•Significantly decreasing trend of GRACE is observed which indicates the serious terrestrial water depletion.•Soil moisture and runoff have significant decreasing linear trends in Aral Sea ...Basin.•Precipitation is the major climate factor positively impacting on the terrestrial water cycle components.
Assessments of the regional terrestrial water variabilities are important for improving our knowledges of the complex hydroclimate system and providing scientific information in regional water resource management under a changing environment due to climate change and intensified human activities. The Aral Sea Basin has experienced a serious ecological crisis which is majorly caused by the water resources due to the excessive water utilization. Therefore, in this study, we examine the long-term linear trend and variability of the terrestrial water cycle components based on multiple datasets over the Aral Sea Basin during 2003–2016. The terrestrial water cycle components include precipitation, evapotranspiration (ET), terrestrial water storage anomaly (TWSA), terrestrial water storage change (TWSC), runoff (R), soil moisture (SM) and groundwater. Major results show that increased trends of the annual precipitation and ET are observed during 2003–2016. For TWSA, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) derived datasets have significantly decreased trends with the values from −0.47 mm/mon to −0.29 mm/mon which reveal the serious terrestrial water depletion. Runoff, soil moisture and groundwater have the decreasing linear trends derived from multiple datasets. For the impacts of the climate factors on TWSA and TWSC, precipitation is the main climate factor with the significantly positive impacts. These results help us to have a better understanding of the complex hydrological process over the Aral Sea Basin, and provide a reliable scientific basic for police maker in the water resource management to achieve a sustainable development goal over the regions of the One Belt and One Road.
Among the aspects with major impacts on the energy and environmental performance of a building, the thermal insulation of the opaque elements of its envelope stands out. This work assesses the ...influence of the application of thermal insulation to the opaque elements of the building’s envelope on the thermal comfort conditions indoors; moreover, the influence of the thermal insulation on the energy, environmental, and economic costs over the building’s complete life cycle is evaluated. For this purpose, the three most commonly used thermal insulating materials (expanded polystyrene—EPS, extruded polystyrene—XPS, and mineral wool—MW), thicknesses between 0 (without insulation) and 40 cm, five climates (hot, warm, moderate, cold, and very cold), and six types of use (apartment, housing, clinic, school, bank branch, and supermarket) were considered. EPS reveals itself to be the most promising thermal insulation material, both in economic and environmental terms, so it was selected for this study. The EPS’ optimal thickness depends on the building’s type of use, the climate, and the perspective from which the assessment is carried out (energy, environmental, or economic). The results show that the economically optimal thicknesses of thermal insulation are significantly lower than the corresponding ones in environmental terms. Furthermore, the application of thermal insulation to the opaque building’s envelope is more beneficial in energy and environmental terms than from an economic perspective.
This paper reviews recent work on trends during this century in societal impacts (direct economic losses and fatalities) in the United States from extreme weather conditions and compares those with ...trends of associated atmospheric phenomena. Most measures of the economic impacts of weather and climate extremes over the past several decades reveal increasing losses. But trends in most related weather and climate extremes do not show comparable increases with time. This suggests that increasing losses are primarily due to increasing vulnerability arising from a variety of societal changes, including a growing population in higher risk coastal areas and large cities, more property subject to damage, and lifestyle and demographic changes subjecting lives and property to greater exposure.
Flood damages and fatalities have generally increased in the last 25 years. While some have speculated that this may be due in part to a corresponding increase in the frequency of heavy rain events, the climate contribution to the observed impacts trends remains to be quantified. There has been a steady increase in hurricane losses. However, when changes in population, inflation, and wealth are considered, there is instead a downward trend. This is consistent with observations of trends in hurricane frequency and intensity. Increasing property losses due to thunderstorm-related phenomena (winds, hail, tornadoes) are explained entirely by changes in societal factors, consistent with the observed trends in the thunderstorm phenomena. Winter storm damages have increased in the last 10–15 years and this appears to be partially due to increases in the frequency of intense nor’easters. There is no evidence of changes in drought-related losses (although data are poor) and no apparent trend in climatic drought frequency. There is also no evidence of changes in the frequency of intense heat or cold waves.
