A comparison of two statistical downscaling methods for daily maximum and minimum surface air temperature, total daily precipitation and total monthly precipitation at Indianapolis, IN, USA, is presented. The analysis is conducted for two seasons, the growing season and the non-growing season, defined based on variability of surface air temperature. The predictors used in the downscaling are in...

Global temperature is increasing, and this is affecting the vegetation phenology in many parts of the world. In Fennoscandia, as well as Northern Europe, the advances of phenological events in spring have been recorded in recent decades. In this study, we analyzed the start of the growing season within five different vegetation regions in Fennoscandia using the 30-year Global Inventory Modeling...

The development of models to predict yield potential and quality of a Miscanthus crop must consider climatic limitations and the duration of growing season. As a biomass crop, yield and quality are impacted by the timing of plant developmental transitions such as flowering and senescence. Growth models are available for the commercially grown clone Miscanthus x giganteus (Mxg), but breeding pro...

In winter 2008, kindergartens and primary schools in Hong Kong were closed for 2 weeks after media coverage indicated that 3 children had died, apparently from influenza. We examined prospective influenza surveillance data before, during, and after the closure. We did not find a substantial effect on community transmission.

to better understand the potential for improving biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency (rUE) of winter wheat under deficit irrigation regimes, in 2006–2007 and 2007–2008, an experiment was conducted at the luancheng Experimental Station of Chinese academy of Science to study the effects of deficit irrigation regimes on the photosynthetic active radiation (Par), biomass accumulation,...

Satellite-derived vegetation phenophases are frequently used to study the response of ecosystems to climate change. However, limited studies have identified the common phenological variability across different climate and vegetation zones. Using NOAA/Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) dataset, we estimated start of growing season (SOS)...

In this study, we examined the interannual variability of net community production (NCP) in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) using in situ O2/Ar-NCP estimates (2008–2014) and satellite data (SeaWiFS and MODIS-Aqua) from 1997 to 2014. We found that NCP generally first peaks offshore and follows sea-ice retreat from offshore to inshore. Annually integrated NCP (ANCP) displays an onshore-to-o...

Widely-held, untested assumptions in many prairies are that high-intensity fires conducted during droughts will decrease native herbaceous species richness and lead to rapid invasions by alien species. We compared native and exotic herbaceous species richness and aboveground herbaceous biomass one year following the application of highintensity growing-season fires in Texas coastal prairie. Fir...

For over 50 years, Churchill, Manitoba has provided visitors an opportunity to see polar bears in their natural environment. Over the same time period, increase temperatures and related reductions sea ice negatively impacted health of Western Hudson Bay. In 2008, term ‘last chance tourism’ was coined, linking demand travel North with a desire these animals ‘before they are gone’. This creates p...

The seasonal and spatial variability of water quality, including mercury species, was evaluated in agricultural and managed, non-agricultural wetlands in the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area, an area managed for multiple beneficial uses including bird habitat and rice farming. The study was conducted during an 11-month period (June 2007 to April 2008) that included a summer growing season and flooded ...