Latitudinal variation of the effect of aviation NOx emissions on atmospheric ozone and methane and related climate metrics

We evaluate the response to regional and latitudinal changes in aircraft NOx emissions using several climate metrics (radiative forcing (RF), Global Warming Potential (GWP), Global Temperature change Potential (GTP)). Global chemistry transport model integrations were performed with sustained perturbations in regional aircraft and aircraft-like NOx emissions. The RF due to the resulting ozone and methane changes is then calculated. We investigate the impact of emission changes for specific geographical regions (approximating to USA, Europe, India and China) and cruise altitude emission changes in discrete latitude bands covering both hemispheres. We find that lower latitude emission changes (per Tg N) cause ozone and methane RFs that are about a factor of 6 larger than those from higher latitude emission changes. The net RF is positive for all experiments. The meridional extent of the RF is larger for low latitude emissions. GWPs for all emission changes are positive, with tropical emissions having the largest values; the sign of the GTP depends on the choice of time horizon.

A theory of rational spatial agglomerations

We model the behavior of rational forward-looking agents in a spatial economy. The economic geography structure is built on Fujita et al. (1999)'s racetrack economy. Workers choose optimally what to consume at each period, as well as which spatial itinerary to follow in the geographical space. The spatial extent of the resulting agglomerations increases with the taste for variety and the expenditure share on manufactured goods, and decreases with transport costs. Because forward-looking agents anticipate the future formation of agglomerations, they are more responsive to spatial utility differentials than myopic agents. As a consequence, the emerging agglomerations are larger under perfect foresight spatial adjustments than under myopic ones.

How vegetation impacts affect climate metrics for ozone precursors

We examine the effect of ozone damage to vegetation as caused by anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursor species and quantify it in terms of its impact on terrestrial carbon stores. A simple climate model is then used to assess the expected changes in global surface temperature from the resulting perturbations to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. The concept of global temperature change potential (GTP) metric, which relates the global average surface temperature change induced by the pulse emission of a species to that induced by a unit mass of carbon dioxide, is used to characterize the impact of changes in emissions of ozone precursors on surface temperature as a function of time. For NOx emissions, the longer-timescale methane perturbation is of the opposite sign to the perturbations in ozone and carbon dioxide, so NOx emissions are warming in the short term, but cooling in the long term. For volatile organic compound (VOC), CO, and methane emissions, all the terms are warming for an increase in emissions. The GTPs for the 20 year time horizon are strong functions of emission location, with a large component of the variability owing to the different vegetation responses on different continents. At this time horizon, the induced change in the carbon cycle is the largest single contributor to the GTP metric for NOx and VOC emissions. For NOx emissions, we estimate a GTP20 of −9 (cooling) to +24 (warming) depending on assumptions of the sensitivity of vegetation types to ozone damage.

The benefits of a compute cluster approach to high spatial resolution biodiversity richness modelling: projecting the impact of climate change on Mediterranean flora

High spatial resolution environmental data gives us a better understanding of the environmental factors affecting plant distributions at fine spatial scales. However, large environmental datasets dramatically increase compute times and output species model size stimulating the need for an alternative computing solution. Cluster computing offers such a solution, by allowing both multiple plant species Environmental Niche Models (ENMs) and individual tiles of high spatial resolution models to be computed concurrently on the same compute cluster. We apply our methodology to a case study of 4,209 species of Mediterranean flora (around 17% of species believed present in the biome). We demonstrate a 16 times speed-up of ENM computation time when 16 CPUs were used on the compute cluster. Our custom Java ‘Merge’ and ‘Downsize’ programs reduce ENM output files sizes by 94%. The median 0.98 test AUC score of species ENMs is aided by various species occurrence data filtering techniques. Finally, by calculating the percentage change of individual grid cell values, we map the projected percentages of plant species vulnerable to climate change in the Mediterranean region between 1950–2000 and 2020.

