for the development of Ukraine’s oil transport system. It presents an optimum method for creating integration groups in order to develop the oil processing business in Ukraine for the future. The article considers the main trends and outlines development prospects for the global oil and oil products market.

Trends in low-temperature water–gas shift reactivity on transition metals

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schumacher, Nana Maria Pii; Boisen, Astrid; Dahl, Søren

2005-01-01

Low-temperature water–gas shift reactivity trends on transition metals were investigated with the use of a microkinetic model based on a redox mechanism. It is established that the adsorption energies for carbon monoxide and oxygen can describe to a large extent changes in the remaining activation...

High Temperature Properties and Recent Research Trend of Mg-RE Alloys

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nam, Soo Woo [Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2017-04-15

For the applications in automotive, aircraft, aerospace, and electronic industries, the lightest structural Mg alloys have received much attention since 2000. There has been some progress for the improvement of the mechanical properties such as room temperature strength, formability and mechanical anisotropy. However, the high temperature strength of Mg alloys is very low to be used for the parts and structures of high temperature conditions. For the last decade, considerable efforts are concentrated for the development of Mg alloys to be used at high temperature. Newly developing Mg-RE alloys are the good examples for the high temperature use. In this regard, this review paper introduces the recent research trends for the development of Mg-RE alloys strengthened with some precipitates and the long period stacking ordered (LPSO) structures related RE elements.

High Temperature Properties and Recent Research Trend of Mg-RE Alloys

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nam, Soo Woo

2017-01-01

For the applications in automotive, aircraft, aerospace, and electronic industries, the lightest structural Mg alloys have received much attention since 2000. There has been some progress for the improvement of the mechanical properties such as room temperature strength, formability and mechanical anisotropy. However, the high temperature strength of Mg alloys is very low to be used for the parts and structures of high temperature conditions. For the last decade, considerable efforts are concentrated for the development of Mg alloys to be used at high temperature. Newly developing Mg-RE alloys are the good examples for the high temperature use. In this regard, this review paper introduces the recent research trends for the development of Mg-RE alloys strengthened with some precipitates and the long period stacking ordered (LPSO) structures related RE elements.

Food, Paper, Wood, or Energy? Global Trends and Future Swedish Forest Use

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erik Westholm

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a futures study of international forest trends. The study, produced as part of the Swedish Future Forest program, focuses on global changes of importance for future Swedish forest use. It is based on previous international research, policy documents, and 24 interviews with selected key experts and/or actors related to the forest sector, and its findings will provide a basis for future research priorities. The forest sector, here defined as the economic, social, and cultural contributions to life and human welfare derived from forest and forest-based activities, faces major change. Four areas stand out as particularly important: changing energy systems, emerging international climate policies, changing governance systems, and shifting global land use systems. We argue that global developments are, and will be, important for future Swedish forest use. The forest sector is in transition and forest-, energy, climate- and global land use issues are likely to become increasingly intertwined. Therefore, the “forest sector” must be disembedded and approached as an open system in interplay with other systems.

Climate change, global warming and coral reefs: modelling the effects of temperature.

Science.gov (United States)

Crabbe, M James C

2008-10-01

Climate change and global warming have severe consequences for the survival of scleractinian (reef-building) corals and their associated ecosystems. This review summarizes recent literature on the influence of temperature on coral growth, coral bleaching, and modelling the effects of high temperature on corals. Satellite-based sea surface temperature (SST) and coral bleaching information available on the internet is an important tool in monitoring and modelling coral responses to temperature. Within the narrow temperature range for coral growth, corals can respond to rate of temperature change as well as to temperature per se. We need to continue to develop models of how non-steady-state processes such as global warming and climate change will affect coral reefs.

The EUSTACE project: delivering global, daily information on surface air temperature

Science.gov (United States)

Ghent, D.; Rayner, N. A.

2017-12-01

Day-to-day variations in surface air temperature affect society in many ways; however, daily surface air temperature measurements are not available everywhere. A global daily analysis cannot be achieved with measurements made in situ alone, so incorporation of satellite retrievals is needed. To achieve this, in the EUSTACE project (2015-2018, https://www.eustaceproject.eu) we have developed an understanding of the relationships between traditional (land and marine) surface air temperature measurements and retrievals of surface skin temperature from satellite measurements, i.e. Land Surface Temperature, Ice Surface Temperature, Sea Surface Temperature and Lake Surface Water Temperature. Here we discuss the science needed to produce a fully-global daily analysis (or ensemble of analyses) of surface air temperature on the centennial scale, integrating different ground-based and satellite-borne data types. Information contained in the satellite retrievals is used to create globally-complete fields in the past, using statistical models of how surface air temperature varies in a connected way from place to place. This includes developing new "Big Data" analysis methods as the data volumes involved are considerable. We will present recent progress along this road in the EUSTACE project, i.e.: • identifying inhomogeneities in daily surface air temperature measurement series from weather stations and correcting for these over Europe; • estimating surface air temperature over all surfaces of Earth from surface skin temperature retrievals; • using new statistical techniques to provide information on higher spatial and temporal scales than currently available, making optimum use of information in data-rich eras. Information will also be given on how interested users can become involved.

A research on the effect of global trends in Turkish kitchen furniture sector

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Ersin Uçar

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Through survey results, this study evaluated global trends’ effects on Turkish kitchen furniture production. The level of knowledge and difficulties of catching up with and implementing developmental trends in the Turkish kitchen furniture sector has been seen as having a structure equivalent to world standards because the level of material and technological development has been determined by four criteria: consumer demand, housing plans, technology inadequacy, and material inadequacy. According to the results, findings in this framework, consumer demand was most influential (45.4% in capturing and implementing enterprises’ trends. Evaluation results on kitchen furniture projects implemented by Turkish enterprises within the last 5 years showed that they mostly worked with models with one-lid views in cabinet-door applications (41.6%. As a result, world trends reflect the direct influence of Turkish kitchen furniture manufacturers on cabinet-door models and color preferences for kitchen units.

Understanding Evapotranspiration Trends and their Driving Mechanisms: An investigation across CONUS based on numerical modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Parr, D.; Wang, G.; Fu, C.

2015-12-01

As shown by climate models, increasing global temperatures and enhanced greenhouse gas concentration such as CO2 have had major effects on the dynamics of the hydrologic cycle and the surface energy budget, in particular, on evapotranspiration (ET). ET has significant decadal variations whether it be regionally or globally and variations of ET have major environmental and socioeconomic impacts. A number of recent studies have found a global increase in annual mean ET around 7mm per year per decade from about 1982 to the late 1990s. These results correspond with what is expected from an intensification of the hydrological cycle. However, the increasing ET trend did not continue after 1998 and from 1998-2008 this global trend was replaced with a decreasing trend of similar magnitude. This study uses numerical modeling to investigate if similar changing ET trends emerge in the continental U.S and part of northern Mexico. After validating model simulated evaporative fluxes and comparing spatial patterns to the aforementioned studies, various changing trends of different signs are identified across the U.S., and specific regions with strong signals of change are chosen for further examination with the purpose of identifying the root causes of these changing trends and which variables are most influential towards change. Experimental simulations conducted to isolate the most influential factors towards ET reveal that precipitation amount as well as its characteristics have the greatest impact on the ET trends discovered, with other factors like wind and air temperatures displaying less influence over inter-annual trends. This study helps better understand terrestrial ET and it's interactions which will help facilitate better predictions of change in surface climate such as heatwaves and droughts as well as impacts on water resources.

Global Warming Estimation from MSU: Correction for Drift and Calibration Errors

Science.gov (United States)

Prabhakara, C.; Iacovazzi, R., Jr.; Yoo, J.-M.; Einaudi, Franco (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) radiometer observations in Ch 2 (53.74 GHz), made in the nadir direction from sequential, sun-synchronous, polar-orbiting NOAA morning satellites (NOAA 6, 10 and 12 that have about 7am/7pm orbital geometry) and afternoon satellites (NOAA 7, 9, 11 and 14 that have about 2am/2pm orbital geometry) are analyzed in this study to derive global temperature trend from 1980 to 1998. In order to remove the discontinuities between the data of the successive satellites and to get a continuous time series, first we have used shortest possible time record of each satellite. In this way we get a preliminary estimate of the global temperature trend of 0.21 K/decade. However, this estimate is affected by systematic time-dependent errors. One such error is the instrument calibration error. This error can be inferred whenever there are overlapping measurements made by two satellites over an extended period of time. From the available successive satellite data we have taken the longest possible time record of each satellite to form the time series during the period 1980 to 1998 to this error. We find we can decrease the global temperature trend by about 0.07 K/decade. In addition there are systematic time dependent errors present in the data that are introduced by the drift in the satellite orbital geometry arises from the diurnal cycle in temperature which is the drift related change in the calibration of the MSU. In order to analyze the nature of these drift related errors the multi-satellite Ch 2 data set is partitioned into am and pm subsets to create two independent time series. The error can be assessed in the am and pm data of Ch 2 on land and can be eliminated. Observations made in the MSU Ch 1 (50.3 GHz) support this approach. The error is obvious only in the difference between the pm and am observations of Ch 2 over the ocean. We have followed two different paths to assess the impact of the errors on the global temperature trend. In one path the

INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN DRY DAYS AND TEMPERATURE OF SYLHET REGION: CORRELATION ANALYSIS

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Syed Mustakim Ali Shah

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Climate change can have profound impact on weather conditions around the world such as heavy rainfall, drought, global warming and so on. Understanding and predicting these natural variations is now a key research challenge for disaster-prone country like Bangladesh. This study focuses on the north eastern part of Bangladesh which is a hilly region, plays an important role in the ecological balance of the country along with socio-economic development. Present study analyses the behavior of maximum temperature and dry days using different statistical tools. Pearson’s correlation matrix and Man-Kendall’s tau are used to correlate monthly dry days with monthly maximum temperature, and also their annual trend. A moderate correlation was found mostly in dry summer months. In addition, a positive trend was observed in Man Kendall’s trend test of yearly temperature which might be an indication of global warming in this region.

International trade of health services: global trends and local impact.

Science.gov (United States)

Lautier, Marc

2014-10-01

Globalization is a key challenge facing health policy-makers. A significant dimension of this is trade in health services. Traditionally, the flow of health services exports went from North to South, with patients travelling in the opposite direction. This situation is changing and a number of papers have discussed the growth of health services exports from Southern countries in its different dimensions. Less attention has been paid to assess the real scope of this trade at the global level and its potential impact at the local level. Given the rapid development of this area, there are little empirical data. This paper therefore first built an estimate of the global size and of the growth trend of international trade in health services since 1997, which is compared with several country-based studies. The second purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the significant economic impact of this trade at the local level for the exporting country. We consider the case of health providers in the South-Mediterranean region for which the demand potential, the economic effects and the consequence for the health system are presented. These issues lead to the overall conclusion that different policy options would be appropriate, in relation to the nature of the demand. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Trends in the Global Small Satellite Ecosystem: Implications for Science Missions

Science.gov (United States)

Behrens, J.; Lal, B.

2017-12-01

Activity in the small satellite industry has increased in the recent years. New actors and nations have joined the evolving market globally in both the private and public sector. Progress in the smallsat sector has been driven, in part, by growing capabilities and falling costs of smallsats. Advancements include the miniaturization of technology for the small satellite platform, increased data processing capabilities, the ubiquitous presence of GPS enabling location and attitude determination, improvements in ground system costs and signal processing capabilities, and the deployment of inexpensive COTS parts. The emerging trends in the state of the art for smallsat technology, paired with planned smallsat constellation missions by both private and public actors, open the opportunity for new earth and remote sensing scientific endeavors. This presentation will characterize the drivers influencing the development of smallsat technology and the industry more generally. An overview will be provided for trends in the state of the art of smallsat technology, and secondary trends that influence the smallsat sector including infrastructure, demand, the satellite launch market, and the policy environment. These trends are mapped onto current and projected Earth observation needs, as identified by academic and governmental communities, to identify those that could be fulfilled by smallsats in the near and long term. A set of notional science missions that could be enabled, based on the various drivers identified, will be presented for both the near (3 years) and farther term (10 years).

The observed sensitivity of the global hydrological cycle to changes in surface temperature

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arkin, Phillip A; Janowiak, John; Smith, Thomas M; Sapiano, Mathew R P

2010-01-01

Climate models project large changes in global surface temperature in coming decades that are expected to be accompanied by significant changes in the global hydrological cycle. Validation of model simulations is essential to support their use in decision making, but observing the elements of the hydrological cycle is challenging, and model-independent global data sets exist only for precipitation. We compute the sensitivity of the global hydrological cycle to changes in surface temperature using available global precipitation data sets and compare the results against the sensitivities derived from model simulations of 20th century climate. The implications of the results for the global climate observing system are discussed.

Long-term trend in ground-based air temperature and its responses to atmospheric circulation and anthropogenic activity in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, Xia; She, Qiannan; Long, Lingbo; Liu, Min; Xu, Qian; Zhang, Jiaxin; Xiang, Weining

2017-10-01

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD), including Shanghai City, Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, is the largest metropolitan region in China. In the past decades, the region has experienced massive urbanization and detrimentally affected the environment in the region. Identifying the spatio-temporal variations of climate change and its influencing mechanism in the YRD is an important task for assessing their impacts on the local society and ecosystem. Based on long-term (1958-2014) observation data of meteorological stations, three temperature indices, i.e. extreme maximum temperature (TXx), extreme minimum temperature (TNn), and mean temperature (TMm), were selected and spatialized with climatological calculations and spatial techniques. Evolution and spatial heterogeneity of three temperature indices over YRD as well as their links to atmospheric circulation and anthropogenic activity were investigated. In the whole YRD, a statistically significant overall uptrend could be detected in three temperature indices with the Mann-Kendall (M-K) trend test method. The linear increasing trend for TMm was 0.31 °C/10 a, which was higher than the global average (0.12 °C/10 a during 1951-2012). For TXx and TNn, the increasing rates were 0.41 °C/10 a and 0.52 °C/10 a. Partial correlation analysis indicated that TMm was more related with TXx (rp = 0.68, p < 0.001) than TNn (rp = 0.48, p < 0.001). Furthermore, it was detected with M-K analysis at pixel scale that 62.17%, 96.75% and 97.05% of the areas in the YRD showed significant increasing trends for TXx, TNn and TMm, respectively. The increasing trend was more obvious in the southern mountainous areas than the northern plains areas. Further analysis indicated that the variation of TXx over YRD was mainly influenced by anthropogenic activities (e.g. economic development), while TNn was more affected by atmospheric circulations (e.g., the Eurasian zonal circulation index (EAZ) and the cold air activity index (CA)). For TMm, it was a

Regional amplification of projected changes in extreme temperatures strongly controlled by soil moisture-temperature feedbacks

Science.gov (United States)

Vogel, Martha Marie; Orth, René; Cheruy, Frederique; Hagemann, Stefan; Lorenz, Ruth; van den Hurk, Bart; Seneviratne, Sonia Isabelle

2017-04-01

Regional hot extremes are projected to increase more strongly than global mean temperature, with substantially larger changes than 2°C even if global warming is limited to this level. We investigate here the role of soil moisture-temperature feedbacks for this response based on multi-model experiments for the 21st century with either interactive or fixed (late 20th century mean seasonal cycle) soil moisture. We analyze changes in the hottest days in each year in both sets of experiments, relate them to the global mean temperature increase, and investigate physical processes leading to these changes. We find that soil moisture-temperature feedbacks significantly contribute to the amplified warming of hottest days compared to that of global mean temperature. This contribution reaches more than 70% in Central Europe and Central North America and between 42%-52% in Amazonia, Northern Australia and Southern Africa. Soil moisture trends (multi-decadal soil moisture variability) are more important for this response than short-term (e.g. seasonal, interannual) soil moisture variability. These results are relevant for reducing uncertainties in regional temperature projections. Vogel, M.M. et al.,2017. Regional amplification of projected changes in extreme temperatures strongly controlled by soil moisture-temperature feedbacks. Geophysical Research Letters, accepted.

Evolution of surface sensible heat over the Tibetan Plateau under the recent global warming hiatus

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Lihua; Huang, Gang; Fan, Guangzhou; Qu, Xia; Zhao, Guijie; Hua, Wei

2017-10-01

Based on regular surface meteorological observations and NCEP/DOE reanalysis data, this study investigates the evolution of surface sensible heat (SH) over the central and eastern Tibetan Plateau (CE-TP) under the recent global warming hiatus. The results reveal that the SH over the CE-TP presents a recovery since the slowdown of the global warming. The restored surface wind speed together with increased difference in ground-air temperature contribute to the recovery in SH. During the global warming hiatus, the persistent weakening wind speed is alleviated due to the variation of the meridional temperature gradient. Meanwhile, the ground surface temperature and the difference in ground-air temperature show a significant increasing trend in that period caused by the increased total cloud amount, especially at night. At nighttime, the increased total cloud cover reduces the surface effective radiation via a strengthening of atmospheric counter radiation and subsequently brings about a clear upward trend in ground surface temperature and the difference in ground-air temperature. Cloud-radiation feedback plays a significant role in the evolution of the surface temperature and even SH during the global warming hiatus. Consequently, besides the surface wind speed, the difference in ground-air temperature becomes another significant factor for the variation in SH since the slowdown of global warming, particularly at night.

