Research on quantitative assessment of climate change risk at an urban scale: Review of recent progress and outlook of future direction

Cities are not only major contributors to global climate change but also stand at the forefront of climate change impact. Quantifying and assessing the risk potentially induced by climate change has great significance for cities to undertake positive climate adaptation and risk prevention. However, most of the previous studies focus on global, national or regional dimensions, only a few have attempted to examine climate change risk at an urban scale and even less in the case of a recent literature review. As a result, a quantitative assessment of climate change risk for cities remains highly challenging. To fill this gap, the article makes a critical review of the recent literature on urban-scale climate change risk assessment, and classifies them into four major categories of studies which jointly constitute a stepwise modelling chain from global climate change towards urban-scale risk assessment. On this basis, the study summarizes the updated research progresses and discusses the major challenges to be overcome for the seamless coupling of climate simulation between different scales, the reproduction of compound climate events, the incorporation of non-market and long-lasting impacts and the representation of risk transmission insides or beyond a city. Furthermore, future directions to advance quantitative assessment of urban-scale climate change risk are highlighted, with fresh insights into improving study methodology, enriching knowledge of climate change impact on city, enhancing abundance and accessibility to data, and exploring the best practice to provide city-specific climate risk service.     

Climate Change and Geochemistry May Explain the Finding of Marine Cyanobacteria in a Continental Saline Lake

正1 Introduction Alkaline Lake Khilganta located in a steppe zone of South Siberia(N 50°42'535,E 115°06'086)is unique among adjacent lakes because of a development of a thick(up to 3 cm)cyanobacterial mat dominated by     

Salt Desert and Saline-Ackaline Mixed Dust Storms:An Ignored Issure for Global Climate Change

正Salt desert,saline-alkaline dust storm and saline-alkaline mixed dust storm are significant but ignored problems for a long time.After many years of observations and researches,the author believes that salt desert,saline-alkaline dust     

A Preliminary Study of Holocene Climate Change and Human Adaptation in the Horqin Region

Abstract: Human activity during the Holocene in the Horqin region, northeastern China, has been widely documented. As an important proxy record of human activity, black carbon (BC) in sediments has been linked to climate change and human adaptation. A loess-paleosol section located in south Horqin was chosen for this study. Holocene climate change and human adaptation to the environment were discussed by analyzing BC, organic carbon (OC) and other proxies. The conclusions included: (1) before 3900 cal BP, human activity was closely related to the natural environment and cultural development was dominated by climate change. For example, the rapid decline of the agrarian Hongshan culture was caused by a slight decrease in temperature at ~5000 cal BP; (2) during 3900-3200 cal BP, the heavy dependence of human societies on nature gradually lessened and the ability of those human societies to adapt to the environment was enhanced. However, the farming-dominated Lower Xiajiadian culture was nonetheless replaced by the pastoralist Upper Xiajiadian culture due to an extremely cooling event at ~3200 cal BP; (3) during the late Holocene period, the marked influence of climate change on human activity might have lessened as a result of a clear improvement in human labor skills. After this, human living styles were influenced by cultural developments rather than climate change because humans had mastered more powerful means of productivity.     

福建新建港口铁路工程地质勘察若干问题探讨

根据福建沿海湄洲湾、江阴、可门3条支线港口铁路的工程地质条件、水文地质特征,综合分析认为在工程施工过程中局部出现不良地质现象,主要有软土、块石填土、不均匀地基、地下水的腐蚀性等.总结在施工过程中因工程地质问题导致的设计变更及处理措施.     

中国历史时期气候变化影响及其应对的启示简

The social impact of global climate change is one of the hotspots in the current research. To deal with the challenges from climate change, it could be learned from the adapting experiences and lessons to climate change in the history. The main achievements of cognition on the historical impacts of climatic change in China and on coping with the climate changes in the future based the published papers in recent years is summarized. The followings are the main conclusions. ①The general characteristics of the impacts of climatic change in the history was negative in the cold periods and positive in the warm periods, but there were regional differences in the impact and responses. ②The cooling trend on centurial scale and the social economic decline run concurrently. The rapid development supported by better resources and environment in the warm period could lead to the increase of the social vulnerability when the climate turned to the cold period. ③Strategies and policies to cope with the climate change in the history were adopted according to the temporal and spatial circumstances and the subjects. Initiative adaptation promoted by governments was an effective way.     

