FLY AWAY: The Great African American Migrations. By Peter M. Rutkoff and William B. Scott     

Robert Brown 《Geographical review》2012,102(3):403-405

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Attenuation Correction Procedures for Water Vapour Fluxes from Closed-Path Eddy-Covariance Systems   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

Benjamin R. K. Runkle  Christian Wille  Michal Gažovič  Lars Kutzbach 《Boundary-Layer Meteorology》2012,142(3):401-423

Evapotranspiration is a source of water vapour to the atmosphere, and as a crucial indicator of landscape behaviour its accurate measurement has widespread implications. Here we investigate errors that are prevalent and systematic in the closed-path eddy-covariance measurement of latent heat flux: the attenuation of fluxes through dampened cospectral power at high frequencies. This process is especially pronounced during periods of high relative humidity through the adsorption and desorption of water vapour along the tube walls. These effects are additionally amplified during lower air temperature conditions. Here, we quantify the underestimation of evapotranspiration by a closed-path system by comparing its flux estimate to simultaneous and adjacent measurements from an open-path sensor. We apply models relating flux loss to relative humidity itself, to the lag time of the cross-correlation peak between the water vapour and vertical wind velocity signals, and to models of cospectral attenuation relative to the cospectral power of simultaneous sensible heat-flux measurements. We find that including the role of temperature in modifying the attenuation–humidity relationship is essential for unbiased flux correction, and that physically based cospectral attenuation methods are effective characterizers of closed-path instrument signal loss relative to the unattenuated flux value.  相似文献   

Effects of observed and experimental climate change on terrestrial ecosystems in northern Canada: results from the Canadian IPY program   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Gregory H. R. Henry  Karen A. Harper  Wenjun Chen  Julie R. Deslippe  Robert F. Grant  Peter M. Lafleur  Esther Lévesque  Steven D. Siciliano  Suzanne W. Simard 《Climatic change》2012,115(1):207-234

Tundra and taiga ecosystems comprise nearly 40?% of the terrestrial landscapes of Canada. These permafrost ecosystems have supported humans for more than 4500?years, and are currently home to ca. 115,000 people, the majority of whom are First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The responses of these ecosystems to the regional warming over the past 30?C50?years were the focus of four Canadian IPY projects. Northern residents and researchers reported changes in climate and weather patterns and noted shifts in vegetation and other environmental variables. In forest-tundra areas tree growth and reproductive effort correlated with temperature, but seedling establishment was often hindered by other factors resulting in site-specific responses. Increased shrub cover has occurred in sites across the Arctic at the plot and landscape scale, and this was supported by results from experimental warming. Experimental warming increased vegetation cover and nutrient availability in most tundra soils; however, resistance to warming was also found. Soil microbial diversity in tundra was no different than in other biomes, although there were shifts in mycorrhizal diversity in warming experiments. All sites measured were sinks for carbon during the growing season, with expected seasonal and latitudinal patterns. Modeled responses of a mesic tundra system to climate change showed that the sink status will likely continue for the next 50?C100?years, after which these tundra systems will likely become a net source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. These IPY studies were the first comprehensive assessment of the state and change in Canadian northern terrestrial ecosystems and showed that the inherent variability in these systems is reflected in their site-specific responses to changes in climate. They also showed the importance of using local traditional knowledge and science, and provided extensive data sets, sites and researchers needed to study and manage the inevitable changes in the Canadian North.  相似文献   

Coupling statistical and dynamical methods for spatial downscaling of precipitation   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Jie Chen  Fran?ois P. Brissette  Robert Leconte 《Climatic change》2012,114(3-4):509-526

