Global climate models do not have sufficient spatial resolution to represent the atmospheric and land surface processes that determine the unique regional heterogeneity of the climate of the State of Washington. If future large-scale weather patterns interact differently with the local terrain and coastlines than current weather patterns, local changes in temperature and precipitation could be ...

Patterns of adaptation in response to environmental variation are central to our understanding of biodiversity, but predictions of how and when broad-scale environmental conditions such as climate affect organismal form and function remain incomplete. Succulent plants have evolved in response to arid conditions repeatedly, with various plant organs such as leaves, stems, and roots physically mo...

Recent studies have drawn attention to a significant weakening trend of the South Asian monsoon circulation and an associated decrease in regional rainfall during the last few decades. While surface temperatures over the region have steadily risen during this period, most of the CMIP (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) global climate models have difficulties in capturing the observed decrea...

This work analyses changes in the River Beça basin streamflow, an area with a typically Mediterranean climate, since the second half of the last century, evaluating trends in annual, monthly and extreme streamflow in the River Beça basin and relating them to precipitation variability and changes in land use and vegetation. Annual streamflow and precipitation are highly irregular, both in intra ...

Land-use degradation and climate change are well-known drivers of biodiversity loss, but little information is available about their potential interaction. Here, we focus on the effects of land-use and precipitation on ant diversity in cacao agroforestry. In Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, we selected 16 cacao agroforestry plots with a shaded vs. unshaded plot in each of eight villages differing i...

Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide have been proposed as a major regulator of climate during the last 570 million years. Continental weathering and its variation over time are hypothesized to be important for controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide. Continental weathering is altered by changes in total runoff as well as changes in the size and elevation of the land masses to be weathered. Whe...

The San Francisco Bay Area in California, USA is a highly heterogeneous region in climate, topography, and habitats, as well as in its political and economic interests. Successful conservation strategies must consider various current and future competing demands for the land, and should pay special attention to livestock grazing, the dominant non-urban land-use. The main objective of this study...

For adaptation and mitigation planning, stakeholders need reliable information about regional precipitation changes under different emissions scenarios and for different time periods. A significant amount of current planning effort assumes that each K of global warming produces roughly the same regional climate change. Here using 25 climate models, we compare precipitation responses with three ...

A reconstructed land use/land cover change (LUCC) dataset was used with the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to conduct a climate sensitivity analysis over the past two millennia. Compared to a controlled experiment conducted with the CESM, the LUCC showed significant biogeophysical effects on global climate on multi-decadal to centennial time scales. The global annual mean temperature and p...