Urban partnerships in low-carbon development: Opportunities and challenges of an emerging trend in global climate politics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan Beermann

2014-05-01

Full Text Available This study explores the linkages between two recent trends in global climate governance. The first trend is the growing focus on cities in the multi-level governance of climate change. Whereas international climate change negotiations often end in deadlock, many urban centers across the world are taking the lead. Industrialized cities from the Global North and increasingly cities from the emerging Southern economies are experimenting with innovative and ambitious programs to reduce their local carbon footprints. A second trend is the expan¬ding urban North-South cooperation in the area of low-carbon development. This cooperation takes various forms, such as city twinning, transnational municipal networks and trans-local development cooperation. A key target of these initiatives is to develop joint projects and exchange knowledge to foster low-carbon development pathways. This study analyzes the conditions of success and failure in selected Indo-German urban low-carbon partnerships with a particular focus on institutional arrangements. The paper presents evidence from three initiatives and argues that successful trans-local cooperation depends largely on the interplay between institutional forms and the development of social capital. Building on these findings, the paper discusses what lessons may be drawn from the emergence of urban North-South cooperation for the future development of global climate governance.

Possible influence of long-term sea surface temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific on global zone

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Komhyr, W D; Oltmans, S J; Grass, R D [Atmospheric Administration Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Lab., Boulder, CO (USA); Leonard, R K [Colorado Univ., Boulder, CO (USA)

1991-01-01

A significant negative correlation exists between summer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the east equatorial Pacific and late-October south pole total ozone values. SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific were anomalously warmer during 1976-1987 compared with 1962-1975. QBO (quasi-biennial oscillation) easterly winds in the equatorial Pacific stratosphere were generally stronger after 1975. Before the early-to-mid 1970s the trend in global ozone was generally upward, but then turned downward. Total ozone at Hawaii and Samoa, which had been decreasing during 1976-1987, showed recovery to mid-1970s values in 1988-1989 following a drop in SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific to low values last observed there prior to 1976. During late October 1988, total south pole ozone, which had decreased from ca 280 Dobson units (DU) before 1980 to 140 DU in 1987, suddenly recovered to 250 DU, though substantial ozone depletion by heterogeneous photochemical processes involving polar stratospheric clouds was still evident in the south pole ozone vertical profiles. These observations suggest that the downward trend in ozone observed over the globe in recent years may have been at least partly meteorologically induced, possibly via modulation by the warmer tropical Pacific ocean waters of QBO easterly winds at the equator, of Hadley Cell circulation, or other factors. A cursory analysis of geostrophic wind flow around the Baffin Island low suggests a meteorological influence on the observed downward trend in ozone over North America during the past decade. Because ozone has a lifetime that varies from years to minutes, changes in atmospheric dynamics have a potential to not only redistribute ozone over the globe but also to change global ozone abundance. 47 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab.

Evolution of proteomes: fundamental signatures and global trends in amino acid compositions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yeramian Edouard

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The evolutionary characterization of species and lifestyles at global levels is nowadays a subject of considerable interest, particularly with the availability of many complete genomes. Are there specific properties associated with lifestyles and phylogenies? What are the underlying evolutionary trends? One of the simplest analyses to address such questions concerns characterization of proteomes at the amino acids composition level. Results In this work, amino acid compositions of a large set of 208 proteomes, with significant number of representatives from the three phylogenetic domains and different lifestyles are analyzed, resorting to an appropriate multidimensional method: Correspondence analysis. The analysis reveals striking discrimination between eukaryotes, prokaryotic mesophiles and hyperthemophiles-themophiles, following amino acid usage. In sharp contrast, no similar discrimination is observed for psychrophiles. The observed distributional properties are compared with various inferred chronologies for the recruitment of amino acids into the genetic code. Such comparisons reveal correlations between the observed segregations of species following amino acid usage, and the separation of amino acids following early or late recruitment. Conclusion A simple description of proteomes according to amino acid compositions reveals striking signatures, with sharp segregations or on the contrary non-discriminations following phylogenies and lifestyles. The distribution of species, following amino acid usage, exhibits a discrimination between [high GC]-[high optimal growth temperatures] and [low GC]-[moderate temperatures] characteristics. This discrimination appears to coincide closely with the separation of amino acids following their inferred early or late recruitment into the genetic code. Taken together the various results provide a consistent picture for the evolution of proteomes, in terms of amino acid usage.

Estimates and 25-year trends of the global burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution : an analysis of data from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cohen, Aaron J; Brauer, Michael; Burnett, Richard; Anderson, H Ross; Frostad, Joseph; Estep, Kara; Balakrishnan, Kalpana; Brunekreef, Bert|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/067548180; Dandona, Lalit; Dandona, Rakhi; Feigin, Valery; Freedman, Greg; Hubbell, Bryan; Jobling, Amelia; Kan, Haidong; Knibbs, Luke; Liu, Yang|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/411298119; Martin, Randall; Morawska, Lidia; Pope, C Arden; Shin, Hwashin; Straif, Kurt; Shaddick, Gavin; Thomas, Matthew; van Dingenen, Rita; van Donkelaar, Aaron; Vos, Theo; Murray, Christopher J L; Forouzanfar, Mohammad H

BACKGROUND: Exposure to ambient air pollution increases morbidity and mortality, and is a leading contributor to global disease burden. We explored spatial and temporal trends in mortality and burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution from 1990 to 2015 at global, regional, and country

The coastal ocean response to the global warming acceleration and hiatus.

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Enhui; Lu, Wenfang; Yan, Xiao-Hai; Jiang, Yuwu; Kidwell, Autumn

2015-11-16

Coastlines are fundamental to humans for habitation, commerce, and natural resources. Many coastal ecosystem disasters, caused by extreme sea surface temperature (SST), were reported when the global climate shifted from global warming to global surface warming hiatus after 1998. The task of understanding the coastal SST variations within the global context is an urgent matter. Our study on the global coastal SST from 1982 to 2013 revealed a significant cooling trend in the low and mid latitudes (31.4% of the global coastlines) after 1998, while 17.9% of the global coastlines changed from a cooling trend to a warming trend concurrently. The trend reversals in the Northern Pacific and Atlantic coincided with the phase shift of Pacific Decadal Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation, respectively. These coastal SST changes are larger than the changes of the global mean and open ocean, resulting in a fast increase of extremely hot/cold days, and thus extremely hot/cold events. Meanwhile, a continuous increase of SST was detected for a considerable portion of coastlines (46.7%) with a strengthened warming along the coastlines in the high northern latitudes. This suggests the warming still continued and strengthened in some regions after 1998, but with a weaker pattern in the low and mid latitudes.

The coastal ocean response to the global warming acceleration and hiatus

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Enhui; Lu, Wenfang; Yan, Xiao-Hai; Jiang, Yuwu; Kidwell, Autumn

2015-01-01

Coastlines are fundamental to humans for habitation, commerce, and natural resources. Many coastal ecosystem disasters, caused by extreme sea surface temperature (SST), were reported when the global climate shifted from global warming to global surface warming hiatus after 1998. The task of understanding the coastal SST variations within the global context is an urgent matter. Our study on the global coastal SST from 1982 to 2013 revealed a significant cooling trend in the low and mid latitudes (31.4% of the global coastlines) after 1998, while 17.9% of the global coastlines changed from a cooling trend to a warming trend concurrently. The trend reversals in the Northern Pacific and Atlantic coincided with the phase shift of Pacific Decadal Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation, respectively. These coastal SST changes are larger than the changes of the global mean and open ocean, resulting in a fast increase of extremely hot/cold days, and thus extremely hot/cold events. Meanwhile, a continuous increase of SST was detected for a considerable portion of coastlines (46.7%) with a strengthened warming along the coastlines in the high northern latitudes. This suggests the warming still continued and strengthened in some regions after 1998, but with a weaker pattern in the low and mid latitudes. PMID:26568024

Projected Temperature-Related Years of Life Lost From Stroke Due To Global Warming in a Temperate Climate City, Asia: Disease Burden Caused by Future Climate Change.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Guoxing; Guo, Qun; Liu, Yang; Li, Yixue; Pan, Xiaochuan

2018-04-01

Global warming has attracted worldwide attention. Numerous studies have indicated that stroke is associated with temperature; however, few studies are available on the projections of the burden of stroke attributable to future climate change. We aimed to investigate the future trends of stroke years of life lost (YLL) associated with global warming. We collected death records to examine YLL in Tianjin, China, from 2006 to 2011. We fitted a standard time-series Poisson regression model after controlling for trends, day of the week, relative humidity, and air pollution. We estimated temperature-YLL associations with a distributed lag nonlinear model. These models were then applied to the local climate projections to estimate temperature-related YLL in the 2050s and 2070s. We projected temperature-related YLL from stroke in Tianjin under 19 global-scale climate models and 3 different greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The results showed a slight decrease in YLL with percent decreases of 0.85%, 0.97%, and 1.02% in the 2050s and 0.94%, 1.02%, and 0.91% in the 2070s for the 3 scenarios, respectively. The increases in heat-related annual YLL and the decreases in cold-related YLL under the high emission scenario were the strongest. The monthly analysis showed that the most significant increase occurred in the summer months, particularly in August, with percent changes >150% in the 2050s and up to 300% in the 2070s. Future changes in climate are likely to lead to an increase in heat-related YLL, and this increase will not be offset by adaptation under both medium emission and high emission scenarios. Health protections from hot weather will become increasingly necessary, and measures to reduce cold effects will also remain important. © 2018 American Heart Association, Inc.

Global scale climate-crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lobell, David B; Field, Christopher B

2007-01-01

Changes in the global production of major crops are important drivers of food prices, food security and land use decisions. Average global yields for these commodities are determined by the performance of crops in millions of fields distributed across a range of management, soil and climate regimes. Despite the complexity of global food supply, here we show that simple measures of growing season temperatures and precipitation-spatial averages based on the locations of each crop-explain ∼30% or more of year-to-year variations in global average yields for the world's six most widely grown crops. For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002. While these impacts are small relative to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate already occurring negative impacts of climate trends on crop yields at the global scale

Global scenarios and trends

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2011-01-01

The 21st century brings with it a number of disturbing challenges. They may even threaten to disrupt world order. Many agree the most critical and urgent challenge of all confronting human kind today is climate change. Global warming has reached a level which can trigger drastic shifts in world weather. There is convincing evidence to show that global warming is significantly attributed to mans own activities. If man is responsible for the warming of the planet, then only man can help stop global warming. Only man can reverse climate change. Climate change has the power to literally destruct the world. The adverse effects of global climate change are increasingly evident from the frequency and ferocity of natural disasters like the recent severe drought and flood in Queensland, Australia; the prolonged drought in East Africa; the destructive typhoon Nargis in Myanmar; the terrifying hurricane Katrina which brought New Orleans to its knees; the disastrous Mississippi flood and killer cyclones in USA and the out of season drought and flood in the Yangtze river basin. The list does not end there. Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in his lecture on 28 April 2011 at UNITEN, entitled Fukushima, Energy and Climate Change reaffirmed that the warming of the earths climate system is unequivocal. That climate change is mans common enemy is no longer in doubt. This is the reason why many see climate change as the single most important driver of the expanding global interest in green technology and a low carbon economy. (author)

Continental distribution as a forcing factor for global-scale temperature

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barron, E J; Thompson, S L; Hay, W W

1984-08-16

Since the advent of the continental drift hypothesis, changing continental geometries have been proposed as an explanation for long-term temperature variability. The climatic influence of a few specific past geographies has been investigated quantitatively, but these studies do not indicate the potential temperature variability due to continental positions. This problem has been examined only with simple climate models having limiting assumptions such as no cloud cover. Here idealized continental geometries are used as boundary conditions in a simulation using a general circulation model (GCM) of the atmosphere. The range in model simulated globally-averaged surface temperature is 7.4 K with a difference in polar surface temperature of up to 34 K. The simulations suggest a substantial climatic sensitivity to continental positions with the coldest global climate when land masses are in high latitudes. Although the simulations have not captured theoretical limits of climatic variability due to continental positions, present-day geography is near the cold end of this spectrum. 20 references, 1 figure.

Evaluation of the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) air temperature data products

Science.gov (United States)

Ji, Lei; Senay, Gabriel B.; Verdin, James P.

2015-01-01

There is a high demand for agrohydrologic models to use gridded near-surface air temperature data as the model input for estimating regional and global water budgets and cycles. The Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) developed by combining simulation models with observations provides a long-term gridded meteorological dataset at the global scale. However, the GLDAS air temperature products have not been comprehensively evaluated, although the accuracy of the products was assessed in limited areas. In this study, the daily 0.25° resolution GLDAS air temperature data are compared with two reference datasets: 1) 1-km-resolution gridded Daymet data (2002 and 2010) for the conterminous United States and 2) global meteorological observations (2000–11) archived from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN). The comparison of the GLDAS datasets with the GHCN datasets, including 13 511 weather stations, indicates a fairly high accuracy of the GLDAS data for daily temperature. The quality of the GLDAS air temperature data, however, is not always consistent in different regions of the world; for example, some areas in Africa and South America show relatively low accuracy. Spatial and temporal analyses reveal a high agreement between GLDAS and Daymet daily air temperature datasets, although spatial details in high mountainous areas are not sufficiently estimated by the GLDAS data. The evaluation of the GLDAS data demonstrates that the air temperature estimates are generally accurate, but caution should be taken when the data are used in mountainous areas or places with sparse weather stations.

Movement of global warming issues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sugiyama, Taishi

2015-01-01

This paper summarizes the report of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and the movement of the global warming issues as seen from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Conference of the Parties: COP) and the policy discussions in Japan. From the Fifth Assessment Report published by IPCC, it shows the following items: (1) increasing trends of greenhouse effect gas emissions during 1970 and 2010, (2) trends in world's greenhouse effect gas emissions according to income segment, and (3) factor analysis of changes in greenhouse effect gas emissions. Next, it takes up the greenhouse gas emission scenario of IPCC, shows the scenario due to temperature rise pattern, and introduces the assumption of emission reduction due to BECCS. Regarding the 2 deg. scenario that has become a hot topic in international negotiations, it describes the reason for difficulties in its implementation. In addition, as the international trends of global warming, it describes the agreement of numerical targets for emissions at COP3 (Kyoto Conference) and the subsequent movements. Finally, it introduces Japan's measures against global warming, as well as the future movement. (A.O.)

Increasing global crop harvest frequency: recent trends and future directions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ray, Deepak K; Foley, Jonathan A

2013-01-01

The world’s agricultural systems face the challenge of meeting the rising demands from population growth, changing dietary preferences, and expanding biofuel use. Previous studies have put forward strategies for meeting this growing demand by increasing global crop production, either expanding the area under cultivation or intensifying the crop yields of our existing agricultural lands. However, another possible means for increasing global crop production has received less attention: increasing the frequency of global cropland harvested each year. Historically, many of the world’s croplands were left fallow, or had failed harvests, each year, foregoing opportunities for delivering crop production. Furthermore, many regions, particularly in the tropics, may be capable of multiple harvests per year, often more than are harvested today. Here we analyze a global compilation of agricultural statistics to show how the world’s harvested cropland has changed. Between 2000 and 2011, harvested land area grew roughly 4 times faster than total standing cropland area. Using a metric of cropland harvest frequency (CHF)—the ratio of land harvested each year to the total standing cropland—and its recent trends, we identify countries that harvest their croplands more frequently, and those that have the potential to increase their cropland harvest frequency. We suggest that a possible ‘harvest gap’ may exist in many countries that represents an opportunity to increase crop production on existing agricultural lands. However, increasing the harvest frequency of existing croplands could have significant environmental and social impacts, which need careful evaluation. (letter)

Mars Exospheric Temperature Trends as Revealed by MAVEN NGIMS Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Bougher, Stephen W.; Olsen, Kirk; Roeten, Kali; Bell, Jared; Mahaffy, Paul; Benna, Mehdi; Elrod, Meredith; Jakosky, Bruce

2015-11-01

The Martian dayside upper thermosphere and exosphere temperatures (Texo) have been the subject of considerable debate and study since the first Mariner ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS) measurements (1969-1972), up to recent Mars Express SPICAM UVS measurements (2004-present) (e.g., see reviews by Stewart 1987; Bougher et al. 2000, 2014; Müeller-Wodarg et al. 2008; Stiepen et al. 2014). Prior to MAVEN, the Martian upper atmosphere thermal structure was poorly constrained by a limited number of both in-situ and remote sensing measurements at selected locations, seasons, and periods scattered throughout the solar cycle. Nevertheless, it is recognized that the Mars orbit eccentricity determines that both the solar cycle and seasonal variations in upper atmosphere temperatures must be considered together. The MAVEN NGIMS instrument measures the neutral composition of the major gas species (e.g. He, N, O, CO, N2, O2, NO, Ar and CO2) and their major isotopes, with a vertical resolution of ~5 km for targeted species and a target accuracy of <25% for most of these species (Mahaffy et al. 2014; 2015). Corresponding temperatures can now be derived from the neutral scale heights (especially CO2, Ar, and N2) (e.g. Mahaffy et al. 2015; Bougher et al. 2015). Texo mean temperatures spanning ~200 to 300 km are examined for both Deep Dip and Science orbits over 11-February 2015 (Ls ~ 290) to 14-July 2015 (Ls ~ 12). During these times, dayside sampling below 300 km occurred from the dusk terminator, across the dayside, and approaching the dawn terminator. NGIMS temperatures are investigated to extract spatial (e.g. SZA) and temporal (e.g. orbit-to-orbit, seasonal, solar rotational) variability and trends over this sampling period. Solar and seasonal driven trends in Texo are clearly visible, but orbit-to-orbit variability is significant, and demands further investigation to uncover the major drivers that are responsible.