Research Progress in Responses of Modern Terrestrial Plant Carbon Isotope Composition to Climate Change

Global climate change has been one of the most concerned environmental problems in the world since the 1980s. Since stable carbon composition (¹³C) in plant tissues can record abundant information on climate changes, it has been widely used as an important climate proxy in global change studies and becomes a powerful tool for obtaining paleoclimate information, understanding paleoenvironment reconstruction and modern climate change, and predicting future climate trends. However, a lot of potential uncertainties have always involved in the reconstruction of paleoclimate and paleoenvironment by carbon isotope of the past period sediment or fossils. Among them, the most dominant uncertainty is due to our poor understanding of the relations between carbon isotope ratios of plants and climatic factors and the climatic and environmental significance indicated by modern plant ¹³C. This may limit the application of plant ¹³C in the study of climatic and environmental changes. Based on the Summary of plant ¹³C fractionation and carbon isotope distribution of different photosynthetic plants, the effects of environmental factors, e.g., temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and altitude on terrestrial plant ¹³C and their relationships were reviewed in this paper, and the response mechanism of plant ¹³C to climate changes were also analyzed. Furthermore, the current existing problems and the future prospects in carbon isotope study were discussed. It is pointed out that strengthening some studies such as the response of C₄ plants ¹³C to climate environmental parameters, the transformation relation of different scale plant ¹³C, intersection and permeation of related disciplines, and various proxies and scientific method, will undoubtedly make us have a more accurate understanding of the climate history and eventually broaden the development of the field during the process of global change study by plant carbon isotope techniques.     

Disaster Risk Science Development and Disaster Risk Reduction Using Science and Technology

Based on a series of international conferences for establishing HFA2 framework, this paper analyzed key issues of frontier of disaster risk science, integrated disaster prevention and mitigation strategies and integrated disaster risk governance. The future direction of disaster risk science was comprehensively discussed according to the widely discussed Post 2015 Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA2). It was proposed to deepen the cognition of the complexity of disaster system in terms of recognizing the complexity of disaster system from the interaction among various elements of the system, recognizing the complexity of climate change risk from the regional characteristics and formation mechanism of the global climate change and recognizing the complexity of the catastrophe risk from the regional development levels and patterns. Furthermore, it was suggested to make integrated disaster risk reduction strategies and countermeasures from the perspective of the complexity of the disaster system, including the establishment of regional integrated disaster risk governance framework to face climate change, the establishment of integrated disaster risk governance system in multi-spatial scale, the establishment of disaster risk governance financial system integrating the insurance, bonds and lottery, the establishment of consilience mode in integrated risk governance considering multi-stakeholder and the establishment of modeling and simulation platform integrated disaster risk information services and disaster risk reduction strategies. Finally, it was pointed out that the assessment of disaster risk levels for different regions in multi spatial scale can provide robust scientific support for integrated disaster risk governance of the world and regions, industries and enterprises so as to improve response to global change and guarantee a global and regional sustainable development.     

Earth System Science: Conception and Misconception——To the Third Conference on Earth System Science,Shanghai

Earth system science should not be understood as an all embracing term that combines various disciplines studying the planet Earth. Rather, it is a new approach to consider interaction between its various subsystems, and seeks to integrate various research fields to understand the Earth as a system. Earth system science has developed from global changes studies, then extended into the deep geological past and now is facing a new challenge connecting the surface processes with those in the Earth’s interior.     

青藏高原东北部甘加盆地古梯田地层与年代初探

梯田是人类几千年来利用和改造自然能力的象征,在人类社会发展中发挥了重要的作用。甘加盆地位于青藏高原东北部甘肃省夏河县,盆地内的丘陵、山麓地带分布大面积的层状梯形景观,疑似弃耕的古代梯田。本文在实地考察的基础上,基于卫星遥感资料,通过GIS手段分析发现古梯田面积为42.2 km²（约63000亩）,主要分布在盆地内央曲河及其支流两侧海拔2936~3326 m间的山坡上。通过对3个古梯田剖面样品的磁化率、总有机碳/氮（TOC、TN）含量、孢粉、粒度等环境代用指标分析,同时对比具有准确年代控制的自然剖面磁化率与粒度。研究结果显示：梯田开垦于晚全新世（距今3000 a）古土壤,梯田剖面顶部25~35 cm不同于自然剖面而呈均一化的指标证实了耕作层的存在（距今约1000 a以下层位）;但耕作层之上TOC、TN含量的增多,以及梯田剖面与自然剖面整体一致的指标变化趋势说明了梯田被短期利用后长期废弃;结合历史文献资料推断夏河古梯田是在北宋“弓箭手屯田”制度（1074—1125年）下开垦的;气候重建资料显示该时段温度较高、降水增加,整体有益于农业生产。本文提供了过去人类社会适应气候变化的典型案例。