Spatial Impacts of Climate Change. Denis Mercier

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4).

      At the regional scale, the spatial impacts of contemporary climate change are being addressed using a variety of approaches. By modifying the cryosphere in high latitudes and high mountains, changes in climate induce changes in the paraglacial sedimentary cascade (see Chapter 5) and periglacial environments (see Chapter 6). River organisms in cold environments (see Chapter 7) and temperate environments (see Chapter 8) record climate change in different ways. The melting glaciers of Central Asia place the consequences of climate change at the heart of geopolitical issues in this region (see Chapter 9).

      At the local level, the impact of rainier season droughts in the western Mediterranean basin on Spanish rain-fed agriculture provides a link between regional climate dynamics and local impacts (see Chapter 10).

      Multi-scalar approaches also make it possible to show the stakes of contemporary climate change on viticulture (see Chapter 11), on the scale of the Amazon basin (see Chapter 12), on the distribution of biomes (see Chapter 13) or on the distribution of birds (see Chapter 14).

      In all the chapters, the examples analyzed underline the importance of geographical approaches for the study of the impacts of contemporary climate change.

      I.3. References

      Jones, M.W., Smith, A., Bettes, R., Canadell, J.G., Prentice, C., Le Quere, C. (2020). Climate change increases the risk of wildfires. ScienceBrief [Online]. Available at: https://sciencebrief.org/topics/climate-change-science/wildfires.

      Kämpf, J. and Kavi, A. (2019). SST variability in the eastern intertopical Indian Ocean - On the search for trigger mechanisms of IOD events. Deep Sea Research Part II: Tropical Studies in Oceanography, 166, 64-74.

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      Climate Change at Different Temporal and Spatial Scales

       Denis Mercier

       Sorbonne University, Paris, France

      Contemporary climate change refers to the period from 1850 to the present day and covers the period from the Industrial Revolution to the digital revolution. It also covers a period during which humanity experienced a population explosion, reaching 1 billion people for the first time in 1820. On January 1, 2020, the human population was estimated at 7.7 billion and is expected to reach 11 billion by 2100, according to the UN.

      Through the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) and increased agricultural production to feed the world’s growing population, these elements contribute to increasing humanity’s role in the climate machine.

      (source: Sato and Hansen, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia University Earth Institute, 2020). For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mercier/climate.zip

      This non-linear temperature evolution over time is not spatially homogeneous (see Figure 1.2). These maps illustrate general trends. Continental land areas record this contemporary global warming better than ocean surfaces; of these continental land surfaces, those with a hypercontinental climate such as Siberia are experiencing the greatest temperature increases.

      Figure 1.2. Average surface temperature per decade from 1910 to 2017 compared to the 1951-1980 average. For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mercier/climate.zip

       (source: 2018 NASA-GISS temperature data, downloaded from https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/)

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