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Tirivarombo, Sithabile. "Climate variability and climate change in water resources management of the Zambezi River basin." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002955.
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Water is recognised as a key driver for social and economic development in the Zambezi basin. The basin is riparian to eight southern African countries and the transboundary nature of the basin’s water resources can be viewed as an agent of cooperation between the basin countries. It is possible, however, that the same water resource can lead to conflicts between water users. The southern African Water Vision for ‘equitable and sustainable utilisation of water for social, environmental justice and economic benefits for the present and future generations’ calls for an integrated and efficient management of water resources within the basin. Ensuring water and food security in the Zambezi basin is, however, faced with challenges due to high variability in climate and the available water resources. Water resources are under continuous threat from pollution, increased population growth, development and urbanisation as well as global climate change. These factors increase the demand for freshwater resources and have resulted in water being one of the major driving forces for development. The basin is also vulnerable due to lack of adequate financial resources and appropriate water resources infrastructure to enable viable, equitable and sustainable distribution of the water resources. This is in addition to the fact that the basin’s economic mainstay and social well-being are largely dependent on rainfed agriculture. There is also competition among the different water users and this has the potential to generate conflicts, which further hinder the development of water resources in the basin. This thesis has focused on the Zambezi River basin emphasising climate variability and climate change. It is now considered common knowledge that the global climate is changing and that many of the impacts will be felt through water resources. If these predictions are correct then the Zambezi basin is most likely to suffer under such impacts since its economic mainstay is largely determined by the availability of rainfall. It is the belief of this study that in order to ascertain the impacts of climate change, there should be a basis against which this change is evaluated. If we do not know the historical patterns of variability it may be difficult to predict changes in the future climate and in the hydrological resources and it will certainly be difficult to develop appropriate management strategies. Reliable quantitative estimates of water availability are a prerequisite for successful water resource plans. However, such initiatives have been hindered by paucity in data especially in a basin where gauging networks are inadequate and some of them have deteriorated. This is further compounded by shortages in resources, both human and financial, to ensure adequate monitoring. To address the data problems, this study largely relied on global data sets and the CRU TS2.1 rainfall grids were used for a large part of this study. The study starts by assessing the historical variability of rainfall and streamflow in the Zambezi basin and the results are used to inform the prediction of change in the future. Various methods of assessing historical trends were employed and regional drought indices were generated and evaluated against the historical rainfall trends. The study clearly demonstrates that the basin has a high degree of temporal and spatial variability in rainfall and streamflow at inter-annual and multi-decadal scales. The Standardised Precipitation Index, a rainfall based drought index, is used to assess historical drought events in the basin and it is shown that most of the droughts that have occurred were influenced by climatic and hydrological variability. It is concluded, through the evaluation of agricultural maize yields, that the basin’s food security is mostly constrained by the availability of rainfall. Comparing the viability of using a rainfall based index to a soil moisture based index as an agricultural drought indicator, this study concluded that a soil moisture based index is a better indicator since all of the water balance components are considered in the generation of the index. This index presents the actual amount of water available for the plant unlike purely rainfall based indices, that do not account for other components of the water budget that cause water losses. A number of challenges were, however, faced in assessing the variability and historical drought conditions, mainly due to the fact that most parts of the Zambezi basin are ungauged and available data are sparse, short and not continuous (with missing gaps). Hydrological modelling is frequently used to bridge the data gap and to facilitate the quantification of a basin’s hydrology for both gauged and ungauged catchments. The trend has been to use various methods of regionalisation to transfer information from gauged basins, or from basins with adequate physical basin data, to ungauged basins. All this is done to ensure that water resources are accounted for and that the future can be well planned. A number of approaches leading to the evaluation of the basin’s hydrological response to future climate change scenarios are taken. The Pitman rainfall-runoff model has enjoyed wide use as a water resources estimation tool in southern Africa. The model has been calibrated for the Zambezi basin but it should be acknowledged that any hydrological modelling process is characterised by many uncertainties arising from limitations in input data and inherent model structural uncertainty. The calibration process is thus carried out in a manner that embraces some of the uncertainties. Initial ranges of parameter values (maximum and minimum) that incorporate the possible parameter uncertainties are assigned in relation to physical basin properties. These parameter sets are used as input to the uncertainty version of the model to generate behavioural parameter space which is then further modified through manual calibration. The use of parameter ranges initially guided by the basin physical properties generates streamflows that adequately represent the historically observed amounts. This study concludes that the uncertainty framework and the Pitman model perform quite well in the Zambezi basin. Based on assumptions of an intensifying hydrological cycle, climate changes are frequently expected to result in negative impacts on water resources. However, it is important that basin scale assessments are undertaken so that appropriate future management strategies can be developed. To assess the likely changes in the Zambezi basin, the calibrated Pitman model was forced with downscaled and bias corrected GCM data. Three GCMs were used for this study, namely; ECHAM, GFDL and IPSL. The general observation made in this study is that the near future (2046-2065) conditions of the Zambezi basin are expected to remain within the ranges of historically observed variability. The differences between the predictions for the three GCMs are an indication of the uncertainties in the future and it has not been possible to make any firm conclusions about directions of change. It is therefore recommended that future water resources management strategies account for historical patterns of variability, but also for increased uncertainty. Any management strategies that are able to satisfactorily deal with the large variability that is evident from the historical data should be robust enough to account for the near future patterns of water availability predicted by this study. However, the uncertainties in these predictions suggest that improved monitoring systems are required to provide additional data against which future model outputs can be assessed.
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Weidemann, Stephanie Suzanne. "Glacier response to climate variability and climate change across the Southern Andes." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/22954.
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Die Gletscherschmelze in den südlichen Anden trägt maßgeblich zum Anstieg des Meeresspiegels der letzten Jahrzehnte bei und beeinflusst regional die saisonale Wasserverfügbarkeit. In jüngster Zeit wurde eine rapide Zunahme der Massenverluste insbesondere einzelner großer Auslassgletscher des Südlichen Patagonisches Eisfeldes beobachtet. Im Rahmen der Dissertation wurden die rezente Variabilität des Klimas und der klimatischen Massenbilanz für ausgewählte vergletscherte Gebiete in Patagonien und Feuerland untersucht. Die Verbesserung unseres Verständnisses über räumliche und zeitliche Muster der klimatischen Massenbilanz, ihrer atmosphärischen Antriebsfaktoren und ihres Einflusses auf das in jüngster Vergangenheit beobachtete individuelle Gletscherverhalten, sind weitere wichtige Ziele. Da die Klimavariabilität die Hauptursache für lokale Veränderungen in der Kryosphäre der südlichen Anden ist, wurden langjährige meteorologische Beobachtungen im Gebiet der Gran Campo Nevado-Eiskappe im südlichsten Patagonien im Hinblick auf räumliche und zeitliche Variabilität untersucht und der Einfluss mesoskaliger Wettermuster und Modi atmosphärischer Oszillationen auf die Ausprägung des Klimas analysiert. Darüber hinaus wurde die rezente Variabilität der klimatischen Massenbilanz für ausgewählte Gletscher in Südpatagonien und Feuerland durch die Implementierung des Energie- und Massenbilanzmodells COSIMA simuliert. Eine unterschiedliche Ausprägung der Oberflächenmassenbilanz und geodätischer Massenbilanz unterstreicht wie wichtig ein besseres Verständnis über die Prozesse der klimatischen Massenbilanz und Eisdynamik ist. Des Weiteren wurden Simulationen der klimatischen Massenbilanz eingesetzt, um eine ausgeglichene Massenbilanz für rezente und vergangene Ausdehnungen des Gletschers Schiaparelli abzuleiten. Ziel war es, eine modellgestützte Annäherung an die klimatischen Bedingungen während der Kleinen Eiszeit zu simulieren.Glacier mass loss of the Southern Andes contributes largely to sea-level rise during recent decades and also affects the regional water availability. Despite the overall glacier retreat of most glaciers in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, a recent increase in mass loss of individual glaciers has been observed. The recent variability of climate and climatic mass balance for selected glaciated study sites in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego are investigated in this thesis. Improving our understanding on the spatial and temporal variations of climatic mass balance processes, its atmospheric drivers, and their impact on the recently observed individual glacier behavior are further important aims. Since climate variability is the key driver of local changes in the cryosphere in the Southern Andes, a unique record of meteorological observations across the Gran Campo Nevado Ice Cap in Southernmost Patagonia was analyzed with regard to main climate features and the relationship between the in-situ observations, large-scale climate modes and mesoscale weather patterns. Furthermore, recent climatic mass balance variability was simulated for selected glaciers in Southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego by implementing the ’COupled Snow and Ice energy and MAss balance model’ COSIMA. Contrasting patterns of positive simulated annual climatic mass balance and clearly negative geodetic mass balance were found for two neighboring glaciers of the Southern Patagonia Icefield between 2000 and 2014. This highlights the importance of understanding of both, the climatic mass balance, and the ice-dynamical processes. Climatic mass balance simulations were further used to derive glacier steady-state conditions for recent and past glacier extents of Schiaparelli Glacier, aiming for a model-based approximation of climate conditions during the Little Ice Age.
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Chevalier, Manuel. "Quantified Reconstructions of late Quaternary southern African Climate Change." Thesis, Montpellier, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015MONTS281.