The resolution of General Circulation Models (GCMs) is too coarse for climate change impact studies at the catchment or site-specific scales. To overcome this problem, both dynamical and statistical downscaling methods have been developed. Each downscaling method has its advantages and drawbacks, which have been described in great detail in the literature. This paper evaluates the improvement in statistical downscaling (SD) predictive power when using predictors from a Regional Climate Model (RCM) over a GCM for downscaling site-specific precipitation. Our approach uses mixed downscaling, combining both dynamic and statistical methods. Precipitation, a critical element of hydrology studies that is also much more difficult to downscale than temperature, is the only variable evaluated in this study. The SD method selected here uses a stepwise linear regression approach for precipitation quantity and occurrence (similar to the well-known Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM) and called SDSM-like herein). In addition, a discriminant analysis (DA) was tested to generate precipitation occurrence, and a weather typing approach was used to derive statistical relationships based on weather types, and not only on a seasonal basis as is usually done. The existing data record was separated into a calibration and validation periods. To compare the relative efficiency of the SD approaches, relationships were derived at the same sites using the same predictors at a 300km scale (the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis) and at a 45km scale with data from the limited-area Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) driven by NCEP data at its boundaries. Predictably, using CRCM variables as predictors rather than NCEP data resulted in a much-improved explained variance for precipitation, although it was always less than 50?% overall. For precipitation occurrence, the SDSM-like model slightly overestimated the frequencies of wet and dry periods, while these were well-replicated by the DA-based model. Both the SDSM-like and DA-based models reproduced the percentage of wet days, but the wet and dry statuses for each day were poorly downscaled by both approaches. Overall, precipitation occurrence downscaled by the DA-based model was much better than that predicted by the SDSM-like model. Despite the added complexity, the weather typing approach was not better at downscaling precipitation than approaches without classification. Overall, despite significant improvements in precipitation occurrence prediction by the DA scheme, and even going to finer scales predictors, the SD approach tested here still explained less than 50?% of the total precipitation variance. While going to even smaller scale predictors (10–15?km) might improve results even more, such smaller scales would basically transform the direct outputs of climate models into impact models, thus negating the need for statistical downscaling approaches.  相似文献   

Current state and trends in Canadian Arctic marine ecosystems: II. Heterotrophic food web, pelagic-benthic coupling, and biodiversity     

Gérald Darnis  Dominique Robert  Corinne Pomerleau  Heike Link  Philippe Archambault  R. John Nelson  Maxime Geoffroy  Jean-éric Tremblay  Connie Lovejoy  Steve H. Ferguson  Brian P. V. Hunt  Louis Fortier 《Climatic change》2012,115(1):179-205

As part of the Canadian contribution to the International Polar Year (IPY), several major international research programs have focused on offshore arctic marine ecosystems. The general goal of these projects was to improve our understanding of how the response of arctic marine ecosystems to climate warming will alter food web structure and ecosystem services provided to Northerners. At least four key findings from these projects relating to arctic heterotrophic food web, pelagic-benthic coupling and biodiversity have emerged: (1) Contrary to a long-standing paradigm of dormant ecosystems during the long arctic winter, major food web components showed relatively high level of winter activity, well before the spring release of ice algae and subsequent phytoplankton bloom. Such phenological plasticity among key secondary producers like zooplankton may thus narrow the risks of extreme mismatch between primary production and secondary production in an increasingly variable arctic environment. (2) Tight pelagic-benthic coupling and consequent recycling of nutrients at the seafloor characterize specific regions of the Canadian Arctic, such as the North Water polynya and Lancaster Sound. The latter constitute hot spots of benthic ecosystem functioning compared to regions where zooplankton-mediated processes weaken the pelagic-benthic coupling. (3) In contrast with another widely shared assumption of lower biodiversity, arctic marine biodiversity is comparable to that reported off Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada, albeit threatened by the potential colonization of subarctic species. (4) The rapid decrease of summer sea-ice cover allows increasing numbers of killer whales to use the Canadian High Arctic as a hunting ground. The stronger presence of this species, bound to become a new apex predator of arctic seas, will likely affect populations of endemic arctic marine mammals such as the narwhal, bowhead, and beluga whales.  相似文献   

采用SilviScan-3TM研究木材性质的方法及其在气候变化研究中的应用          下载免费PDF全文

徐金梅  吕建雄  鲍甫成  肖军  Robert Evans  黄荣凤  徐明 《气候变化研究进展》2012,8(2):124-130

系统介绍了利用SilviScan-3TM测量细胞结构、木材密度、微纤丝角和划分年轮界线的方法,并以祁连山青海云杉为例,分析青海云杉6个木材性质参数(年轮细胞直径、年轮细胞壁厚、年轮宽度、年轮密度、年轮微纤丝角、年轮弹性模量)与气候因子的关系,以期为利用多个树轮参数研究气候提供参考。结果表明:6个木材性质参数与月平均气温和月降水量都有显著相关的月份,但显著相关的时间段不同,并且微纤丝角和细胞结构参数中包含的气候信息强于常用的年轮宽度和年轮密度。SilviScan-3TM测量木材性质参数的优越性体现在:测量精度高、速度快,能在同一个试样上测量多个参数并能精确定年。  相似文献   

In situ measurements of contributions to the global electrical circuit by a thunderstorm in southeastern Brazil     

Jeremy N. Thomas  Robert H. Holzworth  Michael P. McCarthy 《Atmospheric Research》2009,91(2-4):153-160

