@article{9026210a2c03402a86a6d8d8c13e045e,
title = "CropSuite v1.0 – a comprehensive open-source crop suitability model considering climate variability for climate impact assessment",
abstract = "Increasing demand for agricultural land resources and changing climate conditions require strategic land-use planning and the development of adaptation strategies. Therefore, information about the suitability of agricultural land is a prerequisite. Current suitability approaches often focus on single crops, can only be applied regionally, and usually neglect the impact of climate variability on crop suitability. Here, we introduce CropSuite, a new, comprehensive, and easy-to-use crop suitability model that allows us to overcome these shortcomings. It provides a graphical user interface (GUI) and a wide range of pre- and postprocessing options, including a tool for data analysis, which allows users to easily apply the model and analyze the results. Further, it includes a spatial downscaling approach to climate data, which enables crop suitability analysis at very high spatial resolution. CropSuite uses a fuzzy-logic approach and is based on the assumption of Liebig's law of the minimum. An expandable number of environmental and socioeconomic factors that affect crop suitability can be flexibly integrated into CropSuite by determining membership functions. CropSuite allows for the consideration of irrigated and rainfed agricultural systems, vernalization requirements for winter crops, lethal temperature thresholds, photoperiodic sensitivity, and several other limitations for crop growth. The model endogenously calculates and outputs climate, soil, and crop suitability, the optimal sowing and harvest dates, the potential for multiple cropping, the (most-)limiting factor(s), and the recurrence rate of potential crop failure according to the inter-annual climate variability.In this study, we apply CropSuite to 48 crops at a spatial resolution of 30 arcsec (1 km at the Equator) for Africa. Thereby, we consider regionally important staple and cash crops that are usually understudied, such as coffee, cassava, banana, oil palm, cocoa, cowpea, groundnuts, mango, millet, papaya, rubber, sesame, sorghum, sugar cane, tobacco, and yam. We find that the consideration of climate variability when calculating crop suitability makes a significant difference to suitable areas but also affects optimal sowing dates and multiple cropping potentials. The most vulnerable regions for climate variability are identified in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, and the Maghreb countries. The results provide valuable crop-specific information that can be further used for climate impact assessments, adaptation, and land-use planning at the global, regional, or local scale. CropSuite is provided as open-source code and could be of interest for model developers, scientists, and a wide range of potential users and stakeholders, such as farmers, companies, governmental organizations (GOs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).",
author = "Florian Zabel and Matthias Kn{\"u}ttel and Benjamin Poschlod",
year = "2025",
month = feb,
day = "24",
doi = "10.5194/gmd-18-1067-2025",
language = "English",
volume = "18",
pages = "1067--1087",
journal = "Geoscientific Model Development",
issn = "1991-959X",
publisher = "Copernicus Publications",
number = "4",
}
@article{8c17ecbefb7945e5b9127af9f58f2e45,
title = "Formation and fate of freshwater on an ice floe in the Central Arctic",
abstract = "The melt of snow and sea ice during the Arctic summer is a significant source of relatively fresh meltwater. The fate of this freshwater, whether in surface melt ponds or thin layers underneath the ice and in leads, impacts atmosphere–ice–ocean interactions and their subsequent coupled evolution. Here, we combine analyses of datasets from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition (June–July 2020) for a process study on the formation and fate of sea ice freshwater on ice floes in the Central Arctic. Our freshwater budget analyses suggest that a relatively high fraction (58 %) is derived from surface melt. Additionally, the contribution from stored precipitation (snowmelt) outweighs by 5 times the input from in situ summer precipitation (rain). The magnitude and rate of local meltwater production are remarkably similar to those observed on the prior Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) campaign, where the cumulative summer freshwater production totaled around 1 m during both. A relatively small fraction (10 %) of freshwater from melt remains in ponds, which is higher on more deformed second-year ice (SYI) compared to first-year ice (FYI) later in the summer. Most meltwater drains laterally and vertically, with vertical drainage enabling storage of freshwater internally in the ice by freshening brine channels. In the upper ocean, freshwater can accumulate in transient meltwater layers on the order of 0.1 to 1 m thick in leads and under the ice. The presence of such layers substantially impacts the coupled system by reducing bottom melt and allowing false bottom growth; reducing heat, nutrient, and gas exchange; and influencing ecosystem productivity. Regardless, the majority fraction of freshwater from melt is inferred to be ultimately incorporated into the upper ocean (75 %) or stored internally in the ice (14 %). Terms such as the annual sea ice freshwater production and meltwater storage in ponds could be used in future work as diagnostics for global climate and process models. For example, the range of values from the CESM2 climate model roughly encapsulate the observed total freshwater production, while storage in melt ponds is underestimated by about 50 %, suggesting pond drainage terms as a key process for investigation.",
author = "Smith, {Madison M.} and Niels Fuchs and Evgenii Salganik and Perovich, {Donald K.} and Ian Raphael and Granskog, {Mats A.} and Kirstin Schulz and Shupe, {Matthew D.} and Melinda Webster",
year = "2025",
month = feb,
day = "7",
doi = "10.5194/tc-19-619-2025",
language = "English",
volume = "19",
pages = "619–644",
journal = "The Cryosphere",
issn = "1994-0416",
publisher = "Copernicus Publications",
number = "2",
}
@article{c63966d432e04daeb2a7e259e7607b14,
title = "Lower carbon uptake rates resulting from converting wooded Cerrado to pasture-dominated agricultural area in the Brazilian savanna",
abstract = "Agricultural expansion in the Brazilian Cerrado ecoregion has been causing extensive land use and land cover changes (LULCC), drastically shifting the carbon cycle dynamics of the affected ecosystems. However, accurate in situ observations of the net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide (NEE) from wooded Cerrado (Cerrado sensu stricto) as well as from post-conversion agricultural landscapes are lacking, with the limited amount of impact assessments in the literature being primarily based on remotely sensed data. This study presents a multi-annual time series of temporal high-resolution eddy covariance carbon dioxide fluxes, measured on the border between a wooded Cerrado and a post-conversion agricultural area, primarily used as a pasture, in southeastern Brazil. We investigated multiple setups of NEE partitioning methods to separate NEE into its components gross primary production (GPP) and total ecosystem respiration (TER). We combined these component partitioning models with source area partitioning methods to estimate component fluxes for the two contrasting ecosystems within the tower footprint. Model results were compared against remotely sensed vegetation indices and flux data from similar ecosystems. We found that converting native wooded Cerrado to a pasture-dominated agricultural area decreased the landscape{\textquoteright}s NEE carbon (NEE-C) uptake by up to 494 g m-2 yr-1 (73 %). The wooded Cerrado had an annual cumulative NEE-C of -639 ± 20 g m-2 yr-1 and -673 ± 19 g m-2 yr-1 in 2019 and 2020, respectively. In comparison, the pasture had lower annual cumulative NEE-C of -146 ± 39 g m-2 yr-1 and -179 ± 38 g m-2 yr-1 in the same years. The pasture exhibited lower light use efficiency (LUE) and NEE-C uptake in the dry season, resulting in lower annual NEE-C uptake. Additionally, the pasture showed greater sensitivity to precipitation changes, leading to higher seasonal variations in carbon dioxide fluxes.",
author = "Yuqing Zhao and David Holl and Anache, {Jamil A.A.} and Kobayashi, {Alex N.A.} and Edson Wendland",
year = "2025",
month = may,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110465",
language = "English",
volume = "366",
journal = "Agricultural and forest meteorology",
issn = "0168-1923",
publisher = "Elsevier BV",
}
@article{78c9f8b25f68459499b67fae51dfafde,
title = "Soil organic carbon stocks and stabilization mechanisms in tidal marshes along estuarine gradients",
