Herders note that autumn seems colder and longer. The winters are generally colder and have more snow, though 2011 had little snow compared to other years. Herders were not concerned about dzuds, or extreme winter weather conditions, as reindeer are well adapted to cold winds and deep snow. The herders sometimes experience frozen pastures (as in August 2009). While frozen pastures are a disaster to tundra reindeer husbandry, the taiga herders ...

Climate change affect the health of the population, not only through heat waves and waterborne diseases, but also as a result of the expansion of geographical areas conducive to the transmission of vector-borne diseases such as yellow fever, dengue and malaria. Species of mosquitoes, such as the group ‘Anopheles gambiae’, ‘A. funestus’, ‘A. darlingi’, ‘Culex quinquefasciatus’ and ‘Aedes aegypti’, are responsible for propagation of the majority of...

Mean sea surface temperature in winter and summer

The Caspian Sea region is climatically diverse encompassing the basins of the Volga and Ural rivers in the North, the vast semi-arid and hot arid plains of northern Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the east, and the humid Caucasus and Elburz mountains in the south-west. The Caspian Sea plays an important role in atmospheric processes, regional water balance and microclimate. Climatic phenomena in the Caspian are linked to the Northern At...

(a) Current (early 2000s) and (b) climate-shifted distributions of the small yellow croaker Larimichthys polyactis (Sciaenidae). The climate-shifted distribution was predicted by a dynamic bioclimate envelope model described by Cheung et al. (2008), under a hypothetical increase in average global ocean temperature of 2.5°C. Boundaries of Exclusive Economic Zones are delineated by the dashed lines.

Temperature monitoring in Canada indicates a warming of shallow permafrost over the last two to three decades. Since the mid-1980s, shallow permafrost (upper 20-30 m) has generally warmed in the Mackenzie Valley. The greatest increases in temperature were 0.3 to 1°C per decade in the cold and thick permafrost of the central and northern valley. In the southern Mackenzie Valley, where permafrost is thin and close to 0°C, no significant trend in pe...

The most recent geological history, in the last hundred thousand years, has been characterised by cycles of glaciations, or ice ages. The historic temperatures, through these times, have been low, and continental ice sheets have covered large parts of the world. Through ancient air, trapped in tiny bubbles in the Antarctic ice, we have been able to see what the temperature cycle was at that time, and also the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2)...

Warming is widespread, generally greater over land than over oceans, and the largest gains in temperatures for the planet are over the North American Arctic, north central Siberia, and on the Antarctic Peninsula. These recent increases in temperature are confirmed by changes in other features: loss of sea ice, shift of tundra to shrub vegetation, and migration of marine and terrestrial ecosystems to higher latitudes.

The global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6 degrees Celsius. This increase in temperature is likely to have been the largest for any century in the last 1000 years. Evidence from tree ring records, used to reconstruct temperatures over this period, suggests that the 1990s was the warmest period in a millennium. It is very likely that nearly all land areas will warm more rapidly than the global average, ...

The global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6 degrees Celsius. This increase in temperature is likely to have been the largest for any century in the last 1000 years.

As we can see from models of temperature changes caused by natural forcing, we should have observed a decrease in the global average temperature lately, but we have not. We have observed an increase. A climate model can be used to simulate the temperature changes that occur from both natural and anthropogenic causes. The simulations in a) were done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. In b) only anthropogenic forc...

Sensitivity is the degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate-related stimuli. Climate-related stimuli encompass all the elements of climate change, including mean climate characteristics, climate variability, and the frequency and magnitude of extremes. The effect may be direct (e.g., a change in crop yield in response to a change in the mean, range or variability of temperature) or indirect (e.g., damages...

Increasing temperatures will likely affect major crops such as tea in Kenya. Major impacts on food production will come from changes in temperature, moisture levels, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, CO2 levels, and pests and diseases. This graphic shows the current locations of tea-growing areas in Kenya, and how some of these areas are expected to become less suitable for tea-growing if there is a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius.

Zimbabwe is experiencing more hot days and fewer cold days, and the amount of precipitation it receives is deviating from the mean more frequently. This resource includes two graphics. The first shows the number of days with a minimum temperature of 12 degrees Celsius and the number of days with a minimum temperature of 30 degrees Celsius from 1950 to 1990. The second graphic shows the amount of precipitation in millimetres that was a departure f...

Shows the increase in dengue fever as temperature rises in correlation with El Niño in Trinidad and Tobago. There is neither good prophylactic nor cure for dengue fever, a disease spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. There are four different strains of the disease. Infection by one of the strains does not provide immunity against the other strains. The symptoms range from a non-specific viral syndrome to fatal hemorrhagic disease. Increasing tem...

Variability in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index 1982-2004, and temperature variation for those years - plus or minus 3 degrees maximum in those years of the ENSO events in the Pacific Ocean and affected region.

Glaciers grow and retreat at intervals depending on local climate changes, particularly variations in temperature and precipitation . Retreating and diminishing mountain glaciers all over the world, except in the Antarctica, indicate a general trend of global warming.

There is now ample evidence of a major retreat of most mountain glaciers during the last 100 years in response to widespread increases in temperature. In recent decades, the rate of glacial recession has increased tremendously. Mountain glaciers supply moisture to mountain forests during thedry and warm seasons. With retreating mountain glaciers, the risk of forest fires increases, with a subsequent reduction of forested areas. Smaller glaciers...

Global average temperature increased by 0.6 ° C over the last century, while sea levels rose by 9 to 20 cm. The IPCC projects increases in the global average surface temperature by between 1.4°C and 5.8°C and in sea level by between 9 and 88 cm. Sea level rise in combination with hurricane landfalls presents one of the greatest climate-related hazards in tropical Latin America. From 1945 to 1990 there had been an overall decrease in the number ...

The amount of aerosols in the air has direct effect on the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth's surface. Aerosols may have significant local or regional impact on temperature. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, but at the same time the upper white surface of clouds reflects solar radiation back into space. Albedo - reflections of solar radiation from surfaces on the Earth - creates difficulties in exact calculations. If e.g. the polar ice...