Climate change, climate modes, and climate impacts

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“….large-scale seasonal indices…are remarkably good

predictiors of ecological variation…” (Hallet et al 2004)

Modal variability

Ecological correlations with modes and IAV are known

from:

• Terrestrial

• Marine

• Physiological

• Ecosystem

• Community

• Population

Climate and Ecosystems

The challenge facing ecologists is to identify the appropriate climatic variables to use (Hallet et al 2004)

Moist

Frozen

Dry

Ecosystems respond to syndromes of climate: energy balance, water balance and not single

variables

Growing season lengthNote the reversed signs: warm springs mean dry summers

Modes and IAV

1. Periodic

2. Spatially coherent

3. Correlated changes in physics

4. Climate changes may be “projected” into modal patterns and frequencies

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Modes and IAV

1. Produce spatially correlated responses

2. Modify multiple governing variables simultaneously

3. Affect populations by spatial correlation, producing long-term effects by e.g. affecting entire age cohorts

Interannual variability carbon fluxes

Bacastow and Keeling

Whoa

Clues to complex causation

Most of the Indonesian wildfire burned in landscapes like those to the right

Was this ENSO or land use change

Or is that the wrong question?

Climate affects ecosystems and ecosystem services

It always has, but the nature and severity of the responses, the

vulnerability, of human-dominated systems is different from that of

more natural systems