This study aims to evaluate soil climate quantitatively under present and projected climatic conditions across Central Europe (12.1°–18.9° E and 46.8°–51.1° N) and the U.S. Central Plains (90°–104° W and 37°–49° N), with a special focus on soil temperature, hydric regime, drought risk and potential productivity (assessed as a period suitable for crop growth). The analysis was completed for the ...

Climate change is intensifying the hydrologic cycle and is expected to increase the frequency of extreme wet and dry years. Beyond precipitation amount, extreme wet and dry years may differ in other ways, such as the number of precipitation events, event size, and the time between events. We assessed 1614 long-term (100 year) precipitation records from around the world to identify key attribute...

We present the results of pollen analysis performed on an ice core recovered from Nevado Sajama, Bolivia, dated to 25 ka BP. Low pollen concentrations from 25 to 15 ka BP are consistent with the scenario of an expanded ice cap surrounded by sparse vegetation and cold conditions on the Altiplano during the Last Glacial Maximum. After 15 ka BP, more pollen is present and percentages show vegetati...

Previous work suggests that changes in seasonality could lead to a 70% reduction in the extent of the Amazon rainforest. The primary cause of the dieback of the rainforest is a lengthening of the dry season due to a weakening of the large-scale tropical circulation. Here we examine these changes in the seasonal cycle. Under present day conditions the Amazon climate is characterized by a zonal s...

Amazon forests, which store ∼ 50% of tropical forest carbon and play a vital role in global water, energy, and carbon cycling, are predicted to experience both longer and more intense dry seasons by the end of the 21st century. However, the climate sensitivity of this ecosystem remains uncertain: several studies have predicted large-scale die-back of the Amazon, whereas several more recent stud...

Meteorological data (1993 to 2004) from 2 public weather stations in Phoenix, Arizona, and Athens, Georgia, were analyzed with test day milk yield data from herds near weather stations to identify the most appropriate temperature-humidity index (THI) to measure losses in milk production due to heat stress in the semiarid climate of Arizona and the humid climate of Georgia. Seven THI with differ...

This article addresses climate-tipping points in the Amazon Basin resulting from deforestation. It applies a regional climate model to assess whether the system of protected areas in Brazil is able to avoid such tipping points, with massive conversion to semiarid vegetation, particularly along the south and southeastern margins of the basin. The regional climate model produces spatially distrib...

A theoretically expected consequence of the intensification of the hydrological cycle under global warming is that on average, wet regions get wetter and dry regions get drier (WWDD). Recent studies, however, have found significant discrepancies between the expected pattern of change and observed changes over land. We assess the WWDD theory in four climate models. We find that the reported disc...

It is increasingly apparent that the future of the Amazon rainforest is under threat from both climate change and agricultural practices. Here we use a 13-year time series of (A)ATSR derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements to examine the role of aerosols in the interaction between deforestation, biomass burning and drought over the Amazon. The seasonal cycle of AOD shows peaks in Septe...

Using the Weather and Research Forecasting model we derive the first estimates for intraseasonal soil moisture-atmosphere coupling strength for the Australian summer climate using methodology adapted from the Global Land-Atmosphere Coupling Experiment. We examine the variations in coupling strength by perturbing the background climate (dry versus wet year) and the model physics (planetary bound...