Nitrous oxide flux under changing temperature and CO2

Science.gov (United States)

We are investigating nitrous oxide flux seasonal trends and response to temperature and CO2 increases in a boreal peatland. Peatlands located in boreal regions make up a third of global wetland area and are expected to have the highest temperature increases in response to climat...

CLIMATE CHANGE: LONG-TERM TRENDS AND SHORT-TERM OSCILLATIONS

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

GAO Xin-quan; ZHANG Xin; QIAN Wei-hong

2006-01-01

Identifying the Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstruction and instrumental data for the past 1000 years shows that climate change in the last millennium includes long-term trends and various oscillations. Two long-term trends and the quasi-70-year oscillation were detected in the global temperature series for the last 140 years and the NH millennium series. One important feature was emphasized that temperature decreases slowly but it increases rapidly based on the analysis of different series. Benefits can be obtained of climate change from understanding various long-term trends and oscillations. Millennial temperature proxies from the natural climate system and time series of nonlinear model system are used in understanding the natural climate change and recognizing potential benefits by using the method of wavelet transform analysis. The results from numerical modeling show that major oscillations contained in numerical solutions on the interdecadal timescale are consistent with that of natural proxies. It seems that these oscillations in the climate change are not directly linked with the solar radiation as an external forcing. This investigation may conclude that the climate variability at the interdecadal timescale strongly depends on the internal nonlinear effects in the climate system.

Non-linear trends and fluctuations in temperature during different growth stages of summer maize in the North China Plain from 1960 to 2014

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Cailin; Wu, Jidong; Wang, Xu; He, Xin; Li, Ning

2017-12-01

North China Plain has undergone severe warming trends since the 1950s, but whether this trend is the same during different growth phases for crops remains unknown. Thus, we analyzed the non-linear changes in the minimum temperature (T min ), mean temperature (T mean ) and maximum temperature (T max ) using the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition method during each growth stage of summer maize based on daily temperature data from 1960 to 2014. Our results strongly suggest that the trends and fluctuations in temperature change are non-linear. These changes can be categorized into four types of trend change according to the combinations of decreasing and increasing trends, and 8 fluctuation modes dominated by the fluctuations of expansion and shrinkage. The amplitude of the fluctuation is primarily expansion in the sowing-jointing stage and shrinkage in the jointing-maturity stage. Moreover, the temperature changes are inconsistent within each growth stage and are not consistent with the overall warming trend observed over the last 55 years. A transition period occurred in both the 1980s and the 1990s for temperatures during the sowing-tasseling stage. Furthermore, the cooling trend of the T max was significant in the sowing-emergence stage, while this cooling trend was not obvious for both T mean and T min in the jointing-tasseling stage. These results showed that temperature change was significantly different in different stages of the maize growth season. The results can serve as a scientific basis for a better understanding of the actual changes in the regional surface air temperature and agronomic heat resources.

Evaluation of stratospheric temperature simulation results by the global GRAPES model

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Ningwei; Wang, Yangfeng; Ma, Xiaogang; Zhang, Yunhai

2017-12-01

Global final analysis (FNL) products and the general circulation spectral model (ECHAM) were used to evaluate the simulation of stratospheric temperature by the global assimilation and prediction system (GRAPES). Through a series of comparisons, it was shown that the temperature variations at 50 hPa simulated by GRAPES were significantly elevated in the southern hemisphere, whereas simulations by ECHAM and FNL varied little over time. The regional warming predicted by GRAPES seemed to be too distinct and uncontrolled to be reasonable. The temperature difference between GRAPES and FNL (GRAPES minus FNL) was small at the start time on the global scale. Over time, the positive values became larger in more locations, especially in parts of the southern hemisphere, where the warming predicted by GRAPES was dominant, with a maximal value larger than 24 K. To determine the reasons for the stratospheric warming, we considered the model initial conditions and ozone data to be possible factors; however, a comparison and sensitivity test indicated that the errors produced by GRAPES were not significantly related to either factor. Further research focusing on the impact of factors such as vapor, heating rate, and the temperature tendency on GRAPES simulations will be conducted.

Trends in global approvals of biotech crops (1992–2014)

Science.gov (United States)

Aldemita, Rhodora R; Reaño, Ian Mari E; Solis, Renando O; Hautea, Randy A

2015-01-01

ABSTRACT With the increasing number of genetically modified (GM) events, traits, and crops that are developed to benefit the global population, approval of these technologies for food, feed, cultivation and import in each country may vary depending on needs, demand and trade interest. ISAAA established a GMO Approval Database to document global approvals of biotech crops. GM event name, crops, traits, developer, year of approval for cultivation, food/feed, import, and relevant dossiers were sourced from credible government regulatory websites and biosafety clearinghouses. This paper investigates the trends in GM approvals for food, feed and cultivation based on the number of approving countries, GM crops, events, and traits in the last 23 y (1992–2014), rationale for approval, factors influencing approvals, and their implications in GM crop adoption. Results show that in 2014, there was an accumulative increase in the number of countries granting approvals at 29 (79% developing countries) for commercial cultivation and 31 (70% developing countries) for food and 19 (80% developing developing) for feed; 2012 had the highest number of approving countries and cultivation approvals; 2011 had the highest number of country approvals for feed, and 2014 for food approvals. Herbicide tolerance trait had the highest events approved, followed by insect tolerance traits. Approvals for food product quality increased in the second decade. Maize had the highest number of events approved (single and stacked traits), and stacked traits product gradually increased which is already 30% of the total trait approvals. These results may indicate understanding and acceptance of countries to enhance regulatory capability to be able to benefit from GM crop commercialization. Hence, the paper provided information on the trends on the growth of the GM crop industry in the last 23 y which may be vital in predicting future GM crops and traits. PMID:26039675

Current Trends in the Nuclear Power Global Market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariya Mikhailovna Osetskaya

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The review of the nuclear energy technologies market, namely the main processes of the initial and final stages of the nuclear fuel cycle (NTC was shown. The authors reveal key players in the markets of natural uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, fabrication of nuclear fuel, direct disposal, and reprocessing as well as determine their market shares. The article shows the fundamental factors influencing the development trends of the global nuclear power market such as: units’ commissioning in China, India, the Republic of Korea and other countries, the restart of the Japanese nuclear power plants, growth of uranium supplies long-term contracting planned for the period up to 2025, volatility of world prices of the NFC initial and final stages, political, economic and environmental reasons for the nuclear power generation choice. The article presents the results of analyses of Russian and world prices on the NFC initial and final stages main processes’ allowing to draw a conclusion about the current competitiveness of Russian nuclear energy technologies

Revisiting Southern Hemisphere polar stratospheric temperature trends in WACCM: The role of dynamical forcing

Science.gov (United States)

Calvo, N.; Garcia, R. R.; Kinnison, D. E.

2017-04-01

The latest version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), which includes a new chemistry scheme and an updated parameterization of orographic gravity waves, produces temperature trends in the Antarctic lower stratosphere in excellent agreement with radiosonde observations for 1969-1998 as regards magnitude, location, timing, and persistence. The maximum trend, reached in November at 100 hPa, is -4.4 ± 2.8 K decade-1, which is a third smaller than the largest trend in the previous version of WACCM. Comparison with a simulation without the updated orographic gravity wave parameterization, together with analysis of the model's thermodynamic budget, reveals that the reduced trend is due to the effects of a stronger Brewer-Dobson circulation in the new simulations, which warms the polar cap. The effects are both direct (a trend in adiabatic warming in late spring) and indirect (a smaller trend in ozone, hence a smaller reduction in shortwave heating, due to the warmer environment).

Research Trends on Defect and Life Assessment of High Temperature Structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Hyeong Yeon; Lee Jae Han

2008-01-01

This report presents the analysis on the state-of-the-art research trends on defect assessment and life evaluation of high temperature structure based on the papers presented in the two international conferences of ASME PVP 2007 / CREEP 8 which was held in 2007 and ICFDSM VI(International Conference on Fatigue Damage of Structural Materials VI) which was held in 2006

Does flower phenology mirror the slowdown of global warming?

Science.gov (United States)

Jochner, Susanne; Menzel, Annette

2015-01-01

Although recent global warming trends in air temperature are not as pronounced as those observed only one decade ago, global mean temperature is still at a very high level. Does plant phenology – which is believed to be a suitable indicator of climate change – respond in a similar way, that is, does it still mirror recent temperature variations? We explored in detail long-term flowering onset dates of snowdrop, cherry, and lime tree and relevant spring temperatures at three sites in Germany (1901–2012) using the Bayesian multiple change-point approach. We investigated whether mean spring temperature changes were amplified or slowed down in the past decade and how plant phenology responded to the most recent temperature changes. Incorporating records with different end points (i.e., 2002 and 2012), we compared differences in trends and inferred possible differences caused by extrapolating phenological and meteorological data. The new multiple-change point approach is characterized by an enhanced structure and greater flexibility compared to the one change point model. However, the highest model probabilities for phenological (meteorological) records were still obtained for the one change point (linear) model. Marked warming trends in the recent decade were only revealed for mean temperatures of March to May, here better described with one or two change point models. In the majority of cases analyzed, changes in temperatures were well mirrored by phenological changes. However, temperatures in March to May were linked to less strongly advancing onset dates for lime tree flowering during the period 1901-2012, pointing to the likely influence of photoperiodic constraints or unfulfilled chilling requirements. Due to the slowdown of temperature increase, analyses conducted on records ending in 2002 demonstrated distinct differences when compared with records ending in 2012. Extrapolation of trends could therefore (along with the choice of the statistical method

Synchronous NDVI and Surface Air Temperature Trends in Newfoundland: 1982 to 2003

Science.gov (United States)

Neigh, C. S. R.; Tucker, C. J.; Townshend, J. R. G.

2007-01-01

The northern regions of the earth are currently experiencing rapid change in temperature and precipitation. This region contains -40% of carbon stored in the world's soil which has accumulated from the last ice age (over 10,000 years ago). The carbon has remained to this point due to reduced decomposition from the short growing seasons and subfreezing temperatures. The influence of climate upon plant growth can have significant consequences to the carbon cycle balance in this region and could potentially alter and release this long term store of carbon to the atmosphere, resulting in a negative feedback enhancing climate warming. These changes have the potential to alter ecosystems processes, which impact human well being. This paper investigated a global satellite record of increases in vegetation growth from 1982 to 2003 developed at GSFC. It was found that, Newfoundland's vegetation growth during the 1990s exceeded global measurements. A number of potential causes were investigated to understand the mechanistic environmental drivers that could alter the productivity of this ecosystem. Possible drivers of change included: human influence of land use change on vegetation cover; changes in precipitation; temperature; cloud cover; snow cover; and growing season length. We found that humans had a minimal influence on vegetation growth in Newfoundland. Less than 6% of the island was logged during the investigation. We found a strong correlation of vegetation growth to a lengthening of the growing season of -9 and -17 days from 1982-1990 and 1991-1999. A distinct drop in plant growth and air temperature was found in 1990 to 1991 from the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo that reduced global surface air temperatures. These results document the influences of air temperature upon northern forest plant growth and the cooling effects of major volcanic eruptions in this ecological system.

Global warming: Temperature estimation in annealers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jack Raymond

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Sampling from a Boltzmann distribution is NP-hard and so requires heuristic approaches. Quantum annealing is one promising candidate. The failure of annealing dynamics to equilibrate on practical time scales is a well understood limitation, but does not always prevent a heuristically useful distribution from being generated. In this paper we evaluate several methods for determining a useful operational temperature range for annealers. We show that, even where distributions deviate from the Boltzmann distribution due to ergodicity breaking, these estimates can be useful. We introduce the concepts of local and global temperatures that are captured by different estimation methods. We argue that for practical application it often makes sense to analyze annealers that are subject to post-processing in order to isolate the macroscopic distribution deviations that are a practical barrier to their application.

A mechanism for land-ocean contrasts in global monsoon trends in a warming climate

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fasullo, J. [National Center for Atmospheric Research, CAS/NCAR, Boulder, CO (United States)

2012-09-15

A central paradox of the global monsoon record involves reported decreases in rainfall over land during an era in which the global hydrologic cycle is both expected and observed to intensify. It is within this context that this work develops a physical basis for both interpreting the observed record and anticipating changes in the monsoons in a warming climate while bolstering the concept of the global monsoon in the context of shared feedbacks. The global-land monsoon record across multiple reanalyses is first assessed. Trends that in other studies have been taken as real are shown to likely be spurious as a result of changes in the assimilated data streams both prior to and during the satellite era. Nonetheless, based on satellite estimates, robust increases in monsoon rainfall over ocean do exist and a physical basis for this land-ocean contrast remains lacking. To address the contrast's causes, simulated trends are therefore assessed. While projections of total rainfall are inconsistent across models, the robust land-ocean contrast identified in observations is confirmed. A feedback mechanism is proposed rooted in the facts that land areas warm disproportionately relative to ocean, and onshore flow is the chief source of monsoonal moisture. Reductions in lower tropospheric relative humidity over land domains are therefore inevitable and these have direct consequences for the monsoonal convective environment including an increase in the lifting condensation level and a shift in the distribution of convection generally towards less frequent and potentially more intense events. The mechanism is interpreted as an important modulating influence on the ''rich-get-richer'' mechanism. Caveats for regional monsoons exist and are discussed. (orig.)

Scenario and modelling uncertainty in global mean temperature change derived from emission driven Global Climate Models

Science.gov (United States)

Booth, B. B. B.; Bernie, D.; McNeall, D.; Hawkins, E.; Caesar, J.; Boulton, C.; Friedlingstein, P.; Sexton, D.

2012-09-01

We compare future changes in global mean temperature in response to different future scenarios which, for the first time, arise from emission driven rather than concentration driven perturbed parameter ensemble of a Global Climate Model (GCM). These new GCM simulations sample uncertainties in atmospheric feedbacks, land carbon cycle, ocean physics and aerosol sulphur cycle processes. We find broader ranges of projected temperature responses arising when considering emission rather than concentration driven simulations (with 10-90 percentile ranges of 1.7 K for the aggressive mitigation scenario up to 3.9 K for the high end business as usual scenario). A small minority of simulations resulting from combinations of strong atmospheric feedbacks and carbon cycle responses show temperature increases in excess of 9 degrees (RCP8.5) and even under aggressive mitigation (RCP2.6) temperatures in excess of 4 K. While the simulations point to much larger temperature ranges for emission driven experiments, they do not change existing expectations (based on previous concentration driven experiments) on the timescale that different sources of uncertainty are important. The new simulations sample a range of future atmospheric concentrations for each emission scenario. Both in case of SRES A1B and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), the concentration pathways used to drive GCM ensembles lies towards the lower end of our simulated distribution. This design decision (a legecy of previous assessments) is likely to lead concentration driven experiments to under-sample strong feedback responses in concentration driven projections. Our ensemble of emission driven simulations span the global temperature response of other multi-model frameworks except at the low end, where combinations of low climate sensitivity and low carbon cycle feedbacks lead to responses outside our ensemble range. The ensemble simulates a number of high end responses which lie above the CMIP5 carbon

Scenario and modelling uncertainty in global mean temperature change derived from emission-driven global climate models

Science.gov (United States)

Booth, B. B. B.; Bernie, D.; McNeall, D.; Hawkins, E.; Caesar, J.; Boulton, C.; Friedlingstein, P.; Sexton, D. M. H.

