Global Warming and Potential Changes in Fish Habitat in U.S. Streams

To project potential habitat changes of 57 fish species under global warming, their suitable thermal habitat at 764 stream gaging stations in the contiguous United States was studied. Global warming was specified by air temperature increases projected by the Canadian Centre of Climate Modelling General Circulation Model for a doubling of atmospheric CO₂. The aquatic thermal regime at each gaging station was related to air temperature using a nonlinear stream temperature/air temperature relationship.Suitable fish thermal habitat was assumed to be constrained by both maximum temperature and minimum temperature tolerances. For cold water fishes with a 0 °C lower temperature constraint, the number of stations with suitable thermal habitat under a 2×CO₂ climate scenario is projected to decrease by 36%, and for cool water fishes by 15%. These changes are associated with a northward shift of the range. For warm water fishes with a 2 °C lower temperature constraint, the potential number of stations with suitable thermal habitat is projected to increase by 31%.     

Future African Water Resources: Interactions between Soil Degradation and Global Warming

This study uses a well-established water balance methodology to evaluate the relative impact of global warming and soil degradation due to desertification on future African water resources. Using a baseline climatology, a GCM global warming scenario, a newly derived soil water-holding capacity data set, and a worldwide survey of soil degradation between 1950 and 1980, four climate and soil degradation scenarios are created to simulate the potential impact of global warming and soil degradation on African water resources for the 2010–2039 time period. Results indicate that, on a continental scale, the impact of global warming will be significantly greater than the impact of soil degradation. However, when only considering the locations where desertification is an issue (wet and dry climate regions), the potential effects of these two different human impacts on local water resources can be expected to be on the same order of magnitude. Drying associated with global warming is primarily the result of increased water demand (potential evapotranspiration) across the entire continent. While there are small increases in precipitation under global warming conditions, they are inadequate to meet the increased water demand. Soil degradation is most severe in highly populated, wet and dry climate regions and results in decreased water-holding capacities in these locations. This results in increased water surplus conditions during wet seasons when the soil's ability to absorb precipitation is reduced. At the same time, water deficits in these locations increase because of reduced soil water availability in the dry seasons. The net result of the combined scenarios is an intensification and extension of drought conditions during dry seasons.     

Global Warming Potentials: 1. Climatic Implications of Emissions Reductions

The use of Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) to calculate equivalent carbon dioxide emissions reductions in the climate change context is examined. We find that GWPs are accurate only for short time horizons. Over long time horizons their use implicitly leads to tradeoffs between near-term and long-term climate change. For one of the most policy-relevant cases, comparing reductions in methane and carbon dioxide, the long-term effect on climate of reducing methane emissions is relatively small, at variance with the common perception based on published GWP values.     

美国实施全球变化研究计划的协作机制及其启示

通过对美国全球变化研究计划的组织结构、资金获取、数据共享等协作机制的介绍,认为一项大规模协作型研究计划的良好实施,需要依法进行立项、从国家层面组建独立的协调机构、有持续稳定的经费投入、对计划进行定期评估和修正,并真正实现科学数据共享。     

华北水资源年代际变化及其与全球变暖之间的关联

本文利用1951～2011 年期间中国台站资料、东亚地区的探空资料、NCEP/NCAR 和ERA40 等大气再分析资料,通过对水分平衡方程诊断探讨了华北地区过去60 年中水资源和可利用降水量的变化特征及其与大尺度环流变化之间的关系。结果发现,华北地区69%的降水量被蒸发,可利用降水仅仅为降水量的31%。夏季可利用降水是华北水资源的主要来源,华北夏季可利用降水量在80 年代初发生突变减少,进入21 世纪初,伴随蒸发量的增加该地区可利用降水量进一步减少。西风带水汽与东亚夏季风水汽是华北可利用降水的主要来源。NCAR/NCEP 和EAR40 再分析资料的结果均显示贝加尔湖一带的位势高度偏低和西太平洋高压的偏强有利于该地区降水增多。利用探空资料进一步证明,蒙古以及贝加尔湖地区的温度在对流层低层变暖和位势高度场的加强导致了过去几十年华北可利用降水量减少。由于贝加尔湖地区温度变化与全球变暖存在密切关联,监测该地区温度的变化对预测华北水资源和东亚夏季风的长期变化具有重要的意义。     