Resilience will be a defining quality of the twenty-first century. As we witness the increasingly turbulent effects of climate change, the multiple challenges of resource depletion and wage ...stagnation, we know that our current ways of living are not resilient. Our urban infrastructures, our buildings, our economies, our ways of managing and governing are still too tightly bound to models of unrestrained free-market growth, individualism and consumerism. Research has shown that the crises arising from climate change will become increasingly frequent and increasingly severe. It is also known that the effects of climate change are not evenly distributed across places and people, and neither are the resources needed to meet these challenges. We will need place-specific responses that engage with, and emerge from, citizens ourselves.
This volume takes resilience as a transformative concept to ask where and what architecture might contribute. Bringing together cross-disciplinary perspectives from architecture, urban design, art, geography, building science and psychoanalysis, it aims to open up multiple perspectives of research, spatial strategies and projects that are testing how we can build local resilience in preparation for major societal challenges, defining the position of architecture in urban resilience discourse.
Of today's great ice sheets, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet poses the most immediate threat of a large sea-level rise, owing to its potential instability. Complete release of its ice to the ocean would ...raise global mean sea level by four to six metres, causing major coastal flooding worldwide. Human-induced climate change may play a significant role in controlling the long-term stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and in determining its contribution to sea-level change in the near future.
Archaeological and ecological investigations in the Mirador
Basin of northern Guatemala have recovered archaeological,
phytolith, palynological, and pedological data relevant to the
early occupation ...and development of Maya civilization in a specific
environmental matrix. Fluctuation in vegetation types as evident
in cores and archaeological profiles suggest that the seasonally
wet, forested bajo environment currently found in the
northern Peten was anciently more of a perennially wet marsh
system that may have been heavily used and influenced by large
Preclassic occupations. Data suggest that climatic and
environmental factors correspond with the cultural process in
the Mirador Basin, and research in progress is oriented to further
elucidating these issues.
A comparison of archaeological data in the Atacama Desert and Australian arid zone shows the impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the last 5,000 years. Using a dataset of > 1400 ...radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites across the two regions as a proxy for population change, we develop radiocarbon density plots, which are then used to explore the responses of these prehistoric populations to ENSO climatic variability. Under an ENSO regime, precipitation is in anti-phase between Australia and coastal Chile. As ENSO also impacts marine resource productivity in Chile and advection of moisture from the Amazon Basin, the net effects of ENSO on subsistence economies on either side of the Tropical Pacific should be positively correlated. This is confirmed by cross-spectral analysis of the radiocarbon density plots, which shows that population responses on either side of the Tropical Pacific are synchronous (r = > 0.82). Both the Australian and Atacama desert records show a general increase in population from about 13 cal kyr BP, increasing through the mid-Holocene climatic optimum. Following the intensification of ENSO around 3.7 cal kyr BP, we can correlate 'boom and bust' cycles of occupation on both sides of the Pacific, including the collapse of the Atacama desert coastal economy and cultural system at 3 cal kyr BP and the decline of both the Atacama highlands and Central Australian dryland populations between 3-2 cal kyr BP. After 2 cal kyr BP adaptive responses to ENSO varied between these regions, though all dryland populations show resurgence in occupation.
In hot dry or warm humid climates, more than half of the urban peak load of energy consumption is used to satisfy air-conditioning demands alone. Since the urbanization rate in developing countries ...is extreme, the pressure placed on energy resources to satisfy the future requirements of the built environment will be great, unless new, more cost-effective measures can be introduced. Stay Cool is an essential guide for planning and design using active design principles and passive means to satisfy human comfort requirements specifically in these climate zones, based on examples of traditional and modern constructions. The book demonstrates how a design strategy for urban environments and individual buildings, incorporating naturally occurring resources and specific energy-efficient technologies, can create a location, form and structure that promote significant energy-savings. Such strategies can be applied to low cost housing, or indeed to any other buildings, in order to improve comfort with passive means and low energy budgets. Following an outline of climatic issues, characteristics and thermal comfort requirements, the book details the available techniques and technologies that can be used to shape both built and external environments, the building envelope, material selections and natural ventilation and cooling methods to satisfy both human requirements and the need for energy efficiency. It also includes an active design checklist and summary of available design checking tools, a rehabilitation guide for existing urban, building and external environments, and solar charts. Planners, architects, engineers, technicians and building designers will find Stay Cool an inspirational guide and an essential reference when working with planning and design of the built environment in hot dry and warm humid climate zones. It will also be of benefit to students, academics and researchers with an interest in sustainable and energy-efficient architecture techniques and practice.
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