Increasing risk of great floods in a changing climate

Radiative effects of anthropogenic changes in atmospheric composition are expected to cause climate changes, in particular an intensification of the global water cycle with a consequent increase in flood risk. But the detection of anthropogenically forced changes in flooding is difficult because of the substantial natural variability; the dependence of streamflow trends on flow regime further complicates the issue. Here we investigate the changes in risk of great floods--that is, floods with discharges exceeding 100-year levels from basins larger than 200,000 km(2)--using both streamflow measurements and numerical simulations of the anthropogenic climate change associated with greenhouse gases and direct radiative effects of sulphate aerosols. We find that the frequency of great floods increased substantially during the twentieth century. The recent emergence of a statistically significant positive trend in risk of great floods is consistent with results from the climate model, and the model suggests that the trend will continue.     

Microseismological evidence for a changing wave climate in the northeast Atlantic Ocean

One possible consequence of a change in climate over the past several decades is an increase in wave heights, potentially threatening coastal areas as well as the marine industry. But the difficulties in observing wave heights exacerbates a general problem of climate-change detection: inhomogeneities in long-term observational records owing to changes in the instruments or techniques used, which may cause artificial trends. Ground movements with periods of 4-16 seconds, known as microseisms, are associated with ocean waves and coastal surf, and have been recorded continuously since the early days of seismology. Here we use such a 40-year record of wintertime microseisms from Hamburg, Germany, to reconstruct the wave climate in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. For the period 1954-77, we detect an average of seven days per month with strong microseismic activity, without a significant trend. This number increases significantly in the second half of the record, reaching approximately 14 days of strong microseisms per month. The implied increase in northeast Atlantic wave height over the past 20 years parallels increased surface air temperatures and storminess in this region, suggesting a common forcing.     

Quantifying the risk of extreme seasonal precipitation events in a changing climate

Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide will almost certainly lead to changes in global mean climate. But because--by definition--extreme events are rare, it is significantly more difficult to quantify the risk of extremes. Ensemble-based probabilistic predictions, as used in short- and medium-term forecasts of weather and climate, are more useful than deterministic forecasts using a 'best guess' scenario to address this sort of problem. Here we present a probabilistic analysis of 19 global climate model simulations with a generic binary decision model. We estimate that the probability of total boreal winter precipitation exceeding two standard deviations above normal will increase by a factor of five over parts of the UK over the next 100 years. We find similar increases in probability for the Asian monsoon region in boreal summer, with implications for flooding in Bangladesh. Further practical applications of our techniques would be helped by the use of larger ensembles (for a more complete sampling of model uncertainty) and a wider range of scenarios at a resolution adequate to analyse average-size river basins.     

Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availability in a changing climate

Water availability on the continents is important for human health, economic activity, ecosystem function and geophysical processes. Because the saturation vapour pressure of water in air is highly sensitive to temperature, perturbations in the global water cycle are expected to accompany climate warming. Regional patterns of warming-induced changes in surface hydroclimate are complex and less certain than those in temperature, however, with both regional increases and decreases expected in precipitation and runoff. Here we show that an ensemble of 12 climate models exhibits qualitative and statistically significant skill in simulating observed regional patterns of twentieth-century multidecadal changes in streamflow. These models project 10-40% increases in runoff in eastern equatorial Africa, the La Plata basin and high-latitude North America and Eurasia, and 10-30% decreases in runoff in southern Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East and mid-latitude western North America by the year 2050. Such changes in sustainable water availability would have considerable regional-scale consequences for economies as well as ecosystems.     

