Sun, R., Lü, Y., Yang, X., & Chen, L. (2019). Understanding the variability of urban heat islands from local background climate and urbanization. Journal of Cleaner Production, 208, 743–752.
Abstract: Climate change adaptation in urban areas is among the biggest challenges humanity faces partly because of the combined effects of urban heating and global warming. The variability of urban heat islands (VUHIs) is known to influence the effectiveness of climate adaptation strategies; however, the understanding of VUHIs is still limited. Here, we quantified the diurnal and seasonal VUHIs in 245 Chinese cities that varied in population and physical size based on the remotely sensing data from 2002 to 2012. Taking the 2012 VUHIs as an example, we examined the relationships between VUHIs and underlying drivers of background climate and urbanization. The results showed that: (1) the VUHIs from 2002 to 2012 had obvious periodicity in different years while significant diurnal and seasonal variability; (2) the explanation rates of local background climate for the diurnal VUHIs were 30% (spring), 19% (summer), 29% (autumn), and 25% (winter), respectively; (3) the explanation rates of urbanization for the diurnal VUHIs were 13% (spring), 22% (summer), 11% (autumn), and 21% (winter), respectively; (4) these two variables also accounted for 32% and 12% of the seasonal VUHIs during the daytime, and 25% and 23% during the nighttime, respectively. Our research suggests that the improvement of urban climate-change adaptation necessitates local “climate-smart” strategies, a reduction in local anthropogenic heat emissions, and rational use of green planning for sustainable urban development.
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Hu, X., Cai, M., Yong, S., & Sejas, S. A. (2018). Air temperature feedback and its contribution to global warming. Science China Earth Sciences, 61(10), 1491–1509.
Abstract: Air temperature feedback results from the thermal-radiative coupling between the atmosphere and the surface and plays an important role in surface energy balance. This paper reveals the contribution of air temperature feedback to the global warming from 1980 to 2000. The air temperature feedback kernel, evaluated using the ERA-Interim reanalysis data, is used to discuss the physical mechanism for air temperature feedback, the dependency of the strength of air temperature feedback on the climatological spatial distributions of air temperature, water vapor and cloud content, and the contributions of air temperature feedback to rapid global warming. The coupling between temperature feedback and each of the external forcings and individual feedback processes will amplify the anomaly of direct energy flux convergence at the surface induced by the external forcings and individual processes. The air temperature feedback amplifies the initial surface warming due to the increase in CO2 concentration, ice and snow melting, increase in water vapor, and change in ocean heat storage. It also amplifies the surface warming due to the longwave radiaitve forcing associated with the increase in cloud cover, which acts to suppress the cooling of the shortwave effect of cloud forcing. Overall, temperature feedback plays an important role in the global warming from 1980 to 2000, as the net positive contribution to the perturbation of global mean energy flux at the surface from the air temperature feedback is larger than the net negative contribution from external forcing and all non-temperature feedbacks.
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Deutsch, C. A., Tewksbury, J. J., Tigchelaar, M., Battisti, D. S., Merrill, S. C., Huey, R. B., et al. (2018). Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate. Science, 361(6405), 916–919.
Abstract: Insect pests substantially reduce yields of three staple grains-rice, maize, and wheat-but models assessing the agricultural impacts of global warming rarely consider crop losses to insects. We use established relationships between temperature and the population growth and metabolic rates of insects to estimate how and where climate warming will augment losses of rice, maize, and wheat to insects. Global yield losses of these grains are projected to increase by 10 to 25% per degree of global mean surface warming. Crop losses will be most acute in areas where warming increases both population growth and metabolic rates of insects. These conditions are centered primarily in temperate regions, where most grain is produced.
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Jisan, M. A., Bao, S., Pietrafesa, L. J., Shen, D., Gayes, P. T., & Hallstrom, J. (2018). Hurricane Matthew (2016) and its impact under global warming scenarios. Model. Earth Syst. Environ., 4(1), 97–109.
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Wang, Y., Xu, Y., Spencer, R. G. M., Zito, P., Kellerman, A., Podgorski, D., et al. (2018). Selective Leaching of Dissolved Organic Matter From Alpine Permafrost Soils on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci., 123(3), 1005–1016.
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