The global electrical circuit, which maintains a potential of about 280 kV between the earth and the ionosphere, is thought to be driven mainly by thunderstorms and lightning. However, very few in situ measurements of electrical current above thunderstorms have been successfully obtained. In this paper, we present dc to very low frequency electric fields and atmospheric conductivity measured in the stratosphere (30–35 km altitude) above an active thunderstorm in southeastern Brazil. From these measurements, we estimate the mean quasi-static conduction current during the storm period to be 2.5 ± 1.25 A. Additionally, we examine the transient conduction currents following a large positive cloud-to-ground (+ CG) lightning flash and typical − CG flashes. We find that the majority of the total current is attributed to the quasi-static thundercloud charge, rather than lightning, which supports the classical Wilson model for the global electrical circuit.  相似文献   

A Note on Reviving the Goddard Satellite-Based Surface Turbulent Fluxes （GSSTF） Dataset     

Chung-Lin SHIE  Long S. CHIU  Robert ADLER  Eric NELKIN  I-I LIN  Pingping XIE  Feng-Chin WANG  R. CHOKNGAMWONG  William OLSON  D. Allen CHU 《大气科学进展》2009,26(6):1071-1080

Accurate sea surface flux measurements are crucial for understanding the global water and energy cycles. The oceanic evaporation, which is a major component of the global oceanic fresh water flux, is useful for predicting oceanic circulation and transport. The global Goddard Satellite-based Surface Turbulent Fluxes Version-2 (GSSTF2; July 1987--December 2000) dateset that was officially released in 2001 has been widely used by scientific community for global energy and water cycle research, and regional and short period data analyses. We have recently been funded by NASA to resume processing the GSSTF dataset with an objective of continually producing a uniform dataset of sea surface turbulent fluxes, derived from remote sensing data. The dataset is to be reprocessed and brought up-to-date (GSSTF2b) using improved input datasets such as a recently upgraded NCEP/DOE sea surface temperature reanalysis, and an upgraded surface wind and microwave brightness temperature V6 dataset (Version 6) from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) produced by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). A second new product (GSSTF3) is further proposed with a finer temporal (12-h) and spatial (0.25^ox0.25^o) resolution. GSSTF2b (July 1987--December 2008) and GSSTF3 (July 1999--December 2009) will be released for the research community to use by late 2009 and early 2011, respectively.  相似文献   

Statistical Downscaling of Wind Variability from Meteorological Fields   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Robert J. Davy  Milton J. Woods  Christopher J. Russell  Peter A. Coppin 《Boundary-Layer Meteorology》2010,135(1):161-175

Measurements show that on numerous occasions the low-level wind is highly variable across a large portion of south-eastern Australia. Under such conditions the risk of a large rapid change in total wind power is increased. While variability tends to increase with mean wind speed, a large component of wind variability is not explained by wind speed alone. In this work, reanalysis fields from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) are statistically downscaled to model wind variability at a coastal location in Victoria, Australia. In order to reduce the dimensionality of the problem, the NCEP fields are each decomposed using empirical orthogonal function (EOF) techniques. The downscaling technique is applied to two periods in the seasonal cycle, namely (i) winter to early spring, and (ii) summer. In each case, data representing 2 years are used to form a model that is then validated using independent data from another year. The EOFs that best predict wind variability are examined. To allow for non-linearity and complex interaction between variables, all empirical models are built using random forests. Quantitatively, the model compares favourably with a simple regression of wind variability against wind speed, as well as multiple linear regression models.  相似文献   

Rural household demographics, livelihoods and the environment   总被引：8，自引：0，他引：8  

Alex de Sherbinin  Leah K. VanWey  Kendra McSweeney  Rimjhim Aggarwal  Alisson Barbieri  Sabine Henry  Lori M. Hunter  Wayne Twine  Robert Walker 《Global Environmental Change》2008,18(1):38-53

This paper reviews and synthesizes findings from scholarly work on linkages among rural household demographics, livelihoods and the environment. Using the livelihood approach as an organizing framework, we examine evidence on the multiple pathways linking environmental variables and the following demographic variables: fertility, migration, morbidity and mortality, and lifecycles. Although the review draws on studies from the entire developing world, we find the majority of microlevel studies have been conducted in either marginal (mountainous or arid) or frontier environments, especially Amazonia. Though the linkages are mediated by many complex and often context-specific factors, there is strong evidence that dependence on natural resources intensifies when households lose human and social capital through adult morbidity and mortality, and qualified evidence for the influence of environmental factors on household decision-making regarding fertility and migration. Two decades of research on lifecycles and land cover change at the farm level have yielded a number of insights about how households make use of different land-use and natural resource management strategies at different stages. A thread running throughout the review is the importance of managing risk through livelihood diversification, ensuring future income security, and culture-specific norms regarding appropriate and desirable activities and demographic responses. Recommendations for future research are provided.  相似文献