Removal of chlorofluorocarbons by increased mass exchange between the stratosphere and troposphere in a changing climate

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), along with bromine compounds, have been unequivocally identified as being responsible for most of the anthropogenic destruction of stratospheric ozone. With curbs on emissions of these substances, the recovery of the ozone layer will depend on their removal from the atmosphere. As CFCs have no significant tropospheric removal process, but are rapidly photolysed above the lower stratosphere, the timescale for their removal is set mainly by the rate at which air is transported from the troposphere into the stratosphere. Using a global climate model we predict that, in response to the projected changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations during the first half of the twenty-first century, this rate of mass exchange will increase by 3% per decade. This increase is due to more vigorous extra-tropical planetary waves emanating from the troposphere. We estimate that this increase in mass exchange will accelerate the removal of CFCs to an extent that recovery to levels currently predicted for 2050 and 2080 will occur 5 and 10 years earlier, respectively.     

环境磁学在第四纪气候与环境研究中的应用

阐述了新兴的交叉学科环境磁学的原理及矿物学参数,论述了环境磁学在第四纪气候与环境中的应用,也指出了环境磁学存在的问题与发展的趋势。     

西藏西北高原气候变化趋势及预测——以狮泉河站为例

利用西藏狮泉河气象站1961～2000年气温、降水等资料,分析了40年来西藏西北高原地区的气候变化,并对未来气候变化的可能趋势做了预测.将预测结果与2002～2004年的实际观测资料相比较,预测结果与实际值接近,因此,预测结果是基本可信的.     

Progress in studies of the climate of humid period and the impacts of changing precession in early-mid Holocene

Studies on the climate of humid period and the impacts of changing precession in the early-mid Holocene are reviewed in this paper. High-resolution proxy data indicated that the African Humid Period, strong summer monsoon from the Arabian Sea to South Asia, northward migration of ITCZ （Intertropical Convergence Zone） over the northern South America, and the humid period of China appeared in 10.5-5.5 kaBP, 10.0--6.0 kaBP, 10.5-5.4 kaBP, and 11.0-8.0 kaBP, respectively. Modeling studies proved that summer insolation over the Northern Hemisphere increased following the changes of precession in the early Holocene, which increased the land-sea temperature contrasts, intensified the summer monsoon circulation over the area under the influence of summer monsoon. However, in the Northern Hemisphere, and finally induced a humid climate modeling results underestimated the increase of precipitation and the degree of northward extension of monsoon rain belt compared with palaeo-environmental data. These discrepancies between the modeling results and the palaeo-environmental data may be associated with the changes of North Atlantic circulation, sea ice and vegetation covers. Moreover, climate of the humid period was not stable, in which several droughts were inlaid on centennial scale. In this review, perspectives for further studies of the climate change of the humid period in the early-mid Holocene are also proposed. demy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science in China Press. All rights reserved.     

Polar ocean ecosystems in a changing world

Polar organisms have adapted their seasonal cycles to the dynamic interface between ice and water. This interface ranges from the micrometre-sized brine channels within sea ice to the planetary-scale advance and retreat of sea ice. Polar marine ecosystems are particularly sensitive to climate change because small temperature differences can have large effects on the extent and thickness of sea ice. Little is known about the interactions between large, long-lived organisms and their planktonic food supply. Disentangling the effects of human exploitation of upper trophic levels from basin-wide, decade-scale climate cycles to identify long-term, global trends is a daunting challenge facing polar bio-oceanography.     

Rapid changes of glacial climate simulated in a coupled climate model

Abrupt changes in climate, termed Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events, have punctuated the last glacial period (approximately 100-10 kyr ago) but not the Holocene (the past 10 kyr). Here we use an intermediate-complexity climate model to investigate the stability of glacial climate, and we find that only one mode of Atlantic Ocean circulation is stable: a cold mode with deep water formation in the Atlantic Ocean south of Iceland. However, a 'warm' circulation mode similar to the present-day Atlantic Ocean is only marginally unstable, and temporary transitions to this warm mode can easily be triggered. This leads to abrupt warm events in the model which share many characteristics of the observed Dansgaard-Oeschger events. For a large freshwater input (such as a large release of icebergs), the model's deep water formation is temporarily switched off, causing no strong cooling in Greenland but warming in Antarctica, as is observed for Heinrich events. Our stability analysis provides an explanation why glacial climate is much more variable than Holocene climate.     