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Pas de résumé en françaisSouthern African drylands are not suited for the application of climate reconstruction methods based on surface samples. Methods based on the co-existence approach, while still in their early days, are really promising, particularly those using probability density functions (pdfs) that have proven particularly valuable in certain cases as they can be applied to a wide range of plants assemblages. Most commonly applied to fossil pollen data, their performance can be limited by the taxonomic resolution of the pollen data, as many species may belong to a given pollen-type. Consequently, climate information associated with a taxon cannot always be precisely identified, resulting in less accurate reconstructions. This can become particularly problematic in regions of high biodiversity, such as southern African botanical hotspots. The first part of this PhD thesis presents the development of a novel pdf-based climate reconstruction method adapted to the southern African context. The method, which comes along with a dedicated software pack- age entitled CREST, sorts out this diversity issue by taking into account the different climatic requirements of each species constituting the broader pollen-type: pdfs are fitted in two successive steps, with parametric univariate pdfs fitted first for each species (pdfsp) followed by a combination of those individual species pdfs into a broader single pdf to represent the pollen-type as a unit (pdfpol). The curve resulting from the multiplication of the pdfpol describes the likelihood of different climate parameters based on the co-existence of a given set of taxa, each being weighted according to its normalized pollen percentage. Three majors properties were derived from this continental-scale statistical analysis: 1) the method saturates when the number of species composing a pollen type becomes larger than 30-40 species, 2) the per- formance decreases with distance to the core of the climatic space and 3) climate variables that have a direct impact of plant life cycles are better reconstructed.We revisited 13 pollen sequences (selection based on their length, continuity, chronology and pollen diversity) from southern African literature with the CREST method. To offset the limited individual potential of those sequences, we developed a Monte-Carlo framework to create interpolated curves integrating uncertainties associated with the reconstructions and age-depth models and then stack those curves together to extract regionally consistent patterns. This reanalysis allows for the quantified reconstruction of a range of distinct climatic variables from this critical region, and provides significant insight into the nature of long-term climate change. Temperature reconstructions show strong coherency among all sites considered, and parallel southwest Indian Ocean SSTs. Reconstructions of the amount of summer precipitation since mid-MIS 3 (Marine Isotope Stage 3) 45,000 years ago indicate a dichotomy in the precipitation pattern between interior and northeastern South African sites. At the glacial-interglacial timescale, precipitation in northeastern sites shows strong similarities with the Indian Ocean SST records as well as with records from the large East African lakes. Entering the Holocene, precessional forcing becomes more important and a north/south rainfall dipole appears, with a demarcation line located somewhere between Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi (3-9°S). Sites from the interior, while clearly following a similar dynamic, also appear to be sensitive to additional factors, including the position of the southern Westerlies, which may interact with tropical systems to create tropical-temperate troughs. Our results shed light on the complexity of the mechanisms driving South African rainfall, and clarify several key elements of the current debate, including limitations of models relying on direct insolation forcing to explain long-term climate dynamics
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Weidemann, Stephanie Suzanne [Verfasser]. "Glacier response to climate variability and climate change across the Southern Andes / Stephanie Suzanne Weidemann." Berlin : Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2021. http://d-nb.info/1236570367/34.
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Pinto, Izidine S. de Sousa. "Future changes in extreme rainfall events and circulation patterns over southern Africa." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16781.
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Includes bibliographical referencesChanges in precipitation extremes are projected by many global climate models as a response to greenhouse gas increases, and such changes will have significant environmental and social impacts. These impacts are a function of exposure and vulnerability. Hence there is critical need to understand the nature of weather and climate extremes. Results from an ensemble of regional climate models from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) project are used to investigate projected changes in extreme precipitation characteristics over southern Africa for the middle (2036-2065) and late century (2069-2098) under the representative concentration pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) and 8.5 (RCP8.5). Two approaches are followed to identify and analyze extreme precipitation events. First, indices for extreme events, which capture moderate extreme events, are calculated on the basis of model data and are compared with indices from two observational gridded datasets at annual basis. The second approach is based on extreme value theory. Here, the Generalized Extreme Value distribution (GEV) is fitted to annual maxima precipitation by a L-moments method. The 20-year return values are analyzed for present and future climate conditions. The physical drivers of the projected change are evaluated by examining the models ability to simulate circulation patterns over the regions with the aid of Self-Organizing Maps (SOM).
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Lawal, Kamoru Abiodun. "Understanding the variability and predictability of seasonal climates over West and Southern Africa using climate models." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16556.
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Includes bibliographical referencesA good understanding of seasonal climate and the limit to which it can be predicted is crucial in addressing various socio-economic challenges in Africa. However, how to improve the capability of the dynamical models of the climate system in reproducing the regional seasonal climate variability and in replicating the role of various atmospheric circulation anomalies on the regional variability remains a major challenge. Thus far, understanding of seasonal climate over these regions, as well as the ability of climate models to predict them, has focused on the agreement of simulations of dynamical models of the climate system, rather than considering outliers as potentially vital contributors to understanding and predictability. This thesis uses discrepancy in a large ensemble of climate simulations as a tool to investigate variability in dominant seasonal rainfall and temperature patterns (i.e. classes) over West and Southern Africa, to examine the capability of climate models in reproducing the variability, and to study the predictability of the seasonal climates over South Africa. The dominant classes of variability (of rainfall and maximum temperature fields) in both regions are examined based on the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) classifications. The sequences in which each class occurs cannot be linked simply to a single common index of global scale atmospheric circulation anomalies, implying that the chaotic regional atmospheric circulations that modulate the global scale modes of variability are indispensable. The climate model examined adequately reproduces the dominant classes of seasonal climate over West and Southern Africa.
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O'Brien, Eileen M. "Climate and woody plant species richness : analyses based upon southern Africa's native flora with extrapolations to subsaharan Africa." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670313.
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Ferrett, Samantha Joanne. "El Nino Southern Oscillation stability under global warming." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/19362.
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Typically, multi-model ensemble studies show mixed responses of El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) under global warming, so it is currently unknown how, or even if, global warming will impact ENSO and its teleconnections. ENSO is governed by various ocean-atmosphere interactions in the equatorial Pacific, which provide either positive amplifying or negative damping feedbacks and are not always accurate in models. This results in uncertainty in projected ENSO responses. In a flux adjusted HadCM3 perturbed physics ensemble, the Bjerknes' stability index (BJ index), a measure of ENSO stability, has been used to analyse the strength of ENSO feedbacks and their response under the SRES A1B warming scenario with respect to mean climate conditions. Despite mean sea surface temperature biases being minimised by flux adjustment, the important dominant feedbacks, namely the latent heat flux feedback, shortwave flux feedback, the thermocline feedback and the zonal advective feedback are found to be too weak in the ensemble. Common model biases cause weak ocean-atmosphere interactions such as a weak response of ocean currents to wind stress anomalies, a weak thermocline slope response to wind stress anomalies and weak thermodynamic dampings. These biases are linked to overly strong zonal surface ocean currents and convective response biases. Under global warming, a large increase in thermodynamic damping, caused by increasing shortwave damping, is found. This increase is linked to a strong convective response and overrides other feedback responses, resulting in a weakening BJ index in contrast to increasing ENSO amplitude. Positive feedback responses are also found but counteract each other, so have relatively little impact on total ENSO stability. Results here show that common model biases, such as the cold tongue bias, are linked to persistent ENSO feedback biases pointing to areas of improvement in future models. Results also suggest that caution must be exercised when using the BJ index to assess ENSO, as the BJ index is not always representative of ENSO amplitude. This may be caused by non-linearities in ENSO feedbacks which are not accounted for by the linear approximations used in the BJ index, or by ENSO feedbacks not being directly comparable in magnitude, as assumed by the BJ index calculation.
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Brandt, Richard Raymond. "The North American Monsoon System in Southern Arizona." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195113.
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The North American Monsoon System (NAMS) is a dominant factor in climate in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Despite the influence of the NAMS and the intense research efforts it receives, its predictability, its variability, and the details of its influence on the environment are not well understood. This dissertation is comprised of three papers, which collectively address these three aspects of this complex climate phenomenon through an examination of various data and analyses at multiple spatial and temporal scales, while focusing on impacts in southern Arizona. In the first paper, a modified definition of the NAMS is established to delineate dates for monsoon onset, bursts, breaks, and retreat. The results are applied to an atmospheric compositing study in the second paper and to an applied study of monsoon-wildland fire relationships in the third paper. In the second paper, geopotential height patterns that affect moisture advection are identified. Onset, retreat, and break timing and duration are impacted by shifts in the latitude of the mid-level anticyclone and by lower-level gradients and contour orientation. Analyses in the third paper reveal the some of the complex effects of monsoon onset, variations in break timing and duration, and monsoon retreat on fire occurrence. This research contributes to the current knowledge of the NAMS in general and to the specific regional impacts of the monsoon. The results can (1) improve meteorological forecasts through the recognition of synoptic and sub-synoptic patterns related to the NAMS and (2) help fire managers by expanding the current understanding of the regional controls of wildland fire.
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Kay, Gillian. "Mechanisms of southern African rainfall variability in coupled climate models." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.496573.
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Richardson, Glen. "Climate response to fresh water forcing in the Southern Ocean." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.432442.
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Quagraine, Kwesi Akumenyi. "Dynamics of co-behaviour of climate processes over Southern Africa." Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Science, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33916.
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Large-scale climate processes such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), and many others, play varying roles in regional climate variability across the world. While the role of singular processes have been explored in many studies, the combined influence of multiple large-scale processes has received far less attention. Key to this is the challenge of developing methodologies to support the analysis of multiple processes interacting in potentially non-linear ways (co-behaviour) in a particular region. This study details the development of such a methodology and demonstrates its utility in the analysis of the co-behaviour of largescale process interactions on regional precipitation and temperature variability over southern Africa. The study defines co-behaviour as the interaction of large-scale processes that may influence regional circulation leading to climate variability. A novel methodology which involves a combination of analysis techniques such as Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is developed to identify and quantify such co-behaviour which accommodates potentially non-linear interactions. This methodology is evaluated in the context of southern African regional climate using three key processes, namely ENSO, AAO and Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and characterizations of regional circulation, and temperature and rainfall variability. Analysis of co-behaviour under observed conditions identifies results that concur with prior studies, in particular the dominant regional response to ENSO, but also establishes key examples of co-behaviour such as the role of the AAO in moderating and altering the regional response to ENSO which is important for understanding regional climate variability. Application of the approach to Global Climate Model (GCM) simulations of past climate reveals that while many GCMs are able to capture individual processes, in particular ENSO, they fail to adequately represent regional circulation variability and key observed co-behaviour. The study therefore clearly demonstrates the importance of co-behaviour in understanding regional climate variability as well as showing the usefulness of the new methodology in investigating co-behaviour. Finally, the new insights into evaluating model performance through the lens of core climate processes and their interaction provides a significant step forward in both model development and application for decision making.
