Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change

The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae) is a native insect of the pine forests of western North America, and its populations periodically erupt into large-scale outbreaks. During outbreaks, the resulting widespread tree mortality reduces forest carbon uptake and increases future emissions from the decay of killed trees. The impacts of insects on forest carbon dynamics, however, are generally ignored in large-scale modelling analyses. The current outbreak in British Columbia, Canada, is an order of magnitude larger in area and severity than all previous recorded outbreaks. Here we estimate that the cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the affected region during 2000-2020 will be 270 megatonnes (Mt) carbon (or 36 g carbon m(-2) yr(-1) on average over 374,000 km2 of forest). This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source both during and immediately after the outbreak. In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to approximately 75% of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all of Canada during 1959-1999. The resulting reduction in net primary production was of similar magnitude to increases observed during the 1980s and 1990s as a result of global change. Climate change has contributed to the unprecedented extent and severity of this outbreak. Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.     

阔叶红松林净初级生产力对气候变化响应模拟

为研究气候变化对小兴安岭阔叶红松林的影响,应用生态系统过程模型PnET-Ⅱ,分别模拟现行气候和未来气候下阔叶红松林净初级生产力(NPP)的变化.结果显示,近43年来阔叶红松林NPP无明显变化趋势.在两种未来气候模拟方案下,阔叶红松林NPP变化趋势都是先增加后减少,但不同的气候模拟方案下,变化幅度略有差异.该成果可为气候变化下阔叶红松林的合理经营提供参考.     

中国北方森林潜在分布及其对气候变化响应的模拟

选取了温暖指数、寒冷指数、湿润指数、1月最低温度、7月最高温度和年降水量等气候变量为因子,使用地理信息系统和Logistic回归模型的结合,模拟中国北方森林的潜在分布区及其对气候变化的响应.用敏感性、指定度和总正确率评价预测的精度,4种北方森林的敏感性为81%～92%,指定度为82%～92%,总正确率82%～92%.结果表明:在未来气候条件(2071-2100)下,中国北方森林的分布区将发生大范围的转移;常绿针叶林的面积扩大15.2%,阔叶落叶林、落叶针叶林和针阔混交林的面积分别减小86.7%,71.7%,32.1%.     

Extinction and climate change

Arising from F. He & S. P. Hubbell 473, 368-371 (2011). Statistical relationships between habitat area and the number of species observed (species-area relationships, SARs) are sometimes used to assess extinction risks following habitat destruction or loss of climatic suitability. He and Hubbell argue that the numbers of species confined to-rather than observed in-different areas (endemics-area relationships, EARs) should be used instead of SARs, and that SAR-based extinction estimates in the literature are too high. We suggest that He and Hubbell's SAR estimates are biased, that the empirical data they use are not appropriate to calculate extinction risks, and that their statements about extinction risks from climate change do not take into account non-SAR-based estimates or recent observations. Species have already responded to climate change in a manner consistent with high future extinction risks.     

Vegetation evolution and millennial-scale climatic fluctuations since Last Glacial Maximum in pollen record from northern South China Sea

A large number of paleoclimate records reveal subMilankovitch climatic fluctuations on the millennial-scalesuperimposing on the Earth orbital cycles[1], such as theHeinrich ice draft events in the Atlantic (each intervalabout 7000–10000 a)[2,3], the Dansgaard/Oeschger (D-O)events (millennial-scale) in Greenland Ice Cores and theBond cycle composed of a Heinrcih event after severalD-O events[4]. At present, most recent work on millennial-scale climatic fluctuations focuses on the high lat…     

Emperor penguins and climate change

Variations in ocean-atmosphere coupling over time in the Southern Ocean have dominant effects on sea-ice extent and ecosystem structure, but the ultimate consequences of such environmental changes for large marine predators cannot be accurately predicted because of the absence of long-term data series on key demographic parameters. Here, we use the longest time series available on demographic parameters of an Antarctic large predator breeding on fast ice and relying on food resources from the Southern Ocean. We show that over the past 50 years, the population of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in Terre Adélie has declined by 50% because of a decrease in adult survival during the late 1970s. At this time there was a prolonged abnormally warm period with reduced sea-ice extent. Mortality rates increased when warm sea-surface temperatures occurred in the foraging area and when annual sea-ice extent was reduced, and were higher for males than for females. In contrast with survival, emperor penguins hatched fewer eggs when winter sea-ice was extended. These results indicate strong and contrasting effects of large-scale oceanographic processes and sea-ice extent on the demography of emperor penguins, and their potential high susceptibility to climate change.     