Towards sustainability in world fisheries

Fisheries have rarely been 'sustainable'. Rather, fishing has induced serial depletions, long masked by improved technology, geographic expansion and exploitation of previously spurned species lower in the food web. With global catches declining since the late 1980s, continuation of present trends will lead to supply shortfall, for which aquaculture cannot be expected to compensate, and may well exacerbate. Reducing fishing capacity to appropriate levels will require strong reductions of subsidies. Zoning the oceans into unfished marine reserves and areas with limited levels of fishing effort would allow sustainable fisheries, based on resources embedded in functional, diverse ecosystems.     

树立科学的理财观,构建和谐的校园理财环境

和谐的校园理财环境需要和谐的校园，社会的和谐离不开包括校园理财环境在内的各种社会细胞的和谐．笔者阐述了影响和谐校园理财环境的主要因素，分析了构建和谐校园理财环境所面临的主要问题，提出了构建和谐校园理财环境的对策．     

黑河流域地下水埋深与气候变化对植被覆盖的影响研究

植被是联结土壤、大气、水分的自然纽带,在一定程度上,植被变化能在全球变化研究中充当"指示器"的作用.黑河流域位于我国西北干旱地区,气候变化敏感,以黑河流域为研究区,采用1998—2008年Spot-Vegetation的NDVI数据,以同时期的气象数据和区域地下水埋深数据为基础,通过ENVI、Arcgis等软件对数据进行统计分析,利用多元统计模型分析植被指数NDVI与年均温、年地下水埋深之间的定量关系,得出如下结论:1)黑河流域植被覆盖呈上升趋势,其中春季增加趋势最大;在空间分布上,黑河流域上中游的张掖、金塔等地区植被覆盖增加趋势明显,植被覆盖下降的区域主要在下游地区.2)黑河流域的年均地下水水位整体上呈下降趋势,地下水位埋深由年均3.09m上升到4.67m,其中地下水埋深较深的位置主要集中在上游,处于张掖市张掖农场周围,下游地区埋深普遍较浅.3)植被覆盖指数NDVI与温度成正相关,与地下水位埋深呈现负相关,综合分析NDVI变化趋势与气候变化和地下水之间的关系,建立三者之间的定量关系.本研究为定量评价由植被覆盖为主要表征的区域生态环境状况提出了科学的依据.     

Polar ocean stratification in a cold climate

The low-latitude ocean is strongly stratified by the warmth of its surface water. As a result, the great volume of the deep ocean has easiest access to the atmosphere through the polar surface ocean. In the modern polar ocean during the winter, the vertical distribution of temperature promotes overturning, with colder water over warmer, while the salinity distribution typically promotes stratification, with fresher water over saltier. However, the sensitivity of seawater density to temperature is reduced as temperature approaches the freezing point, with potential consequences for global ocean circulation under cold climates. Here we present deep-sea records of biogenic opal accumulation and sedimentary nitrogen isotopic composition from the Subarctic North Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean. These records indicate that vertical stratification increased in both northern and southern high latitudes 2.7 million years ago, when Northern Hemisphere glaciation intensified in association with global cooling during the late Pliocene epoch. We propose that the cooling caused this increased stratification by weakening the role of temperature in polar ocean density structure so as to reduce its opposition to the stratifying effect of the vertical salinity distribution. The shift towards stratification in the polar ocean 2.7 million years ago may have increased the quantity of carbon dioxide trapped in the abyss, amplifying the global cooling.     

Innovations for a changing and challenging world

We live in a rapidly changing world. Firstly, emerging and developing countries＇ research and innovation capabilities are increasing rapidly. China is the most impressive example, having dramatically increased its expenditure on research and development （R＆D） and its human resources for science and technology. As a result, China＇ s share of global knowledge resources has grown dramatically in the past 30 years. Secondly, the nature of innovation is changing. Innovation used to be very much defined and dominated by large companies in Europe, North America and Japan, characterized by a strongly science driven and linear process in which knowledge was generated in academia and then commercialized by industry.