abstract this research evaluates climate change effects on drought severity in the region of gharesou, iran. the standardized precipitation index (spi) has been used for estimation of drought severity. a geographical information system is applied for calculating the mean areal precipitation time series from 11 meteorological stations, in and out of the area for the hydrological period jan 1971-...

human-induced climate change, with such rapid and continuing global-scale warming, is historically unprecedented and signifies that human pressures on earth’s life-supporting natural systems now exceed the planet’s bio-geo-capacity. the risks from climate change to health and survival in populations are diverse, as are the social and political ramifications. although attributing observed health...

The paper presents a review of the current ability of the climate modelling community to produce predictions of future climate change. Predictions for the next few decades are reasonably robust, whereas predictions for later time periods depend on uncertainties in climate model structure and on the unknown future course of greenhouse gas emissions. Some regional features are noticeable; however...

BACKGROUND We analysed regionalised ECHAM6 climate data for the North German Plains (NGP) in two time slots from 1981 to 2010 and 2041 to 2070. RESULTS The annual mean temperature will increase significantly (by about 2 °C) that will result in shorter growing periods since the sum of degree days until harvest will be reached earlier. Even if the amount of total precipitation does not change t...

Variation in climatic conditions over space and time is thought to be an important driver of speciation. However, the role of climate has not been explored in the theoretical literature on speciation, and the theory underlying empirical studies of climate and speciation has come largely from informal, verbal models. In this study, we develop a quantitative model to test a relatively new but the...

Models suggest that dramatic changes in the ocean circulation are responsible for abrupt climate changes during the last ice age and may possibly alter the relative climate stability of the last 10,000 years.

Biologists have recently devoted increasing attention to the role of rapid evolution in species' responses to environmental change. However, it is still unclear what evolutionary responses should be expected, at what rates, and whether evolution will save populations at risk of extinction. The potential of biological invasions to provide useful insights has barely been realised, despite the clo...

Concern over rapid global changes and the potential for interactions among multiple threats are prompting scientists to combine multiple modelling approaches to understand impacts on biodiversity. A relatively recent development is the combination of species distribution models, land-use change predictions, and dynamic population models to predict the relative and combined impacts of climate ch...