Abstract: The data set includes a current representative management treatment from detailed, quality-tested sentinel field experiments with wheat from four contrasting environments including Australia, The Netherlands, India and Argentina. Measurements include local daily climate data (solar radiation, maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation, surface wind, dew point temperature, relative humidity, and vapor pressure), soil characteristics, frequent growth, nitrogen in crop and soil, crop and soil water and yield components. Simulations include results from 27 wheat models and a sensitivity analysis with 26 models and 30 years (1981-2010) for each location, for elevated atmospheric CO2 and temperature changes, a heat stress sensitivity analysis at anthesis, and a sensitivity analysis with soil and crop management variations and a Global Climate Model end-century scenario.

Abstract: Projections of climate change impacts on crop yields are inherently uncertain1. Uncertainty is often quantified when projecting future greenhouse gas emissions and their influence on climate2. However, multi-model uncertainty analysis of crop responses to climate change is rare because systematic and objective comparisons among process-based crop simulation models1, 3 are difficult4. Here we present the largest standardized model intercomparison for climate change impacts so far. We found that individual crop models are able to simulate measured wheat grain yields accurately under a range of environments, particularly if the input information is sufficient. However, simulated climate change impacts vary across models owing to differences in model structures and parameter values. A greater proportion of the uncertainty in climate change impact projections was due to variations among crop models than to variations among downscaled general circulation models. Uncertainties in simulated impacts increased with CO2 concentrations and associated warming. These impact uncertainties can be reduced by improving temperature and CO2 relationships in models and better quantified through use of multi-model ensembles. Less uncertainty in describing how climate change may affect agricultural productivity will aid adaptation strategy development and policymaking.

Abstract: It has long been believed that council-manager governments with professionally trained public managers are more efficiency oriented and insulated from political pressure than mayor-council governments. Despite the general acceptance of this conventional wisdom, empirical evidence to support the predicted differences in policy has been extremely hard to come by. Most studies have found no direct effect of form of government on expenditures or policy; the effect of local institutions has been indirect, working to amplify or reduce supplier or demander preferences. In contrast, this paper examines a unique dataset of sustainability efforts in governmental operations and the community, and reports evidence that forms of government are an important direct influence on the approach that communities take to sustainability. Council-manager government systems have a significant positive effect on efforts directed to governmental operations, but a negative effect on community efforts.

Abstract: The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis of quality-controlled fCO(2) (fugacity of carbon dioxide) values for the global surface oceans and coastal seas with regular updates. Version 3 of SOCAT has 14.7 million fCO(2) values from 3646 data sets covering the years 1957 to 2014. This latest version has an additional 4.6 million fCO(2) values relative to version 2 and extends the record from 2011 to 2014. Version 3 also significantly increases the data availability for 2005 to 2013. SOCAT has an average of approximately 1.2 million surface water fCO(2) values per year for the years 2006 to 2012. Quality and documentation of the data has improved. A new feature is the data set quality control (QC) flag of E for data from alternative sensors and platforms. The accuracy of surface water fCO(2) has been defined for all data set QC flags. Automated range checking has been carried out for all data sets during their upload into SOCAT. The upgrade of the interactive Data Set Viewer (previously known as the Cruise Data Viewer) allows better interrogation of the SOCAT data collection and rapid creation of high-quality figures for scientific presentations. Automated data upload has been launched for version 4 and will enable more frequent SOCAT releases in the future. High-profile scientific applications of SOCAT include quantification of the ocean sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide and its long-term variation, detection of ocean acidification, as well as evaluation of coupled-climate and ocean-only biogeochemical models. Users of SOCAT data products are urged to acknowledge the contribution of data providers, as stated in the SOCAT Fair Data Use Statement. This ESSD (Earth System Science Data) “living data” publication documents the methods and data sets used for the assembly of this new version of the SOCAT data collection and compares these with those used for earlier versions of the data collection (Pfeil et al., 2013; Sabine et al., 2013; Bakker et al., 2014).Individual data set files, included in the synthesis product, can be downloaded here: doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.849770. The gridded products are available here: doi: 10.3334/CDIAC/OTG.SOCATV3GRID.