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Maúre, Genito Amós. "Effects of biomass-burning aerosol loading on Southern African climate." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4778.
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Includes abastract.Includes bibliographical references.
This study highlights the importance of including all biomass burning emissions, from the aerosols directly released from fires to the precursor gases, as different radiative forcings will be obtained from different chemical species, and, therefore, different circulation patterns are likely to be induced over all seasons, regardless of how large the emissions loading and/or concentrations are.
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Shannon, Debbie Anne. "Land surface response to climate change forcing over Southern Africa." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5286.
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The land surface is important to the climate system for the exchanges of moisture, momentum and heat. Momentum, radiation, and sensible and latent heat fluxes between the atmosphere and the surface will likely affect atmospheric dynamics, temperature, precipitation and humidity fields (Sato et ai., 1989). These may subsequently feed back into the land surface processes as part of a cyclical system. Therefore it is evident that our livelihood is largely dependent on interactions and exchanges between the land surface and climate system (Henderson-Sellers et ai., 1993) and it is thus essential that we gain a better understanding of the interactive sensitivity. This is of particular relevance in the context of the portended future global climate change. In the present study the interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere are considered over the southern African region. This region has a climate showing a high degree of spatial and temporal variability, most notably with rainfall. Regional climates are characterised by summer, winter and all-year-round rainfall. There are steep vegetation gradients and a wide range of vegetation types adapted to suit the variable climate. These factors, combined with the societal implications of changes in the climate and land surface systems, make southern Africa a challenging and important study domain for examining the sensitivity between the different elements of the atmosphere and biosphere. This research makes use of a biosphere model driven by climate change data derived from a general circulation model (GCM). Regions susceptible and sensitive to changes on an annual and seasonal basis are identified and examined. The thesis comprises 8 chapters. The first chapter, Chapter 1, provides some background information on climate change, biosphereatmosphere interactions, GCMs and transient simulations, vegetation models and vegetation representation over southern Africa. This chapter also sets out the research objectives. The following chapter, Chapter 2, introduces the atmospheric GCM model data from the Hadley Centre Model (HadCM2) used in the analysis. The chapter additionally provides a detailed description of the biosphere model, the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS). Chapter 3 examines the Hadley Centre HadCM2 GCM input data used in driving the biosphere model, while Chapter 4 presents the input forcing data and configuration of the IBIS model. In Chapter 5 the results of the IBIS model simulation are examined on the annual scale and in Chapter 6 the results are examined on the seasonal scale. Some of the implications of climate change are considered in Chapter 7. This chapter also places the HadCM2 GCM model data used in driving IBIS into the context of the latest emissions scenarios. In the final chapter, Chapter 8, an overview summary is provided and conclusions are drawn.
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Mulenga, Henry Mubanga. "Southern African climate anomalies, summer rainfall and the Angola low." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19649.
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Bibliography p.217-232.Anomalous climatic conditions have contributed to poverty, wlnerability and unemployment, which are major concerns of many southern African governments. Western countries continue to give food aid during drought periods and are looking for new and effective ways of supporting national food security plans (Walker, 1989a). Food security is a very difficult problem in Africa. A number of agricultural national programs have been planned to alleviate the problem but crop yields and living standards continue to deteriorate in many African countries. Unfavorable macro-economic conditions, debt repayments, civil war, political instabilities and mismanagement of resources make the situation more complex. It may be considered that anomalous climatic events (droughts or floods) are important factors, which contribute to acute food shortage. Seasonal rainfall forecasts are an important management tool for donor countries as well as local farmers. The failure to utilize forecasts based on sound scientific knowledge would negate attempts at achieving food security (W orId Meteorological Organization, 1996). It is for this reason that rainfall is an important input parameter in attaining self-sufficiency in food. Rainfall varies in space and time over southern Africa (preston-Whyte and Tyson, 1988; Walker 1989b; Mason, 1992; Rocha, 1992; Makarau, 1995). Further investigations of year-to-year variability of southern African summer rainfall are required in order to understand mechanisms and make accurate seasonal forecasts. Therefore, research work in climate should have high priority in African countries. The need to understand and predict the interannual variations of the atmosphere and the oceans has resulted in formation of global programs like the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) and World Climate Research Program (Climate Variability and Predictability, CLIVAR, 1995 and 1998). 2 Determination of the dynamics of droughts and floods continues to be a major problem. Correct prediction of extreme events such as droughts, floods, cold and warm spells involves knowing the mechanisms as well as the local and remote forcings. Several mechanisms have been suggested but more empirical research is required to understand and predict climate variability of southern African on intra-seasonal and inter-annual time scales. This study focuses on inter-annual and intra-seasonal variability of southern African climate with the view of identifying climatic regional and local features that influence summer rainfall and its fluctuations over southern Africa as whole. In order to achieve this, determination and refining of rainfall-SST anomaly relationships is carried out. Teleconnection patterns and coherent structure of interannual variability are revealed. Atmospheric mean meteorological features over Southern Africa and adjacent oceans have direct impact on summer rainfall. Thus determination of mean features using up-graded new and longer data sets provides a basis for investigating inter-annual and intraseasonal variability. This study presents mean characteristics of peak summer (December, January and February) based on 14 years ECMWF gridded data set. This study is motivated by a desire to understand climatic controls of interannual summer rainfall variability over southern African. The intensity of summer rainfall is modulated on synoptic, intra-seasonal, interannual and decadal time scales.
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de, Lavaissiere de Lavergne Casimir. "Cessation of southern ocean deep convection under anthropogenic climate change." Thesis, McGill University, 2013. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=119766.
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In 1974, newly available satellite observations unveiled the presence of a giant ice-free area within the Antarctic ice pack, which persisted throughout the winter, and formed again in the next two winters. Subsequent research showed that deep convective overturning kept the waters ice-free, through the massive release of heat rising from the deep sea. While the polynya has aroused continued interest among climate scientists, it has not reappeared since 1976. Here we use model experiments to show that deep convection in the Southern Ocean, common in current generation climate models, is highly sensitive to anthropogenic forcing, and ceases in many models when forced by a high emissions climate change scenario. The slowdown in deep ventilation follows from the gradual freshening of polar surface waters, a trend which is borne out by observations over recent decades. Our results suggest that deep convection in the Southern Ocean will be less common in future, and may have already been significantly reduced compared to the pre-industrial period, with important consequences for ocean circulation and climate.En 1974, des observations satellite nouvellement disponibles révélèrent la présence d'une géante surface d'eau libre au sein de la glace de mer entourant l'Antarctique, qui persista tout au long de l'hiver et réapparut les deux hivers suivants. Les recherches qui suivirent montrèrent que les eaux étaient maintenues libres de glace par la convection profonde, permettant à une grande quantité de chaleur de remonter des profondeurs pour être ensuite libérée dans l'atmosphère. Si la polynya continue de susciter l'intérêt des climatologues, elle n'est cependant pas réapparue depuis 1976. Nous utilisons ici des expériences de modélisation pour montrer que la convection profonde dans l'Océan Austral, commune dans les modèles de climat actuels, est fortement sensible au forçage anthropique, et cesse dans beaucoup de modèles quand ceux-ci sont forcés par un scénario de fortes émissions. Le ralentissement de la ventilation profonde résulte de la baisse progressive de la salinité des eaux de surface, une tendance corroborée par les observations des dernières décennies. Nos résultats suggèrent que la convection profonde dans l'Océan Austral sera moins fréquente dans le futur, et a peut-être déjà été significativement affaiblie relativement à la période préindustrielle, avec d'importantes conséquences pour la circulation océanique et le climat.
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Haight, Jeffrey D. "Landscape Planning for Climate Change Resilience in the Southern Rockies." DigitalCommons@USU, 2018. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/7289.
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The unique species, ecosystems and landscapes of the Western United States are experiencing unprecedented pressures from climate change, creating new challenges for conservation. As temperatures rise and patterns of precipitation shift, plant and wildlife species have been shifting their ranges to new areas in search of more suitable climates, building groupings of species that are historically unfamiliar. These climate -driven migrations place an additional burden on species that are already threatened from habitat loss and other human-related activities. The impacts of climate change are of particular concern in landscapes that have long been conserved and managed based on the ecological features that define them, including national parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. With many of these existing protected areas experiencing ecological shifts due to climate change, there is a growing need to identify the places within wider regions that will help species cope with impacts of changing climatic conditions. In some cases, those places are those where the pressures of climate change are least pronounced, what are referred to as “climate refugia.” At other times, helping plants and wildlife cope involves aiding their movement across the landscape in response to climate shifts, by preserving the connectivity between critical habitats and other highly important areas. While many efforts have been made to assess the potential of different areas as climate refugia and corridors, these practices have usually been carried out looking at individual species or ecosystems at a relatively local scale. Unfortunately, many of the decisions to conserve new parts of the landscape occur across much broader regions that span a multitude of species and ecosystems, ranging from individual states to entire continents. As a consequence, assessing climate refugia and corridors on a case-by-case basis for every ecological feature is neither feasible nor an efficient use of the limited resources available for conservation. Additionally, when deciding which areas are best suited for protecting native species and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change, one cannot ignore the existence of the other prevalent threats to conservation, such as habitat loss or invasive species. In this thesis, I have explored methods for widely incorporating climate change into the complex process of identifying high priority areas for conservation across broad regions. As a case study for this work, I chose the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative, a collaborative public and private effort for conserving and managing the ecological characteristics of a distinct region spanning seven states in the US Intermountain West. After broadly measuring climate change impact and connectivity in a manner that was not tied to any particular species, I simulated climate refugia and corridors that simultaneously represented the ranges of 31 separate wildlife species. Though further research is needed to better understand the full suite of threats to species persistence, the means already exist for conservation decision makers to account for climate change in their actions. I believe that my work supports that decision making process, providing a framework for identifying areas that are most critical for aiding diverse species and ecosystems in their responses to the pressures of climate change.