2013-04-01

We compare future changes in global mean temperature in response to different future scenarios which, for the first time, arise from emission-driven rather than concentration-driven perturbed parameter ensemble of a global climate model (GCM). These new GCM simulations sample uncertainties in atmospheric feedbacks, land carbon cycle, ocean physics and aerosol sulphur cycle processes. We find broader ranges of projected temperature responses arising when considering emission rather than concentration-driven simulations (with 10-90th percentile ranges of 1.7 K for the aggressive mitigation scenario, up to 3.9 K for the high-end, business as usual scenario). A small minority of simulations resulting from combinations of strong atmospheric feedbacks and carbon cycle responses show temperature increases in excess of 9 K (RCP8.5) and even under aggressive mitigation (RCP2.6) temperatures in excess of 4 K. While the simulations point to much larger temperature ranges for emission-driven experiments, they do not change existing expectations (based on previous concentration-driven experiments) on the timescales over which different sources of uncertainty are important. The new simulations sample a range of future atmospheric concentrations for each emission scenario. Both in the case of SRES A1B and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), the concentration scenarios used to drive GCM ensembles, lies towards the lower end of our simulated distribution. This design decision (a legacy of previous assessments) is likely to lead concentration-driven experiments to under-sample strong feedback responses in future projections. Our ensemble of emission-driven simulations span the global temperature response of the CMIP5 emission-driven simulations, except at the low end. Combinations of low climate sensitivity and low carbon cycle feedbacks lead to a number of CMIP5 responses to lie below our ensemble range. The ensemble simulates a number of high-end responses which lie

Scenario and modelling uncertainty in global mean temperature change derived from emission-driven global climate models

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B. B. B. Booth

2013-04-01

Full Text Available We compare future changes in global mean temperature in response to different future scenarios which, for the first time, arise from emission-driven rather than concentration-driven perturbed parameter ensemble of a global climate model (GCM. These new GCM simulations sample uncertainties in atmospheric feedbacks, land carbon cycle, ocean physics and aerosol sulphur cycle processes. We find broader ranges of projected temperature responses arising when considering emission rather than concentration-driven simulations (with 10–90th percentile ranges of 1.7 K for the aggressive mitigation scenario, up to 3.9 K for the high-end, business as usual scenario. A small minority of simulations resulting from combinations of strong atmospheric feedbacks and carbon cycle responses show temperature increases in excess of 9 K (RCP8.5 and even under aggressive mitigation (RCP2.6 temperatures in excess of 4 K. While the simulations point to much larger temperature ranges for emission-driven experiments, they do not change existing expectations (based on previous concentration-driven experiments on the timescales over which different sources of uncertainty are important. The new simulations sample a range of future atmospheric concentrations for each emission scenario. Both in the case of SRES A1B and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs, the concentration scenarios used to drive GCM ensembles, lies towards the lower end of our simulated distribution. This design decision (a legacy of previous assessments is likely to lead concentration-driven experiments to under-sample strong feedback responses in future projections. Our ensemble of emission-driven simulations span the global temperature response of the CMIP5 emission-driven simulations, except at the low end. Combinations of low climate sensitivity and low carbon cycle feedbacks lead to a number of CMIP5 responses to lie below our ensemble range. The ensemble simulates a number of high

The Role of Organizational Leadership to Enhance Top 10 CSR Issues and Trends in The Global Economy

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Dewi Rachmayanti

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Research on leadership and its relationship with organizational performance have been carried out and not considered Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR performance, especially in the field of community development (Comdev and even done partially. This study aims to investigate the role of organizational leadership to enhance Top 10 CSR issues and trends in the global economy which defines roles and leadership competencies. Thirteen experts were involved in the Forum of Multi Stakeholder Corporate Social Responsibility (MSHCSR through Focus Group Discussion (FGD. Data by cluster random sampling were statistically analyzed with Assumption Surfacing and Testing Strategy (SAST. The results showed from FGD experts stating if eight roles and eight competencies of the organization’s leadership is very important and influential to enhance Top 10 CSR issues and trends in the global economy.

Forecast models for urban extreme temperatures : Karachi region as a case study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hussain, M.A.; Abbas, A.; Ansari, M.R.K.

2010-01-01

The climatic signature of global warming is both local and global. The forcing by increasing greenhouse gases is global, so there is clearly a global component to the climatic signature. Moreover, the damaging impacts of global warming are manifesting themselves around the world in the form of extreme weather events like storms, tornadoes, floods and droughts, all of which have been escalating in frequency and intensity. Furthermore, it is a well-known fact that there is high degree of uncertainty surrounding projections of basic climate variables, such as temperature and precipitation. However, numerous authors have explored many of these effects individually and have begun exploring the interactions between climate change-induced impacts in different sectors of urban activities. Therefore, it is safe to say that an attempt to conduct a definitive, comprehensive analysis of all the potential impacts of climate change on the urban structure is premature at present. This communication attempts to examine the trends in maximum monthly urban temperature fluctuations. Analysis reveals increasing trends in urban temperature fluctuations showing effect of Karachi industrializations. Forecast models also suggest future scenario with respect to occurrence of extreme temperature. The analysis carried out in this work would be useful for urban planners for sustainable future development, economists and environmentalists etc. (author)

Global 1-km Sea Surface Temperature (G1SST)

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — JPL OurOcean Portal: A daily, global Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data set is produced at 1-km (also known as ultra-high resolution) by the JPL ROMS (Regional Ocean...

Temporal trends in United States dew point temperatures

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Peter J.

2000-07-01

In this study, hourly data for the 1951-1990 period for 178 stations in the coterminous United States were used to establish temporal trends in dew point temperature. Although the data had been quality controlled previously (Robinson, 1998. Monthly variations of dew point temperatures in the coterminous United States. International Journal of Climatology 18: 1539-1556), comparisons of values between nearby stations suggested that instrumental changes, combined with locational changes, may have modified the results by as much as 1°C during the 40-year period. Nevertheless, seasonally averaged results indicated an increase over much of the area, of slightly over 1°C/100 years in spring and autumn, slightly less than this in summer. Winter displayed a drying of over 1°C/100 years. When only the 1961-1990 period was considered, the patterns were similar and trends increased by approximately 1-2°C/100 years, except in autumn, which displayed a slight drying. Analyses for specific stations indicated periods of both increasing and decreasing Td, the change between them varying with observation hour. No single change point was common over a wide area, although January commonly indicated maximum values early in the period in the east and west, and much later in the north-central portion. Rates of increase were generally higher in daytime than at night, especially in summer. Investigation of the inter-decadal differences in dew point, as a function of wind conditions, indicated that changes during calm conditions were commonly similar in magnitude to that of the overall average changes, suggesting an important role for the local hydrologic cycle in driving changes. Other inter-decadal changes could be attributed to the changes in the frequency and moisture content of invading air-streams. This was particularly clear for the changes in north-south flow in the interior.

Global Warming: Physics and Facts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levi, B.G.; Hafemeister, D.; Scribner, R.

1992-01-01

This report contains papers on: A tutorial on global atmospheric energetics and the greenhouse effect; global climate models: what and how; comparison of general circulation models; climate and the earth's radiation budget; temperature and sea level change; short-term climate variability and predictions; the great ocean conveyor; trace gases in the atmosphere: temporal and spatial trends; the geochemical carbon cycle and the uptake of fossil fuel CO 2 ; forestry and global warming; the physical and policy linkages; policy implications of greenhouse warming; options for lowering US carbon dioxide emissions; options for reducing carbon dioxide emissions; and science and diplomacy: a new partnership to protect the environment

Peculiarities of spreading separatist trends in the Modern World in the context of development of the global processes

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Bostan Sergii Ivanovich

2016-04-01

Full Text Available The international collaboration is entering the new era of globalization revealing not only the new ways of development and quantum growth for humanity but also new threats, problems and global conflicts. There is now doubt that humanity is facing new global range of problems, agenda of the 21st century and urgent issues of global organization of the world order and systems of global administration acceptable for all states. Preventing distribution of international confrontation between the major political players through advancement of separatist and terrorist trends must become the main priority for the international system of collective security, which should be changed according to the realities of the modern global processes.

Identification and analysis of recent temporal temperature trends for Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

Science.gov (United States)

Piyoosh, Atul Kant; Ghosh, Sanjay Kumar

2018-05-01

Maximum and minimum temperatures (T max and T min) are indicators of changes in climate. In this study, observed and gridded T max and T min data of Dehradun are analyzed for the period 1901-2014. Observed data obtained from India Meteorological Department and National Institute of Hydrology, whereas gridded data from Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were used. Efficacy of elevation-corrected CRU data was checked by cross validation using data of various stations at different elevations. In both the observed and gridded data, major change points were detected using Cumulative Sum chart. For T max, change points occur in the years 1974 and 1997, while, for T min, in 1959 and 1986. Statistical significance of trends was tested in three sub-periods based on change points using Mann-Kendall (MK) test, Sen's slope estimator, and linear regression (LR) method. It has been found that both the T max and T min have a sequence of rising, falling, and rising trends in sub-periods. Out of three different methods used for trend tests, MK and SS have indicated similar results, while LR method has also shown similar results for most of the cases. Root-mean-square error for actual and anomaly time series of CRU data was found to be within one standard deviation of observed data which indicates that the CRU data are very close to the observed data. The trends exhibited by CRU data were also found to be similar to the observed data. Thus, CRU temperature data may be quite useful for various studies in the regions of scarcity of observational data.

Trends in Global Vegetation Activity and Climatic Drivers Indicate a Decoupled Response to Climate Change.

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Antonius G T Schut

Full Text Available Detailed understanding of a possible decoupling between climatic drivers of plant productivity and the response of ecosystems vegetation is required. We compared trends in six NDVI metrics (1982-2010 derived from the GIMMS3g dataset with modelled biomass productivity and assessed uncertainty in trend estimates. Annual total biomass weight (TBW was calculated with the LINPAC model. Trends were determined using a simple linear regression, a Thiel-Sen medium slope and a piecewise regression (PWR with two segments. Values of NDVI metrics were related to Net Primary Production (MODIS-NPP and TBW per biome and land-use type. The simple linear and Thiel-Sen trends did not differ much whereas PWR increased the fraction of explained variation, depending on the NDVI metric considered. A positive trend in TBW indicating more favorable climatic conditions was found for 24% of pixels on land, and for 5% a negative trend. A decoupled trend, indicating positive TBW trends and monotonic negative or segmented and negative NDVI trends, was observed for 17-36% of all productive areas depending on the NDVI metric used. For only 1-2% of all pixels in productive areas, a diverging and greening trend was found despite a strong negative trend in TBW. The choice of NDVI metric used strongly affected outcomes on regional scales and differences in the fraction of explained variation in MODIS-NPP between biomes were large, and a combination of NDVI metrics is recommended for global studies. We have found an increasing difference between trends in climatic drivers and observed NDVI for large parts of the globe. Our findings suggest that future scenarios must consider impacts of constraints on plant growth such as extremes in weather and nutrient availability to predict changes in NPP and CO2 sequestration capacity.

The effect of interpolation methods in temperature and salinity trends in the Western Mediterranean

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M. VARGAS-YANEZ

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Temperature and salinity data in the historical record are scarce and unevenly distributed in space and time and the estimation of linear trends is sensitive to different factors. In the case of the Western Mediterranean, previous works have studied the sensitivity of these trends to the use of bathythermograph data, the averaging methods or the way in which gaps in time series are dealt with. In this work, a new factor is analysed: the effect of data interpolation. Temperature and salinity time series are generated averaging existing data over certain geographical areas and also by means of interpolation. Linear trends from both types of time series are compared. There are some differences between both estimations for some layers and geographical areas, while in other cases the results are consistent. Those results which do not depend on the use of interpolated or non-interpolated data, neither are influenced by data analysis methods can be considered as robust ones. Those results influenced by the interpolation process or the factors analysed in previous sensitivity tests are not considered as robust results.

Unravelling Diurnal Asymmetry of Surface Temperature in Different Climate Zones.

Science.gov (United States)

Vinnarasi, R; Dhanya, C T; Chakravorty, Aniket; AghaKouchak, Amir

2017-08-04

Understanding the evolution of Diurnal Temperature Range (DTR), which has contradicting global and regional trends, is crucial because it influences environmental and human health. Here, we analyse the regional evolution of DTR trend over different climatic zones in India using a non-stationary approach known as the Multidimensional Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (MEEMD) method, to explore the generalized influence of regional climate on DTR, if any. We report a 0.36 °C increase in overall mean of DTR till 1980, however, the rate has declined since then. Further, arid deserts and warm-temperate grasslands exhibit negative DTR trends, while the west coast and sub-tropical forest in the north-east show positive trends. This transition predominantly begins with a 0.5 °C increase from the west coast and spreads with an increase of 0.25 °C per decade. These changes are more pronounced during winter and post-monsoon, especially in the arid desert and warm-temperate grasslands, the DTR decreased up to 2 °C, where the rate of increase in minimum temperature is higher than the maximum temperature. We conclude that both maximum and minimum temperature increase in response to the global climate change, however, their rates of increase are highly local and depend on the underlying climatic zone.

Actual and future trends of extreme values of temperature for the NW Iberian Peninsula

Science.gov (United States)

Taboada, J.; Brands, S.; Lorenzo, N.

2009-09-01

It is now very well established that yearly averaged temperatures are increasing due to anthropogenic climate change. In the area of Galicia (NW Spain) this trend has also been determined. The main objective of this work is to assess actual and future trends of different extreme indices of temperature, which are of curcial importance for many impact studies. Station data for the study was provided by the CLIMA database of the regional government of Galicia (NW Spain). As direct GCM-output significantly underestimates the variance of daily surface temperature variables in NW Spain, these variables are obtained by applying a statistical downscaling technique (analog method), using 850hPa temperature and mean sea level pressure as combined predictors. The predictor fields have been extracted from three GCMs participating in the IPCC AR4 under A1, A1B and A2 scenarios. The definitions of the extreme indices have been taken from the joint CCl/CLIVAR/JCOMM Expert Team (ET) on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) This group has defined a set of standard extreme values to simplify intercomparisons of data from different regions of the world. For the temperatures in the period 1960-2006, results show a significant increase of the number of days with maximum temperatures above the 90th percentile. Furthermore, a significant decrease of the days with maximum temperatures below the 10th percentile has been found. The tendencies of minimum temperatures are reverse: less nights with minimum temperatures below 10th percentile, and more with minimum temperatures above 90th percentile. Those tendencies can be observed all over the year, but are more pronounced in summer. We have also calculated the relationship between the above mentioned extreme values and different teleconnection patterns appearing in the North Atlantic area. Results show that local tendencies are associated with trends of EA (Eastern Atlantic) and SCA (Scandinavian) patterns. NAO (North Atlantic

Climate change impact of livestock CH4 emission in India: Global temperature change potential (GTP) and surface temperature response.

Science.gov (United States)

Kumari, Shilpi; Hiloidhari, Moonmoon; Kumari, Nisha; Naik, S N; Dahiya, R P

2018-01-01

Two climate metrics, Global surface Temperature Change Potential (GTP) and the Absolute GTP (AGTP) are used for studying the global surface temperature impact of CH 4 emission from livestock in India. The impact on global surface temperature is estimated for 20 and 100 year time frames due to CH 4 emission. The results show that the CH 4 emission from livestock, worked out to 15.3 Tg in 2012. In terms of climate metrics GTP of livestock-related CH 4 emission in India in 2012 were 1030 Tg CO 2 e (GTP 20 ) and 62 Tg CO 2 e (GTP 100 ) at the 20 and 100 year time horizon, respectively. The study also illustrates that livestock-related CH 4 emissions in India can cause a surface temperature increase of up to 0.7mK and 0.036mK over the 20 and 100 year time periods, respectively. The surface temperature response to a year of Indian livestock emission peaks at 0.9mK in the year 2021 (9 years after the time of emission). The AGTP gives important information in terms of temperature change due to annual CH 4 emissions, which is useful when comparing policies that address multiple gases. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring the possibilities of the advection of temperature to diagnose the influence of changes in the atmospheric circulation on global temperature

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vidal, O.; Gimeno, L.; Ribera, P. [Vigo Univ., Orense (Spain). Dept. of Applied Physics; Garcia, R.; Hernandez, E.; Gallego, D. [Complutense Univ., Madrid (Spain). Dept. of Atmospheric Physics

2001-07-01

The advection of temperature (AT) at three different pressure levels was calculated for the period of 1958 to 1998 to test the hypothesis that the origin global temperature increase during the past decade was caused by changes in global circulation. The relationship between El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and global temperature has been widely studied. They have a common oscillation in the bands of 2 and 4 years. The Northern Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) may also account for regional surface warming over Europe and Asia and for cooling over the northwestern Atlantic. Important correlations were found between most of the Northern Hemisphere and Global AT series with the Arctic Oscillation and between most of the Southern Hemisphere and Global AT series with the Antarctic Oscillation. Poor correlations were found with El Nino-Southern Oscillation even for belts between 0 and 30 degrees and for the lower troposphere. 8 refs., 1 tab., 1 fig.

