Surface climate data undergo processing to remove non-climatic effects such as urbanization and measurement irregularities. Some studies have shown that the processing is inadequate, leaving a residual warm bias. This has been disputed on three grounds: spatial autocorrelation of the 2 temperature field undermines significance of test results; counterfactual experiments using model-generated da...

This paper applies G-Econ+, an updated version of the G-Econ database by Nordhaus, to analyze the influence of climatic and geographic factors on the geographic distribution of population and economic activity. I discuss options for improved treatment of several statistical problems associated with G-Econ, which are not addressed adequately in the original G-Econ analysis. Reanalysis of key res...

Starting from traditional ideas on the climatic steering of fluvial system dynamics, it appears that there are different kinds of climatic influences on system dynamics. They vary from direct climatic forcing (like peak precipitation) to indirect (like permafrost) and partial forcing (like vegetation). Vegetation (or its absence), and not directly climate, is considered as the main cause of flu...

Mid-Pleistocene vertebrates in North America are scarce but important for recognizing the ecological effects of climatic change in the absence of humans. We report on a uniquely rich mid-Pleistocene vertebrate sequence from Porcupine Cave, Colorado, which records at least 127 species and the earliest appearances of 30 mammals and birds. By analyzing >20,000 mammal fossils in relation to modern ...

This study aims to address the effects of climatic factors (temperature, relative humidity and rainfall) on Aedes aegypti mosquito density (hereinafter called mosquito density) in the Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. Data for climatic factors, mosquito density and dengue fever cases for the years 2004 to 2011 were collected for the study period. Descriptive and bivariate statistical analyses were con...

Insect outbreaks are expected to increase in frequency and intensity with projected changes in global climate through direct effects of climate change on insect populations and through disruption of community interactions. Although there is much concern about mean changes in global climate, the impact of climatic variability itself on species interactions has been little explored. Here, we comp...

Biomass conversion factors (BCFs, defined as the ratios of tree components (i.e. stem, branch, foliage and root), as well as aboveground and whole biomass of trees to growing stock volume, Mg m-3) are considered as important parameters in large-scale forest biomass carbon estimation. To date, knowledge of possible sources of the variation in BCFs is still limited at large scales. Using our comp...