Land-atmosphere coupling and climate change in Europe

Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to enhance the interannual variability of summer climate in Europe and other mid-latitude regions, potentially causing more frequent heatwaves. Climate models consistently predict an increase in the variability of summer temperatures in these areas, but the underlying mechanisms responsible for this increase remain uncertain. Here we explore these mechanisms using regional simulations of recent and future climatic conditions with and without land-atmosphere interactions. Our results indicate that the increase in summer temperature variability predicted in central and eastern Europe is mainly due to feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere. Furthermore, they suggest that land-atmosphere interactions increase climate variability in this region because climatic regimes in Europe shift northwards in response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, creating a new transitional climate zone with strong land-atmosphere coupling in central and eastern Europe. These findings emphasize the importance of soil-moisture-temperature feedbacks (in addition to soil-moisture-precipitation feedbacks) in influencing summer climate variability and the potential migration of climate zones with strong land-atmosphere coupling as a consequence of global warming. This highlights the crucial role of land-atmosphere interactions in future climate change.     

Increased sedimentation rates and grain sizes 2-4 Myr ago due to the influence of climate change on erosion rates

Around the globe, and in a variety of settings including active and inactive mountain belts, increases in sedimentation rates as well as in grain sizes of sediments were recorded at approximately 2-4 Myr ago, implying increased erosion rates. A change in climate represents the only process that is globally synchronous and can potentially account for the widespread increase in erosion and sedimentation, but no single process-like a lowering of sea levels or expanded glaciation-can explain increases in sedimentation in all environments, encompassing continental margins and interiors, and tropical as well as higher latitudes. We suggest that climate affected erosion mainly by the transition from a period of climate stability, in which landscapes had attained equilibrium configurations, to a time of frequent and abrupt changes in temperature, precipitation and vegetation, which prevented fluvial and glacial systems from establishing equilibrium states.     

中国公众对气候变化的认知?

应对气候变化是我国发展战略,也是国际社会关注的热点科学问题.巴黎协议是人类应对气候变化的新起点,但如何有效引导公众积极参与应对气候变化,研究公众对气候变化认知是很必要的.本文对比分析多家机构针对我国公众关于气候变化认知的调查结果后发现:我国公众对于气候变化事实的了解较清晰,关注度较高,对政府的信任度、依赖度较高,个人应对气候变化的意愿高,但对于气候变化到底是什么只有模糊认识,对气候变化原因和科学机制认识不足.基于以上分析,我们认为未来我国气候变化公众认知研究应着重两方面:一是组织多学科的较大规模的公众气候变化认知综合调查,以获取更充分更全面的数据;二是构建高效的气候变化科学知识传播体系,切实解决气候变化科学认知和公众认知的一致性.     

Non-CO2 greenhouse gases and climate change

Earth's climate is warming as a result of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO(2)) from fossil fuel combustion. Anthropogenic emissions of non-CO(2) greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and ozone-depleting substances (largely from sources other than fossil fuels), also contribute significantly to warming. Some non-CO(2) greenhouse gases have much shorter lifetimes than CO(2), so reducing their emissions offers an additional opportunity to lessen future climate change. Although it is clear that sustainably reducing the warming influence of greenhouse gases will be possible only with substantial cuts in emissions of CO(2), reducing non-CO(2) greenhouse gas emissions would be a relatively quick way of contributing to this goal.     

Changes in plant community composition lag behind climate warming in lowland forests

Climate change is driving latitudinal and altitudinal shifts in species distribution worldwide, leading to novel species assemblages. Lags between these biotic responses and contemporary climate changes have been reported for plants and animals. Theoretically, the magnitude of these lags should be greatest in lowland areas, where the velocity of climate change is expected to be much greater than that in highland areas. We compared temperature trends to temperatures reconstructed from plant assemblages (observed in 76,634 surveys) over a 44-year period in France (1965-2008). Here we report that forest plant communities had responded to 0.54 °C of the effective increase of 1.07 °C in highland areas (500-2,600 m above sea level), while they had responded to only 0.02 °C of the 1.11 °C warming trend in lowland areas. There was a larger temperature lag (by 3.1 times) between the climate and plant community composition in lowland forests than in highland forests. The explanation of such disparity lies in the following properties of lowland, as compared to highland, forests: the higher proportion of species with greater ability for local persistence as the climate warms, the reduced opportunity for short-distance escapes, and the greater habitat fragmentation. Although mountains are currently considered to be among the ecosystems most threatened by climate change (owing to mountaintop extinction), the current inertia of plant communities in lowland forests should also be noted, as it could lead to lowland biotic attrition.     

