Abstracts on Global Climate Change

Sep 2004

Municipal heat wave response plans

Bernard, SM McGeehin, MA


Approximately 400 people die from extreme heat each year in the United States, and the risk of heat waves may increase as a result of global climate change. Despite the risk of heat-related morbidity and mortality, many cities lack written heat response plans. In a review of plans from 18 cities at risk for heat-related mortality, we found that many cities had inadequate or no heat response plans. This is an important area for further investigation and government attention.

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Wassmann, R Hien, NX Hoanh, CT Tuong, TP

CLIMATIC CHANGE 66:1-2 89-107

In this study, we assessed the impact of sea level rise, one of the most ascertained consequences of global climate change, for water levels in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). We used a hydraulic model to compute water levels from August to November-when flooding is presently critical-under sea level rise scenarios of 20 cm (= Delta20) and 45 cm (= Delta45), respectively. The outputs show that the contour lines of water levels will be shifted up to 25 km (Delta20) and 50 km (Delta45) towards the sea due to higher sea levels. At the onset of the flood season ( August), the average increment in water levels in the Delta is 14.1 cm (Delta20) and 32.2 cm (Delta45), respectively. At the peak of the flood season ( October), high discharge from upstream attenuates the increment in water level, but average water level rise of 11.9 cm (Delta20) and 27.4 cm (Delta45), respectively, still imply a substantial aggravation of flooding problems in the VMD. GIS techniques were used to delineate areas with different levels of vulnerability, i.e., area with high (2.3 mio ha = 60% of the VMD), medium (0.6 mio ha = 15%) and low (1 mio ha = 25%) vulnerability due to sea level rise. Rice production will be affected through excessive flooding in the tidally inundated areas and longer flooding periods in the central part of the VMD. These adverse impacts could affect all three cropping seasons, Mua (main rainfed crop), Dong Xuan (Winter-Spring) and He Thu (Summer-Autumn) in the VMD unless preventive measures are taken.

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Predicting the distribution of ground beetle species (Coleoptera, Carabidae) in Britain using land cover variables

Eyre, MD Rushton, SP Luff, ML Telfer, MG


Predictions of plant and animal species distributions are important for conservation and for the assessment of large-scale ecosystem change. Land cover data are becoming more widely available for use in land management and conservation. We use a logistic regression modelling approach to investigate the utility of these data for modelling. The relationship between the distribution of 137 British ground beetles species and land cover was investigated using data from 1687 10 kin national grid squares. Land cover data were simplified using ordination and the axes used as predictors in logistic regression with presence absence data for individual beetle species as response variables. Significant regression models were generated for all species with first and second axis scores. The amounts of variation explained by models were generally low, but predictions derived from models generally matched the known distributions of the species in Britain. Species with coastal preferences were poorly modelled and predicted to occur throughout lowland Britain whilst a number of species occurring in southern Britain were predicted to occur into Scotland. A validation exercise comparing model predictions with new data from a survey of 59 10 km(2) produced mixed results with the distribution of grassland species being better predicted than riverine species. Jackknifing was used to assess the robustness of models for four species which differed in their apparent responses to the land cover variables. Methods for improving the predictive power of these models and their potential for use in assessing the impact of global climate change are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Wind-mediated diel variation in flow speed in a Jamaican back reef environment: Effects on ecological processes

Genovese, SJ Witman, JD


The movement of water plays an important role in a number of physiological (e.g., metabolic rate, nutrient uptake) and ecological (e.g., foraging, fertilization) processes for coral reef organisms. In the back reef of Discovery Bay, Jamaica, daytime mean flow speeds were on average, 61% greater than at night during a given 24 hr period. Wind speed was a significant predictor of flow speed in these shallow water environments, with the variation in wind speed able to explain 30% of the variation in flow speed. Porter’s (1985) yearlong wind speed record in Discovery Bay indicated that the time of maximum daily wind speed occurred during daylight hours for 93% of the year. Activity of the fireworm, Hermodice carunculata (Pallas, 1766), represented by total abundance in six, 1 x 30 m transects was negatively correlated with flow speed. Atmospheric and oceanographic conditions enhancing wind-dependent water flow in back reef environments include prevalent tradewinds and negligible tidal currents, which suggests that the diel variation in flow speed documented for Discovery Bay may be a common phenomenon in similar environments. Such predictable environmental variability may be an important selective agent shaping the evolution of diel rhythms of reef invertebrates and algae. Therefore, recent atmospheric and climatological shifts (e.g., frequency of El Nino events, global climate change) may exert additional selective pressure on the organisms found in these environments.

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Estimating burned area for Tropical Africa for the year 1990 with the NOAA-NASA Pathfinder AVHRR 8km land dataset

Ruiz, JAM Garbin, MC


The international scientific community recognizes the long-term monitoring of biomass burning as important for global climate change, vegetation disturbance and land cover change research on the Earth’s surface. Although high spatial resolution satellite images may offer a more detailed view of land surfaces, their limited area coverage and temporal sampling have restricted their use to local research rather than global monitoring. Low spatial resolution images provide an invaluable source for the detection of burned areas in vegetation cover (scars) at global scale along time. However, the automated burned area mapping algorithm applicable at continental or global scale must be sufficiently robust to accommodate the global variation in burned scar signals. Here, the estimation of the percentage of a pixel area affected by a fire is crucial. In a first step, an empirical method is used which is based on a function between the change in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the surface area affected by fire. Next, a new statistical method, based on the Monte Carlo algorithm, is applied to compute probabilities of burned pixels percentages in different neighbourhood conditions.