abstract = "Tidal marshes in estuaries store large amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC) and are dominated by the interaction of tidal inundation and salinity with biotic ecosystem components, leading to strong spatio-temporal heterogeneity. Little is known how these estuarine conditions affect SOC stabilization. Our aim was to assess (i) SOC stocks, (ii) SOC stabilization mechanisms (aggregation and mineral-association), and (iii) their environmental drivers along estuarine gradients. We analyzed SOC stocks and SOC density fractions in topsoil (0–10 cm) and subsoil (10–30 cm) of three marsh zones representing three flooding regimes (daily, monthly, yearly) in three marsh types along the salinity gradient (salt, brackish, freshwater) of the Elbe Estuary, Germany. The SOC stocks in 0–30 cm ranged between 9.3–74.6 t ha−1, and decreased with increasing salinity and flooding. This was linked to decreasing plant biomass and soil fine texture. Organic matter (OM) associated with minerals (CMAOM) constituted the largest SOC fraction (59 % of SOC), followed by aggregate-occluded OM (CoPOM) (24 %) and free particulate OM (CfPOM) (16 %). The CMAOM amount in topsoils decreased with increasing salinity, reflecting decreasing soil fine texture. Amounts of CoPOM were higher in topsoils and high marshes, indicating negative effects of flooding on aggregation. The contribution of CfPOM to total SOC increased with increasing flooding, likely related to its preservation under reducing soil conditions. Our results emphasize that increasing marine influence (rising salinity and flooding frequency) leads to a decrease in SOC content and stabilization. Therefore, sea–level rise has the potential to negatively impact SOC storage in estuarine marshes.",
keywords = "Mineral-associated organic matter, Salinity, Flooding, Density fractionation, Particulate organic matter, Aggregate-occluded organic matter, Elbe Estuary",
author = "Friederike Neiske and Maria Seedtke and Annette Eschenbach and Monica Wilson and Kai Jensen and Becker, {Joscha N.}",
year = "2025",
month = apr,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117274",
language = "English",
volume = "456",
journal = "Geoderma",
issn = "0016-7061",
publisher = "Elsevier BV",
}
@article{687fa63a9b334b9fba5fbbc825daaf67,
title = "The world{\textquoteright}s most venomous spider is a species complex: systematics of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atracidae: Atrax robustus)",
abstract = "The Sydney funnel-web spider Atrax robustus O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877 is an iconic Australian species and considered among the most dangerously venomous spiders for humans. Originally described in 1877 from a single specimen collected in “New Holland”, this spider has a complex taxonomic history. The most recent morphological revision of funnel-web spiders (Atracidae) lists this species as both widespread and common in the Sydney Basin bioregion and beyond, roughly 250 km from the Newcastle area south to the Illawarra, and extending inland across the Blue Mountains. Morphological variability and venom diversity in this species appear to be unusually high, raising questions about species concepts and diversity in these spiders. In this study, we use a combination of molecular phylogenetics, divergence time analyses and morphology to establish the Sydney funnel-web spider as a complex of three species. The “real” Sydney funnel-web spider Atrax robustus is relatively widespread in the Sydney metropolitan region. A second species, Atrax montanus (Rainbow, 1914), which is revalidated here, overlaps but mainly occurs further south and west, and a third larger species, Atrax christenseni sp. nov., is found in a small area surrounding Newcastle to the north. The revised taxonomy for funnel-web spiders may have practical implications for antivenom production and biochemical studies on spider venoms. Although no human fatalities have occurred since the development of antivenom in the 1980s, antivenom for Sydney funnel-web spiders might be optimized by considering biological differentiation at the species level.",
author = "Loria, {Stephanie F.} and Svea-Celina Frank and Nadine Dup{\'e}rr{\'e} and Smith, {Helen M.} and Braxton Jones and Buzatto, {Bruno A.} and Danilo Harms",
year = "2025",
month = jan,
day = "13",
doi = "10.1186/s12862-024-02332-0",
language = "English",
journal = "BMC Ecology and Evolution",
issn = "2730-7182",
publisher = "BioMed Central",
}
@article{d74a044b59784daa975819fc90211d18,
title = "Weakening AMOC reduces ocean carbon uptake and increases the social cost of carbon",
