Sentences with phrase «shifting precipitation patterns»

This will help scientists explore, more accurately than is possible today, how rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, increasing greenhouse gas levels, and other natural and human - induced changes affect tropical forests» influence on Earth's climate.

The heat is not only melting glaciers and sea ice, it's also shifting precipitation patterns and setting animals on the move.

The water vapor feedback (a generally positive feedback)-- there is an roughly exponential increase in saturation water vapor pressure with increasing temperature, and the relative humidity (at a given vertical level) overall tends not to change a lot globally, though there will be different regional trends associated with shifting precipitation patterns.

Given the number of ways that things can go wrong with continued CO2 emissions (from ocean acidfication and sea level rise to simple warming, shifting precipitation patterns, release of buried carbon in perma - frost, and the possibility of higher climate sensitivities — which seem to be needed to account for glacial / inter-glacial transitions), crossing our fingers and carrying on with BAU seems nothing short of crazy to me.

Rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns will affect productivity through altered water requirements and water - use efficiency of most crops.

Spending money to adapt will likely be a good investment in Alaska and other states facing sea - level rise and shifting precipitation patterns

Not exact matches

Powerful eruptions can wreak havoc on monsoons by shifting and weakening the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a belt of low pressure near the equator that drives nearby precipitation patterns.

«Plants, animals, and people all depend on forests and may all face additional challenges as temperatures increase and precipitation patterns shift,» said John Shuey, a co-author of the study and Director of Conservation Science for the Indiana Chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

The first shift is in a strengthening of existing precipitation patterns.

He found that the timing of seed germination, leaf growth, and flowering had shifted to take advantage of temperature and precipitation patterns in the landscapes it invaded.

You end up with this interesting observation where you get both floods and droughts just by taking the usual precipitation pattern and doing a shift,» said George Huffman, a research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

When temperature and precipitation patterns shift, the organisms hit hardest are the ones with the deepest roots.

Other likely consequences (e.g. rapid dynamical sea level changes, shift in the inter-tropical convergence zone and hence tropical precipitation patterns) are discussed in the Rahmstorf and Zickfeld editorial essay mentioned above, and the references therein.

Averaging smoothes out day - to - day and year - to - year natural weather variability and extremes, removing much of the chaotic behavior, revealing any underlying long term trends in climate, such as a long term increase or decrease in temperature, or long term shifts in precipitation patterns.

These shape the 4 - dimensional pattern of temperature and other changes — the patterns of circulation, latent heating, and precipitation will shift, as can the cycles driven the imposed diurnal and seasonal cycles in incident solar radiation; the texture of internal variability can also shift.

Glaciers and snowpack, the key cryospheric components of high mountain systems, are sensitive to increases in temperature, shifting atmospheric circulation patterns, and varying amounts and forms of precipitation.

The paper, which is based on a collection of interviews conducted with indigenous leaders in the Brazilian Amazon, says that native populations are reporting shifts in precipitation patterns, humidity, river levels, temperature, and fire and agricultural cycles.

For the entire Northern Hemisphere, there is evidence of an increase in both storm frequency and intensity during the cold season since 1950,1 with storm tracks having shifted slightly towards the poles.2, 3 Extremely heavy snowstorms increased in number during the last century in northern and eastern parts of the United States, but have been less frequent since 2000.11,15 Total seasonal snowfall has generally decreased in southern and some western areas, 16 increased in the northern Great Plains and Great Lakes region, 16,17 and not changed in other areas, such as the Sierra Nevada, although snow is melting earlier in the year and more precipitation is falling as rain versus snow.18 Very snowy winters have generally been decreasing in frequency in most regions over the last 10 to 20 years, although the Northeast has been seeing a normal number of such winters.19 Heavier - than - normal snowfalls recently observed in the Midwest and Northeast U.S. in some years, with little snow in other years, are consistent with indications of increased blocking (a large scale pressure pattern with little or no movement) of the wintertime circulation of the Northern Hemisphere.5 However, conclusions about trends in blocking have been found to depend on the method of analysis, 6 so the assessment and attribution of trends in blocking remains an active research area.

The shift can be explained by changing precipitation patterns and higher average temperatures that make moisture evaporate from the soil more rapidly than in the past, the study said.