Linking pesticide exposure and spatial dynamics: An individual-based model of wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) populations in agricultural landscapes

The wood mouse is a common and abundant species in agricultural landscape and is a focal species in pesticide risk assessment. Empirical studies on the ecology of the wood mouse have provided sufficient information for the species to be modelled mechanistically. An individual-based model was constructed to explicitly represent the locations and movement patterns of individual mice. This together with the schedule of pesticide application allows prediction of the risk to the population from pesticide exposure. The model included life-history traits of wood mice as well as typical landscape dynamics in agricultural farmland in the UK. The model obtains a good fit to the available population data and is fit for risk assessment purposes. It can help identify spatio-temporal situations with the largest potential risk of exposure and enables extrapolation from individual-level endpoints to population-level effects. Largest risk of exposure to pesticides was found when good crop growth in the “sink” fields coincided with high “source” population densities in the hedgerows. Keywords: Population dynamics, Pesticides, Ecological risk assessment, Habitat choice, Agent-based model, NetLogo

Behavioral and spatial analysis of extraterritorial movements in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)

Abstract: Movements away from the natal or home territory are important to many ecological processes, including gene flow, population regulation, and disease epidemiology, yet quantitative data on these behaviors are lacking. Red foxes exhibit 2 periods of extraterritorial movements: when an individual disperses and when males search neighboring territories for extrapair copulations during the breeding season. Using radiotracking data collected at 5-min interfix intervals, we compared movement parameters, including distance moved, speed of movement, and turning angles, of dispersal and reproductive movements to those made during normal territorial movements; the instantaneous separation distances of dispersing and extraterritorial movements to the movements of resident adults; and the frequency of locations of 95%, 60%, and 30% harmonic mean isopleths of adult fox home territories to randomly generated fox movements. Foxes making reproductive movements traveled farther than when undertaking other types of movement, and dispersal movements were straighter. Reproductive and dispersal movements were faster than territorial movements and also differed in intensity of search and thoroughness. Foxes making dispersal movements avoided direct contact with territorial adults and moved through peripheral areas of territories. The converse was true for reproductive movements. Although similar in some basic characteristics, dispersal and reproductive movements are fundamentally different both behaviorally and spatially and are likely to have different ultimate purposes and contrasting effects on spatial processes such as disease transmission

A comparative study of satellite and ground-based phenology

Long time series of ground-based plant phenology, as well as more than two decades of satellite-derived phenological metrics, are currently available to assess the impacts of climate variability and trends on terrestrial vegetation. Traditional plant phenology provides very accurate information on individual plant species, but with limited spatial coverage. Satellite phenology allows monitoring of terrestrial vegetation on a global scale and provides an integrative view at the landscape level. Linking the strengths of both methodologies has high potential value for climate impact studies. We compared a multispecies index from ground-observed spring phases with two types (maximum slope and threshold approach) of satellite-derived start-of-season (SOS) metrics. We focus on Switzerland from 1982 to 2001 and show that temporal and spatial variability of the multispecies index correspond well with the satellite-derived metrics. All phenological metrics correlate with temperature anomalies as expected. The slope approach proved to deviate strongly from the temporal development of the ground observations as well as from the threshold-defined SOS satellite measure. The slope spring indicator is considered to indicate a different stage in vegetation development and is therefore less suited as a SOS parameter for comparative studies in relation to ground-observed phenology. Satellite-derived metrics are, however, very susceptible to snow cover, and it is suggested that this snow cover should be better accounted for by the use of newer satellite sensors.

The distribution of London residential property prices and the role of spatial lock-in

Much of mainstream economic analysis assumes that markets adjust smoothly, through prices, to changes in economic conditions. However, this is not necessarily the case for local housing markets, whose spatial structures may exhibit persistence, so that conditions may not be those most suited to the requirements of modern-day living. Persistence can arise from the existence of transaction costs. The paper tests the proposition that housing markets in Inner London exhibit a degree of path dependence, through the construction of a three-equation model, and examines the impact of variables constructed for the 19th and early 20th centuries on modern house prices. These include 19th-century social structures, slum clearance programmes and the 1908 underground network. Each is found to be significant. The tests require the construction of novel historical datasets, which are also described in the paper.

