Km In Europe Research Articles

A High-Resolution Global Dataset of Extreme Sea Levels, Tides, and Storm Surges, Including Future Projections

The world’s coastal areas are increasingly at risk of coastal flooding due to sea-level rise (SLR). We present a novel global dataset of extreme sea levels, the Coastal Dataset for the Evaluation of Climate Impact (CoDEC), which can be used to accurately map the impact of climate change on coastal regions around the world. The third generation Global Tide and Surge Model (GTSM), with a coastal resolution of 2.5 km (1.25 km in Europe), was used to simulate extreme sea levels for the ERA5 climate reanalysis from 1979 to 2017, as well as for future climate scenarios from 2040 to 2100. The validation against observed sea levels demonstrated a good performance, and the annual maxima had a mean bias (MB) of -0.04 m, which is 50% lower than the MB of the previous GTSR dataset. By the end of the century (2071–2100), it is projected that the 1 in 10-year water levels will have increased 0.34 m on average for RCP4.5, while some locations may experience increases of up to 0.5 m. The change in return levels is largely driven by SLR, although at some locations changes in storms surges and interaction with tides amplify the impact of SLR with changes up to 0.2 m. By presenting an application of the CoDEC dataset to the city of Copenhagen, we demonstrate how climate impact indicators derived from simulation can contribute to an understanding of climate impact on a local scale. Moreover, the CoDEC output locations are designed to be used as boundary conditions for regional models, and we envisage that they will be used for dynamic downscaling.

The effect of railways on bird diversity in farmland

With a length exceeding 210,000 km in Europe, railways are common linear features dissecting landscapes. However, the impact of railway networks on biodiversity is equivocal. In this study, we investigated the effect of railway embankments on bird diversity components in an agricultural landscape in southern Poland. Forty transects including 20 along railways and 20 as controls in open fields were established. Birds were counted twice in 2009, and environmental characteristics were estimated for each transect. Ordination techniques and generalized additive models were used to compare species composition, richness, abundance, conservation status, population trends and phylogenetic and functional diversity indices between railway and field transects. Species richness and phylogenetic diversity but not abundance nor functional diversity were higher along railway transects than along field transects. Diversity indices near railways, mostly species richness and phylogenetic diversity, were positively associated with bush cover, wet meadow cover, wetland cover and the slope of the railway but negatively associated with dry meadow cover and field cover. Our study shows that railway embankments may be beneficial for bird diversity but probably do not alter the functional properties of bird communities as much as open fields. Proper management of these linear habitats may increase their value for birds and contribute to long-term bird community persistence.

Comparative study on parameter estimation methods for attenuation relationships

In this paper, the performance and advantages and disadvantages of various regression methods to derive coefficients of an attenuation relationship have been investigated. A database containing 350 records out of 85 earthquakes with moment magnitudes of 5–7.6 and Joyner–Boore distances up to 100 km in Europe and the Middle East has been considered. The functional form proposed by Ambraseys et al (2005 Bull. Earthq. Eng. 3 1–53) is selected to compare chosen regression methods. Statistical tests reveal that although the estimated parameters are different for each method, the overall results are very similar. In essence, the weighted least squares method and one-stage maximum likelihood perform better than the other considered regression methods. Moreover, using a blind weighting matrix or a weighting matrix related to the number of records would not yield in improving the performance of the results. Further, to obtain the true standard deviation, the pure error analysis is necessary. Assuming that the correlation between different records of a specific earthquake exists, the one-stage maximum likelihood considering the true variance acquired by the pure error analysis is the most preferred method to compute the coefficients of a ground motion predication equation.

Temperature‐ and latitude‐specific individual growth rates shape the vulnerability of damselfly larvae to a widespread pesticide

Summary Freshwater ecosystems are especially vulnerable to climate change and pollution. One key challenge for aquatic toxicology is to determine and manage the combined effects of temperature increase and contaminants across species' ranges. We tested how thermal adaptation and life‐history evolution along a natural temperature gradient influence the vulnerability of an aquatic insect to a pesticide under global warming. We applied a space‐for‐time substitution approach to study the effect of warming on the vulnerability of Ischnura elegans damselfly larvae to the pesticide chlorpyrifos in a common garden warming experiment (20 and 24 °C) with replicated populations from three latitudes spanning >1500 km in Europe. Chlorpyrifos was more toxic to damselfly larvae at the higher temperature: mortality only occurred at 24 °C and the reductions in growth rate were stronger at 24 °C. This could partly be explained by parallel reductions in food intake but not by the activities of two widespread enzymatic biomarkers, glutathione S‐transferase (GST) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE). There was some evidence that the increased toxicity of the high chlorpyrifos concentration at 24 °C was stronger in terms of growth reduction in the faster‐growing larvae from the low‐latitude populations. This is consistent with energy allocation trade‐offs between growth rate and pesticide tolerance, but suggests that local thermal adaptation does not play a role in coping with pesticide stress. Synthesis and applications. Damselfly larvae from populations in lower latitudes were more vulnerable to a common pesticide at higher temperatures and pesticide concentrations, whereas evidence for the influence of local thermal adaptation on the vulnerability of larvae was weak. These results emphasize the need for spatially explicit bioassessment and conservation tools. Management practices aimed at mitigating pesticide run‐off into aquatic ecosystems are particularly important in agricultural areas at low latitudes.

Geographic population structure analysis of worldwide human populations infers their biogeographical origins.