Biodiversity conservation: climate change and extinction risk

Thomas et al. have carried out a useful analysis of the extinction risk from climate warming. Their overall conclusion, that a large fraction of extant species could be driven to extinction by expected climate trends over the next 50 years, is compelling: it adds to the many other reasons why new energy policies are needed to reduce the pace of warming.     

Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate

The most important anthropogenic influences on climate are the emission of greenhouse gases and changes in land use, such as urbanization and agriculture. But it has been difficult to separate these two influences because both tend to increase the daily mean surface temperature. The impact of urbanization has been estimated by comparing observations in cities with those in surrounding rural areas, but the results differ significantly depending on whether population data or satellite measurements of night light are used to classify urban and rural areas. Here we use the difference between trends in observed surface temperatures in the continental United States and the corresponding trends in a reconstruction of surface temperatures determined from a reanalysis of global weather over the past 50 years, which is insensitive to surface observations, to estimate the impact of land-use changes on surface warming. Our results suggest that half of the observed decrease in diurnal temperature range is due to urban and other land-use changes. Moreover, our estimate of 0.27 degrees C mean surface warming per century due to land-use changes is at least twice as high as previous estimates based on urbanization alone.     

Constraints on radiative forcing and future climate change from observations and climate model ensembles

The assessment of uncertainties in global warming projections is often based on expert judgement, because a number of key variables in climate change are poorly quantified. In particular, the sensitivity of climate to changing greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere and the radiative forcing effects by aerosols are not well constrained, leading to large uncertainties in global warming simulations. Here we present a Monte Carlo approach to produce probabilistic climate projections, using a climate model of reduced complexity. The uncertainties in the input parameters and in the model itself are taken into account, and past observations of oceanic and atmospheric warming are used to constrain the range of realistic model responses. We obtain a probability density function for the present-day total radiative forcing, giving 1.4 to 2.4 W m-2 for the 5-95 per cent confidence range, narrowing the global-mean indirect aerosol effect to the range of 0 to -1.2 W m-2. Ensemble simulations for two illustrative emission scenarios suggest a 40 per cent probability that global-mean surface temperature increase will exceed the range predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but only a 5 per cent probability that warming will fall below that range.     

全球气候变化下的半干旱区相对湿度变化研究

为揭示全球气候变化下半干旱区空气相对湿度的变化规律,利用线性回归分析、多元线性相关分析以及M-K检验法对吉林省西部5个站点的1953年以来的相对湿度、气温、降水和风速资料进行了研究.结果表明:相对湿度的年变化曲线呈双峰型,相对湿度的最大值出现在8月,次大值出现在1月,最小值出现在4月,次小值出现在10月.夏、秋季的相对湿度较大,而春、冬季的相对湿度较小.近50年,年平均相对湿度及春、夏、秋、冬四季的相对湿度在波动中下降,下降趋势不显著;但是9月和10月的平均相对湿度下降显著.影响相对湿度变化的主要因子是温度和降水,风速也起一定的作用.相对湿度的变化与温度和风速变化呈负相关关系,与降水变化呈正相关关系.     

Quantifying the uncertainty in forecasts of anthropogenic climate change

Forecasts of climate change are inevitably uncertain. It is therefore essential to quantify the risk of significant departures from the predicted response to a given emission scenario. Previous analyses of this risk have been based either on expert opinion, perturbation analysis of simplified climate models or the comparison of predictions from general circulation models. Recent observed changes that appear to be attributable to human influence provide a powerful constraint on the uncertainties in multi-decadal forecasts. Here we assess the range of warming rates over the coming 50 years that are consistent with the observed near-surface temperature record as well as with the overall patterns of response predicted by several general circulation models. We expect global mean temperatures in the decade 2036-46 to be 1-2.5 K warmer than in pre-industrial times under a 'business as usual' emission scenario. This range is relatively robust to errors in the models' climate sensitivity, rate of oceanic heat uptake or global response to sulphate aerosols as long as these errors are persistent over time. Substantial changes in the current balance of greenhouse warming and sulphate aerosol cooling would, however, increase the uncertainty. Unlike 50-year warming rates, the final equilibrium warming after the atmospheric composition stabilizes remains very uncertain, despite the evidence provided by the emerging signal.     

Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change

Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.