The Earth’s climate is driven by surface incident solar radiation (Rs). Direct measurements have shown that Rs has undergone significant decadal variations. However, a large fraction of the global land surface is not covered by these observations. Satellite-derived Rs has a good global coverage but is of low accuracy in its depiction of decadal variability. This paper shows that daily to decada...

We provide an overview on recent results investigating the role of land-atmosphere coupling, and in particular of soil moisture-temperature coupling, for summer climate variability and climate change in Europe. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are expected to enhance the interannual variability of summer climate in Europe and other mid-latitude regions, potentially causing more frequent...

This review paper summarizes recent research work on abrupt climatic changes and oscillations. The climatic system is viewed as a dissipative, highly non-linear system, under non-equilibrium conditions, and, as such, should be expected to have some unusual properties. These unusual properties include bifurcation points with marked instability just before the point, magnification of semi-periodi...

Climate variability adversely impacts crop production and imposes a major constraint on farming planning, mostly under rainfed conditions, across the world. Considering the recent advances in climate science, many studies are trying to provide a reliable basis for climate, and subsequently agricultural production, forecasts. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon (ENSO) is one of the princ...

[1] During the last decade, there have been increasing concerns over water resource drought in northern England, brought about by the 1995 Yorkshire drought with an estimated 5-month rainfall return period of 200 years. The impacts of climatic change and variability on water resource reliability, resilience, and vulnerability in this region are examined by modeling changes to weather type frequ...

BACKGROUND Owing to the emergence of some challenges in the demographic structure of many countries and possible decrease in young human workforce in the future decades, the reduction in the fertility rate has become a major public concern. This study aimed to investigate the effects of climatic factors on fertility. AIM In this correlational study conducted during 2005-2009, the relationship...

Water in the XXI century has become the primary factor for sustainable development, eradication of poverty and reversal of ecosystem degradation. Increasing water demand for agriculture and urbanisation, combined with pollution, eutrophication and amplification of the stochastic character of climatic processes, increases water limitations for ecosystems and societies. The transdisciplinary scie...

Determining the links between the behavioural and population responses of wild species to environmental variations is critical for understanding the impact of climate variability on ecosystems. Using long-term data sets, we show how large-scale climatic anomalies in the Southern Hemisphere affect the foraging behaviour and population dynamics of a key marine predator, the king penguin. When lar...

Low-frequency (interannual or longer period) climatic variability is of interest, because of its significance for the understanding and prediction of protracted climatic anomalies. Since precipitation is one of the key variables driving various hydrologic processes, it is useful to examine precipitation records to better understand long-term climate dynamics. Here, we use the multi-taper method...

Air pollution is one of the emerging environmental issues of the western cities of Iran. Daily data (2009-2012) on air pollutants in Sanandaj, Iran, were collected from the Department of Environmental Protection, Kurdistan Province, Iran. Climatic parameters were collected from the Kurdistan Meteorological Bureau. The quality of air was assessed based on the air quality index (AQI). The relatio...