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Clark, Logan N. "Southern Hemisphere Pressure Relationships during the 20th Century - Implications for Climate Reconstructions and Model Evaluation." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1586778291377432.
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Ummenhofer, Caroline C. Mathematics & Statistics Faculty of Science UNSW. "Southern hemisphere regional precipitation and climate variability : extrems trends and prdictability." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Mathematics & Statistics, 2008. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/41253.
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This PhD thesis investigates the relative importance of oceanic and atmospheric influences on extremes, long-term trends, and seasonal to interannual variability of precipitation for different regions in the Southern Hemisphere in observations, reanalysis data, and output from general circulation models (GCM). Examination of interannual rainfall extremes over southwest Western Australia (SWWA) reveals a characteristic dipole pattern of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA). This coincides with a large-scale reorganization of the wind field over the tropical/subtropical Indian Ocean changing SSTA, via anomalous Ekman transport in the tropical Indian Ocean and via anomalous air-sea heat fluxes in the subtropics, and altering moisture advection onto SWWA. The potential impact of these Indian Ocean SSTA in driving modulations of mid-latitude precipitation across southern and western regions of Australia is assessed in atmospheric GCM simulations. The SSTA give rise to changes in the thermal properties of the atmosphere, meridional thickness gradient, subtropical jet, thermal wind, and baroclinicity over southern regions of Australia, thus modulating precipitation. In addition, links between anomalous wet conditions over East Africa and these characteristic Indian Ocean SSTA are explored during the "short rain" season in October-November. Interannual extremes m New Zealand rainfall and their modulation by modes of Southern Hemisphere climate variability, namely the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), are investigated. Late twentieth Century trends in New Zealand precipitation are examined for the period 19792006 to quantify the relative impact of recent changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation related to the SAM and ENSO. Increasingly drier conditions over much of New Zealand can be partially explained by the SAM and ENSO. Cool season rainfall variability in southeastern Australia is investigated via a classification and characterization of the predominant types of synoptic systems occurring in the region, focusing on frontal and cutoff low systems. Two definitions of the autumn break developed for northwestern Victoria are employed to produce a synoptic climatology of the break phenomenon. Trends in characteristics of the autumn break indicate that the most recent drought in southeastern Australia is comparable in severity with the two major droughts in the twentieth Century.
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Connolly, Charlotte J. "Causes of Southern Hemisphere climate variability in the early 20th century." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1587217042363834.
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Shockey, Melissa Dawn. "Incorporating Climate Sensitivity for Southern Pine Species into the Forest Vegetation Simulator." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/22031.
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Growing concerns over the possible effects of greenhouse-gas-related global warming on North American forests have led to increasing calls to address climate change effects on forest vegetation in management and planning applications. The objectives of this project are to model contemporary conditions of soils and climate associated with the presence or absence and abundance of five southern pine species: shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.), slash pine (P. elliottii Engelm.), longleaf pine (P. palustris Mill.), pond pine (P. serótina Michx.), and loblolly pine (P. taeda L.). Classification and regression based Random Forest models were developed for presence-absence and abundance data, respectively. Model and diagnostics such as receiver operating curves (ROC) and variable importance plots were examined to assess model performance. Presence-absence classification models had out-of-bag error rates ranging from 6.32% to 16.06%, and areas under ROC curves ranging from 0.92-0.98. Regression models explained between 13.76% and 43.31% of variation in abundance values. Using the models based on contemporary data, predictions were made for the future years 2030, 2060, and 2090 using four different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and three different general circulation models. Maps of future climate scenarios showed a range of potential changes in the geographic extent of the conditions consistent with current presence observations. Results of this work will be incorporated into eastern U.S. variants of the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) model, similar to work that has been done for FVS variants in the West.Master of Science
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Kgatuke, Mary-Jane Morongwa. "Internal variability of the regional climate model RegCM3 over Southern Africa." Diss., Pretoria [s.n.], 2006. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08132007-091356.
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Clarke, Ian Peter. "Recruitment dynamics in a southern calcareous grassland : effects of climate change." Thesis, Imperial College London, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.300964.
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Graham, Robert M. "The role of Southern Ocean fronts in the global climate system." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för geologiska vetenskaper, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-108736.
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The location of fronts has a direct influence on both the physical and biological processes in the Southern Ocean. However, until recently fronts have been poorly resolved by available data and climate models. In this thesis we utilise a combination of high resolution satellite data, model output and ARGO data to improve our basic understanding of fronts. A method is derived whereby fronts are identified as local maxima in sea surface height gradients. In this way fronts are defined locally as jets, rather than continuous-circumpolar water mass boundaries. A new climatology of Southern Ocean fronts is presented. This climatology reveals a new interpretation of the Subtropical Front. The currents associated with the Subtropical Front correspond to the western boundary current extensions from each basin, and we name these the Dynamical Subtropical Front. Previous studies have instead suggested that the Subtropical Front is a continuous feature across the Southern Ocean associated with the super gyre boundary. A comprehensive assessment of the relationship between front locations and wind stress is conducted. Firstly, the response of fronts to a southward shift in the westerly winds is tested using output from a 100 year climate change simulation on a high resolution coupled model. It is shown that there was no change in the location of fronts within the Antarctic Circumpolar Current as a result of a 1.3° southward shift in the westerly winds. Secondly, it is shown that the climatological position of the Subtropical Front is 5-10° north of the zero wind stress curl line, despite many studies assuming that the location of the Subtropical Front is determined by the zero wind stress curl. Finally, we show that the nutrient supply at ocean fronts is primarily due to horizontal advection and not upwelling. Nutrients from coastal regions are entrained into western boundary currents and advected into the Southern Ocean along the Dynamical Subtropical Front.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Submitted.
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Edwards, Robin James. "Late Holocene relative sea level change and climate in southern Britain." Thesis, Durham University, 1998. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1056/.
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MacKellar, Neil Campbell. "Simulating the effects of land-surface change on southern Africa's climate." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4779.
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Berkun, Ugur. "Wind And Swell Wave Climate For The Southern Part Of Black Sea." Master's thesis, METU, 2007. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608139/index.pdf.
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The swell waves which are an important component of wind generated waves have significant effects on small craft and fisheries. The swell wave climate has an important role in the design and operation of fishing harbors and harbors for small craft. Despite this fact the swell wave climate is not well known for the Turkish coasts. The purpose of the present
study was to identify the swell wave climate along the Black Sea coastline of Türkiye. For this purpose wind and swell wave data for a 65 months period is obtained from ECMWF for the analysis. And the data are analyzed for thirteen locations selected along the Turkish coast. For every location the wind and swell wave roses, significant swell wave height versus Mean period of primary swell relations, extreme probability distribution and log-linear cumulative probability distribution are presented. Also some extreme swell events in the Black Sea occurred in the data period are presented for a better understanding of generation and propagation of swell waves. The results showed that the swell wave activity and severity is higher in the western Black Sea coastline of Tü
rkiye. The investigation of extreme swell events provided that the swell waves occur and diminish in a relatively short duration and the data available from ECMWF which is provided for 12 hour intervals is not sensitive to time enough for the investigation of swell wave occurrence and propagation. The significant swell wave height versus Mean period of primary swell relations and analysis on period of swell waves showed that the swell wave periods could reach up to 11 seconds in the Northern shores of Tü
rkiye.
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Antonsson, Karin. "Holocene Climate in Central and Southern Sweden : Quantitative Reconstructions from Fossil Data." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala University, Department of Earth Sciences, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-6805.
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In quantitative palaeoecology modern species-environmental relationships can be statistically modelled, and recent development has made the calibration models more statistically robust. These models are used to transform fossil assemblages to quantitative estimates of past environmental conditions. The aim of this thesis is to infer Holocene temperatures from fossil pollen data sampled from lakes in central and southern Sweden. This reconstruction is done by using a north-European pollen-climate calibration model, which was extended with 37 modern pollen samples from the southern deciduous vegetation zone in Sweden within this project. A statistical method is used for deriving the pollen-climate calibration model, weighted averaging partial least square (WA-PLS) method. The long term trends in pollen inferred temperatures from this study reflect low, but rapidly rising temperatures in the early-Holocene, a trend that was temporarily interrupted by a cool period about 8500 cal yr BP, but continued after 8000 cal yr BP. A Holocene thermal maximum (HTM) with temperatures roughly 2°C higher than at present was recorded about 7000 cal yr BP and by 4000 cal yr BP pollen inferred temperatures starts to decline. In order to create a more comprehensive picture of past climate patterns in the investigated area inferred temperatures from this study are compared with independent palaeorecords, a stable oxygen isotope record for moisture variability (paper I) and chironomids for summer temperature (paper II). Taken all together, these records reflect a coherent Holocene climate pattern which also is supported by several studies from Scandinavia and the north Atlantic region. Pollen inferred temperatures and the moisture record are indicating markedly dry, continental climate conditions in southern Sweden during the HTM possibly as a result of reorganisations in regional atmosphere circulations. The local observations in this study of regional climate events, such as the cold period at about 8200 cal yr BP and the dry period at about 7000 to 4000 cal yr BP are of particular interest because they suggest that vegetation in the study region has responded sensitively both to long-term climatic trends and more transient climate events.
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Fransner, Oscar. "Sediment variations in the Kuchi Lake, southern Taiwan: : Climate signal or tectonics?" Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för geologiska vetenskaper, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-62193.
