Climate change impact, adaptation, and mitigation in temperate grazing systems: a review

Managed temperate grasslands occupy 25% of the world, which is 70% of global agricultural land. These lands are an important source of food for the global population. This review paper examines the impacts of climate change on managed temperate grasslands and grassland-based livestock and effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation options and their interactions. The paper clarifies that moderately elevated atmospheric CO2 (eCO2) enhances photosynthesis, however it may be restiricted by variations in rainfall and temperature, shifts in plant’s growing seasons, and nutrient availability. Different responses of plant functional types and their photosynthetic pathways to the combined effects of climatic change may result in compositional changes in plant communities, while more research is required to clarify the specific responses. We have also considered how other interacting factors, such as a progressive nitrogen limitation (PNL) of soils under eCO2, may affect interactions of the animal and the environment and the associated production. In addition to observed and modelled declines in grasslands productivity, changes in forage quality are expected. The health and productivity of grassland-based livestock are expected to decline through direct and indirect effects from climate change. Livestock enterprises are also significant cause of increased global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (about 14.5%), so climate risk-management is partly to develop and apply effective mitigation measures. Overall, our finding indicates complex impact that will vary by region, with more negative than positive impacts. This means that both wins and losses for grassland managers can be expected in different circumstances, thus the analysis of climate change impact required with potential adaptations and mitigation strategies to be developed at local and regional levels

Modelling the Effect of Climate Change on Environmental Pollution Losses from Dairy Systems in the UK

21 p.So far, there has been strong emphasis on studying the impacts of climate change on agriculture in terms of changes in food production; however, there is increasing evidence that agricultural ecosystems (e.g. livestock) will also be severely affected in terms of other goods and services. For example, patterns and loads of environmental pollution derived from nutrient losses are expected to change dramatically (e.g. increased run-off: Betts et al., 2007). There have been few studies that use a system-based approach to explore the complex interactions between farm inputs, response of system components and inherent site factors that give rise to changes in productivity, environmental pollution losses and agricultural services in future scenarios. This article describes the methodology and the results of a study to evaluate the effect of climate change only on losses of nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) from grassland-based livestock systems in 10 UK Regional Development Programme (RDP) areas. In order to do so, a modelling framework integrating different models at the crop and farm level was developed and implemented. Simulated projections suggest that farming systems will undergo different changes in food production and associated nutrient losses depending on different areas and time-slices. Potential trade-offs on other pillars of farm sustainability (e.g. net farm income, biodiversity and soil quality) were simulated and illustrated as an example

Empirical and dynamic approaches for modelling the yield and N content of European grasslands

This work was supported by the Horizon 2020 SFS-01c-2015 project entitled “Innovation of sustainable sheep and goat production in Europe (iSAGE)” [grant number 679302]; and the Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government. BC3 is supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018–2021 program and by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness MINECO through BC3 María de Maeztu excellence accreditation MDM-2017-0714. Agustin del Prado is supported by the Ramon y Cajal Programme. We would like to thank all the people who provided the data which made this work possible. In particular, Professor Wolfgang Schmidt, for data from the Experimental Botanical Garden of Göttingen University. Also the Lawes Agricultural Trust and Rothamsted Research for data from the e-RA database. The Rothamsted Long-term Experiments National Capability (LTE-NCG) is supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Lawes Agricultural Trust.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Synergies between mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change in grassland-based farming systems

Climate change mitigation and adaptation have generally been considered in separate settings for both scientific and policy viewpoints. Recently, it has been stressed (e.g. by the latest IPCC reports) the importance to consider both mitigation and adaptation from land management together. To date, although there is already large amount of studies considering climate mitigation and adaptation in relation to grassland-based systems, there are no studies that analyse the potential synergies and tradeoffs for the main climate change mitigation and adaptation measures within the current European Policy context. This paper reviews which mitigation and adaptation measures interact with each other and how, and it explores the potential limitations and strengths of the different policy instruments that may have an effect in European grassland-based livestock systems

Modelling Adaptation to climate change in agricultural systems

Modelling agricultural adaptation to climate change presents a range of challenges for modellers, but is vital to enabling decision makers to understand the potential costs and benefits of applying adaptation measures on-farm (or not) including risks and uncertainties associated with different actions. Here, the first stages of collaborative work undertaken at a workshop held in Braunschweig, Germany in autumn 2015, and subsequent analysis of findings, are reported. Subsequently, a second report will detail the development of these actions into a coherent overview of the state-of-the-art in modelling adaptation. Modellers and experimental researchers from a variety of disciplines (including biophysical and economic modellers from livestock, crop and grassland systems backgrounds) were asked to consider major climate impacts and associated adaptation options, and the challenges to modelling adaptations. Key modelling challenges fell into four main categories: information availability, accessibility of model outputs for stakeholders, technical challenges, and knowledge gaps. Within these categories, lists of specific challenges were compiled. The workshop revealed the diversity of approaches to modelling adaptation, and highlighted the different challenges associated with biophysical versus economic modelling. Understanding the state-of-the-art and key priorities for the modelling of climate change adaptation in agriculture is shown to be a complex and multi-faceted challenge. However, such an overview would provide a road map for stakeholder-driven improvement in modelling, with the potential to inform increased uptake of adaptation measures on-farm in Europe.(The main text will be published in a peer-reviewed journal

Modelling climate change adaptation in European agriculture: Definitions and Current Modelling

Confidential content, in preparation for a peer-reviewed publication

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO