After 'Black Saturday': adapting to bushfires in a changing climate

Abstract not availabl

Non-stationarity in daily and sub-daily intense rainfall – Part 1: Sydney, Australia

This study was driven by a need to clarify how variations in climate might affect intense rainfall and the potential for flooding. Sub-daily durations are of particular interest for urban applications. Worldwide, few such observation-based studies exist, which is mainly due to limitations in data. While there are still large discrepancies between precipitation data sets from observations and models, both show that there is a tendency for moist regions to become wetter and for dry regions to become drier. However, changes in extreme conditions may show the opposite sign to those in average conditions. Where changes in observed intense precipitation have been studied, this has typically been for daily durations or longer. <br><br> The purpose of this two-part study is to examine daily and sub-daily rainfall extremes for evidence of non-stationarity. Here the problem was addressed by supplementing one long record (Part 1) by a set of shorter records for a 30-yr concurrent period (Part 2). Variations in frequency and magnitude of rainfall extremes across durations from 6 min to 72 h were assessed using data from sites in the south-east of Australia. For the analyses presented in this paper, a peaks-over-threshold approach was chosen since it allows investigating changes in frequency as well as magnitude. Non-parametric approaches were used to assess changes in frequency, magnitude, and quantile estimates as well as the statistical significance of changes for one station (Sydney Observatory Hill) for the period 1921 to 2005. Deviations from the long-term average vary with season, duration, and threshold. The effects of climate variations are most readily detected for the highest thresholds. Deviations from the long-term average tend to be larger for frequencies than for magnitudes, and changes in frequency and magnitude may have opposite signs. <br><br> Investigations presented in this paper show that variations in frequency and magnitude of events at daily durations are a poor indicator of changes at sub-daily durations. Studies like the one presented here should be undertaken for other regions to allow the identification of regions with significant increase/decrease in intense rainfall, whether there are common features with regards to duration and season exhibiting most significant changes (which in turn could lead to establishing a theoretical framework), and assist in validation of projections of rainfall extremes

Metabolomic analysis of prostate cancer risk in a prospective cohort: The alpha‐tocolpherol, beta‐carotene cancer prevention (ATBC) study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113106/1/ijc29576.pd

Evolution of Antarctic ozone in September-December predicted by CCMVal-2 model simulations for the 21st century

Chemistry-Climate Model Validation phase 2 (CCMVal-2) model simulations are used to analyze Antarctic ozone increases in 2000–2100 during local spring and early summer, both vertically integrated and at several pressure levels in the lower stratosphere. Multi-model median trends of monthly zonal mean total ozone column (TOC), ozone volume mixing ratio (VMR), wind speed and temperature poleward of 60° S are investigated. Median values are used to account for large variability in models, and the associated uncertainty is calculated using a bootstrapping technique. According to the trend derived from the twelve CCMVal-2 models selected, Antarctic TOC will not return to a 1965 baseline, an average of 1960–1969 values, by the end of the 21st century in September–November, but will return in ~2080 in December. The speed of December ozone depletion before 2000 was slower compared to spring months, and thus the decadal rate of December TOC increase after 2000 is also slower. Projected trends in December ozone VMR at 20–100 hPa show a much slower rate of ozone recovery, particularly at 50–70 hPa, than for spring months. Trends in temperature and winds at 20–150 hPa are also analyzed in order to attribute the projected slow increase of December ozone and to investigate future changes in the Antarctic atmosphere in general, including some aspects of the polar vortex breakup.J. M. Siddaway, S. V. Petelina, D. J. Karoly, A. R. Klekociuk, and R. J. Dargavill

The organization of the transcriptional network in specific neuronal classes

Genome-wide expression profiling has aided the understanding of the molecular basis of neuronal diversity, but achieving broad functional insight remains a considerable challenge. Here, we perform the first systems-level analysis of microarray data from single neuronal populations using weighted gene co-expression network analysis to examine how neuronal transcriptome organization relates to neuronal function and diversity. We systematically validate network predictions using published proteomic and genomic data. Several network modules of co-expressed genes correspond to interneuron development programs, in which the hub genes are known to be critical for interneuron specification. Other co-expression modules relate to fundamental cellular functions, such as energy production, firing rate, trafficking, and synapses, suggesting that fundamental aspects of neuronal diversity are produced by quantitative variation in basic metabolic processes. We identify two transcriptionally distinct mitochondrial modules and demonstrate that one corresponds to mitochondria enriched in neuronal processes and synapses, whereas the other represents a population restricted to the soma. Finally, we show that galectin-1 is a new interneuron marker, and we validate network predictions in vivo using Rgs4 and Dlx1/2 knockout mice. These analyses provide a basis for understanding how specific aspects of neuronal phenotypic diversity are organized at the transcriptional level

Fast Methods for Jackknifing Inequality Indices

The jackknife is a resampling method that uses subsets of the original database by leaving out one observation at a time from the sample. The paper outlines a procedure to obtain jackknife estimates for several inequality indices with only a few passes through the data. The number of passes is independent of the number of observations. Hence, the method provides an efficient way to obtain standard errors of the estimators even if sample size is large. We apply our method using micro data on individual incomes for Germany and the US

Ozone Exposure Increases Circulating Stress Hormones and Lipid Metabolites in Humans

Rationale: Air pollution has been associated with increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes; however, the mechanisms remain unknown. We have shown that acute ozone exposure in rats induces release of stress hormones, hyperglycemia, leptinemia, and glucose intolerance that are associated with global changes in peripheral glucose, lipid, and amino acid metabolism

The timing of anthropogenic emergence in simulated climate extremes

Determining the time of emergence of climates altered from their natural state by anthropogenic influences can help inform the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change. Previous studies have examined the time of emergence of climate averages. However, at the global scale, the emergence of changes in extreme events, which have the greatest societal impacts, has not been investigated before. Based on state-of-the-art climate models, we show that temperature extremes generally emerge slightly later from their quasi-natural climate state than seasonal means, due to greater variability in extremes. Nevertheless, according to model evidence, both hot and cold extremes have already emerged across many areas. Remarkably, even precipitation extremes that have very large variability are projected to emerge in the coming decades in Northern Hemisphere winters associated with a wettening trend. Based on our findings we expect local temperature and precipitation extremes to already differ significantly from their previous quasi-natural state at many locations or to do so in the near future. Our findings have implications for climate impacts and detection and attribution studies assessing observed changes in regional climate extremes by showing whether they will likely find a fingerprint of anthropogenic climate change