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Climate archives are of greatest significance when it comes to paleoclimate studies, since these types of archives in a natural way have registered and preserved the conditions of the past. There are several types of climate archives, one of the most commonly used are lake sediments, because lakes can reveal different types of information, for example weathering, vegetation and precipitation. Another reason why lakes are important in climate research is because they are widely spread over the world, and therefore they can be chosen depending on where the focus of the study will be. In this study, -the Lake Kuchi in the southern part of Taiwan, situated at the boundary between the Asian Mainland and the Western Pacific, was used. What makes this densely populated region of the world particularly interesting for climate research is because it is affected not only by monsoons, but also by typhoons and earthquakes. In this paleoclimate study, a total 16 core sections from three different coring points in the Kuchi Lake were analyzed. The main goal was to clarify if the lake could be used as a reliable climate archive, and also interpret the depositional environment of the sediment layers in the cores. All core sections were described and analyzed with the ITRAX XRF-scanner, which lead to the conclusion that the cores consist of a sedimentary sequence of alternating gray clay and dark gray gyttja clay layers, capped by peat, gyttja or clayey gyttja at topmost part. By sieving samples from all different layers, it was observed that some dark gyttja clay layers contained terrestrial organic matter, and hard, angular clay clasts that suggest intense rain falls and flash floods as transportation mechanism. The uppermost part of the cores, from 310 cm to the top layers, consist of homogenous clay and in situ organic matter which indicate calmer depositional environments compared to the alternation between dark gyttja clay and homogenous gray clay. LOI-950 data indicate that the carbonate content of the Kuchi Lake is low, since the weight loss during this temperature is insignificant compared to LOI-550, which stood for the majority of the weight loss. Thus, the sediment sequence in the Kuchi Lake consist of alternation of clays deposited in a calm and relatively deep lake, mixed with layers apparently flushed in from land, possibly due to typhoons. This alternation is capped by organic rich layers, including peat, which indicating filling up of the basin, and shallower conditions.
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Waters, Darren Clifford William. "Impact of climate change on urban stormwater infrastructure, southern Ontario case studies." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2001. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/MQ59408.pdf.
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Kim, Hey-Jin. "Climate impacts on the planktonic marine ecosystem in the Southern California current." Diss., Connect to a 24 p. preview or request complete full text in PDF format. Access restricted to UC campuses, 2008. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ucsd/fullcit?p3307584.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008.Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 18, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.
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Sirabaha, Hj Sidup Hj. "The influence of El Niño southern oscillation on climate in southeast Asia." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.405704.
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Daniels, Benjamin. "Effects of Climate Nonstationarity on Low-Flow Models for Southern New England." Thesis, Boston College, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:103565.
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Thesis advisor: Noah SnyderIncreasing attention has been drawn to the need for reliable streamflow estimates at ungaged locations under a range of climatic and hydrologic conditions. Climate projections for the northeastern United States over the 21st century--which include significant increases in temperature and precipitation--could have broad impacts on streamflows, potentially reducing the accuracies of existing streamflow models for the region. This thesis investigates recent changes in daily flow-durations in southern New England, and examines their influence on the reliability of the low-flow models for Massachusetts presented by Ries and Friesz (2000). An analysis of discharge data collected at gaging sites through water year 2012 revealed increases in nearly all flow durations at sites across southern New England since the mid-20th century, whereas very low flows (quantiles at or above the 95-percent exceedance probability) generally showed decreases, especially since the 1990s. Twenty-year moving streamflow quantiles at each of ten selected exceedance probabilities were examined for the periods of record of 16 streamflow-gaging stations in southern New England. The beginning of water year 1992 appeared to mark an inflection point in low-flow quantiles, before which very low flows were steady or increasing, and after which these flows showed near-universal decreases. While the observed peak in 20-year low-flow quantiles around 1992 may be due to the statistical method used to calculate the quantile trends, the inflection point could also be an indicator of when increasing evapotranspiration surpassed increasing precipitation as the principal climatic driver of changes in low flows in southern New England. The general upward translation of the flow-duration curve observed over the last 60 years is very likely linked to increases in annual precipitation during this period, while the decreases in very low flows are likely due to changes in climatic variables (increasing summer temperatures and evapotranspiration rates), and amplified by anthropogenic factors (greater areas of impervious surfaces and increasing rates of surface- and ground-water withdrawal). The data suggest that increasing precipitation rates have already caused the Ries and Friesz (2000) equations for the median low flows (Q50 to Q75) to become biased towards underestimation, and decreases in very low flows threaten to render the models for these flows biased towards overestimation in the coming decades. The streamflow quantile trends (for both the entire period of record of the gaging stations and just the post-1992 period) for each of the ten flow-durations of interest were extended into the future to the point where the corresponding Ries and Friesz (2000) model would fail (when actual flow durations would be outside the 90-percent prediction intervals for the estimated flows for greater than 10% of sites). The models for the lowest streamflows are estimated to lose validity by as early as 2018. Climate change is predicted to have significant effects on streamflow characteristics in southern New England over the 21st century, and the results of this study indicate that the Ries and Freisz (2000) low-flow models should be reformulated using more recent streamflow data within the next decade, and validated every 20 years thereafter to ensure their accuracies are maintained despite the effects of regional nonstationarity
Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2014
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Earth and Environmental Sciences
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Mdoka, Marshall Lison. "The role of soil moisture on summer climate simulations over southern Africa." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20344.
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This study aims to increase our perspective of the responses of Southern African climate to soil moisture forcings by drying or moistening the land surface using a regional climate model version 3, RegCM3. The sensitivity and response capabilities to soil moisture perturbations of the model are investigated. This includes identification of regions that may be influenced differently by antecedent soil moisture conditions as well as understand the implications of soil moisture conditions on frequency and intensity of rainfall. Exploratory analyses of soil moisture retention and comparison of climate model parameters with available observations or re-analysis data is done. The study then seeks out the large-scale atmospheric forcings under which the regional climate explicitly responds to perturbations in soil moisture using self-organising map technique. To investigate these underlying processes of atmosphere-soil moisture interactions a series of RegCM3 model experiments utilizing wet, dry and normal soil moisture conditions were designed. The experiments are based on changing the soil moisture field capacity in the RegCM3. The control simulations are run with RegCM3 nested in NCEP/NCAR reanalysis 2 data and using Emanuel convective scheme for the selected six summers (dry seasons - 1991/92, 1994/95 and 1997/98; wet seasons - 1995/96, 1996/97 and 1998/99). September to March simulations are performed with August as the spin-up month. The respective dry and wet soil moisture perturbation simulations are then initialised at field capacities of 25% (wilting) and 75% (saturation) within the land surface model, Bio-sphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme. From the sensitivity studies, anomalously dry (wet) conditions have positive feedbacks with similar dry (wet) synoptic forcings of the regional climate. Anomalous dry forcing persists for longer and exacerbates the changes in the regional anticyclonic circulation especially during a drought or dry period. Soil moisture perturbations mostly affect the lower troposphere. Surface variables analysed especially surface temperature show strong responses to the soil moisture perturbations under all synoptic forcings but rainfall characteristics are strongly influenced by large-scale synoptic circulations. However, in some areas over southwestern parts of the region a weak feedback which can be either positive or negative depending on geographical and climatological setting has been detected.
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Haworth, Katherine. "Incorporating Climate Change in Southern African Social Policy: A Malawian Case Study." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32721.
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This thesis examines the inclusion of climate change in Malawian social policy, and the discourse and government documents surrounding it. In Malawi, social protection predates climate change policies – in both policy in practice – however, they have risen up the Governments agenda at the same time. This is unsurprising given the severity and frequency with which the country is impacted by climatic shocks. Moreover, vulnerability and instability in the country leave Malawian disproportionately susceptible to the impact of natural disasters and environmental irregularities. In the wake of a natural disaster, most commonly drought and flooding, there is a significant spike in mentions of both climate change and social protection in Parliamentary discourse. Similarly, Government documents exhibit a wellestablished connection between these two – mention of disaster risk reduction is frequently coupled with a call for social protection to minimize the effects of natural disasters. In many ways, the most recent and current social protection policy is the logical evolution of this. In 2018, the Government of Malawi released the Malawi National Social Support Programme II (MNSSP II) which focused significantly on shock-sensitive social protection to address and minimize the impact of climate change in the country. Previous social protection initiatives in the country have garnered very little political support, and the Government has exhibited a hesitation to provide financial and technical support to these programs.
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Bream, Sally. "Unveiling climate change at Pevensey Levels : a photographic documentation of a landscape in the temperate climate of Southern England." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2016. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/65404/.