Examining the large-scale spatial coherence of European drought using regional indicators of precipitation and streamflow deficit

Droughts tend to evolve slowly and affect large areas simultaneously, which suggests that improved understanding of spatial coherence of drought would enable better mitigation of drought impacts through enhanced monitoring and forecasting strategies. This study employs an up-to-date dataset of over 500 river flow time series from 11 European countries, along with a gridded precipitation dataset, to examine the spatial coherence of drought in Europe using regional indicators of precipitation and streamflow deficit. The drought indicators were generated for 24 homogeneous regions and, for selected regions, historical drought characteristics were corroborated with previous work. The spatial coherence of drought characteristics was then examined at a European scale. Historical droughts generally have distinctive signatures in their spatio-temporal development, so there was limited scope for using the evolution of historical events to inform forecasting. Rather, relationships were explored in time series of drought indicators between regions. Correlations were generally low, but multivariate analyses revealed broad continental-scale patterns, which appear to be related to large-scale atmospheric circulation indices (in particular, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the East Atlantic West Russia pattern). A novel methodology for forecasting was developed (and demonstrated with reference to the United Kingdom), which predicts drought from drought i.e. uses spatial coherence of drought to facilitate early warning of drought in a target region, from drought which is developing elsewhere in Europe.Whilst the skill of the methodology is relatively modest at present, this approach presents a potential new avenue for forecasting, which offers significant advantages in that it allows prediction for all seasons, and also shows some potential for forecasting the termination of drought conditions.

Pollinator community responses to the spatial population structure of wild plants: A pan-European approach

Land-use changes can alter the spatial population structure of plant species, which may in turn affect the attractiveness of flower aggregations to different groups of pollinators at different spatial scales. To assess how pollinators respond to spatial heterogeneity of plant distributions and whether honeybees affect visitation by other pollinators we used an extensive data set comprising ten plant species and their flower visitors from five European countries. In particular we tested the hypothesis that the composition of the flower visitor community in terms of visitation frequencies by different pollinator groups were affected by the spatial plant population structure, viz. area and density measures, at a within-population (‘patch’) and among-population (‘population’) scale. We found that patch area and population density were the spatial variables that best explained the variation in visitation frequencies within the pollinator community. Honeybees had higher visitation frequencies in larger patches, while bumblebees and hoverflies had higher visitation frequencies in sparser populations. Solitary bees had higher visitation frequencies in sparser populations and smaller patches. We also tested the hypothesis that honeybees affect the composition of the pollinator community by altering the visitation frequencies of other groups of pollinators. There was a positive relationship between visitation frequencies of honeybees and bumblebees, while the relationship with hoverflies and solitary bees varied (positive, negative and no relationship) depending on the plant species under study. The overall conclusion is that the spatial structure of plant populations affects different groups of pollinators in contrasting ways at both the local (‘patch’) and the larger (‘population’) scales and, that honeybees affect the flower visitation by other pollinator groups in various ways, depending on the plant species under study. These contrasting responses emphasize the need to investigate the entire pollinator community when the effects of landscape change on plant–pollinator interactions are studied.

Assessing the spatial and temporal variation in the skill of precipitation forecasts from an NWP model

It is becoming increasingly important to be able to verify the spatial accuracy of precipitation forecasts, especially with the advent of high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. In this article, the fractions skill score (FSS) approach has been used to perform a scale-selective evaluation of precipitation forecasts during 2003 from the Met Office mesoscale model (12 km grid length). The investigation shows how skill varies with spatial scale, the scales over which the data assimilation (DA) adds most skill, and how the loss of that skill is dependent on both the spatial scale and the rainfall coverage being examined. Although these results come from a specific model, they demonstrate how this verification approach can provide a quantitative assessment of the spatial behaviour of new finer-resolution models and DA techniques.

Spatial-temporal aspects of cost-benefit analysis for park management: an example from Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

Using a model calibrated to Khao Yai National Park in Thailand, this paper highlights the importance of generating explicitly spatial and temporal data for developing management plans for tropical protected forests. Spatial and temporal cost-benefit analysis should account for the interactions between different land uses – such as the benefits of contiguous areas of preserved land and edge effects – and the realities of villagers living near forests who rely on extracted resources. By taking a temporal perspective, this paper provides a rare empirical assessment of the importance of quasi-option values when determining optimal management plans.

The influence of markets and policy on spatial patterns of non-timber forest product extraction

When villagers extract resources, such as fuelwood, fodder, or medicinal plants from forests, their decisions over where and how much to extract are influenced by market conditions, their particular opportunity costs of time, minimum consumption needs, and access to markets. This paper develops an optimization model of villagers’ extraction behavior that clarifies how, and under what conditions, policies that create incentives such as improved returns to extraction in a buffer zone might be used instead of adversarial enforcement efforts to protect a forest’s pristine ‘‘inner core.’’