Search results for "climatology"
showing 10 items of 1164 documents
Spatio-temporal soil drying in southeastern South America: the importance of effective sampling frequency and observational errors on drydown time sc…
2020
The study of the spatio-temporal dynamics of surface soil moisture (SSM) drydowns integrates the soil response to climatic conditions, drainage and land cover and is key to advances in our knowledg...
The significance of climate variability on early modern European grain prices
2021
AbstractGrain was the most important food source in early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800), and its price influenced the entire economy. The extent to which climate variability determined grain price variations remains contested, and claims of solar cycle influences on prices are disputed. We thoroughly reassess these questions, within a framework of comprehensive statistical analysis, by employing an unprecedentedly large grain price data set together with state-of-the-art palaeoclimate reconstructions and long meteorological series. A highly significant negative grain price–temperature relationship (i.e. colder = high prices and vice versa) is found across Europe. This association increases a…
Errors and uncertainties introduced by a regional climate model in climate impact assessments: example of crop yield simulations in West Africa
2015
16 pages; International audience; The challenge of estimating the potential impacts of climate change has led to an increasing use of dynamical downscaling to produce fine spatial-scale climate projections for impact assessments. In this work, we analyze if and to what extent the bias in the simulated crop yield can be reduced by using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model to downscale ERA-Interim (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis) rainfall and radiation data. Then, we evaluate the uncertainties resulting from both the choice of the physical parameterizations of the WRF model and its internal variability. Impact assessments w…
Climatic gradients along the windward slopes of Mount Kenya and their implication for crop risks. Part 1: climate variability
2012
In tropical mountains, the way topographical gradients translate in terms of intra-seasonal and interannual climate variability (especially rainfall and evapotranspiration) is relatively unknown, yet it is an important issue for agriculture and food security. The eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, in East Africa, with their wide range of agro-ecological conditions, are appropriate for the study of these aspects. Daily (monthly) rainfall data from 11 (24) stations at different elevations and exposures are collected for the period 1961-2006. For the elevation belts suitable for farming and agro-pastoral activities, mostly below 2000 m, it is found that not all rainfall characteristics co-vary wit…
Long-term summer temperature variations in the Pyrenees from detrended stable carbon isotopes
2015
Abstract Substantial effort has recently been put into the development of climate reconstructions from tree-ring stable carbon isotopes, though the interpretation of long-term trends retained in such timeseries remains challenging. Here we use detrended δ13C measurements in Pinus uncinata tree-rings, from the Spanish Pyrenees, to reconstruct decadal variations in summer temperature back to the 13th century. The June-August temperature signal of this reconstruction is attributed using decadally as well as annually resolved, 20th century δ13C data. Results indicate that late 20th century warming has not been unique within the context of the past 750 years. Our reconstruction contains greater …
Extreme precipitation events over northern Italy. Part II : Dynamical precursors
2021
The connection between weather extremes and Rossby wave packets (RWP) has been increasingly documented in recent years. RWP propagation and characteristics can modulate the midlatitude weather, setting the scene for temperature and precipitation extremes and controlling the geographical area affected. Several studies on extreme precipitation events (EPEs) in the Alpine area reported, as the main triggering factor, a meridionally elongated upper‐level trough as part of an incoming Rossby wave packet. In this work, we investigate a wide number of EPEs occurring between 1979 and 2015 in northern‐central Italy. The EPEs are subdivided into three categories (Cat1, Cat2, Cat3) according to thermo…
Stable isotopes covering 96-7 ka BP from stalagmite CM (Santo Tomas Cave, Cuba)
2020
We present a new speleothem trace element and stable isotope record, which extends previous paleoclimate evidence from Cuban speleothems to the last 96 ka. Stable isotope samples were micromilled at a resolution of 0.10-0.33mm, and measured using an IRMS equipped with a Gasbench. Line scans of Element/Calcium ratios of the speleothem were measured by laser ablation ICPMS and were reduced to the resolution of the stable isotope records.
Quantification of LAI interannual anomalies by adjusting climatological patterns
2011
International audience; Scaling variations and shifts in the timing of seasonal phenology are central features of global change research. In this study, we propose a novel climatology fitting approach to quantify inter-annual anomalies in LAI seasonality. A consistent archive of daily LAI estimates was first derived from historical AVHRR satellite data for the 1981-2000 period over a globally representative sample of sites. The climatology values were then computed by averaging multi-year LAI profiles, gap filling and smoothing to eliminate possible high temporal frequency residual artifacts. The inter-annual variations in LAI were finally quantified by scaling and shifting the seasonal cli…
Amphibians and squamate reptiles from the stratigraphic unit Xb of El Salt (Middle Palaeolithic; Alcoy, Spain): palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimati…
2020
The locality of El Salt (Middle Paleolithic, Alcoy, Spain) is mainly known by having one of the youngest Neanderthals records of the southeastern Iberian Peninsula. In this work, we have analysed the herpetofaunal fossils from the upper part of stratigraphic unit Xb, dated at 52.3 ± 4.6 ka (MIS 3). The faunal list is composed by three taxa of anurans (Alyte obstetricans, Bufo bufo s.l., and Epidalea calamita), one taxon of blanid (Blanus cinereus s.l.), two taxa of lizards (Chalcides bedriagai and cf. Acanthodactylus erythrurus), and one taxon of snakes (cf. Rhinechis scalaris). All of them have a broad distribution range in the Mediterranean, with wide ecological preferences range. This as…
Montagnes d’Afrique tropicale : marqueurs de la variabilité climatique ou isolats climatiques ?
2011
6 pages; International audience; Les montagnes tropicales sont souvent perçues comme des sentinelles des changements climatiques. Pour autantles variations climatiques interannuelles à décennales sont-elles le reflet de celles des espaces environnants ? A l’échelle del’Afrique au sud du Sahara, une analyse de la variabilité des pluies entre 1941 et 2000 montre une cohérence spatiale peudiminuée par les reliefs. Des exemples sont présentés de reliefs constituant même des révélateurs de la dynamiqueatmosphérique et de la variabilité climatique d’échelles larges.