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My photographic research intends to locate and document signs of climate change within the landscape of Pevensey Levels. This is significant in that within the relatively temperate climate of South East England, the phenomenon of climate change does not initially seem to be noticeable to the human eye. The project aims to integrate theory and practice in order to generate a reciprocal dialogue between the two endeavours. The photographic fieldwork has informed my choices of theoretical texts and I have then analysed these in order to further consider the notion of climate change visibility. In turn, the theoretical framework has informed the photographic practice by creating the focus of my visual investigations within the landscape. These concepts include the notion of the landscape as a cultural signifier, phenomenology and perception, geomorphology and the idea of a photographic archaeology of the landscape, narrative, mnemonics, and indexicality. The photographic practice reveals how the landscape is managed and controlled to mitigate climate change. The marshland is drained with the use of pumping stations, sluice gates and networks of waterways. Water channels are enlarged to increase their capacity in order to prevent flooding. These act as conduits to channel excess ground water to outfall pipes at the seafront. Barriers such as shingle beaches are maintained as a consequence of rising sea levels and winter storms. There are five chapters in the thesis. Chapter One considers the landscape of Pevensey Levels: its geology, geography, history, occupants, management agencies, and character of the land. Chapter Two explores the issues around the phenomenon of climate change and in what ways it might be perceived and represented. Chapter Three presents the context of landscape photography and some photographic representations of climate change, and I have situated my own photographic enquiries in relation to these examples. Chapter Four outlines the concepts that contextualise my photographic practice. Chapter Five considers examples of the photographic images in terms of their narrative and the ways in which climate change is indexed. The research finds that it is possible to photographically document the presence of climate change, and concludes that its visibility is situated in three characteristics. First, in the control and management of the landscape, which results from scientific research on climate change. Then, in the intensive utilisation of the land, which consequently causes water and air pollution. This hinders recovery from the effects of climate change. Finally, plants respond to fluctuations in temperature and rainfall, which causes abnormalities in their growth patterns. The research shows that photography's ability to index and act as a mnemonic device aids the search for phenomena of climate change. Furthermore, documenting these phenomena photographically can intensify the spectator's perceptions of the landscape. The culmination of the practical element of the research is a collection of 97 landscape photographs presented on CD Rom. 51 of these photographs have been selected for inclusion in a prototype photobook (Appendix 15), in a limited edition of ten. The photographs are grouped according to their attributes related to climate change in the landscape under four general headings: Mechanism, Flux, Damage and Regeneration, each of which has sub-headings. This provides the narrative structure for the body of photographic work. The photographs are annotated with their place names, OS Grid Reference and short description. This information has relevance for future observations and photographic research at Pevensey Levels. The title for the book and the portfolio of original colour photographs is Unveiling Climate Change At Pevensey Levels. A portfolio of fifteen original photographic C-Type prints, size 16 x 20 inches, has also been produced (see Appendix 14).
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Brown, Kendrick Jonathan. "Late quaternary vegetation, climate, fire history, and GIS mapping of Holocene climates on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ52755.pdf.
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Van, de Ven Tanja M. F. N. "Implications of climate change on the reproductive success of the Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill, Tockus leucomelas." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27552.
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The effects of environmental warming on the reproductive performance of birds are most easily studied in desert habitats where birds already experience air temperatures (Tₐs) close to their upper thermal tolerance. Many desert birds coincide breeding with periods of food availability triggered by rainfall during the summer season. Daily maximum air temperatures (ₘₐₓ) during the Kalahari summer season frequently reach the lower forties (°C) and recent years have been characterised by reduced rainfall and increased Tₐ. Breeding Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills (Tockus leucomelas) could be particularly vulnerable to high Tₐ due to their breeding strategy whereby the females are confined to the nest cavity for most of the nesting period. During this time their male partners are solely responsible for food provisioning, which imposes a considerable energetic demand. In this thesis, I investigated the extent to which Tₐ affects the ability and willingness of breeding males to provision their female partners and offspring. And consequently, the extent to which male investment and the thermal environment affect female body mass (Mb) and chick development rates in Southern Yellowbilled Hornbills in the Kalahari. During three consecutive hornbill breeding seasons (October - March, between 2012 and 2015), I collected life history data during 50 breeding attempts by 32 hornbill pairs. At the study site, Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills readily breed in artificial nest boxes and this allowed me to assess the internal nest climate using temperature and relative humidity loggers which were placed in most of the nests. The male hornbills in the study population were semi-habituated which facilitated behavioural observations. Weather data were recorded at an on-site weather station. Morphometric data from females and chicks were collected on a daily basis at selected nests and perch scales installed at nest entrances recorded Mb data of the provisioning males. From chick hatching to chick fledging, I observed the behaviour of the males during 30-min focal follows and focussed on foraging behaviour, prey allocation decisions (nest versus self), microsite use and thermoregulatory behaviour. Male hornbills spent more than half of their time panting at Tₐs above 34.5 °C. Days on which this threshold temperature was exceeded were therefore described as 'hot days'. The male hornbills experienced trade-offs on hot days between foraging efficiency and panting behaviour, indicating that the additional cost of thermoregulation and high Tₐ affected foraging success (Chapter 2). Males would always provision larger prey items to the nest and consumed the smaller prey items themselves. As Tₐ increased, the males increased their foraging effort, but caught fewer and smaller prey items overall, reducing the total biomass they provisioned to the nest as well as the biomass they consumed. As a result, males were unable to maintain their Mb on days when Tₐ exceeded 37.9 °C (Chapter 3). A similar effect of hot days on Mb maintenance was observed in females and chicks within the nest. Independent of chick age, females departed the nest when their Mb reached a lower limit of 189.3 ± SD 18.1 g. The females would then aid the males in nest provisioning, however the negative effect of increasing ₘₐₓ on provisioning rate was still evident; i.e. females were not able to compensate for reduced male provisioning rates on hot days. High Tₐs during the nesting period resulted in smaller and lighter fledglings and overall reduced the probability of a successful nesting attempt (Chapter 4). A thermal imaging experiment revealed that the large beak of hornbills (both males and females) plays an important role in non-evaporative heat loss. Hornbills were observed to dissipate up to 19.9 % of the total non-evaporative body heat loss via the beak. This water-saving mechanism can be highly advantageous to hornbills living in arid regions where water availability is limited (Chapter 5). Lastly, a comparison of the results of the current study with those of a study on the same hornbill population carried out between 2008 and 2011 revealed that mean ₘₐₓ as well as rainfall during the nesting period had an important impact on overall hornbill reproductive effort and success (Chapter 6). Long-lived species are expected to prioritise future reproductive opportunities over current broods. However, the predicted scenario for the Kalahari is that high Tₐs become more extreme and periods of drought become more frequent. Therefore, I predict an increased risk of breeding failure among Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills in the future which could affect the persistence of this population.
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Jones, Megan E. "Sixty Years of Widespread Warming in the Southern Mid- and High-Latitudes (1957-2016)." The Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1525542816174135.
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Caban, Seckin. "Wind And Wind Wave Climate Research Along The Southern Part Of Black Sea." Master's thesis, METU, 2007. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/2/12608590/index.pdf.
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Winds and wind wave climate are two important phenomena for Black Sea basin. Wind wave climate has an important role on design of coastal structures and naval transportation. Despite this fact the wind wave climate is not well known for the Turkish coasts because of limited studies on this subject. The purpose of the present study was to further understand wind and wind wave climate along the Black Sea coastline of
Türkiye. For this purpose wind and wind wave data for every 65 months is obtained from ECMWF for and analyzed for 12 locations situated along Black Sea coast of Turkey. For every location the wind [Berkü
n,2007] and wind wave roses, significant wind wave height vs. Mean wave period relations, extreme probability distribution and log-linear cumulative probability distribution are presented. Also a comparison with previous studies is given for better understanding the wind and wave climate better.
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Aboagye, Dickson Danso. "Impacts of climate change on food security in southern Ghana : a community perspective." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020166.
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This study will examine the impacts of climate change on food security in Southern Ghana. Southern Ghana reveals that the district suffers post- harvest losses of about 8 percent of all cereals which hinders Ghana’s food security. Ghana still faces food insecurity due to high temperatures and low rainfall. This research therefore seeks to investigate what local communities of Southern Ghana are doing to address food insecurity problems with the advent of climate change. Several objectives to achieve this goal involves to identify factors hindering food security in Southern Ghana and to evaluate the extent that climate change has affected food security. A qualitative research approach was used by the researcher to come up with community strategies which this research seeks to address. Various conclusions such as community demand for support from the local government, sustainable irrigation programs, availability of pipe-borne water and environmental education were put in place, as possible solutions to the persisting food security problems in Southern Ghana.
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Purich, Ariaan. "Investigating the influence of stratospheric ozone trends on Southern Hemisphere hydrological climate change." Thesis, McGill University, 2011. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=104826.
Full textAbstract:
Changes in stratospheric ozone have previously been linked to Southern Hemisphere (SH) circulation changes. This study examines output from coupled climate models participating in the Climate Model Intercomparison Project 3 (CMIP3) for trends in precipitation and evaporation in the 20th and 21st centuries to assess whether stratospheric ozone influences the hydrological cycle and extreme precipitation in the SH extratropics, particularly during austral summer. Nineteen models are used, of which 10 incorporated ozone depletion (recovery) in the 20th (21st) century, whilst nine simply prescribed climatological ozone in both past and future climates. Trends in seasonal-mean precipitation are found to dominate overall changes in precipitation minus evaporation. For the 20th century, models with ozone depletion show a significant increase (decrease) in summer precipitation in high latitudes (mid-latitudes) compared to models without ozone depletion. In contrast, for the 21st century, models without ozone recovery show significantly larger changes in summer precipitation in these regions compared to models with ozone recovery. No significant differences, however, are found in the two sets of models during austral winter when stratospheric ozone is inactive. These results suggest that Antarctic ozone depletion and recovery significantly modulates hydrological climate change in the SH extratropics, in agreement with findings of previous studies. It is further found that stratospheric ozone primarily affects the frequency of light precipitation events (1–10 mm day^−1 ), indicating that an increase in mean precipitation over the Southern Ocean corresponds to an increase in the number of light precipitation days rather than extreme events. Implications of this finding to the SH surface climate and Southern Ocean circulation changes are discussed.Les changements de concentration d'ozone stratosphérique ont été déjà reliés aux changements de la circulation dans l'hémisphère sud (HS). Ce travail examine les tendances dans la précipitation et l'évaporation pendant les 20ième et 21ième siècles, dans des simulations produites par des modèles climatique couplés qui participent au Climate Model Intercomparison Project 3 (CMIP3). Le but est de déterminer si l'ozone stratosphérique influence le cycle hydrologique et la précipitation extrême aux latitudes extra-tropicales de l'HS, pendant l'été austral en particulier. Dix-neuf modèles sont utilisés, où 10 d'entre eux incorporent l'épuisement (le rétablissement) d'ozone au 20ième (21ième) siècle et les neuf autres prescrivent simplement l'ozone climatologique (du 20ième siècle) pendant le passé et le futur. Les tendances des moyennes saisonnières de précipitation dominent les changements de l'évaporation moins la précipitation, alors c'est cette variable qui est examinée plus en détail. Pour le 20ième siècle, il y a une augmentation (diminution) de précipitation significative en été aux latitudes subarctique (latitudes moyennes) dans les modèles avec l'épuisement d'ozone comparé à ceux avec l'ozone climatologique. En contraste, pour le 21ième siècle, les changements de précipitation sont considérablement plus grands dans les modèles sans le rétablissement d'ozone que dans les modèles avec le rétablissement d`ozone. Pour l'hiver austral, quand l'ozone est inactif, il n'y a pas de différences entre les deux groupes de modèles. Ces résultats suggèrent que la diminution et rétablissement d'ozone dans l'Antarctique a des implications considérables pour le changement de climat hydrologique dans l'HS hors tropique, une conclusion atteinte dans d'autres travaux. En plus, on trouve que l'ozone stratosphérique affecte principalement la fréquence des évènements de précipitation légère (1–10 mm jour^-1), ce qui indique qu'une augmentation de la précipitation moyenne correspond à une augmentation du nombre de jours de précipitation légère, plutôt que d'évènements extrêmes. Les implications de ces conclusions pour le climat à la surface ainsi que pour les changements de circulation dans l'océan de l'HS sont discutés.