Trends and periodicity of daily temperature and precipitation extremes during 1960-2013 in Hunan Province, central south China

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Ajiao; He, Xinguang; Guan, Huade; Cai, Yi

2018-04-01

In this study, the trends and periodicity in climate extremes are examined in Hunan Province over the period 1960-2013 on the basis of 27 extreme climate indices calculated from daily temperature and precipitation records at 89 meteorological stations. The results show that in the whole province, temperature extremes exhibit a warming trend with more than 50% stations being statistically significant for 7 out of 16 temperature indices, and the nighttime temperature increases faster than the daytime temperature at the annual scale. The changes in most extreme temperature indices show strongly coherent spatial patterns. Moreover, the change rates of almost all temperature indices in north Hunan are greater than those of other regions. However, the statistically significant changes in indices of extreme precipitation are observed at fewer stations than in extreme temperature indices, forming less spatially coherent patterns. Positive trends in indices of extreme precipitation show that the amount and intensity of extreme precipitation events are generally increasing in both annual and seasonal scales, whereas the significant downward trend in consecutive wet days indicates that the precipitation becomes more even over the study period. Analysis of changes in probability distributions of extreme indices for 1960-1986 and 1987-2013 also demonstrates a remarkable shift toward warmer condition and increasing tendency in the amount and intensity of extreme precipitation during the past decades. The variations in extreme climate indices exhibit inconstant frequencies in the wavelet power spectrum. Among the 16 temperature indices, 2 of them show significant 1-year periodic oscillation and 7 of them exhibit significant 4-year cycle during some certain periods. However, significant periodic oscillations can be found in all of the precipitation indices. Wet-day precipitation and three absolute precipitation indices show significant 1-year cycle and other seven provide

Does the projected pathway to global warming targets matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Bärring, Lars; Strandberg, Gustav

2018-02-01

Since the ‘Paris agreement’ in 2015 there has been much focus on what a +1.5 °C or +2 °C warmer world would look like. Since the focus lies on policy relevant global warming targets, or specific warming levels (SWLs), rather than a specific point in time, projections are pooled together to form SWL ensembles based on the target temperature rather than emission scenario. This study uses an ensemble of CMIP5 global model projections to analyse how well SWL ensembles represent the stabilized climate of global warming targets. The results show that the SWL ensembles exhibit significant trends that reflect the transient nature of the RCP scenarios. These trends have clear effect on the timing and clustering of monthly cold and hot extremes, even though the effect on the temperature of the extreme months is less visible. In many regions there is a link between choice of RCP scenario used in the SWL ensemble and climate change signal in the highest monthly temperatures. In other regions there is no such clear-cut link. From this we conclude that comprehensive analyses of what prospects the different global warming targets bring about will require stabilization scenarios. Awaiting such targeted scenarios we suggest that prudent use of SWL scenarios, taking their characteristics and limitations into account, may serve as reasonable proxies in many situations.

Trends in continental temperature and humidity directly linked to ocean warming.

Science.gov (United States)

Byrne, Michael P; O'Gorman, Paul A

2018-05-08

In recent decades, the land surface has warmed substantially more than the ocean surface, and relative humidity has fallen over land. Amplified warming and declining relative humidity over land are also dominant features of future climate projections, with implications for climate-change impacts. An emerging body of research has shown how constraints from atmospheric dynamics and moisture budgets are important for projected future land-ocean contrasts, but these ideas have not been used to investigate temperature and humidity records over recent decades. Here we show how both the temperature and humidity changes observed over land between 1979 and 2016 are linked to warming over neighboring oceans. A simple analytical theory, based on atmospheric dynamics and moisture transport, predicts equal changes in moist static energy over land and ocean and equal fractional changes in specific humidity over land and ocean. The theory is shown to be consistent with the observed trends in land temperature and humidity given the warming over ocean. Amplified land warming is needed for the increase in moist static energy over drier land to match that over ocean, and land relative humidity decreases because land specific humidity is linked via moisture transport to the weaker warming over ocean. However, there is considerable variability about the best-fit trend in land relative humidity that requires further investigation and which may be related to factors such as changes in atmospheric circulations and land-surface properties.

Variability of Diurnal Temperature Range During Winter Over Western Himalaya: Range- and Altitude-Wise Study

Science.gov (United States)

Shekhar, M. S.; Devi, Usha; Dash, S. K.; Singh, G. P.; Singh, Amreek

2018-04-01

The current trends in diurnal temperature range, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, mean temperature, and sun shine hours over different ranges and altitudes of Western Himalaya during winter have been studied. Analysis of 25 years of data shows an increasing trend in diurnal temperature range over all the ranges and altitudes of Western Himalaya during winter, thereby confirming regional warming of the region due to present climate change and global warming. Statistical studies show significant increasing trend in maximum temperature over all the ranges and altitudes of Western Himalaya. Minimum temperature shows significant decreasing trend over Pir Panjal and Shamshawari range and significant increasing trend over higher altitude of Western Himalaya. Similarly, sunshine hours show significant decreasing trend over Karakoram range. There exists strong positive correlation between diurnal temperature range and maximum temperature for all the ranges and altitudes of Western Himalaya. Strong negative correlation exists between diurnal temperature range and minimum temperature over Shamshawari and Great Himalaya range and lower altitude of Western Himalaya. Sunshine hours show strong positive correlation with diurnal temperature range over Pir Panjal and Great Himalaya range and lower and higher altitudes.

Modeling the contributions of global air temperature, synoptic-scale phenomena and soil moisture to near-surface static energy variability using artificial neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Pryor, Sara C.; Sullivan, Ryan C.; Schoof, Justin T.

2017-12-01

The static energy content of the atmosphere is increasing on a global scale, but exhibits important subglobal and subregional scales of variability and is a useful parameter for integrating the net effect of changes in the partitioning of energy at the surface and for improving understanding of the causes of so-called warming holes (i.e., locations with decreasing daily maximum air temperatures (T) or increasing trends of lower magnitude than the global mean). Further, measures of the static energy content (herein the equivalent potential temperature, θe) are more strongly linked to excess human mortality and morbidity than air temperature alone, and have great relevance in understanding causes of past heat-related excess mortality and making projections of possible future events that are likely to be associated with negative human health and economic consequences. New nonlinear statistical models for summertime daily maximum and minimum θe are developed and used to advance understanding of drivers of historical change and variability over the eastern USA. The predictor variables are an index of the daily global mean temperature, daily indices of the synoptic-scale meteorology derived from T and specific humidity (Q) at 850 and 500 hPa geopotential heights (Z), and spatiotemporally averaged soil moisture (text">SM). text">SM is particularly important in determining the magnitude of θe over regions that have previously been identified as exhibiting warming holes, confirming the key importance of text">SM in dictating the partitioning of net radiation into sensible and latent heat and dictating trends in near-surface T and θe. Consistent with our a priori expectations, models built using artificial neural networks (ANNs) out-perform linear models that do not permit interaction of the predictor variables (global T, synoptic-scale meteorological conditions and text">SM). This is particularly marked in regions with high variability in minimum and maximum θe, where

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Assessment of global-scale model performance for global and regional ozone distributions, variability, and trends

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P. J. Young

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The goal of the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR is to provide the research community with an up-to-date scientific assessment of tropospheric ozone, from the surface to the tropopause. While a suite of observations provides significant information on the spatial and temporal distribution of tropospheric ozone, observational gaps make it necessary to use global atmospheric chemistry models to synthesize our understanding of the processes and variables that control tropospheric ozone abundance and its variability. Models facilitate the interpretation of the observations and allow us to make projections of future tropospheric ozone and trace gas distributions for different anthropogenic or natural perturbations. This paper assesses the skill of current-generation global atmospheric chemistry models in simulating the observed present-day tropospheric ozone distribution, variability, and trends. Drawing upon the results of recent international multi-model intercomparisons and using a range of model evaluation techniques, we demonstrate that global chemistry models are broadly skillful in capturing the spatio-temporal variations of tropospheric ozone over the seasonal cycle, for extreme pollution episodes, and changes over interannual to decadal periods. However, models are consistently biased high in the northern hemisphere and biased low in the southern hemisphere, throughout the depth of the troposphere, and are unable to replicate particular metrics that define the longer term trends in tropospheric ozone as derived from some background sites. When the models compare unfavorably against observations, we discuss the potential causes of model biases and propose directions for future developments, including improved evaluations that may be able to better diagnose the root cause of the model-observation disparity. Overall, model results should be approached critically, including determining whether the model performance is acceptable for

Dynamical Analysis of the Global Warming

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J. A. Tenreiro Machado

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Global warming is a major concern nowadays. Weather conditions are changing, and it seems that human activity is one of the main causes. In fact, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has increased the nonnatural emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that absorbs the infrared radiation produced by the reflection of the sunlight on the Earth’s surface, trapping the heat in the atmosphere. Global warming and the associated climate changes are being the subject of intensive research due to their major impact on social, economic, and health aspects of human life. This paper studies the global warming trend in the perspective of dynamical systems and fractional calculus, which is a new standpoint in this context. Worldwide distributed meteorological stations and temperature records for the last 100 years are analysed. It is shown that the application of Fourier transforms and power law trend lines leads to an assertive representation of the global warming dynamics and a simpler analysis of its characteristics.

Trends and variation in monthly rainfall and temperature in Suriname

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raid, Nurmohamed

2004-01-01

As Surinam lies within the equatorial trough zone, climate is mainly influenced by the movement and intensity of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone and the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Scientist predict that global climate change will directly effect the hydrological cycle such as rainfall and temperature, and extreme events such as a El Nino and La Nina. The aim of this study is to analyze historical changes in monthly rainfall and temperature and to predict future changes, with respect to climate change (doubling of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) by 2100) and variability. Linear extrapolation and five Global Circulations Models (GCMS) (HadCM2, ECHAM4, GFDL-TR, CSIRO2-EQ, CCSR-NIES) will be used. Results of GCMs have showed that under global climate change by 2100, the monthly rainfall is predicted to change with -82 to 66 mm during January and August, and -36 to 47 mm during September and November. The monthly temperature is predicted to increase with 1.3 to 4.3 C by 2100. El Nino events have showed that along the coastal zone and in the center of Surinam, most months (>50%) during the year are drier than normal (88 to 316 mm), while in the west part of Surinam, most months (>50%) are wetter than normal (110 to 220 mm). La Nina events have showed that over entire Surinam, most of the months are wetter than normal (19 to 122 mm), with respect to the minimum rainfall. It can be concluded that the changes in rainfall due to El Nino and La Nina events may have significant impacts on the design, planning and management of water resources systems in Surinam and should therefore be incorporated in future water resources planning. (Author)

ATSR sea surface temperature data in a global analysis with TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Knudsen, Per; Andersen, Ole Baltazar; Knudsen, Thomas

1996-01-01

Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) data from the ERS 1 satellite mission are used in a global analysis of the surface temperature of the oceans. The data are the low resolution 0.5 degrees by 0.5 degrees average temperatures and cover about 24 months. At global scales a significant seasonal...... variability is found. On each of the hemispheres the surface temperatures reach their maximum after summer heating. The seasonal sea level variability, as observed from TOPEX/POSEIDON, reaches its maximum 1.1-1.4 months later....

Analysis of rainfall and temperature time series to detect long-term climatic trends and variability over semi-arid Botswana

Science.gov (United States)

Byakatonda, Jimmy; Parida, B. P.; Kenabatho, Piet K.; Moalafhi, D. B.

2018-03-01

Arid and semi-arid environments have been identified with locations prone to impacts of climate variability and change. Investigating long-term trends is one way of tracing climate change impacts. This study investigates variability through annual and seasonal meteorological time series. Possible inhomogeneities and years of intervention are analysed using four absolute homogeneity tests. Trends in the climatic variables were determined using Mann-Kendall and Sen's Slope estimator statistics. Association of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with local climate is also investigated through multivariate analysis. Results from the study show that rainfall time series are fully homogeneous with 78.6 and 50% of the stations for maximum and minimum temperature, respectively, showing homogeneity. Trends also indicate a general decrease of 5.8, 7.4 and 18.1% in annual, summer and winter rainfall, respectively. Warming trends are observed in annual and winter temperature at 0.3 and 1.5% for maximum temperature and 1.7 and 6.5% for minimum temperature, respectively. Rainfall reported a positive correlation with Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and at the same time negative association with Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs). Strong relationships between SSTs and maximum temperature are observed during the El Niño and La Niña years. These study findings could facilitate planning and management of agricultural and water resources in Botswana.

Trends in coal use - global, EU and Poland

Science.gov (United States)

Suwała, Wojciech; Wyrwa, Artur; Olkuski, Tadeusz

2017-11-01

That aim of this paper is to compare trends in global, European use of coal with tendencies in Poland, one of heavy coal dependent countries. Polish power generation is unique among OECD countries, the share of both hard coal and lignite in power generation reaches 81% [1]. Climate policy of European Union is to phase out intensive greenhouse gases sectors, thus to transform Polish power generation into less carbon intensive. Although such policy is generally accepted in Poland, the paste and practically proposed regulation that excludes coal generation from capacity mechanisms, is considered as threat to energy security. Coal is the base for generation for one simple reason, abundant in European scale hard coal reserves and significant capacities in lignite. Natural gas reserves allow to supply about 1/3 of consumption, but prices and supplies dependent hitherto on contracts with GAZPROM did not allow to develop significant generation capacities. Renewable resources are limited, there is not much possibilities for hydro, wind and solar. Poland is also one of the countries of poor air quality, traditional coal based space heating systems plus obsolete car fleet generate vast emissions, especially during the winter. Only recently this became top priority of environmental authorities. This situation is subject to transformation, government, managers are aware that the role of coal needs to be decreased, but there are two main questions, the paste of transformation and the future energy mix. The paper attempts to answer the question whether the expected changes in Polish energy mix are comparable or differ from the global and European tendencies.

Temperature minima in the average thermal structure of the middle mesosphere (70 - 80 km) from analysis of 40- to 92-km SME global temperature profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Clancy, R. Todd; Rusch, David W.; Callan, Michael T.

1994-01-01

Global temperatures have been derived for the upper stratosphere and mesosphere from analysis of Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME) limb radiance profiles. The SME temperature represent fixed local time observations at 1400 - 1500 LT, with partial zonal coverage of 3 - 5 longitudes per day over the 1982-1986 period. These new SME temperatures are compared to the COSPAR International Ionosphere Reference Atmosphere 86 (CIRA 86) climatology (Fleming et al., 1990) as well as stratospheric and mesospheric sounder (SAMS); Barnett and Corney, 1984), National Meteorological Center (NMC); (Gelman et al., 1986), and individual lidar and rocket observations. Significant areas of disagreement between the SME and CIRA 86 mesospheric temperatures are 10 K warmer SME temperatures at altitudes above 80 km. The 1981-1982 SAMS temperatures are in much closer agreement with the SME temperatures between 40 and 75 km. Although much of the SME-CIRA 86 disagreement probably stems from the poor vertical resolution of the observations comprising the CIRA 86 modelm, some portion of the differences may reflect 5- to 10-year temporal variations in mesospheric temperatures. The CIRA 86 climatology is based on 1973-1978 measurements. Relatively large (1 K/yr) 5- to 10-year trends in temperatures as functions of longitude, latitude, and altitude have been observed for both the upper stratosphere (Clancy and Rusch, 1989a) and mesosphere (Clancy and Rusch, 1989b; Hauchecorne et al., 1991). The SME temperatures also exhibit enhanced amplitudes for the semiannual oscillation (SAO) of upper mesospheric temperatures at low latitudes, which are not evident in the CIRA 86 climatology. The so-called mesospheric `temperature inversions' at wintertime midlatitudes, which have been observed by ground-based lidar (Hauschecorne et al., 1987) and rocket in situ measurements (Schmidlin, 1976), are shown to be a climatological aspect of the mesosphere, based on the SME observations.

[Future trends in nursing education in Taiwan in the light of globalization].

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Sheuan; Lu, Ying-Chi; Yen, Wen-Jiuan; Lin, Shu-Chin

2004-08-01

The twenty-first century is the era of the knowledge-based economy. Its information networks developing rapidly, Taiwan has already entered an age of liberalization, diversity and globalization. Competition and change will be the norm. As globalization continues it will pose substantial problems for nursing education. Nursing is a service-oriented activity which has to develop constantly to meet the changing demands of the public as people start to live longer, society becomes more multi-cultural, the nature of diseases and other health problems changes and public policy, such as that on National Health Insurance, is modified. This article outlines the problems currently facing nursing education (i.e., the complexity of the educational system, shortcomings in the learning environment, curriculum design, the quality of faculty, evaluation methods, and the quality of students' English and Mathematics) to predict likely difficulties (i.e. student recruitment, the running of schools and the quality of clinical nurses) and trends in nursing education. (i.e. changes in the way schools are run in line with the impact of globalization, new teaching methods; faculty training and development, lifelong learning, and the internationalization of education.) The article should be of interest to nursing educators.

The paradox of cooling streams in a warming world: regional climate trends do not parallel variable local trends in stream temperature in the Pacific continental United States

Science.gov (United States)

Ivan Arismendi; Sherri L. Johnson; Jason B. Dunham; Roy Haggerty

2012-01-01

Temperature is a fundamentally important driver of ecosystem processes in streams. Recent warming of terrestrial climates around the globe has motivated concern about consequent increases in stream temperature. More specifically, observed trends of increasing air temperature and declining stream flow are widely believed to result in corresponding increases in stream...

Aquaculture: global status and trends.