Global Warming and Water Management: Water Allocation and Project Evaluation

This paper explores the sensitivity of the benefits of alternative water allocation schemes and of project evaluation to global warming. If global warming shifts the mean of annual water supplies, there could be large impacts on the expected values of alternative water allocation schemes. The first section of the paper explores how well alternative schemes (such as market mechanisms, prior rights, or percentage flows) perform if the distribution of flows changes. In a case study of the Colorado River, market mechanisms and flow guarantees result in smaller impacts than rules which allocate inefficient percentages of flows to heterogeneous users. The second part of the paper explores the effect of a gradually changing distribution of flows on project evaluations. Project evaluation is sensitive to predicted future changes in mean flows. Project evaluation is not sensitive to changes in the variance of future flows unless the variance increase is large and the benefit measure is highly curvilinear. Because basin-specific changes in runoff from global warming are currently uncertain and much delayed, most project analyses will be unaffected by global warming. The most important response by water managers to climate change may simply be to closely monitor runoff and incorporate flexible rules in order to adapt their behavior to observed changes.     

Possible Effects of Global Warming on Agriculture and Water Resources in Saudi Arabia: Impacts and Responses

This study assesses the possible impact of climatic change on Saudi Arabia's agriculture and water supplies using climatic change scenarios from GCMs (General Circulation Models) and related research. The resulting assessment indicates that an increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation could have a major negative impact on agriculture and water supplies in Saudi Arabia. To find signs of climatic change in Saudi Arabia a preliminaryassessment of systematic changes in temperature and precipitation was made, based on the records of four Saudi weather stations. The analysis of this data, which dates back to 1961, shows no discernable signs of climatic change during the study period. Such data is, however, limited both spatially and temporally and cannot provide conclusive evidence to confirm climatic changes projected by GCMs. Nevertheless, in the light of recent climatic conditions and rapid population growth, Saudi decision-makers are urged to adopt a `no regret' policy. Ideally, such a policy would include measures to avoid future environmental or socioeconomic problems that may occur in the event of significant climatic change.     

全球变暖趋缓研究进展

近十几年来,全球年平均表面温度上升趋势显示出停滞状态,即全球变暖趋缓,这引起了国际社会的广泛关注,同时也引发了对全球变暖的质疑,各国气候学家正努力就全球变暖趋缓的事实、原因及其可能影响展开研究。本文综述了目前国内外对全球变暖趋缓的研究结果。多数科学家认可近十几年来全球变暖停滞的事实,并认为太阳活动处于低位相、大气气溶胶（自然和人为）增加以及海洋吸收热量是变暖停滞的可能影响因子,其中海洋（尤其是700米以下的深海）对热量的储存可能是变暖停滞的关键。国际耦合模式比较计划第5阶段中的模式并未精确地描述各种有利降温影响因子的近期位相演变,因而其模拟的近期增暖趋势较观测偏强。由此推断,变暖停滞主要是自然因素造成的,并且预测变暖趋缓将在近几年或几十年内结束（依赖于太平洋年代际振荡的位相转变）,未来气温将仍主要受到温室气体增加的影响而表现出明显的上升趋势。因此,目前的全球变暖趋缓不大可能改变到本世纪末全球大幅度变暖带来的风险。本综述展望未来的研究热点包括:精确估算全球气温和海洋热含量的变率及其不确定性,海洋年代际信号（太平洋以及大西洋的年代际振荡）的转型机制,存储在深海的热量将在何时返回海洋表面及其对区域气候的潜在影响。     

Global Climate Change: Why U.S. Insurers Care

The number of natural catastrophes in this decade is four times greater than in the 1960s; economic losses are eight times greater; and insured losses are 15 times greater. The insurance industry's financial interest is inter-dependent with climate and weather. Natural events drive the demand for insurance coverage and can threaten the viability of an insurer if it is over-exposed in high risk areas. Early in the 1990s, the industry began to recognize that historical data were potentially misleading with respect to future natural catastrophe exposure. The U.S. insurance industry is pursuing a variety of new approaches including: the use of catastrophe computer models to integrate the natural knowledge about extreme events taken from the sciences into the actuarial sciences. The evaluation of building codes and building code enforcement in every community in the country enhanced its support for hazard mitigation.     

Global Warming Potentials: 2. Accuracy

This paper exposes flaws in the mathematical structure of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) concept. These lead to errors when emissions changes in different greenhouse gases are compared. The most fundamental problem is that the unit impulse response functions from which GWPs, and many of their proposed alternatives, are constructed provide an incomplete representation of the relationship between emissions and radiative forcing. Additional errors occur when GWPs are used to compare finite-length emissions changes.     