The search for a method that utilizes biological information to predict humans’ place of origin has occupied scientists for millennia. Over the past four decades, scientists have employed genetic data in an effort to achieve this goal but with limited success. While biogeographical algorithms using next-generation sequencing data have achieved an accuracy of 700 km in Europe, they were inaccurate elsewhere. Here we describe the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) algorithm and demonstrate its accuracy with three data sets using 40,000–130,000 SNPs. GPS placed 83% of worldwide individuals in their country of origin. Applied to over 200 Sardinians villagers, GPS placed a quarter of them in their villages and most of the rest within 50 km of their villages. GPS’s accuracy and power to infer the biogeography of worldwide individuals down to their country or, in some cases, village, of origin, underscores the promise of admixture-based methods for biogeography and has ramifications for genetic ancestry testing.

Susceptibility to a metal under global warming is shaped by thermal adaptation along a latitudinal gradient

Global warming and contamination represent two major threats to biodiversity that have the potential to interact synergistically. There is the potential for gradual local thermal adaptation and dispersal to higher latitudes to mitigate the susceptibility of organisms to contaminants and global warming at high latitudes. Here, we applied a space-for-time substitution approach to study the thermal dependence of the susceptibility of Ischnura elegans damselfly larvae to zinc in a common garden warming experiment (20 and 24°C) with replicated populations from three latitudes spanning >1500km in Europe. We observed a striking latitude-specific effect of temperature on the zinc-induced mortality pattern; local thermal adaptation along the latitudinal gradient made Swedish, but not French, damselfly larvae more susceptible to zinc at 24°C. Latitude- and temperature-specific differences in zinc susceptibility may be related to the amount of energy available to defend against and repair damage since Swedish larvae showed a much stronger zinc-induced reduction of food intake at 24°C. The pattern of local thermal adaptation indicates that the predicted temperature increase of 4°C by 2100 will strongly magnify the impact of a contaminant such as zinc at higher latitudes unless there is thermal evolution and/or migration of lower latitude genotypes. Our results underscore the critical importance of studying the susceptibility to contaminants under realistic warming scenarios taking into account local thermal adaptation across natural temperature gradients.

Caliope: an operational air quality forecasting system for the Iberian Peninsula, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands – first annual evaluation and ongoing developments

Abstract. The Caliope project funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment establishes an air quality forecasting system for Spain to increase the knowledge on transport and dynamics of pollutants in Spain, to assure the accomplishment of legislation and to inform the population about the levels of pollutants, topics in which the European Commission has shown a great concern. The present contribution describes the first quantitative verification study performed so far with two chemistry transport models (CMAQ and CHIMERE) for a reference year (2004) at medium spatial resolution (around 20×20 km for the Iberian Peninsula). Both models perform similarly in the case of ground-level ozone. The mean normalised gross error MNGE remains below 15–20% during summertime, when ozone episodes occur, outlining the good skills of the system concerning the forecasting of air quality in Spain. Furthermore, the ongoing developments of the system towards high resolution modelling (4×4 km for Spain, 12×12 km for Europe, 1 h temporal resolution) and the integration with observations within the Caliope umbrella are described.

Nested regional climate–chemistry simulations for central Europe

The potential impact of global climate change on regional meteorology and near-surface ozone concentrations in central Europe and the effect of model resolution on the simulated quantities were studied using a coupled climate–chemistry model. Nested simulations with a horizontal resolution of 60 km for Europe and 20 km for central Europe were performed for two time slices of about 10 years representing present-day and future climate conditions. The model results indicate that increased solar radiation due to decreased cloud cover, higher temperatures, and enhanced isoprene emissions promote the formation of tropospheric ozone in central Europe under future climate conditions. Depending on the region, the increase of the mean daily maximum ranges between 2 and 10 ppb and exceedances of the threshold of 60 ppb for the 8-hourly mean as well as the AOT40 index were found to increase considerably. General tendencies in the regional distributions of near-surface ozone were similar for 60- and 20-km resolutions. However, pronounced regional differences were found for some regions due to stronger smoothing of anthropogenic and biogenic emissions as well as flattened topography for the 60-km resolution.

Regional climate change and its impact on photooxidant concentrations in southern Germany: Simulations with a coupled regional climate‐chemistry model

In order to investigate possible effects of global climate change on the near‐surface concentrations of photochemical compounds in southern Germany, nested regional simulations with a coupled climate‐chemistry model were carried out. The simulations with a horizontal resolution of 60 km for Europe and 20 km for central Europe were driven by meteorological boundary conditions provided by a long‐term simulation of the global climate model ECHAM4. Two time slices of about 10 years were compared, one representing the 1990s and one representing the 2030s. For the region of southern Germany the simulations show an increase of the mean summer temperature by almost 2° along with a decrease of cloud water and ice and a corresponding increase of the photolysis frequencies and the emissions of biogenic hydrocarbons. Under the model assumption of unchanged anthropogenic emissions this leads to an increase of the mean mixing ratios of most photooxidants. Because of the complex topography and the heterogeneous distribution of precursor emissions all parameters show pronounced regional patterns. The average daily maximum ozone concentrations in southern Germany increase for the considered scenario by nearly 10% in the summer months. Depending on the region, the increase of the mean daily maximum ranges between 2 and 6 ppb. As a consequence, the number of days when the 8‐hour mean of the ozone concentration exceeds the threshold value of 120 μg m−3 increases by 5 to 12 days per year.

A critical analysis of monthly medians and variability of ionospheric parameters

We made a critical study of ionospheric variability using hourly values data of different characteristics from nine ionospheric stations in the northern hemisphere for one year of high solar activity, considering: a) “typical” diurnal variation and median trend; b) ionospheric quietness; c) variability versus solar and geomagnetic activity (different indices), and d) spatial correlation. We conclude that: the variability is temporally irregular; the monthly median diurnal variation is not always statistically representative of the “typical” diurnal variation for the given month; the variability is irregularly correlated to solar activity and weakly to the Ap geomagnetic index activity; spatial correlation are quite good at distances of about 500 Km in Europe.