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Ambrosino, C. "Rainfall variability in southern Africa : drivers, climate change impacts and implications for agriculture." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2011. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1322446/.
Full textAbstract:
Southern Africa is characterised by a high degree of rainfall variability affecting agriculture among other sectors. The focus of this study is to investigate such variability and to identify stable relationships with its potential drivers in the climate system. These relationships are used as the basis for the statistical downscaling of climate model (GCM) outputs. From the simulated rainfall, indices representative of growing season characteristics are computed with the final purpose of studying the implications on maize cropping under a future climate change scenario. The analysis uses generalized linear models (GLMs), which allow the investigation of the relationships between different components of the climate system (geographical and climatic drivers) simultaneously. Initially, the effects of various climate indicators upon monthly regional (for all southern Africa) precipitation occurrences and amounts are characterised. Six climate factors are found to drive part of the rainfall variability in the region and their modelled effect upon rainfall occurrences and amounts agrees broadly with previous studies. Among the retained indices, relative humidity and El Niño accounted for the highest degree of explained variability. The location and intensity of the jet stream is also found to have a statistically significant and physically meaningful effect upon rainfall variability. Although effective for the analysis of monthly regional precipitation, and used to investigate future regional projections, the models do not perform adequately at more local spatial scales such as station locations or few km grids. The same methodology is, therefore, applied to characterise daily precipitation variability at multiple locations within a smaller region. The small scale statistical models capture adequately the seasonal and annual rainfall structure in the area. Indeed, the observations can not be distinguished from the simulated time series. However, the simulated rainfall values tend to be slightly too high throughout the seasons, possibly due to the spatial correlation structure not completely appropriate for such a complex region. From the simulated rainfall sequences, seven growing season indices (including the onset and length of the growing season, proportion of rainy days and total precipitation during the growing season) are derived and their projected change investigated under a climate change scenario. There is little consensus between the 18 selected GCMs, regarding changes in growing season indices between two investigated periods in the 20th and 21st centuries. For the next couple of decades the dominant source of variation in the indices appears to be the natural rainfall variability. Such information should therefore be taken into account when planning adaptation and mitigation strategies. The research presented here emerges as the first comprehensive assessment of different climatic factors linked to southern Africa rainfall variability as well as the first attempt to evaluate the GLMs suitability for the generation of rainfall sequences for agricultural impact studies.
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Pagan, Brianna Rita. "Understanding the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Water Resources in Southern California." Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, 2015. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/889.
Full textAbstract:
Southern California is located in a semi-arid climate with finite natural supplies of water. Precipitation in the area generally occurs in the fall and winter months. Consequently, the region relies on imported water originating primarily from snowpack in northern areas of California and surrounding states including 1) the San-Joaquin River and Tulare Lake basins, 2) the Sacramento River basin, 3) Owens Valley and Mono Lake basins and 4) the Colorado River basin. This study provides an integrated approach to understanding and assessing climate change impacts on the hydrologic cycle for all water supplies to Southern California. A 10-member ensemble of coupled global climate models is dynamically downscaled forcing one regional and one hydrological model resulting in a high-resolution 4.17-km output for the region. Greenhouse gas concentrations are prescribed according to the IPCC Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 using the present-day period of 1966-2005 as a baseline with a future period of 2011-2050. On the annual timescale, increases in precipitation and evaporation are projected throughout the majority of the study area with the exception of the Owens Valley and Mono Lake basins. As a result, only a minor runoff reduction in the California Sierra Nevada and a minor increase in the Colorado River basin are simulated. Although these changes in annual runoff are minimal, the interannual variability of runoff also increases across all basins indicating a higher probability of extreme wet or dry years and fewer average years. Furthermore, increased temperatures result in significant reductions in snow water equivalent along with earlier shifts in snowmelt timing. Precipitation that falls is less likely to fall as snow, decreasing snowpack and natural storage. On one hand, the escalating likelihood of runoff occurring earlier in the year poses a significant flood control risk to the region requiring the release of water from reservoirs to prevent flooding. On the other hand, the increased likelihood of drought necessitates additional multiyear storage solutions for Southern Californian water resources.
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Jack, Samuel Linton. "Revisiting Aloe dichotoma’s suitability as an indictor of climate change in southern Africa." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/29163.
Full textAbstract:
Apparent recent population contractions at Aloe dichotoma’s equatorward range limit have led this
iconic arborescent succulent to be cited as one of the first biological indicators of the impact of
anthropogenic climate change in southern Africa. However, prior evidence from historical photography of populations as well as detailed botanical field notes indicated that mortality was already pervasive in the southern and central distribution of the species within the first half of the 20th century. This, as well as possible previous assumptive and interpretive problems prompted a reassessment of the evidence for A. dichotoma’s promotion as a climate change indicator species. In the current study, a framework for assessing species vulnerability to climate change was used to determine A. dichotoma’s exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to climate change impacts. First I evaluated A. dichotoma’s exposure to climate change by independently assessing historical rainfall and temperature records of the longest possible duration, and specific to A. dichotoma’s distributional extent, in order to evaluate how average conditions and temporal trends might contribute to demographic patterns. I then made use of very high spatial resolution demographic information collected during a roadside mega-transect in order to re-examine the merits of a latitudinal cline in mortality. Subsequently, I related demographic patterns to a detailed contemporary climate surface in order to gauge the strength of the relationship between the two, as well as to determine the relative sensitivity of juvenile and adult life history stages. Additionally, with the aid of detailed population-level sampling and averaged solar radiation values for opposing aspects, I investigated A. dichotoma’s adaptive capacity in terms of its ability to recruit to more favourable aspects. In this respect, a new technique was developed to determine the approximate time since death of in situ skeletons, as well as the age classes from which they were derived. Lastly, study results were interpreted in relation to A. dichotoma’s life history traits to determine the likelihood of a recent response to climate change Despite a paucity in instrumental records and record length, particularly within the equatorward summer rainfall zone (SRZ), encompassing southern and central-western Namibia, historical climate analyses revealed considerable spatial and temporal variability in temperature and, especially, rainfall, within the distribution range of the species. For the SRZ, average climatic conditions were found to be at least as severe within the Gariep River valley, between 28°S and 29°S, as for the equatorward extreme at approximately 21°S, undermining previous inferences of a simple latitudinal climate gradient. Conversely, average rainfall within the poleward winter rainfall zone (WRZ), and south-western extreme of the SRZ, was shown to have been historically higher and more consistent than the SRZ to the north. The natural climatic disjunction between northern and southern rainfall zones has likely had a significant influence on the maintenance of relative latitudinal recruitment and mortality rates in A. dichotoma, and may have contributed to an erroneous attribution of observed mortality to recent, anthropogenic climate change. Historical temperature records indicated an almost uniformly increasing trend throughout the distribution, rising more rapidly within the SRZ. However, rainfall trends were more difficult to interpret, being strongly contingent upon record length, segment of time recorded, and initial and terminal conditions under which the record was established. These interpretive difficulties were considerable for Namibian stations, and advocated a cautious interpretation of negative rainfall trends at several summer rainfall stations, while generally more robust records at winter rainfall stations registered mostly positive trends over the last sixty years. Results from the roadside mega-transect corroborated trends in climatic severity, indicating that proportional mortality had also been greatest within the Gariep River valley between 28°S and 29°S and not at the equatorward range limit as previously suggested. Furthermore, there was only a very weak relationship between age classes and key contemporary climate variables, which suggested an uncoupling between the two. Despite generally poor relationships, juveniles were most responsive to climate and solar radiation gradients, suggesting a greater sensitivity compared to the adult age class, which appeared more resilient. In addition, most mortality was shown not to be recent in origin, but to have occurred several decades ago and to be chiefly derived from larger and, therefore, more climatically-resilient, adult age class rather than smaller, more climatically-sensitive juvenile individuals. In combination with A. dichotoma’s life history traits, including longevity, slow growth and infrequent recruitment, the findings from this study indicate that current demographic patterns reflect longer-term climatic fluctuations rather than recent climate change and that certain climatically marginal populations may be biological relicts of a previously more amenable climate. These findings challenge the view that A. dichotoma has responded negatively to recent, anthropogenically-driven changes in climate and reassert the importance of longer term climatic and demographic processes in shaping patterns currently observed within populations of this species. Coupled with the establishment of a long term ecological research network at key populations spanning the full latitudinal (and longitudinal) range, a greater focus on the regeneration niche and physiological thresholds would help advance our understanding of A. dichotoma’s susceptibility to moisture and temperature deficits arising from climate change. Assessment of the suitability of A. dichotoma as a sentinel of climate change would also be greatly aided by the improved temporal and spatial resolution of historical and palaeo-climatic records within southern Africa. There is an urgent need for this work in the face of possible lagged responses to environmental change within long-lived, infrequently recruiting species, as well as rapidly rising temperatures and uncertainty surrounding future precipitation in the region.
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Rea, Gloria. "Role of the stratospheric dynamics in the southern hemisphere long-term climate change." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2013. http://amslaurea.unibo.it/5946/.
Full textAbstract:
Il raffreddamento stratosferico associato alla riduzione dell’ozono nelle regioni polari induce un rafforzamento dei venti occidentali nella bassa stratosfera, uno spostamento verso il polo e un’intensificazione del jet troposferico delle medie latitudini. Si riscontra una proiezione di questi cambiamenti a lungo termine sulla polarità ad alto indice di un modo di variabilità climatica, il Southern Annular Mode, alla superficie, dove i venti occidentali alle medie latitudini guidano la Corrente Circumpolare Antartica influenzando la circolazione oceanica meridionale e probabilmente l’estensione del ghiaccio marino ed i flussi di carbonio aria-mare nell’Oceano Meridionale. Una limitata rappresentazione dei processi stratosferici nei modelli climatici per la simulazione del passato e la previsione dei cambiamenti climatici futuri, sembrerebbe portare ad un errore nella rappresentazione dei cambiamenti troposferici a lungo termine nelle rispettive simulazioni. In questa tesi viene condotta un’analisi multi-model mettendo insieme i dati di output derivati da diverse simulazioni di modelli climatici accoppiati oceano-atmosfera, che partecipano al progetto CMIP5, con l'obiettivo di comprendere come le diverse rappresentazioni della dinamica stratosferica possano portare ad una differente rappresentazione dei cambiamenti climatici alla superficie. Vengono utilizzati modelli “High Top” (HT), che hanno una buona rappresentazione della dinamica stratosferica, e modelli “Low Top” (LT), che invece non ne hanno. I risultati vengono confrontati con le reanalisi meteorologiche globali disponibili (ERA-40). Viene mostrato come la rappresentazione e l’intensità del raffreddamento radiativo iniziale e di quello dinamico nella bassa stratosfera, nei modelli, siano i fattori chiave che controllano la successiva risposta troposferica, e come il raffreddamento stesso dipenda dalla rappresentazione della dinamica stratosferica. Si cerca inoltre di differenziare i modelli in base alla loro rappresentazione del raffreddamento radiativo e dinamico nella bassa stratosfera e alla risposta del jet troposferico. Nei modelli, si riscontra che il trend del jet nell'intera troposfera è significativamente correlato linearmente al raffreddamento stesso della bassa stratosfera.
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Brown, Paula, and n/a. "Trends and variability of temperature extremes in Southern New Zealand." University of Otago. Department of Geography, 2006. http://adt.otago.ac.nz./public/adt-NZDU20070514.100400.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of this research was to create the longest possible, homogeneous, historical daily temperature dataset for Southern New Zealand, analyse the changes in extreme temperatures and investigate atmospheric circulation patterns that contributed to these changes. Daily minimum and maximum temperature data for Southern New Zealand were captured from paper records and extended to include all available archival data from the region. This dataset was digitised and contains temperatures from 26 stations that began operation sometime in the period between 1852 and 1953. Stations include the Chatham and Campbell islands. Adjustments for inhomogeneities in the dataset were made using a frequency distribution matching method. Dunedin has a record dating from 1852, the longest in the Southern Hemisphere south of 40�S latitude. Reconstruction of a homogeneous record for Dunedin was made by taking into account site changes from contemporaneous modem data logger measurements and from an analysis of overlapping period data. Temperatures showed no clear pattern of change in Southern New Zealand from the mid 1800s through to the early 1900s with the exception of a brief cold period that occurred around 1900. However, from the 1940s through to the 1970s both minimum and maximum extreme temperatures showed strong warming. These trends were duplicated over the shorter length period of record for other regions, especially in Eastern Canterbury. The warming trend was maintained over the period 1979 - 2003, but only in the colder ends of minimum and maximum distributions. Temperatures have become less cold due to the recent compression of the temperature distribution. There was a marked decrease in cold days at stations in the south and offshore islands. Atmospheric circulation pattems, and in particular ENSO, were shown to affect extreme temperatures recorded in Southern New Zealand. Anomalous southwesterlies associated with El Nino events produce cooler temperatures and increase the numbers of cold extreme temperatures, while anomalous northeasterlies typical of La Nina increase the numbers of warm extreme temperatures. Monthly frequencies of extreme temperatures were primarily affected by anomalous south/north meridional airflows to increase cold/warm extreme temperature frequencies. Zonal airflows have a lesser, but topographically influenced effect. Record hot and cold temperatures in Southern New Zealand were a product of the interaction between advective northerly and southerly airflows respectively, and local climatic effects caused by topography.
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Braby, Laura. "Dynamics, interactions and ecosystem implications of mesoscale eddies formed in the southern region of Madagascar." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9213.
Full textAbstract:
Includes bibliographical references.Several species of marine organisms occurring off the southern African coast have been found to be identical to those occurring in the Madagascan coastal water although the reason for this is unknown. It has been proposed that eddies act as a vector of transport for planktonic larvae from the Madagascar island to the southern African east coast. In this study it is shown that eddies spawned off southern Madagascar entrain chlorophyll-a rich coastal waters into their periphery. This is indicative of the mechanism whereby organisms could become entrained in eddies. Approximately one eddy per year, usually cyclonic, interacts with the southern Madagascan coast, then from its origin crosses the southern Mozambique Channel and arrives at the African coast where it dissipates. By tracking eddies and combining their trajectories with drifter data and satellite remote sensing observations of ocean colour, it is shown that chlorophyll-a rich waters are entrained within the eddies, and these waters are mostly conserved during their passage across the channel. This study suggests that biota may be transported from Madagascar to Africa in eddies, providing further evidence that eddies are potentially a viable mechanism for the transport of organisms across the southern Mozambique Channel.
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Ragoasha, Moagabo Natalie. "The role of short-term atmospheric variability in shaping Lagrangian transport in the Southern Benguela." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20006.
Full textAbstract:
This work studies the links between the Lagrangian transport in the Southern Benguela upwelling system and the ocean circulation through modelling experimentation. More specifically, it intends to show that the wind-induced circulation at short-time scales impacts the drift of Lagrangian particles released in the model. Three ocean model (ROMS) simulations are set-up. Simulation A is forced with a6 hourly atmospheric forcing (surface heat and fresh-water fluxes and wind stress). In simulation B and C, the atmospheric forcing is low-pass filtered with 5 days and 30 days cut-off periods. The ocean model outputs are averaged and saved at deferent temporal frequency: frequencies of 6 hours and 3 days. Particles released in the Lagrangian tracking tool are transported by the velocity vectors produced by the ocean model into the nursery area located at Saint Helena Bay. The presence of short-term fluctuations result in higher inner shelf transport and amore elongated plume dispersion pattern with much refine spatial scales. This finding contrasts with previous studies where the inner shelf transport success was always low compared to the outer shelf nursery. When the high frequency signal is filtered out, the inner shelf transport is greatly reduced especially during the upwelling season. The archiving frequency of the ROMS output is shown to impact Lagrangian studies, especially when the atmospheric forcing has variability at short time scales (less than 5 days).Monthly mean forcing results in dynamics variable with periods of not less than a month and 5 daily averaged forcing with sub-weekly dynamics. Therefore, in simulations B and C the less than 3 days archiving of the model outputs is not necessary, because their forcing does not generate dynamics with such periods. The latter must be adapted so that it does not filter out the ocean response to the high frequency atmospheric forcing. To explain the Lagrangian transports, as a first approach, the transport success was linked to the variability of the ocean circulation.
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Placzek, Christa. "Stratigraphy, Geochronology and Geochemistry of Paleolakes on the Southern Bolivian Altiplano." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194352.
Full textAbstract:
Precise chronologies of climate events in the tropics are rare yet essential for understanding how tropical climate relates to global climate at millennial to longer time scales. An increasingly important area for understanding these interactions is the southern Bolivian Altiplano (15-22oS) which represents the waning and southeastern end of the South American Monsoon, a system that is, today, modulated by regional upper-air circulation anomalies under the influence of tropical Pacific sea-surface temperature gradients associated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Mechanisms of summer rainfall variations on millennial and longer time scales are less well understood, despite well-established evidence for profound changes in hydrologic budgets on the southern Bolivian Altiplano. Large shifts in effective moisture on the southern Bolivian Altiplano produced deep lakes in the Poopo, Coipasa, and Uyuni basins, basins that are currently occupied by salt pans or very shallow lakes. We mapped shoreline stratigraphy and sampled carbonates for over 170 uranium-thorium (U-Th) and radiocarbon (14C) dates to refine paleolake history of the Southern Bolivian Altiplano. As part of this dissertation work, I helped assemble a U-Th dating facility at the University of Arizona and obtained over 90 uranium-thorium (U-Th) dates from paleolake carbonates. Carbonate textures were evaluated for potential diagenetic effects, but the principal consideration in dating such carbonates is the isotopic composition and quantity of initial Th incorporated into the carbonate. We establish criteria for statigraphically meaningful dates and strategies for successful U-Th dating of paleolake carbonates. The stable isotope, 87-strontium/86-strontium (87Sr/86Sr), and 234U/238U ratios of modern surface waters and of paleolake carbonates can be used as tracers of the region's various lake cycles and provides a test hydrologic models of these lake cycles.Volcanic tuffs provide important stratigraphic markers for paleolimnologic, geomorphic, and archeological studies. Despite the widespread occurrence of late Quaternary tuffs on the Bolivian Altiplano, few of these deposits have been previously recognized either from natural exposures or in paleolake sediment cores. We document the presence of 38 distal tuffs in Quaternary lacustrine and alluvial deposits, and determine the composition of glass and phenocrysts by electron microprobe analyses.