Understanding climate change impacts on biome and plant distributions in the Andes: Challenges and opportunities

Aim: Climate change is expected to impact mountain biodiversity by shifting species ranges and the biomes they shape. The extent and regional variation in these impacts are still poorly understood, particularly in the highly biodiverse Andes. Regional syntheses of climate change impacts on vegetation are pivotal to identify and guide research priorities. Here we review current data, knowledge and uncertainties in past, present and future climate change impacts on vegetation in the Andes. Location: Andes. Taxon: Plants. Methods: We (i) conducted a literature review on Andean vegetation responses to past and contemporary climatic change, (ii) analysed future climate projections for different elevations and slope orientations at 19 Andean locations using an ensemble of model outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5, and (iii) calculated changes in the suitable climate envelope area of Andean biomes and compared these results to studies that used species distribution models. Results: Future climatic changes (2040–2070) are projected to be stronger at high-elevation areas in the tropical Andes (up to 4°C under RCP 8.5), while in the temperate Andes temperature increases are projected to be up to 2°C. Under this worst-case scenario, temperate deciduous forests and the grasslands/steppes from the Central and Southern Andes are predicted to show the greatest losses of suitable climatic space (30% and 17%–23%, respectively). The high vulnerability of these biomes contrasts with the low attention from researchers modelling Andean species distributions. Critical knowledge gaps include a lack of an Andean wide plant checklist, insufficient density of weather stations at high-elevation areas, a lack of high-resolution climatologies that accommodates the Andes' complex topography and climatic processes, insufficient data to model demographic and ecological processes, and low use of palaeo data for distribution modelling. Main conclusions: Climate change is likely to profoundly affect the extent and composition of Andean biomes. Temperate Andean biomes in particular are susceptible to substantial area contractions. There are, however, considerable challenges and uncertainties in modelling species and biome responses and a pressing need for a region-wide approach to address knowledge gaps and improve understanding and monitoring of climate change impacts in these globally important biomes.publishedVersio

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

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The influence of South American regional climate on the simulation of the Southern Hemisphere extratropical circulation

International audienceThis paper presents new modeling evidence showing the added value of high-resolution information from South America (SA) in the simulation of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) extratropical circulation. LMDZ, a coarse-resolution atmospheric global general circulation model constitutes the main tool for this investigation. Parallel to the control simulation, a two-way nesting (TWN) simulation of LMDZ is performed with an interactive coupling to the same model, but with a higher-resolution zoom over SA. The third simulation is a perfect boundary simulation for which re-analysis information from ERA-Interim is used to nudge LMDZ, but only over SA. Results indicate that enhanced resolution over SA improves the representation of the most important processes that influence extratropical eddy activity. The local improvement is followed by a better representation of the global extratropical circulation, especially in austral summer. The regional climate enhancement over SA has positive effects on simulation of the midlatitude jet position during the austral summer by significantly reducing the bias of the mean zonal kinetic energy outside the nudged zone. On the other hand, the wintertime general circulation outside the nudged-zone shows a limited bias-reduction for the regional-driven simulations, especially in the case of the TWN system. However, improvements of the TWN system compared to the control experiment are noticed in early stages of cyclone lifecycle, as it is identified in a better simulation of transient meridional heat transport and transient kinetic energy intensity. The findings of the present study suggest, thus, that improvements in resolution over SA effectively excite the simulation of the mean atmospheric circulation in the SH

The potential added value of Regional Climate Models in South America using a multiresolution approach

International audienceThis paper aims to identify those regions within the South American continent where the Regional Climate Models (RCMs) have the potential to add value (PAV) compared to their coarser-resolution global forcing. For this, we used a spatial-scale filtering method based on the wavelet theory to distinguish the regional climatic signal present in atmospheric surface fields from observed data (CPC and TRMM) and 6 RCM simulations belonging to the CORDEX Project. The wavelet used for filtering was Haar wavelet, but a comparative analysis with Daubechies 4 wavelet indicated that meteorological fields or regional indices were not very sensitive to the wavelet selected. Once the longer wavelengths were filtered, we focused on analyzing the spatial variability of extreme rainfall and the spatiotemporal variability of maximum and minimum surface air temperature on a daily basis. The results obtained suggest essential differences in the spatial distribution of the small-scale signal of extreme precipitation between TRMM and regional models, together with a large dispersion between models. While TRMM and CPC register a large signal throughout the continent, the RCMs place it over the Andes Cordillera and some over tropical South America. PAV signal for surface air temperature was found over the Andes Cordillera and the Brazilian Highlands, which are regions characterized by complex topography, and also on the coasts of the continent. The signal came specially from the small-scale stationary component. The transient part is much smaller than the stationary one, except over la Plata Basin where they are of the same order of magnitude. Also, the RCMs and CPC showed a large spread between them in representing this transient variability. The results confirm that RCMs have the potential to add value in the representation of extreme precipitation and the mean surface temperature in South America. However, this condition is not applicable throughout the whole continent but is particularly relevant in those terrestrial regions where the surface forcing is strong, such as the Andes Cordillera or the coasts of the continent

Temperature variability and soil-atmosphere interaction in South America simulated by two regional climate models

International audienceInterannual variability of surface air temperature over South America is investigated and, based on previous studies, thought to be partly the consequence of soil-atmosphere interaction. Annual and monthly averages of surface air temperature, evapotranspiration, heat fluxes, surface radiation and cloud cover, simulated by two regional climate models, RCA4 and LMDZ, were analyzed. To fully reveal the role of soil as a driver of temperature variability, simulations were performed with and without soil moisture-atmosphere coupling (Control and Uncoupled). Zones of large variance in air temperature and strong soil moisture-atmosphere coupling are found in parts of La Plata Basin and in eastern Brazil. The two models show different behaviors in terms of coupling magnitude and its geographical distribution, being the coupling strength higher in RCA4 and weaker in LMDZ. RCA4 also shows greater amplitude of the annual cycle of the monthly surface air temperature compared to LMDZ. In both regions and for both models, the Uncoupled experiment tends to be colder and exhibits smaller amplitude of the interannual variability and larger evaporative fraction than the Control does. It is evidenced that variability of the land surface affects, and is affected by, variability of the surface energy balance and that interannual temperature variability is partly driven by land-atmosphere interaction