Science.gov (United States)

Bostock, John; McAndrew, Brendan; Richards, Randolph; Jauncey, Kim; Telfer, Trevor; Lorenzen, Kai; Little, David; Ross, Lindsay; Handisyde, Neil; Gatward, Iain; Corner, Richard

2010-09-27

Aquaculture contributed 43 per cent of aquatic animal food for human consumption in 2007 (e.g. fish, crustaceans and molluscs, but excluding mammals, reptiles and aquatic plants) and is expected to grow further to meet the future demand. It is very diverse and, contrary to many perceptions, dominated by shellfish and herbivorous and omnivorous pond fish either entirely or partly utilizing natural productivity. The rapid growth in the production of carnivorous species such as salmon, shrimp and catfish has been driven by globalizing trade and favourable economics of larger scale intensive farming. Most aquaculture systems rely on low/uncosted environmental goods and services, so a critical issue for the future is whether these are brought into company accounts and the consequent effects this would have on production economics. Failing that, increased competition for natural resources will force governments to allocate strategically or leave the market to determine their use depending on activities that can extract the highest value. Further uncertainties include the impact of climate change, future fisheries supplies (for competition and feed supply), practical limits in terms of scale and in the economics of integration and the development and acceptability of new bio-engineering technologies. In the medium term, increased output is likely to require expansion in new environments, further intensification and efficiency gains for more sustainable and cost-effective production. The trend towards enhanced intensive systems with key monocultures remains strong and, at least for the foreseeable future, will be a significant contributor to future supplies. Dependence on external feeds (including fish), water and energy are key issues. Some new species will enter production and policies that support the reduction of resource footprints and improve integration could lead to new developments as well as reversing decline in some more traditional systems.

Aquaculture: global status and trends

Science.gov (United States)

Bostock, John; McAndrew, Brendan; Richards, Randolph; Jauncey, Kim; Telfer, Trevor; Lorenzen, Kai; Little, David; Ross, Lindsay; Handisyde, Neil; Gatward, Iain; Corner, Richard

2010-01-01

Aquaculture contributed 43 per cent of aquatic animal food for human consumption in 2007 (e.g. fish, crustaceans and molluscs, but excluding mammals, reptiles and aquatic plants) and is expected to grow further to meet the future demand. It is very diverse and, contrary to many perceptions, dominated by shellfish and herbivorous and omnivorous pond fish either entirely or partly utilizing natural productivity. The rapid growth in the production of carnivorous species such as salmon, shrimp and catfish has been driven by globalizing trade and favourable economics of larger scale intensive farming. Most aquaculture systems rely on low/uncosted environmental goods and services, so a critical issue for the future is whether these are brought into company accounts and the consequent effects this would have on production economics. Failing that, increased competition for natural resources will force governments to allocate strategically or leave the market to determine their use depending on activities that can extract the highest value. Further uncertainties include the impact of climate change, future fisheries supplies (for competition and feed supply), practical limits in terms of scale and in the economics of integration and the development and acceptability of new bio-engineering technologies. In the medium term, increased output is likely to require expansion in new environments, further intensification and efficiency gains for more sustainable and cost-effective production. The trend towards enhanced intensive systems with key monocultures remains strong and, at least for the foreseeable future, will be a significant contributor to future supplies. Dependence on external feeds (including fish), water and energy are key issues. Some new species will enter production and policies that support the reduction of resource footprints and improve integration could lead to new developments as well as reversing decline in some more traditional systems. PMID:20713392

GLOBALLY INCREASED CROP GROWTH AND CROPPING INTENSITY FROM THE LONG-TERM SATELLITE-BASED OBSERVATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Chen

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Understanding the spatiotemporal change trend of global crop growth and multiple cropping system under climate change scenarios is a critical requirement for supporting the food security issue that maintains the function of human society. Many studies have predicted the effects of climate changes on crop production using a combination of filed studies and models, but there has been limited evidence relating decadal-scale climate change to global crop growth and the spatiotemporal distribution of multiple cropping system. Using long-term satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI and observed climate data from 1982 to 2012, we investigated the crop growth trend, spatiotemporal pattern trend of agricultural cropping intensity, and their potential correlations with respect to the climate change drivers at a global scale. Results show that 82.97 % of global cropland maximum NDVI witnesses an increased trend while 17.03 % of that shows a decreased trend over the past three decades. The spatial distribution of multiple cropping system is observed to expand from lower latitude to higher latitude, and the increased cropping intensity is also witnessed globally. In terms of regional major crop zones, results show that all nine selected zones have an obvious upward trend of crop maximum NDVI (p < 0.001, and as for climatic drivers, the gradual temperature and precipitation changes have had a measurable impact on the crop growth trend.

Global Sea Surface Temperature: A Harmonized Multi-sensor Time-series from Satellite Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Merchant, C. J.

2017-12-01

This paper presents the methods used to obtain a new global sea surface temperature (SST) dataset spanning the early 1980s to the present, intended for use as a climate data record (CDR). The dataset provides skin SST (the fundamental measurement) and an estimate of the daily mean SST at depths compatible with drifting buoys (adjusting for skin and diurnal variability). The depth SST provided enables the CDR to be used with in situ records and centennial-scale SST reconstructions. The new SST timeseries is as independent as possible from in situ observations, and from 1995 onwards is harmonized to an independent satellite reference (namely, SSTs from the Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (Advanced ATSR)). This maximizes the utility of our new estimates of variability and long-term trends in interrogating previous datasets tied to in situ observations. The new SSTs include full resolution (swath, level 2) data, single-sensor gridded data (level 3, 0.05 degree latitude-longitude grid) and a multi-sensor optimal analysis (level 4, same grid). All product levels are consistent. All SSTs have validated uncertainty estimates attached. The sensors used include all Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers from NOAA-6 onwards and the ATSR series. AVHRR brightness temperatures (BTs) are calculated from counts using a new in-flight re-calibration for each sensor, ultimately linked through to the AATSR BT calibration by a new harmonization technique. Artefacts in AVHRR BTs linked to varying instrument temperature, orbital regime and solar contamination are significantly reduced. These improvements in the AVHRR BTs (level 1) translate into improved cloud detection and SST (level 2). For cloud detection, we use a Bayesian approach for all sensors. For the ATSRs, SSTs are derived with sufficient accuracy and sensitivity using dual-view coefficients. This is not the case for single-view AVHRR observations, for which a physically based retrieval is employed, using a hybrid

The global diffusion of organ transplantation: trends, drivers and policy implications.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Sarah L; Hirth, Richard; Mahíllo, Beatriz; Domínguez-Gil, Beatriz; Delmonico, Francis L; Noel, Luc; Chapman, Jeremy; Matesanz, Rafael; Carmona, Mar; Alvarez, Marina; Núñez, Jose R; Leichtman, Alan

2014-11-01

Rising incomes, the spread of personal insurance, lifestyle factors adding to the burden of illness, ageing populations, globalization and skills transfer within the medical community have increased worldwide demand for organ transplantation. The Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation, which was built in response to World Health Assembly resolution WHA57.18, has conducted ongoing documentation of global transplantation activities since 2007. In this paper, we use the Global Observatory's data to describe the current distribution of - and trends in - transplantation activities and to evaluate the role of health systems factors and macroeconomics in the diffusion of transplantation technology. We then consider the implications of our results for health policies relating to organ donation and transplantation. Of the World Health Organization's Member States, most now engage in organ transplantation and more than a third performed deceased donor transplantation in 2011. In general, the Member States that engage in organ transplantation have greater access to physician services and greater total health spending per capita than the Member States where organ transplantation is not performed. The provision of deceased donor transplantation was closely associated with high levels of gross national income per capita. There are several ways in which governments can support the ethical development of organ donation and transplantation programmes. Specifically, they can ensure that appropriate legislation, regulation and oversight are in place, and monitor donation and transplantation activities, practices and outcomes. Moreover, they can allocate resources towards the training of specialist physicians, surgeons and transplant coordinators, and implement a professional donor-procurement network.

The global diffusion of organ transplantation: trends, drivers and policy implications

Science.gov (United States)

Hirth, Richard; Mahíllo, Beatriz; Domínguez-Gil, Beatriz; Delmonico, Francis L; Noel, Luc; Chapman, Jeremy; Matesanz, Rafael; Carmona, Mar; Alvarez, Marina; Núñez, Jose R; Leichtman, Alan

2014-01-01

Abstract Rising incomes, the spread of personal insurance, lifestyle factors adding to the burden of illness, ageing populations, globalization and skills transfer within the medical community have increased worldwide demand for organ transplantation. The Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation, which was built in response to World Health Assembly resolution WHA57.18, has conducted ongoing documentation of global transplantation activities since 2007. In this paper, we use the Global Observatory’s data to describe the current distribution of – and trends in – transplantation activities and to evaluate the role of health systems factors and macroeconomics in the diffusion of transplantation technology. We then consider the implications of our results for health policies relating to organ donation and transplantation. Of the World Health Organization’s Member States, most now engage in organ transplantation and more than a third performed deceased donor transplantation in 2011. In general, the Member States that engage in organ transplantation have greater access to physician services and greater total health spending per capita than the Member States where organ transplantation is not performed. The provision of deceased donor transplantation was closely associated with high levels of gross national income per capita. There are several ways in which governments can support the ethical development of organ donation and transplantation programmes. Specifically, they can ensure that appropriate legislation, regulation and oversight are in place, and monitor donation and transplantation activities, practices and outcomes. Moreover, they can allocate resources towards the training of specialist physicians, surgeons and transplant coordinators, and implement a professional donor-procurement network. PMID:25378744

Marine heatwaves off eastern Tasmania: Trends, interannual variability, and predictability

Science.gov (United States)

Oliver, Eric C. J.; Lago, Véronique; Hobday, Alistair J.; Holbrook, Neil J.; Ling, Scott D.; Mundy, Craig N.

2018-02-01

Surface waters off eastern Tasmania are a global warming hotspot. Here, mean temperatures have been rising over several decades at nearly four times the global average rate, with concomitant changes in extreme temperatures - marine heatwaves. These changes have recently caused the marine biodiversity, fisheries and aquaculture industries off Tasmania's east coast to come under stress. In this study we quantify the long-term trends, variability and predictability of marine heatwaves off eastern Tasmania. We use a high-resolution ocean model for Tasmania's eastern continental shelf. The ocean state over the 1993-2015 period is hindcast, providing daily estimates of the three-dimensional temperature and circulation fields. Marine heatwaves are identified at the surface and subsurface from ocean temperature time series using a consistent definition. Trends in marine heatwave frequency are positive nearly everywhere and annual marine heatwave days and penetration depths indicate significant positive changes, particularly off southeastern Tasmania. A decomposition into modes of variability indicates that the East Australian Current is the dominant driver of marine heatwaves across the domain. Self-organising maps are used to identify 12 marine heatwave types, each with its own regionality, seasonality, and associated large-scale oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns. The implications of this work for marine ecosystems and their management were revealed through review of past impacts and stakeholder discussions regarding use of these data.

Correlation Dimension Estimates of Global and Local Temperature Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Qiang

1995-11-01

The author has attempted to detect the presence of low-dimensional deterministic chaos in temperature data by estimating the correlation dimension with the Hill estimate that has been recently developed by Mikosch and Wang. There is no convincing evidence of low dimensionality with either global dataset (Southern Hemisphere monthly average temperatures from 1858 to 1984) or local temperature dataset (daily minimums at Auckland, New Zealand). Any apparent reduction in the dimension estimates appears to be due large1y, if not entirely, to effects of statistical bias, but neither is it a purely random stochastic process. The dimension of the climatic attractor may be significantly larger than 10.

Arctic temperature and moisture trends during the past 2000 years - Progress from multiproxy-paleoclimate data compilations

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Darrell; Routson, Cody; McKay, Nicholas; Beltrami, Hugo; Jaume-Santero, Fernando; Konecky, Bronwen; Saenger, Casey

2017-04-01

Instrumental climate data and climate-model projections show that Arctic-wide surface temperature and precipitation are positively correlated. Higher temperatures coincide with greater moisture by: (1) expanding the duration and source area for evaporation as sea ice retracts, (2) enhancing the poleward moisture transport, and (3) increasing the water-vapor content of the atmosphere. Higher temperature also influences evaporation rate, and therefore precipitation minus evaporation (P-E), the climate variable often sensed by paleo-hydroclimate proxies. Here, we test whether Arctic temperature and moisture also correlate on centennial timescales over the Common Era (CE). We use the new PAGES2k multiproxy-temperature dataset along with a first-pass compilation of moisture-sensitive proxy records to calculate century-scale composite timeseries, with a focus on longer records that extend back through the first millennium CE. We present a new Arctic borehole temperature reconstruction as a check on the magnitude of Little Ice Age cooling inferred from the proxy records, and we investigate the spatial pattern of centennial-scale variability. Similar to previous reconstructions, v2 of the PAGES2k proxy temperature dataset shows that, prior to the 20th century, mean annual Arctic-wide temperature decreased over the CE. The millennial-scale cooling trend is most prominent in proxy records from glacier ice, but is also registered in lake and marine sediment, and trees. In contrast, the composite of moisture-sensitive (primarily P-E) records does not exhibit a millennial-scale trend. Determining whether fluctuations in the mean state of Arctic temperature and moisture were in fact decoupled is hampered by the difficulty in detecting a significant trend within the relatively small number of spatially heterogeneous multi-proxy moisture-sensitive records. A decoupling of temperature and moisture would indicate that evaporation had a strong counterbalancing effect on precipitation

Long-Term Warming Trends in Korea and Contribution of Urbanization: An Updated Assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Bo-Joung; Kim, Yeon-Hee; Min, Seung-Ki; Kim, Maeng-Ki; Choi, Youngeun; Boo, Kyung-On; Shim, Sungbo

2017-10-01

This study conducted an updated analysis of the long-term temperature trends over South Korea and reassessed the contribution of the urbanization effect to the local warming trends. Linear trends were analyzed for three different periods over South Korea in order to consider possible inhomogeneity due to changes in the number of available stations: recent 103 years (1912-2014), 61 years (1954-2014), and 42 years (1973-2014). The local temperature has increased by 1.90°C, 1.35°C, and 0.99°C during the three periods, respectively, which are found 1.4-2.6 times larger than the global land mean trends. The countries located in the northern middle and high latitudes exhibit similar warming trends (about 1.5 times stronger than the global mean), suggesting a weak influence of urbanization on the local warming over South Korea. Urbanization contribution is assessed using two methods. First, results from "city minus rural" methods showed that 30-45% of the local warming trends during recent four decades are likely due to the urbanization effect, depending on station classification methods and analysis periods. Results from an "observation minus reanalysis" method using the Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) data sets (v2 and v2c) indicated about 25-30% contribution of the urbanization effect to the local warming trend during the recent six decades. However, the urbanization contribution was estimated as low as 3-11% when considering the century-long period. Our results confirm large uncertainties in the estimation of urbanization contribution when using shorter-term periods and suggest that the urbanization contribution to the century-long warming trends could be much lower.

GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND TRENDS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY; ROMANIA, WHERE TO?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

FIROIU DANIELA

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In the context of an increasingly dynamic global society, adapting to new market conditions becomes a necessity, so that mutations in the tourism industry, as the economic sector to record the fastest ascent, become part of worldwide change. Tourism in the 21st century meets new dimensions as a result of unprecedented economic and technological expansion, the implications of these changes being profound and sometimes even difficult to explain or quantify. Therefore, defining an adequate tourism offer and adapting to market requirements become real challenges for economic agents, challenges that must be managed carefully in order to attain success. Currently, the focus is mainly on the technological factor and the sustainability of tourist activities, which become real progress binders, with strong influence on the entire supply chain. Global outlined trends define new ways to practice tourism, so that the technological evolution marks the transition of the entire travel experience from the offline to the online environment. The mobile segment is the one currently creating the newest opportunities for the development of tourist services, which is based on an increasingly close relationship between operators and tourists. It is to be seen whether Romania, as an emerging tourism market, which owns all necessary assets for a rapid and strong ascent, will be able to turn challenges offered by global dynamics into opportunities or will face the risks induced by it.

Global and regional trends in particulate air pollution and attributable health burden over the past 50 years

Science.gov (United States)

Butt, E. W.; Turnock, S. T.; Rigby, R.; Reddington, C. L.; Yoshioka, M.; Johnson, J. S.; Regayre, L. A.; Pringle, K. J.; Mann, G. W.; Spracklen, D. V.

2017-10-01

Long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM2.5, mass of particles with an aerodynamic dry diameter of air quality has changed rapidly. Here we used the HadGEM3-UKCA coupled chemistry-climate model, integrated exposure-response relationships, demographic and background disease data to provide the first estimate of the changes in global and regional ambient PM2.5 concentrations and attributable health burdens over the period 1960 to 2009. Over this period, global mean population-weighted PM2.5 concentrations increased by 38%, dominated by increases in China and India. Global attributable deaths increased by 89% to 124% over the period 1960 to 2009, dominated by large increases in China and India. Population growth and ageing contributed mostly to the increases in attributable deaths in China and India, highlighting the importance of demographic trends. In contrast, decreasing PM2.5 concentrations and background disease dominated the reduction in attributable health burden in Europe and the United States. Our results shed light on how future projected trends in demographics and uncertainty in the exposure-response relationship may provide challenges for future air quality policy in Asia.

Assessing trends in observed and modelled climate extremes over Australia in relation to future projections

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alexander, Lisa

2007-01-01

Full text: Nine global coupled climate models were assessed for their ability to reproduce observed trends in a set of indices representing temperature and precipitation extremes over Australia. Observed trends for 1957-1999 were compared with individual and multi-modelled trends calculated over the same period. When averaged across Australia the magnitude of trends and interannual variability of temperature extremes were well simulated by most models, particularly for the warm nights index. Except for consecutive dry days, the majority of models also reproduced the correct sign of trend for precipitation extremes. A bootstrapping technique was used to show that most models produce plausible trends when averaged over Australia, although only heavy precipitation days simulated from the multi-model ensemble showed significant skill at reproducing the observed spatial pattern of trends. Two of the models with output from different forcings showed that only with anthropogenic forcing included could the models capture the observed areally averaged trend for some of the temperature indices, but the forcing made little difference to the models' ability to reproduce the spatial pattern of trends over Australia. Future projected changes in extremes using three emissions scenarios were also analysed. Australia shows a shift towards significant warming of temperature extremes with much longer dry spells interspersed with periods of increased extreme precipitation irrespective of the scenario used. More work is required to determine whether regional projected changes over Australia are robust

Global River Discharge and Water Temperature under Climate Change

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vliet, van M.T.H.; Franssen, W.H.P.; Yearsley, J.R.; Ludwig, F.; Haddeland, I.; Lettenmaier, D.P.; Kabat, P.

2013-01-01

Climate change will affect hydrologic and thermal regimes of rivers, having a direct impact on freshwater ecosystems and human water use. Here we assess the impact of climate change on global river flows and river water temperatures, and identify regions that might become more critical for

Global versus local mechanisms of temperature sensing in ion channels.

Science.gov (United States)

Arrigoni, Cristina; Minor, Daniel L

2018-05-01

Ion channels turn diverse types of inputs, ranging from neurotransmitters to physical forces, into electrical signals. Channel responses to ligands generally rely on binding to discrete sensor domains that are coupled to the portion of the channel responsible for ion permeation. By contrast, sensing physical cues such as voltage, pressure, and temperature arises from more varied mechanisms. Voltage is commonly sensed by a local, domain-based strategy, whereas the predominant paradigm for pressure sensing employs a global response in channel structure to membrane tension changes. Temperature sensing has been the most challenging response to understand and whether discrete sensor domains exist for pressure and temperature has been the subject of much investigation and debate. Recent exciting advances have uncovered discrete sensor modules for pressure and temperature in force-sensitive and thermal-sensitive ion channels, respectively. In particular, characterization of bacterial voltage-gated sodium channel (BacNa V ) thermal responses has identified a coiled-coil thermosensor that controls channel function through a temperature-dependent unfolding event. This coiled-coil thermosensor blueprint recurs in other temperature sensitive ion channels and thermosensitive proteins. Together with the identification of ion channel pressure sensing domains, these examples demonstrate that "local" domain-based solutions for sensing force and temperature exist and highlight the diversity of both global and local strategies that channels use to sense physical inputs. The modular nature of these newly discovered physical signal sensors provides opportunities to engineer novel pressure-sensitive and thermosensitive proteins and raises new questions about how such modular sensors may have evolved and empowered ion channel pores with new sensibilities.

Historical trends in tank 241-SY-101 waste temperatures and levels

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antoniak, Z.I.

1993-09-01

The gas release and fluctuating level of the waste in tank 241-SY-101 have prompted more detailed interest in its historical behavior, in hopes of achieving a better understanding of its current status. To examine the historical behavior, essentially all of the tank waste temperature and level data record has been retrieved, examined, and plotted in various ways. To aid in interpreting the data, the depth of the non-convective waste layer was estimated by using a least-squares Chebyshev approximation to the temperatures. This report documents the retrieval critical examination, and graphic presentation of 241-SY-101 temperature and waste level histories. The graphic presentations clearly indicate a tank cooling trend that has become precipitous since late 1991. The plots also clearly show the decreasing frequency of waste gas release events, increasing height of the non-convective layer, and larger level drops per event

Cancers of the Brain and CNS: Global Patterns and Trends in Incidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Mortazavi, S M J; Mortazavi, S A R; Paknahad, M

2018-03-01

Miranda-Filho et al. in their recently published paper entitled "Cancers of the brain and CNS: global patterns and trends in incidence" provided a global status report of the geographic and temporal variations in the incidence of brain and CNS cancers in different countries across continents worldwide. While the authors confirm the role of genetic risk factors and ionizing radiation exposures, they claimed that no firm conclusion could be drawn about the role of exposure to non-ionizing radiation. The paper authored by Miranda-Filho et al. not only addresses a challenging issue, it can be considered as a good contribution in the field of brain and CNS cancers. However, our correspondence addresses a basic shortcoming of this paper about the role of electromagnetic fields and cancers and provides evidence showing that exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), at least at high levels and long durations, can increases the risk of cancer.

Quantitative assessment of drivers of recent global temperature variability: an information theoretic approach

Science.gov (United States)

Bhaskar, Ankush; Ramesh, Durbha Sai; Vichare, Geeta; Koganti, Triven; Gurubaran, S.

2017-12-01

Identification and quantification of possible drivers of recent global temperature variability remains a challenging task. This important issue is addressed adopting a non-parametric information theory technique, the Transfer Entropy and its normalized variant. It distinctly quantifies actual information exchanged along with the directional flow of information between any two variables with no bearing on their common history or inputs, unlike correlation, mutual information etc. Measurements of greenhouse gases: CO2, CH4 and N2O; volcanic aerosols; solar activity: UV radiation, total solar irradiance ( TSI) and cosmic ray flux ( CR); El Niño Southern Oscillation ( ENSO) and Global Mean Temperature Anomaly ( GMTA) made during 1984-2005 are utilized to distinguish driving and responding signals of global temperature variability. Estimates of their relative contributions reveal that CO2 ({˜ } 24 %), CH4 ({˜ } 19 %) and volcanic aerosols ({˜ }23 %) are the primary contributors to the observed variations in GMTA. While, UV ({˜ } 9 %) and ENSO ({˜ } 12 %) act as secondary drivers of variations in the GMTA, the remaining play a marginal role in the observed recent global temperature variability. Interestingly, ENSO and GMTA mutually drive each other at varied time lags. This study assists future modelling efforts in climate science.

Modelling impacts of atmospheric deposition and temperature on long-term DOC trends.

Science.gov (United States)

Sawicka, K; Rowe, E C; Evans, C D; Monteith, D T; E I Vanguelova; Wade, A J; J M Clark

2017-02-01

It is increasingly recognised that widespread and substantial increases in Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in remote surface, and soil, waters in recent decades are linked to declining acid deposition. Effects of rising pH and declining ionic strength on DOC solubility have been proposed as potential dominant mechanisms. However, since DOC in these systems is derived mainly from recently-fixed carbon, and since organic matter decomposition rates are considered sensitive to temperature, uncertainty persists over the extent to which other drivers that could influence DOC production. Such potential drivers include fertilisation by nitrogen (N) and global warming. We therefore ran the dynamic soil chemistry model MADOC for a range of UK soils, for which time series data are available, to consider the likely relative importance of decreased deposition of sulphate and chloride, accumulation of reactive N, and higher temperatures, on soil DOC production in different soils. Modelled patterns of DOC change generally agreed favourably with measurements collated over 10-20years, but differed markedly between sites. While the acidifying effect of sulphur deposition appeared to be the predominant control on the observed soil water DOC trends in all the soils considered other than a blanket peat, the model suggested that over the long term, the effects of nitrogen deposition on N-limited soils may have been sufficient to raise the "acid recovery DOC baseline" significantly. In contrast, reductions in non-marine chloride deposition and effects of long term warming appeared to have been relatively unimportant. The suggestion that future DOC concentrations might exceed preindustrial levels as a consequence of nitrogen pollution has important implications for drinking water catchment management and the setting and pursuit of appropriate restoration targets, but findings still require validation from reliable centennial-scale proxy records, such as those being developed

On the mechanisms of late 20th century sea-surface temperature trends over the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Science.gov (United States)

Kravtsov, Sergey; Kamenkovich, Igor; Hogg, Andrew M.; Peters, John M.

2011-11-01

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), with its associated three-dimensional circulation, plays an important role in global climate. This study concentrates on surface signatures of recent climate change in the ACC region and on mechanisms that control this change. Examination of climate model simulations shows that they match the observed late 20th century sea-surface temperature (SST) trends averaged over this region quite well, despite underestimating the observed surface-wind increases. Such wind increases, however, are expected to lead to significant cooling of the region, contradicting the observed SST trends. Motivated by recent theories of the ACC response to variable wind and radiative forcing, the authors used two idealized models to assess contributions of various dynamical processes to the SST evolution in the region. In particular, a high-resolution channel model of the ACC responds to increasing winds by net surface ACC warming due to enhanced mesoscale turbulence and associated heat transports in the mixed layer. These fluxes, modeled, in a highly idealized fashion, via increased lateral surface mixing in a coarse-resolution hybrid climate model, substantially offset zonally non-uniform surface cooling due to air-sea flux and Ekman-transport anomalies. These results suggest that the combination of these opposing effects must be accounted for when estimating climate response to any external forcing in the ACC region.

On the definition and identifiability of the alleged “hiatus” in global warming

Science.gov (United States)

Lewandowsky, Stephan; Risbey, James S.; Oreskes, Naomi

2015-01-01

Recent public debate and the scientific literature have frequently cited a “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming. Yet, multiple sources of evidence show that climate change continues unabated, raising questions about the status of the “hiatus”. To examine whether the notion of a “hiatus” is justified by the available data, we first document that there are multiple definitions of the “hiatus” in the literature, with its presumed onset spanning a decade. For each of these definitions we compare the associated temperature trend against trends of equivalent length in the entire record of modern global warming. The analysis shows that the “hiatus” trends are encompassed within the overall distribution of observed trends. We next assess the magnitude and significance of all possible trends up to 25 years duration looking backwards from each year over the past 30 years. At every year during the past 30 years, the immediately preceding warming trend was always significant when 17 years (or more) were included in the calculation, alleged “hiatus” periods notwithstanding. If current definitions of the “pause” used in the literature are applied to the historical record, then the climate system “paused” for more than 1/3 of the period during which temperatures rose 0.6 K. PMID:26597713

Symmetric scaling properties in global surface air temperature anomalies

Science.gov (United States)

Varotsos, Costas A.; Efstathiou, Maria N.

2015-08-01

We have recently suggested "long-term memory" or internal long-range correlation within the time-series of land-surface air temperature (LSAT) anomalies in both hemispheres. For example, an increasing trend in the LSAT anomalies is followed by another one at a different time in a power-law fashion. However, our previous research was mainly focused on the overall long-term persistence, while in the present study, the upward and downward scaling dynamics of the LSAT anomalies are analysed, separately. Our results show that no significant fluctuation differences were found between the increments and decrements in LSAT anomalies, over the whole Earth and over each hemisphere, individually. On the contrary, the combination of land-surface air and sea-surface water temperature anomalies seemed to cause a departure from symmetry and the increments in the land and sea surface temperature anomalies appear to be more persistent than the decrements.

Noiseonomics: the relationship between ambient noise levels in the sea and global economic trends.

Science.gov (United States)

Frisk, George V

2012-01-01

In recent years, the topic of noise in the sea and its effects on marine mammals has attracted considerable attention from both the scientific community and the general public. Since marine mammals rely heavily on acoustics as a primary means of communicating, navigating, and foraging in the ocean, any change in their acoustic environment may have an impact on their behavior. Specifically, a growing body of literature suggests that low-frequency, ambient noise levels in the open ocean increased approximately 3.3 dB per decade during the period 1950-2007. Here we show that this increase can be attributed primarily to commercial shipping activity, which in turn, can be linked to global economic growth. As a corollary, we conclude that ambient noise levels can be directly related to global economic conditions. We provide experimental evidence supporting this theory and discuss its implications for predicting future noise levels based on global economic trends.

Recent Trends of the Tropical Hydrological Cycle Inferred from Global Precipitation Climatology Project and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Y. P.; Xu, Kuan-Man; Sud, Y. C.; Betts, A. K.

2011-01-01

Scores of modeling studies have shown that increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere impact the global hydrologic cycle; however, disagreements on regional scales are large, and thus the simulated trends of such impacts, even for regions as large as the tropics, remain uncertain. The present investigation attempts to examine such trends in the observations using satellite data products comprising Global Precipitation Climatology Project precipitation and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project cloud and radiation. Specifically, evolving trends of the tropical hydrological cycle over the last 20-30 years were identified and analyzed. The results show (1) intensification of tropical precipitation in the rising regions of the Walker and Hadley circulations and weakening over the sinking regions of the associated overturning circulation; (2) poleward shift of the subtropical dry zones (up to 2deg/decade in June-July-August (JJA) in the Northern Hemisphere and 0.3-0.7deg/decade in June-July-August and September-October-November in the Southern Hemisphere) consistent with an overall broadening of the Hadley circulation; and (3) significant poleward migration (0.9-1.7deg/decade) of cloud boundaries of Hadley cell and plausible narrowing of the high cloudiness in the Intertropical Convergence Zone region in some seasons. These results support findings of some of the previous studies that showed strengthening of the tropical hydrological cycle and expansion of the Hadley cell that are potentially related to the recent global warming trends.

Global trends in research related to social media in psychology: mapping and bibliometric analysis

OpenAIRE

Zyoud, Sa’ed H.; Sweileh, Waleed M.; Awang, Rahmat; Al-Jabi, Samah W.

2018-01-01

Background Social media, defined as interactive Web applications, have been on the rise globally, particularly among adults. The objective of this study was to investigate the trend of the literature related to the most used social network worldwide (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Instagram) in the field of psychology. Specifically, this study will assess the growth in publications, citation analysis, international collaboration, author productivity, emerging topics and the m...

Sector trends and driving forces of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions: focus in industry and buildings

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Price, Lynn; Worrell, Ernst; Khrushch, Marta

1999-09-01

Disaggregation of sectoral energy use and greenhouse gas emissions trends reveals striking differences between sectors and regions of the world. Understanding key driving forces in the energy end-use sectors provides insights for development of projections of future greenhouse gas emissions. This report examines global and regional historical trends in energy use and carbon emissions in the industrial, buildings, transport, and agriculture sectors, with a more detailed focus on industry and buildings. Activity and economic drivers as well as trends in energy and carbon intensity are evaluated. The authors show that macro-economic indicators, such as GDP, are insufficient for comprehending trends and driving forces at the sectoral level. These indicators need to be supplemented with sector-specific information for a more complete understanding of future energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Sector trends and driving forces of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions: focus in industry and buildings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Price, Lynn; Worrell, Ernst; Khrushch, Marta

1999-01-01

Disaggregation of sectoral energy use and greenhouse gas emissions trends reveals striking differences between sectors and regions of the world. Understanding key driving forces in the energy end-use sectors provides insights for development of projections of future greenhouse gas emissions. This report examines global and regional historical trends in energy use and carbon emissions in the industrial, buildings, transport, and agriculture sectors, with a more detailed focus on industry and buildings. Activity and economic drivers as well as trends in energy and carbon intensity are evaluated. The authors show that macro-economic indicators, such as GDP, are insufficient for comprehending trends and driving forces at the sectoral level. These indicators need to be supplemented with sector-specific information for a more complete understanding of future energy use and greenhouse gas emissions

Recent decline in the global land evapotranspiration trend due to limited moisture supply.

Science.gov (United States)

Jung, Martin; Reichstein, Markus; Ciais, Philippe; Seneviratne, Sonia I; Sheffield, Justin; Goulden, Michael L; Bonan, Gordon; Cescatti, Alessandro; Chen, Jiquan; de Jeu, Richard; Dolman, A Johannes; Eugster, Werner; Gerten, Dieter; Gianelle, Damiano; Gobron, Nadine; Heinke, Jens; Kimball, John; Law, Beverly E; Montagnani, Leonardo; Mu, Qiaozhen; Mueller, Brigitte; Oleson, Keith; Papale, Dario; Richardson, Andrew D; Roupsard, Olivier; Running, Steve; Tomelleri, Enrico; Viovy, Nicolas; Weber, Ulrich; Williams, Christopher; Wood, Eric; Zaehle, Sönke; Zhang, Ke

2010-10-21

More than half of the solar energy absorbed by land surfaces is currently used to evaporate water. Climate change is expected to intensify the hydrological cycle and to alter evapotranspiration, with implications for ecosystem services and feedback to regional and global climate. Evapotranspiration changes may already be under way, but direct observational constraints are lacking at the global scale. Until such evidence is available, changes in the water cycle on land−a key diagnostic criterion of the effects of climate change and variability−remain uncertain. Here we provide a data-driven estimate of global land evapotranspiration from 1982 to 2008, compiled using a global monitoring network, meteorological and remote-sensing observations, and a machine-learning algorithm. In addition, we have assessed evapotranspiration variations over the same time period using an ensemble of process-based land-surface models. Our results suggest that global annual evapotranspiration increased on average by 7.1 ± 1.0 millimetres per year per decade from 1982 to 1997. After that, coincident with the last major El Niño event in 1998, the global evapotranspiration increase seems to have ceased until 2008. This change was driven primarily by moisture limitation in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly Africa and Australia. In these regions, microwave satellite observations indicate that soil moisture decreased from 1998 to 2008. Hence, increasing soil-moisture limitations on evapotranspiration largely explain the recent decline of the global land-evapotranspiration trend. Whether the changing behaviour of evapotranspiration is representative of natural climate variability or reflects a more permanent reorganization of the land water cycle is a key question for earth system science.