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Neighbour identity modifies effects of elevated temperature on plant performance in the High Arctic

Dormann, CF van der Wal, R Woodin, SJ


Competition among plants in extreme environments such as the High Arctic has often been described as unimportant, or even nonexistent; environmental factors are thought to overrule any negative plant-plant interactions. However, few studies have actually addressed this question experimentally in the Arctic, and those that did found only little evidence for competition. Such species interactions will presumably become more important in the future, as Global Climate Change takes effect on terrestrial ecosystems. We investigated plant-plant interactions in the High Arctic, following the growth of Luzula confusa and Salix polaris in pure and mixed stands, and under elevated-temperature treatment over 2 years. To understand the mechanisms of competition, a parallel experiment was undertaken in phytotrons, manipulating competition, temperature and nutrient availability. Our findings indicate that competition is acting in the natural vegetation, and that climatic warming will alter the balance of interactions in favour of the dwarf shrub S. polaris. The phytotron experiment suggested that the mechanism is a higher responsiveness of Salix to nutrient availability, which increased under warming in the field. While Luzula showed a positive response to higher temperature in the lab, its performance in mixed stands in the field was actually reduced by warming, indicating a competitive repression of growth by Salix. The growth of Salix was also reduced by the presence of Luzula, but it was still able to profit from warming. Our findings suggest that climatic warming will result in greater shrub dominance of High Arctic tundra, but we also conjecture that grazing could reverse the situation to a graminoid-dominated tundra. These two divergent scenarios would have different implications for ecosystem feedbacks to climatic change.

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Ahola, M Laaksonen, T Sippola, K Eeva, T Rainio, K Lehikoinen, E


Migratory species are of special concern in the face of global climate change, since they may be affected by changes in the wintering area, along the migration route and at the breeding grounds. Here we show that migration and breeding times of a trans-Saharan migrant, the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca, closely follow local temperatures along the migration route and at the breeding grounds. Because of differences in long-term temperature trends of short within-spring periods, the migration period and the time interval between migration and breeding dates of this species have extended in SW Finland. Temperatures in northern parts of Central Europe have risen at the time when the first migrants arrive there, facilitating their migration northward. Temperatures later in the spring have not changed, and the last individuals arrive at the same time as before. The timing of breeding has not advanced because temperatures at the breeding site after arrival have not changed. These results show that the pied flycatchers can speed up their migration in response to rising temperatures along the migration route. Our results strongly indicate that the effects of climate change have to be studied at the appropriate time and geographical scales for each species and population concerned.

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Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics

Gerhard, LC

AAPG BULLETIN 88:9 1211-1220


timlambert:rejectex | /reject/rejectex | 463

Coral reefs in a century of rapid environmental change

Hoegh-Guldberg, O

SYMBIOSIS 37:1-3 1-31

Coral reefs are the most diverse marine ecosystem and embrace possibly millions of plant, animal and protist species. Mutualistic symbioses are a fundamental feature of coral reefs that have been used to explain their structure, biodiversity and existence. Complex inter-relationships between hosts, habitats and symbionts belie closely coupled nutrient and community dynamics that create the circumstances for “something from nothing” (or the “oasis in a nutrient desert”). The flip side of these dynamics is a close dependency between species, which results in a series of non-linear relationships as conditions change. These responses are being highlighted as anthropogenic influences increase across the world’s tropical and subtropical coastlines. Caribbean as well as Indo-Pacific coral populations are now in a serious decline in many parts of the world. This has resulted in a significant reorganization of how coral reef ecosystems function. Among the spectra of changes brought about by humans is rapid climate change. Mass coral bleaching - the loss of the dinoflagellate symbionts from reef-building corals - and mortality has affected the world’s coral reefs with increasing frequency and intensity since the late 1970s. Mass bleaching events, which often cover thousands of square kilometres of coral reefs, are triggered by small increases (+1-3degreesC) in water temperature. These increases in sea temperature are often seen during warm phase weather conditions (e.g. ENSO) and are increasing in size and magnitude. The loss of living coral cover (e.g. 16% globally in 1998, an exceptionally warm year) is resulting in an as yet unspecified reduction in the abundance of a myriad of other species. Projections from general circulation models (GCM) used to project changes in global temperature indicate that conditions even under the mildest greenhouse gas emission scenarios may exceed the thermal tolerances of most reef-building coral communities. Research must now explore key issues such as the extent to which the thermal tolerances of corals and their symbionts are dynamic if bleaching and disease are linked; how the loss of high densities of reef-building coral will affect other dependent species; and, how the loss of coral populations will affect the millions of people globally who depend on coral reefs for their daily survival.

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