Regional patterns of U.S. household carbon emissions

Market-based policies to address fossil fuel-related externalities including climate change typically operate by raising the price of those fuels. Increases in energy prices have important consequences for a typical U.S. household that spent almost $4,000 per year on electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and gasoline in 2005. A key question for policymakers is how these consequences vary over different regions and subpopulations across the country—especially as adjustment and compensation programs are designed to protect more vulnerable regions. To answer this question, we use non-publicly available data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey over the period 1984–2000 to estimate long-run geographic variation in household use of electricity, fuel oil, natural gas, and gasoline, as well as the associated incidence of a $10 per ton tax on carbon dioxide (ignoring behavioral response). We find substantial variation: incidence from the tax range from $97 dollars per year per household in New York County, New York to $235 per year per household in Tensas Parish, Louisiana. This variation can be explained by differences in energy use, carbon intensity of electricity generation, and electricity regulation.     

气候变暖对新安水资源的影响

选取气温、降水和蒸发这3个对水资源影响最大的气象因子,分析其变化特点及其与新安水资源变化的相关性,结果表明,气温升高和降水减少是影响新安水资源的重要因素,其中降水是最重要的影响因素.结合他人研究成果,对该地区水资源可持续利用提出对策建议.     

全球变暖的科学

全球变暖已经是不争的事实.根据目前主要的3个全球温度序列,1910-2009年的变暖趋势为0.70 ～0.75℃/100a[1].粗略地讲,目前已经变暖了0.8℃.如果把气候变化的阈值限制为2℃,则今后只有1.2℃的上升空间,这就是我们面临的严峻形势[2].根据全球气候系统的概念[3],全球变暖不仅仅是地面温度的上升,还包含了冰雪的融化、海平面的上升、多年冻土的退化及全球植被的变化等等.这些变化已经、正在或将来可能影响到人类生活的方方面面.     

未来气候变化背景下贵州省夏季旅游气候资源的变化预估

利用区域气候模式(RegCM4)1951-2005年历史模拟和2006-2099年RCP8.5(高排放)和RCP4.5(中排放)情景下的逐日平均气温、降水量、10 m风速和入射辐射通量,给出21世纪贵州省夏季与全国其他地区的旅游气候资源时空对比.结果表明:未来贵州省夏季平均气温的增幅在两种排放情景下均小于全国的增幅,且...     

气候变暖背景下贺州地区水资源的变化特征

利用贺州站1957—2011年月平均气温及月降水资料,分析了气候变暖背景下该地区55a来的降水以及水资源的季节、年际和年代际变化。研究表明：在气候变暖的背景下,贺州地区年降水量有增加趋势,年蒸发量呈下降趋势,相应的可利用降水呈增加趋势,但趋势均不明显。该地区的水资源在各季节的分配极不均匀,春季和初夏是最易发生洪涝灾害的季节,秋季是最易发生干旱的季节,同时还可能发生夏秋冬连旱的现象。     

U.S. Climate Sensitivity Simulated with the NCEP Regional Spectral Model

10-year continuous U.S. climate simulations were conducted with the Regional Spectral Model (RSM) using boundary conditions from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/Dept. of Energy reanalyses and the global PCM (Parallel Climate Model) simulations for present day (1986–1996) andfuture (2040–2050) CO₂ concentrations (about a 36% increasedCO₂). In order to examine the influence of physical parameterization differences as well as grid-resolution, fine resolution RSM simulations (50 km) were compared to coarse resolution (180 and 250 km) RSM simulations, which had resolutions comparable to the T62 reanalysis and PCM simulations. During the winter, the fine resolution RSM simulations provided more realistic detail over the western mountains. During the summer, large differences between the RSM and driving PCM simulations were found. Our results with presentCO₂ suggest that most of the differences between the regionalclimate model simulations and the climate simulations driven by the global model used to drive the regional climate model were not due to the finer resolution of the regional climate model but to the different treatment of the physical processes in the two models, especially when the subgrid scale physics was important, like during summer. Compared to the coarse resolution RSM simulation results, on the other hand, the fine resolution RSM simulations did show improved simulation skills especially when a good boundary condition such as the reanalysis was used to drive the RSM. Under increased CO₂, the driving PCM and downscaled RSM simulations exhibitedwarming over all vertical layers and all regions. Both the RSM and PCM had increased precipitation during the winter, but during the summer, the PCM simulation had an overall precipitation increase mainly due to increased subgrid scale convective activity, whereas the RSM simulations exhibited precipitation decreases and the resulting RSM soil moisture became dryer, especially in the U.S. Southwest. Most of differences in the simulated climate change signals were produced by the distinct model physics rather than by differences in grid resolution.