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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Impact of climate change on larch budmoth cyclic outbreaks
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Iyengar, S.V.; Balakrishnan, J.; Kurths, J.
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    Water scarcity hotspots travel downstream due to human interventions in the 20th and 21st century
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Veldkamp, T.I.E.; Wada, Y.; Aerts, J.C.J.H.; Döll, P.; Gosling, S.N.; Liu, J.; Masaki, Y.; Oki, T.; Ostberg, S.; Pokhrel, Y.; Satoh, Y.; Kim, H.; Ward, P.J.
    Water scarcity is rapidly increasing in many regions. In a novel, multi-model assessment, we examine how human interventions (HI: land use and land cover change, man-made reservoirs and human water use) affected monthly river water availability and water scarcity over the period 1971-2010. Here we show that HI drastically change the critical dimensions of water scarcity, aggravating water scarcity for 8.8% (7.4-16.5%) of the global population but alleviating it for another 8.3% (6.4-15.8%). Positive impacts of HI mostly occur upstream, whereas HI aggravate water scarcity downstream; HI cause water scarcity to travel downstream. Attribution of water scarcity changes to HI components is complex and varies among the hydrological models. Seasonal variation in impacts and dominant HI components is also substantial. A thorough consideration of the spatially and temporally varying interactions among HI components and of uncertainties is therefore crucial for the success of water scarcity adaptation by HI.
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    Influence of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Planetary Wave Resonance and Extreme Weather Events
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Mann, M.E.; Rahmstorf, S.; Kornhuber, K.; Steinman, B.A.; Miller, S.K.; Coumou, D.
    Persistent episodes of extreme weather in the Northern Hemisphere summer have been shown to be associated with the presence of high-amplitude quasi-stationary atmospheric Rossby waves within a particular wavelength range (zonal wavenumber 6-8). The underlying mechanistic relationship involves the phenomenon of quasi-resonant amplification (QRA) of synoptic-scale waves with that wavenumber range becoming trapped within an effective mid-latitude atmospheric waveguide. Recent work suggests an increase in recent decades in the occurrence of QRA-favorable conditions and associated extreme weather, possibly linked to amplified Arctic warming and thus a climate change influence. Here, we isolate a specific fingerprint in the zonal mean surface temperature profile that is associated with QRA-favorable conditions. State-of-the-art ("CMIP5") historical climate model simulations subject to anthropogenic forcing display an increase in the projection of this fingerprint that is mirrored in multiple observational surface temperature datasets. Both the models and observations suggest this signal has only recently emerged from the background noise of natural variability.
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    The Likelihood of Recent Record Warmth
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Mann, M.E.; Rahmstorf, S.; Steinman, B.A.; Tingley, M.; Miller, S.K.
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    Early-warning signals for Dansgaard-Oeschger events in a high-resolution ice core record
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2018) Boers, N.
    The Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events, as observed in oxygen isotope ratios from the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) record, are an outstanding example of past abrupt climate transitions. Their physical cause remains debated, and previous research indicated that they are not preceded by classical early-warning signals (EWS). Subsequent research hypothesized that the DO events are caused by bifurcations of physical mechanisms operating at decadal timescales, and proposed to search for EWS in the high-frequency fluctuation levels. Here, a time series with 5-year resolution is obtained from the raw NGRIP record, and significant numbers of EWS in terms of variance and autocorrelation increases are revealed in the decadal-scale variability. Wavelet analysis indicates that the EWS are most pronounced in the 10-50-year periodicity band, confirming the above hypothesis. The DO events are hence neither directly noise-induced nor purely externally forced, which provides valuable constraints regarding potential physical causes.