Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of Global Warming in the Tibetan Plateau during the Last 50 Years Based on a Generalised Temperature Zone - Elevation Model

Temperature is one of the primary factors influencing the climate and ecosystem, and examining its change and fluctuation could elucidate the formation of novel climate patterns and trends. In this study, we constructed a generalised temperature zone elevation model (GTEM) to assess the trends of climate change and temporal-spatial differences in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) using the annual and monthly mean temperatures from 1961-2010 at 144 meteorological stations in and near the TP. The results showed the following: (1) The TP has undergone robust warming over the study period, and the warming rate was 0.318°C/decade. The warming has accelerated during recent decades, especially in the last 20 years, and the warming has been most significant in the winter months, followed by the spring, autumn and summer seasons. (2) Spatially, the zones that became significantly smaller were the temperature zones of -6°C and -4°C, and these have decreased 499.44 and 454.26 thousand sq km from 1961 to 2010 at average rates of 25.1% and 11.7%, respectively, over every 5-year interval. These quickly shrinking zones were located in the northwestern and central TP. (3) The elevation dependency of climate warming existed in the TP during 1961-2010, but this tendency has gradually been weakening due to more rapid warming at lower elevations than in the middle and upper elevations of the TP during 1991-2010. The higher regions and some low altitude valleys of the TP were the most significantly warming regions under the same categorizing criteria. Experimental evidence shows that the GTEM is an effective method to analyse climate changes in high altitude mountainous regions

Metaphors we die by? Geoengineering, metaphors and the argument from catastrophe

Geoeengineering the climate by reflecting sunlight or extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has attracted increasing attention from natural scientists, social scientists, policy makers and the media. This article examines promotional discourse related to geoengineering from the 1980s to 2010. It asks in particular how this option for dealing with the problems posed by climate change were framed through the use of conceptual and discourse metaphors and whether one can argue that these are metaphors we ‘live by’ or metaphors we might ‘die by’. Findings show that an overarching argument from catastrophe was bolstered by three conceptual master-metaphors, namely The Planet is a body, The Planet is a machine and The planet is a patient/addict, linked to a variety of discourse metaphors, older conceptual metaphors and clichés. This metaphorical landscape began to shift while the article was being written and will have to be closely monitored in the future

Implications of climate change for shipping: Ports and supply chains

Ports are an important economic actor—at local, national, and international scales—that have been identified as being vulnerable to future changes to the climate. This paper details the findings from an international review of state‐of‐the‐art knowledge concerning climate risks, and adaptation responses, for ports and their supply chains. Evidence from both academic and gray literature indicates that there has already been major damage and disruption to ports across the world from climate‐related hazards and that such impacts are projected to increase in the years and decades to come. Findings indicate that while a substantial—and growing—body of scientific evidence on coastal risks and potential adaptation options is acting as a stimulus for port authorities to explicitly consider the risks for their assets and operations, only a notable few have actually made the next step toward implementing adaptation strategies. This paper concludes by putting forward constructive recommendations for the sector and suggestions for research to address remaining knowledge gaps. It emphasizes a call for collaboration between the research and practice communities, as well as the need to engage a broad range of stakeholders in the adaptation planning process

Opposite polarities of ENSO drive distinct patterns of coral bleaching potentials in the southeast Indian Ocean.

Episodic anomalously warm sea surface temperature (SST) extremes, or marine heatwaves (MHWs), amplify ocean warming effects and may lead to severe impacts on marine ecosystems. MHW-induced coral bleaching events have been observed frequently in recent decades in the southeast Indian Ocean (SEIO), a region traditionally regarded to have resilience to global warming. In this study, we assess the contribution of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to MHWs across the mostly understudied reefs in the SEIO. We find that in extended summer months, the MHWs at tropical and subtropical reefs (divided at ~20°S) are driven by opposite ENSO polarities: MHWs are more likely to occur at the tropical reefs during eastern Pacific El Niño, driven by enhanced solar radiation and weaker Australian Monsoon, some likely alleviated by positive Indian Ocean Dipole events, and at the subtropical reefs during central Pacific La Niña, mainly caused by increased horizontal heat transport, and in some cases reinforced by local air-sea interactions. Madden-Julian Oscillations (MJO) also modulate the MHW occurrences. Projected future increases in ENSO and MJO intensity with greenhouse warming will enhance thermal stress across the SEIO. Implementing forecasting systems of MHWs can be used to anticipate future coral bleaching patterns and prepare management responses

Climate-driven range extension of Amphistegina (protista, foraminiferida) : models of current and predicted future ranges

© The Author(s), 2013. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e54443, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0054443.Species-range expansions are a predicted and realized consequence of global climate change. Climate warming and the poleward widening of the tropical belt have induced range shifts in a variety of marine and terrestrial species. Range expansions may have broad implications on native biota and ecosystem functioning as shifting species may perturb recipient communities. Larger symbiont-bearing foraminifera constitute ubiquitous and prominent components of shallow water ecosystems, and range shifts of these important protists are likely to trigger changes in ecosystem functioning. We have used historical and newly acquired occurrence records to compute current range shifts of Amphistegina spp., a larger symbiont-bearing foraminifera, along the eastern coastline of Africa and compare them to analogous range shifts currently observed in the Mediterranean Sea. The study provides new evidence that amphisteginid foraminifera are rapidly progressing southwestward, closely approaching Port Edward (South Africa) at 31°S. To project future species distributions, we applied a species distribution model (SDM) based on ecological niche constraints of current distribution ranges. Our model indicates that further warming is likely to cause a continued range extension, and predicts dispersal along nearly the entire southeastern coast of Africa. The average rates of amphisteginid range shift were computed between 8 and 2.7 km year−1, and are projected to lead to a total southward range expansion of 267 km, or 2.4° latitude, in the year 2100. Our results corroborate findings from the fossil record that some larger symbiont-bearing foraminifera cope well with rising water temperatures and are beneficiaries of global climate change.This work was supported by grants from the German Science Foundation (DFG; www.dfg.de) to ML and SL (LA 884/10-1, LA 884/5-1)

The international politics of geoengineering: The feasibility of Plan B for tackling climate change

Geoengineering technologies aim to make large-scale and deliberate interventions in the climate system possible. A typical framing is that researchers are exploring a ‘Plan B’ in case mitigation fails to avert dangerous climate change. Some options are thought to have the potential to alter the politics of climate change dramatically, yet in evaluating whether they might ultimately reduce climate risks, their political and security implications have so far not been given adequate prominence. This article puts forward what it calls the ‘security hazard’ and argues that this could be a crucial factor in determining whether a technology is able, ultimately, to reduce climate risks. Ideas about global governance of geoengineering rely on heroic assumptions about state rationality and a generally pacific international system. Moreover, if in a climate engineered world weather events become something certain states can be made directly responsible for, this may also negatively affect prospects for ‘Plan A’, i.e. an effective global agreement on mitigation