A three-stage hybrid model for regionalization, trends and sensitivity analyses of temperature anomalies in China from 1966 to 2015

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Feifei; Yang, XiaoHua; Shen, Zhenyao

2018-06-01

Temperature anomalies have received increasing attention due to their potentially severe impacts on ecosystems, economy and human health. To facilitate objective regionalization and examine regional temperature anomalies, a three-stage hybrid model with stages of regionalization, trends and sensitivity analyses was developed. Annual mean and extreme temperatures were analyzed using the daily data collected from 537 stations in China from 1966 to 2015, including the annual mean, minimum and maximum temperatures (Tm, TNm and TXm) as well as the extreme minimum and maximum temperatures (TNe and TXe). The results showed the following: (1) subregions with coherent temperature changes were identified using the rotated empirical orthogonal function analysis and K-means clustering algorithm. The numbers of subregions were 6, 7, 8, 9 and 8 for Tm, TNm, TXm, TNe and TXe, respectively. (2) Significant increases in temperature were observed in most regions of China from 1966 to 2015, although warming slowed down over the last decade. This warming primarily featured a remarkable increase in its minimum temperature. For Tm and TNm, 95% of the stations showed a significant upward trend at the 99% confidence level. TNe increased the fastest, at a rate of 0.56 °C/decade, whereas 21% of the stations in TXe showed a downward trend. (3) The mean temperatures (Tm, TNm and TXm) in the high-latitude regions increased more quickly than those in the low-latitude regions. The maximum temperature increased significantly at high elevations, whereas the minimum temperature increased greatly at middle-low elevations. The most pronounced warming occurred in eastern China in TNe and northwestern China in TXe, with mean elevations of 51 m and 2098 m, respectively. A cooling trend in TXe was observed at the northwestern end of China. The warming rate in TNe varied the most among the subregions (0.63 °C/decade).

Flawed citation practices facilitate the unsubstantiated perception of a global trend toward increased jellyfish blooms

KAUST Repository

Sanz-Martí n, Marina; Pitt, Kylie A.; Condon, Robert H.; Lucas, Cathy H.; Novaes de Santana, Charles; Duarte, Carlos M.

2016-01-01

Speculation over a global rise in jellyfish populations has become widespread in the scientific literature, but until recently the purported ‘global increase’ had not been tested. Here we present a citation analysis of peer-reviewed literature to track the evolution of the current perception of increases in jellyfish and identify key papers involved in its establishment. Trend statements and citation threads were reviewed and arranged in a citation network. Trend statements were assessed according their degree of affirmation and spatial scale, and the appropriateness of the citations used to support statements was assessed. Analyses showed that 48.9% of publications misinterpreted the conclusions of cited sources, with a bias towards claiming jellyfish populations are increasing, with a single review having the most influence on the network. Collectively, these disparities resulted in a network based on unsubstantiated statements and citation threads. As a community, we must ensure our statements about scientific findings in general are accurately substantiated and carefully communicated such that incorrect perceptions, as in the case of jellyfish blooms, do not develop in the absence of rigorous testing. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Flawed citation practices facilitate the unsubstantiated perception of a global trend toward increased jellyfish blooms

KAUST Repository

Sanz-Martín, Marina

2016-06-24

Speculation over a global rise in jellyfish populations has become widespread in the scientific literature, but until recently the purported ‘global increase’ had not been tested. Here we present a citation analysis of peer-reviewed literature to track the evolution of the current perception of increases in jellyfish and identify key papers involved in its establishment. Trend statements and citation threads were reviewed and arranged in a citation network. Trend statements were assessed according their degree of affirmation and spatial scale, and the appropriateness of the citations used to support statements was assessed. Analyses showed that 48.9% of publications misinterpreted the conclusions of cited sources, with a bias towards claiming jellyfish populations are increasing, with a single review having the most influence on the network. Collectively, these disparities resulted in a network based on unsubstantiated statements and citation threads. As a community, we must ensure our statements about scientific findings in general are accurately substantiated and carefully communicated such that incorrect perceptions, as in the case of jellyfish blooms, do not develop in the absence of rigorous testing. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Global lake response to the recent warming hiatus

Science.gov (United States)

Winslow, Luke A.; Leach, Taylor H.; Rose, Kevin C.

2018-05-01

Understanding temporal variability in lake warming rates over decadal scales is important for understanding observed change in aquatic systems. We analyzed a global dataset of lake surface water temperature observations (1985‑2009) to examine how lake temperatures responded to a recent global air temperature warming hiatus (1998‑2012). Prior to the hiatus (1985‑1998), surface water temperatures significantly increased at an average rate of 0.532 °C decade‑1 (±0.214). In contrast, water temperatures did not change significantly during the hiatus (average rate ‑0.087 °C decade‑1 ±0.223). Overall, 83% of lakes in our dataset (129 of 155) had faster warming rates during the pre-hiatus period than during the hiatus period. These results demonstrate that lakes have exhibited decadal-scale variability in warming rates coherent with global air temperatures and represent an independent line of evidence for the recent warming hiatus. Our analyses provide evidence that lakes are sentinels of broader climatological processes and indicate that warming rates based on datasets where a large proportion of observations were collected during the hiatus period may underestimate longer-term trends.

A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

Science.gov (United States)

Emile-Geay, Julian; McKay, Nicholas P.; Kaufman, Darrell S.; von Gunten, Lucien; Wang, Jianghao; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.; Abram, Nerilie J.; Addison, Jason A.; Curran, Mark A.J.; Evans, Michael N.; Henley, Benjamin J.; Hao, Zhixin; Martrat, Belen; McGregor, Helen V.; Neukom, Raphael; Pederson, Gregory T.; Stenni, Barbara; Thirumalai, Kaustubh; Werner, Johannes P.; Xu, Chenxi; Divine, Dmitry V.; Dixon, Bronwyn C.; Gergis, Joelle; Mundo, Ignacio A.; Nakatsuka, T.; Phipps, Steven J.; Routson, Cody C.; Steig, Eric J.; Tierney, Jessica E.; Tyler, Jonathan J.; Allen, Kathryn J.; Bertler, Nancy A. N.; Bjorklund, Jesper; Chase, Brian M.; Chen, Min-Te; Cook, Ed; de Jong, Rixt; DeLong, Kristine L.; Dixon, Daniel A.; Ekaykin, Alexey A.; Ersek, Vasile; Filipsson, Helena L.; Francus, Pierre; Freund, Mandy B.; Frezzotti, M.; Gaire, Narayan P.; Gajewski, Konrad; Ge, Quansheng; Goosse, Hugues; Gornostaeva, Anastasia; Grosjean, Martin; Horiuchi, Kazuho; Hormes, Anne; Husum, Katrine; Isaksson, Elisabeth; Kandasamy, Selvaraj; Kawamura, Kenji; Koc, Nalan; Leduc, Guillaume; Linderholm, Hans W.; Lorrey, Andrew M.; Mikhalenko, Vladimir; Mortyn, P. Graham; Motoyama, Hideaki; Moy, Andrew D.; Mulvaney, Robert; Munz, Philipp M.; Nash, David J.; Oerter, Hans; Opel, Thomas; Orsi, Anais J.; Ovchinnikov, Dmitriy V.; Porter, Trevor J.; Roop, Heidi; Saenger, Casey; Sano, Masaki; Sauchyn, David; Saunders, K.M.; Seidenkrantz, Marit-Solveig; Severi, Mirko; Shao, X.; Sicre, Marie-Alexandrine; Sigl, Michael; Sinclair, Kate; St. George, Scott; St. Jacques, Jeannine-Marie; Thamban, Meloth; Thapa, Udya Kuwar; Thomas, E.; Turney, Chris; Uemura, Ryu; Viau, A.E.; Vladimirova, Diana O.; Wahl, Eugene; White, James W. C.; Yu, Z.; Zinke, Jens

2017-01-01

Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850–2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high- and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python.

Evaluation of global climate models for Indian monsoon climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kodra, Evan; Ganguly, Auroop R; Ghosh, Subimal

2012-01-01

The viability of global climate models for forecasting the Indian monsoon is explored. Evaluation and intercomparison of model skills are employed to assess the reliability of individual models and to guide model selection strategies. Two dominant and unique patterns of Indian monsoon climatology are trends in maximum temperature and periodicity in total rainfall observed after 30 yr averaging over India. An examination of seven models and their ensembles reveals that no single model or model selection strategy outperforms the rest. The single-best model for the periodicity of Indian monsoon rainfall is the only model that captures a low-frequency natural climate oscillator thought to dictate the periodicity. The trend in maximum temperature, which most models are thought to handle relatively better, is best captured through a multimodel average compared to individual models. The results suggest a need to carefully evaluate individual models and model combinations, in addition to physical drivers where possible, for regional projections from global climate models. (letter)

Design Trends in Gold Jewellery Making in Ghana and Global Cultural Influence.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peggy Ama Fening

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Although Ghana is the second largest producer of gold in Africa, its jewellery industry accounts for very little percentage of the world production total. This observation is partly attributed to the extent to which the Ghanaian jewellery products have been influenced by global culture. The objective of this paper was therefore to investigate the influence of global culture on gold jewellery designs. Data used in this study were collected mainly through direct observations at goldsmiths’ workshops and showrooms, jewellery retail shops, during festivals and durbars, and visits to chiefs and traditional rulers’ homes. Close and open ended questionnaires and personal interviews were also used to solicit information from 400 respondents comprising; jewellers/Goldsmith, Chiefs and traditional rulers, jewellery traders and the general public. The study showed that a new trend of jewellery design has evolved. There are new innovations in the production of old aphorisms and symbols that has been influenced by global culture. This is reflected in the usage of brand names and their logos as well as the initials of customers’ names in making jewellery. The craftsmen were of the view that technological advancement and the use of modern equipment, as well as global fashion have contributed immensely to this observation. On the other hand the chiefs and traditional rulers were of the view that the impact of globalisation if not checked will lead to the erosion of the rich cultural designs of the Ghanaian people.

Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Global Land Surface Air Temperature Analysis

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — A station observation-based global land monthly mean surface air temperature dataset at 0.5 0.5 latitude-longitude resolution for the period from 1948 to the present...

Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Global Land Surface Air Temperature Analysis

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — A station observation-based global land monthly mean surface air temperature dataset at 0.5 x 0.5 latitude-longitude resolution for the period from 1948 to the...

Multiyear Rainfall and Temperature Trends in the Volta River Basin and their Potential Impact on Hydropower Generation in Ghana

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amos T. Kabo-Bah

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The effects of temperature and rainfall changes on hydropower generation in Ghana from 1960–2011 were examined to understand country-wide trends of climate variability. Moreover, the discharge and the water level trends for the Akosombo reservoir from 1965–2014 were examined using the Mann-Kendall test statistic to assess localised changes. The annual temperature trend was positive while rainfall showed both negative and positive trends in different parts of the country. However, these trends were not statistically significant in the study regions in 1960 to 2011. Rainfall was not evenly distributed throughout the years, with the highest rainfall recorded between 1960 and 1970 and the lowest rainfalls between 2000 and 2011. The Mann-Kendall test shows an upward trend for the discharge of the Akosombo reservoir and a downward trend for the water level. However, the discharge irregularities of the reservoir do not necessarily affect the energy generated from the Akosombo plant, but rather the regular low flow of water into the reservoir affected power generation. This is the major concern for the operations of the Akosombo hydropower plant for energy generation in Ghana.

Assessment of the Effects of Temperature and Precipitation Variations on the Trend of River Flows in Urmia Lake Watershed

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ashkan Farokhnia

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Trend analysis is one of the appropriate methods to assess the hydro-climatic condition of watersheds, which is commonly used for analysis of change pattern in a single variable over time. However, in real cases, many hydrological variables such as river flow are directly affected by climate and environmental factors, which usually go unnoticed in routine analyzes. The aim of the present research is to investigate the trend of river discharge in 25 hydrometric stations in Lake Urmia river basin with and without consideration of temperature and rainfall variability. Briefly, the results showed that there is a decreasing trend in all stations, which is significant in 9 cases. Also, it has been shown that regarding to trends in precipitation and temperature, the number of stations with significant decreasing trend will reduce to 7, which shows low impact of climate factors on the reduction rate of discharge in these stations. Based on the results, it can be concluded that climate variations have direct effect in inferring significant trends in river flow, so that considering these variables in studying of river discharge can lead to different results in the detection of significant trends.

Decadal trends in global CO emissions as seen by MOPITT

Science.gov (United States)

Yin, Y.; Chevallier, F.; Ciais, P.; Broquet, G.; Fortems-Cheiney, A.; Pison, I.; Saunois, M.

2015-12-01

Negative trends of carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations are observed in the recent decade by both surface measurements and satellite retrievals over many regions of the globe, but they are not well explained by current emission inventories. Here, we analyse the observed CO concentration decline with an atmospheric inversion that simultaneously optimizes the two main CO sources (surface emissions and atmospheric hydrocarbon oxidations) and the main CO sink (atmospheric hydroxyl radical OH oxidation). Satellite CO column retrievals from Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), version 6, and surface observations of methane and methyl chloroform mole fractions are assimilated jointly for the period covering 2002-2011. Compared to the model simulation prescribed with prior emission inventories, trends in the optimized CO concentrations show better agreement with that of independent surface in situ measurements. At the global scale, the atmospheric inversion primarily interprets the CO concentration decline as a decrease in the CO emissions (-2.3 % yr-1), more than twice the negative trend estimated by the prior emission inventories (-1.0 % yr-1). The spatial distribution of the inferred decrease in CO emissions indicates contributions from western Europe (-4.0 % yr-1), the United States (-4.6 % yr-1) and East Asia (-1.2 % yr-1), where anthropogenic fuel combustion generally dominates the overall CO emissions, and also from Australia (-5.3 % yr-1), the Indo-China Peninsula (-5.6 % yr-1), Indonesia (-6.7 % y-1), and South America (-3 % yr-1), where CO emissions are mostly due to biomass burning. In contradiction with the bottom-up inventories that report an increase of 2 % yr-1 over China during the study period, a significant emission decrease of 1.1 % yr-1 is inferred by the inversion. A large decrease in CO emission factors due to technology improvements would outweigh the increase in carbon fuel combustions and may explain this decrease. Independent

Future role and significance of space activities in reflection of global social, technological and economic trends

Science.gov (United States)

Diekmann, Andreas; Richarz, Hans.-Peter

The paper describes the interrelation of space activities and global socio-economic trends like "globalisation of markets" and "renaissance of fine arts". The interrelation reveals the economic strategic, technological and scientific dimension of space activities and their benefits to mankind. Then, the significance and perspectives of space activities in these dimensions are examined in more detail. The paper calls (1) for a more visible initiative to employ space activities to tackle urgent questions of global change and development, and (2) for a stronger impetus to secure European economic position in space sector as a key industry of the 21st century.

Global trends 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

2001-01-01

The main reason for climate change is the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The main reasons for this increase are the burning of fossil fuels, certain farming practices and deforestation. The burning of fossil fuels is a major factor. The high carbon dioxide emissions per person of Australia and the USA are noted and some of the consequences of the increase in temperature are indicated. Graphs and maps highlight the world's disappearing forests, the ecological footprint of selected countries, the increase in carbon dioxide levels over the centuries, the way in which world temperatures are rising, the increase in the height of the oceans, lowest annual ozone levels and the worst countries in terms of carbon dioxide emissions

The influence of elevation, latitude and Arctic Oscillation on trends in temperature extremes over northeastern China, 1961-2011

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Wei; Yu, Zhen; Li, Xilin

2018-04-01

Trend magnitudes of 14 indices of temperature extremes at 70 stations with elevations, latitude and Arctic Oscillation over northeast China during 1960-2011 are examined. There are no significant correlations between elevation and trend magnitudes with the exception of TXn (Min T max), TNn (Min T min), TR20 (tropical nights) and GSL (growing season length). Analysis of trend magnitudes by topographic type has a strong influence, which overrides that of degree of urbanization. By contrast, most of the temperature indices have stronger correlations with the latitude and Arctic Oscillation index. The correlations between the Arctic Oscillation index and percentile indices, including TX10p (cool days), TX90p (warm days), TN10p (cool nights), TN90p (warm nights), are not the same in different areas. To summarize, analysis of trend magnitudes by topographic type, the latitude and the Arctic Oscillation shows three factors to have a strong influence in this dataset, which overrides that of elevation and degree of urbanization.

Trends in mean maximum temperature, mean minimum temperature and mean relative humidity for Lautoka, Fiji during 2003 – 2013