The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states with «very high confidence» that «the health of human populations is sensitive to shifts in weather patterns and other aspects of climate change» due to direct effects — such as changes in temperature and precipitation or occurrence of heat waves, floods, droughts, and fires — as well as indirect effects — through crop failures, shifting patterns of disease vectors, or displacement of populations.

If past patterns of precipitation variability remain stable in the near term, then it is probable that precipitation and flows in the Salt - Verde watersheds will shift into wetter conditions within the timeframe examined in this study [66].

So the emphasis shifted to poleward shift of climate zones with particular emphasis on rain and desert belts moving such that agriculture is disrupted by great changes in precipitation patterns.

Shifts in global temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to significant responses estimated in terrestrial GPP in remote regions (Fig 2).

We analyze spatial patterns of precipitation globally associated with forest loss by calculating shifts in the global tropical precipitation band, the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), associated with changes in cross-equatorial atmospheric heat transport using equation 2.21 from [33].

Amid a new normal of wild weather events and volatile precipitation patterns, the world's dams that were designed for the climate of their time are ill - prepared for radical shifts in river flow and precipitation.

Most climatologists believe that if temperatures rise more than another 1 degree C by 2100, conditions on the planet could become radically different and disruptive, including sharp shifts in precipitation patterns, more severe storms and droughts, the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap in summer, Greenland ice sheet instability, and much higher sea levels.

It finds that overall rainfall does not diminish with deforestation, but precipitation patterns shift.

These changes will likely include major shifts in wind patterns, annual precipitation and seasonal temperatures variations.

For example, a relatively slow shift in the distribution of precipitation could give rise to relatively rapid changes in precipitation patterns in regions that lie at the interface of dry and rainy regions (see Figure 2.8), potentially altering a location's local climate with possible ramifications to water supplies and / or agriculture for example.

Boreal forests appear susceptible to rapid transition to sparse woodland or treeless landscapes as temperature and precipitation patterns shift (Scheffer et al., 2012b).

It traces in considerable detail the pathways through which shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns create serious additional barriers to the achievement of the child survival, development and protection goals embraced by the international community.

Several studies suggest that there would be a change in precipitation patterns over the tropics, associated with a southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone (e.g., Vellinga et al 2002; Brayshaw et al, 2009), which could also affect the intensity of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific (Timmermann et al, 2007).

We further find that years with extreme geopotential heights in the climate models exhibit a Triple R - like regional maximum in the northeastern Pacific, and are associated with shifts in wind patterns and precipitation along the West Coast that are strongly reminiscent of those which occurred during 2013 - 2014.

Recent studies have shown that western boundary currents have shifted position slightly over the course decades, leading to changes in wind, temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe more commonly associated with El Niño and the other ocean oscillations.

Physically, one could expect a slight decrease in surface evaporation (a «dimming» effect) and related changes to precipitation, a warming of the tropopause and lower stratosphere (and changes in static stability), increased Eurasian «winter warming» effects (related to shifts in the wind patterns as are seen in the aftermath ofvolcanoes).

If a shift in the hydrological cycle were to lower the response in the global mean temperature, there may be a poisonous sting in such a negative feedback: changes in the precipitation patterns.

A growing body of evidence from the most prominent of the hyperthermals, the Paleocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~ 56 Ma), points toward a major mode shift in the intensity and patterns of precipitation.

Global change will shift current baseline conditions of pH and temperature, as well as those of other stressors (e.g. hypoxia, precipitation patterns / salinity), challenging the physiological capacity of resident biota [5,10,11,22].

Physically, one could expect a slight decrease in surface evaporation (a «dimming» effect) and related changes to precipitation, a warming of the tropopause and lower stratosphere (and changes in static stability), increased Eurasian «winter warming» effects (related to shifts in the wind patterns as are seen in the aftermath of volcanoes).

There is a significantly non-zero risk that precipitation patterns will shift in ways that could contribute to widespread hunger.

If the prevailing rain pattern shifts farther to the west, that means the convection, cloud cover and precipitation all shift farther to the west.

I assume all precipitation changes lead to net damages as they cause shifts relative to traditional patterns to which human systems are aligned.