The geologic history of the tall grass prairie in central North America reveals the prairie began developing 10,000 years ago after the Pleistocene ice sheets had retreated into Canada. The long-lived triangular shaped prairie survived several climatic shifts during the Holocene. Scientists have studied the anomaly—grasses where many climate conditions indicate forests should have been growing—...

Weather and climate have a strong influence on tourism and the recreation sector, which is a very important industry. Since tourism is becoming one of the main industries all over the world, it plays an important role in promoting national and local economic development. This paper attempts to show the role of climate in tourism seasonality and tries to study the impacts of climate resources on...

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The adjustment of the tropical climate outside the Pacific (the “remote Tropics”) to the abrupt onset of El Niño conditions is examined in a tropical atmosphere model that assumes simplified vertical structure and quasi-equilibrium (QE) convective closure. The El Niño signal is rapidly ( 1 week) communicated to the remote Tropics via an eastward-propagating Kelvin-like wave that induces both an...

This paper utilizes the best available quality data from multiple sources to develop consistent surface boundary conditions (SBCs) for mesoscale regional climate model (RCM) applications. The primary SBCs include 1) fields of soil characteristic (bedrock depth, and sand and clay * Corresponding author address: Dr. Xin-Zhong Liang, Illinois State Water Survey, University of Illinois at Urbana–Ch...

Observations and projections for mountain regions show a strong tendency towards upslope displacement of their biomes under future climate conditions. Because of their climatic and topographic heterogeneity, a more complex response is expected for biodiversity hotspots such as tropical mountain regions. This study analyzes potential changes in the distribution of biomes in the Tropical Andes an...

Drought stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses influencing performance of crop plants. Therefore, the identification or development of tolerant genotypes is of high importance for incorporating in cotton production. In this study to evaluate the effect of drought stress on some cotton traits, 5 improved cotton varieties were studied in a split plot design with three replications i...

Identifying populations within tree species potentially adapted to future climatic conditions is an important requirement for reforestation and assisted migration programmes. Such populations can be identified either by empirical response functions based on correlations of quantitative traits with climate variables or by climate envelope models that compare the climate of seed sources and poten...

Interactions between subunits of the global climate-biosphere system (e.g. atmosphere, ocean, biosphere and cryosphere) often lead to behaviour that is not evident when each subunit is viewed in isolation. This newly evident behaviour is an emergent property of the coupled subsystems. Interactions between thermohaline circulation and climate illustrate one emergent property of coupling ocean an...

The natural composition of terrestrial ecosystems can be shaped by climate to take advantage of local environmental conditions. Ecosystem functioning (e.g., interaction between photosynthesis and temperature) can also acclimate to different climatological states. The combination of these two factors thus determines ecological– climate interactions.Aglobal empiricalmap of the sensitivity of vege...