abstract = "A weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has been found to be globally beneficial by economic assessments. This result emerges because AMOC weakening would cool the Northern Hemisphere, thereby reducing expected climate damages and decreasing estimates of the global social cost of carbon dioxide (SCC). There are, however, many other impacts of AMOC weakening that are not yet taken into account. Here, we add a second impact channel by quantifying the effects of AMOC weakening on ocean carbon uptake, using biogeochemically-only coupled freshwater hosing simulations in the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model. Our simulations reveal an approximately linear relationship between AMOC strength and carbon uptake reductions, constituting a carbon cycle feedback that leads to higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and stronger global warming. This AMOC carbon feedback, when incorporated into an integrated climate-economy model, leads to additional economic damages of several trillion US dollars and raises the SCC by about 1%. The SCC increase is similar in magnitude, but of opposite sign, to the SCC effect of Northern Hemisphere cooling. While there are many other potentially relevant economic impact channels, the AMOC carbon feedback alone could thus flip the consequences of AMOC weakening into a net cost to society.",
author = "Felix Schaumann and {Alastru{\'e} de Asenjo}, Eduardo",
year = "2025",
month = mar,
day = "4",
doi = "10.1073/pnas.2419543122",
language = "English",
volume = "122",
journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)",
issn = "0027-8424",
publisher = "National Academy of Sciences",
number = "9",
}
@article{0e0d05080b9f4658b627ee838e27deb9,
title = "Wildfires offset the increasing but spatially heterogeneous Arctic–boreal CO2 uptake",
abstract = "The Arctic–Boreal Zone is rapidly warming, impacting its large soil carbon stocks. Here we use a new compilation of terrestrial ecosystem CO2 fluxes, geospatial datasets and random forest models to show that although the Arctic–Boreal Zone was overall an increasing terrestrial CO2 sink from 2001 to 2020 (mean ± standard deviation in net ecosystem exchange, −548 ± 140 Tg C yr−1; trend, −14 Tg C yr−1; P < 0.001), more than 30% of the region was a net CO2 source. Tundra regions may have already started to function on average as CO2 sources, demonstrating a shift in carbon dynamics. When fire emissions are factored in, the increasing Arctic–Boreal Zone sink is no longer statistically significant (budget, −319 ± 140 Tg C yr−1; trend, −9 Tg C yr−1), and the permafrost region becomes CO2 neutral (budget, −24 ± 123 Tg C yr−1; trend, −3 Tg C yr−1), underscoring the importance of fire in this region.",
author = "Anna-Maria Virkkala and Rogers, {Brendan M.} and Watts, {Jennifer D.} and Arndt, {Kyle A.} and Stefano Potter and Isabel Wargowsky and Schuur, {Edward A. G.} and See, {Craig R.} and Marguerite Mauritz and Julia Boike and Bret-Harte, {M. Syndonia} and Burke, {Eleanor J.} and Arden Burrell and Namyi Chae and Abhishek Chatterjee and Frederic Chevallier and Christensen, {Torben R.} and Roisin Commane and Han Dolman and Edgar, {Colin W.} and Bo Elberling and Emmerton, {Craig A.} and Euskirchen, {Eugenie S.} and Liang Feng and Mathias G{\"o}ckede and Achim Grelle and Manuel Helbig and David Holl and J{\"a}rvi J{\"a}rveoja and Karsanaev, {Sergey V.} and Hideki Kobayashi and Lars Kutzbach and Junjie Liu and Luijkx, {Ingrid T.} and Efr{\'e}n L{\'o}pez-Blanco and Kyle Lunneberg and Ivan Mammarella and Marushchak, {Maija E.} and Mikhail Mastepanov and Yojiro Matsuura and Maximov, {Trofim C.} and Lutz Merbold and Gesa Meyer and Nilsson, {Mats B.} and Yosuke Niwa and Walter Oechel and Palmer, {Paul I.} and Sang-Jong Park and Parmentier, {Frans-Jan W.} and Matthias Peichl and Wouter Peters and Roman Petrov and William Quinton and Christian R{\"o}denbeck and Torsten Sachs and Christopher Schulze and Oliver Sonnentag and {St. Louis}, {Vincent L.} and Eeva-Stiina Tuittila and Masahito Ueyama and Andrej Varlagin and Donatella Zona and Natali, {Susan M.}",
year = "2025",
month = jan,
day = "21",
doi = "10.1038/s41558-024-02234-5",
language = "English",
volume = "15",
pages = "188--195",
journal = "Nature Climate Change",
issn = "1758-678X",
publisher = "Nature Research",
}
@article{b83b056dc7824709ab72d9e406fd128d,
title = "Acclimation capacity to global warming of amphibians and freshwater fishes: Drivers, patterns, and data limitations",
