Northern agriculture : constraints and responses to global climate change

Selostus: Maatalous pohjoisilla äärialueilla: ilmastolliset rajoitukset ja ilmaston muutosten vaikutukset viljelyyn

Hiilidioksidin lisääntymisen vaikutus Pohjois-Euroopan ilmastoon globaaleissa ilmastomalleissa

English abstract: The impact of increasing carbon dioxide on the climate of northern Europe in global climate models

The application of agricultural land rating and crop models to CO2 and climate change issues in Northern regions : the Mackenzie Basin case study

Selostus: Viljelyvyöhykkeiden ja kasvumallien soveltaminen ilmastonmuutoksen tutkimisessa: Mackenzien jokialue, Kanada

Climate change and global responsibility - the role of energy consumption, GDP and CO2 emissions

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges faced by this generation. Despite being the single most important environmental challenge facing the planet and despite over two decades of international climate negotiations, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise. By the middle of this century, GHGs must be reduced by as much as 40-70% if dangerous climate change is to be avoided. In the Kyoto Protocol no quantitative emission limitation and reduction commitments were placed on the developing countries. For the planning of the future commitments period and possible participation of developing countries, information of the functioning of the energy systems, CO2 emissions development in different sectors, energy use and technological development in developing countries is essential. In addition to the per capita emissions, the efficiency of the energy system in relation to GHG emissions is crucial for the decision of future long-term burden sharing between countries. Country’s future development of CO2 emissions can be defined by the estimated CO2 intensity of the future and the estimated GDP growth. The changes in CO2 intensity depend on several factors, but generally developed countries’ intensity has been increasing in the industrialization phase and decreasing when their economy shifts more towards the system dominated by the service sector. The level of the CO2 intensity depends by a large extent on the production structure and the energy sources that are used. Currently one of the most urgent issues regarding global climate change is to decide the future of the Kyoto Protocol. Negotiations on this topic have already been initiated, with the aim of being finalised by the 2015. This thesis provides insights into the various approaches that can be used to characterise the concept of comparable efforts for developing countries in a future international climate agreement. The thesis examines the post-Kyoto burden sharing questions for developing countries using the contraction and convergence model, which is one approach that has been proposed to allocate commitments regarding future GHG emissions mitigation. This new approach is a practical tool for the evaluation of the Kyoto climate policy process and global climate change negotiations from the perspective of the developing countries.

Assessing the risks and uncertainties of regional crop potential under changing climate in Finland

Selostus: Arviointi Suomen kasvintuotantopotentiaalin alueellisista riskeistä ja epävarmuuksista ilmaston muuttuessa

Potential economic effects of climate change on Finnish agriculture

Selostus: Ilmastonmuutoksen taloudelliset vaikutukset suomalaiseen maatalouteen

Impact of global warming on potato late blight : risk, yield loss and control

Selostus: Ilmaston lämpenemisen vaikutus perunaruttoon

Developing scenarios of atmosphere, weather and climate for northern regions

Selostus: Ilmakehä-, sää- ja ilmastoskenaarioiden kehittäminen pohjoisille alueille

On state and parameter estimation in chaotic systems

State-of-the-art predictions of atmospheric states rely on large-scale numerical models of chaotic systems. This dissertation studies numerical methods for state and parameter estimation in such systems. The motivation comes from weather and climate models and a methodological perspective is adopted. The dissertation comprises three sections: state estimation, parameter estimation and chemical data assimilation with real atmospheric satellite data. In the state estimation part of this dissertation, a new filtering technique based on a combination of ensemble and variational Kalman filtering approaches, is presented, experimented and discussed. This new filter is developed for large-scale Kalman filtering applications. In the parameter estimation part, three different techniques for parameter estimation in chaotic systems are considered. The methods are studied using the parameterized Lorenz 95 system, which is a benchmark model for data assimilation. In addition, a dilemma related to the uniqueness of weather and climate model closure parameters is discussed. In the data-oriented part of this dissertation, data from the Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars (GOMOS) satellite instrument are considered and an alternative algorithm to retrieve atmospheric parameters from the measurements is presented. The validation study presents first global comparisons between two unique satellite-borne datasets of vertical profiles of nitrogen trioxide (NO3), retrieved using GOMOS and Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) satellite instruments. The GOMOS NO3 observations are also considered in a chemical state estimation study in order to retrieve stratospheric temperature profiles. The main result of this dissertation is the consideration of likelihood calculations via Kalman filtering outputs. The concept has previously been used together with stochastic differential equations and in time series analysis. In this work, the concept is applied to chaotic dynamical systems and used together with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for statistical analysis. In particular, this methodology is advocated for use in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate model applications. In addition, the concept is shown to be useful in estimating the filter-specific parameters related, e.g., to model error covariance matrix parameters.

Climate Change and Ethics of Geoengineering -- Implications Of Climate Emergency Ethics

Global climate change and intentional climate modification, i.e. geoengineering include various ethical problems which are entangled as a complex ensemble of questions regarding the future of the biosphere. The possibilities of catastrophic effects of climate change which are also called “climate emergency” have led to the emergence of the idea of modifying the atmospheric conditions in the form of geoengineering. The novel issue of weather ethics is a subdivision of climate ethics, and it is interested in ethical and political questions surrounding weather and climate control and modification in a restricted spatio-temporal scale. The objective of geoengineering is to counterbalance the adverse effects of climate change and its diverse corollaries in various ways on a large scale. The claim of this dissertation is that there are ethical justifications to claim that currently large-scale interventions to the climate system are ethically questionable. The justification to pursue geoengineering on the basis of considering its pros and cons, is inadequate. Moral judgement can still be elaborated in cases where decisions have to be made urgently and the selection of desirable choices is severely limited. The changes needed to avoid severe negative impacts of climate change requires commitment to mitigation as well as social changes because technical solutions cannot address the issue of climate change altogether. The quantitative emphasis of consumerism should shift to qualitative focus on the aspiration for simplicity in order to a move towards the objective of the continuation of the existence of humankind and a flourishing, vital biosphere.

Monitoring and predicting crop growth and analysing agricultural ecosystems by remote sensing

Selostus: Maatalousekosysteemien analysointi ja sadon ennustaminen kaukokartoituksen avulla

Modelling growth and nitrogen balance of barley under ambient and future conditions

Selostus: Ohran kasvun ja typpidynamiikan mallintaminen nykyisissä ja tulevaisuuden olosuhteissa

The effects of prolonged exposure to elevated temperatures and elevated CO2 levels on the growth, yield and dry matter partitioning of field-sown meadow fescue

Selostus: Kohotetun lämpötilan ja kohotetun CO2-pitoisuuden vaikutukset peltoon kylvetyn nurminadan kasvuun, satoon ja kuiva-aineen jakautumiseen

An overview of how rubisco and carbohydrate metabolism may be regulated at elevated atmospheric [CO2] and temperature

Selostus: Hiilihydraatti- ja proteiiniaineenvaihdunnan säätely kohonneen hiilidioksidipitoisuuden ja lämpötilan vallitessa

Plant adaptation to temperature and photoperiod

Selostus: Kasvien sopeutuminen lämpötilaan ja päivän pituuteen