abstract = "Amphibians and fishes play a central role in shaping the structure and function of freshwater environments. These organisms have a limited capacity to disperse across different habitats and the thermal buffer offered by freshwater systems is small. Understanding determinants and patterns of their physiological sensitivity across life history is, therefore, imperative to predicting the impacts of climate change in freshwater systems. Based on a systematic literature review including 345 experiments with 998 estimates on 96 amphibian (Anura/Caudata) and 93 freshwater fish species (Teleostei), we conducted a quantitative synthesis to explore phylogenetic, ontogenetic, and biogeographic (thermal adaptation) patterns in upper thermal tolerance (CTmax) and thermal acclimation capacity (acclimation response ratio, ARR) as well as the influence of the methodology used to assess these thermal traits using a conditional inference tree analysis. We found globally consistent patterns in CTmax and ARR, with phylogeny (taxa/order), experimental methodology, climatic origin, and life stage as significant determinants of thermal traits. The analysis demonstrated that CTmax does not primarily depend on the climatic origin but on experimental acclimation temperature and duration, and life stage. Higher acclimation temperatures and longer acclimation times led to higher CTmax values, whereby Anuran larvae revealed a higher CTmax than older life stages. The ARR of freshwater fishes was more than twice that of amphibians. Differences in ARR between life stages were not significant. In addition to phylogenetic differences, we found that ARR also depended on acclimation duration, ramping rate, and adaptation to local temperature variability. However, the amount of data on early life stages is too small, methodologically inconsistent, and phylogenetically unbalanced to identify potential life cycle bottlenecks in thermal traits. We, therefore, propose methods to improve the robustness and comparability of CTmax/ARR data across species and life stages, which is crucial for the conservation of freshwater biodiversity under climate change.",
keywords = "acclimation response ratio, Bogert effect, climate variability hypothesis, CT, developmental phenotypic plasticity, metamorphosis, thermal bottleneck, thermal tolerance plasticity",
author = "Katharina Ruthsatz and Flemming Dahlke and Katharina Alter and Sylke Wohlrab and Eterovick, {Paula C.} and Lyra, {Mariana L.} and Sven Gippner and Cooke, {Steven J.} and Peck, {Myron A.}",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2024 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",
year = "2024",
month = may,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1111/gcb.17318",
language = "English",
volume = "30",
journal = "Global Change Biology",
issn = "1354-1013",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "5",
}
@article{771646a9324b4606b997d44214065728,
title = "A climate vulnerability assessment of the fish community in the Western Baltic Sea",
abstract = "Marine fisheries are increasingly impacted by climate change, affecting species distribution and productivity, and necessitating urgent adaptation efforts. Climate vulnerability assessments (CVA), integrating expert knowledge, are vital for identifying species that could thrive or suffer under changing environmental conditions. This study presents a first CVA for the Western Baltic Sea's fish community, a crucial fishing area for Denmark and Germany. Characterized by a unique mix of marine, brackish, and freshwater species, this coastal ecosystem faces significant changes due to the combined effects of overfishing, eutrophication and climate change. Our CVA involved a qualitative expert scoring of 22 fish species, assessing their sensitivity and exposure to climate change. Our study revealed a dichotomy in climate change vulnerability within the fish community of the Western Baltic Sea because traditional fishing targets cod and herring as well as other species with complex life histories are considered to face increased risks, whereas invasive or better adaptable species might thrive under changing conditions. Our findings hence demonstrate the complex interplay between life-history traits and climate change vulnerability in marine fish communities. Eventually, our study provides critical knowledge for the urgent development of tailored adaptation efforts addressing existing but especially future effects of climate change on fish and fisheries in the Western Baltic Sea, to navigate this endangered fisheries systems into a sustainable future.",
keywords = "Climate change, Climate vulnerability assessment, Fish community, Trait-based sensitivity, Western Baltic Sea",
author = "Dorothee Moll and Harald Asmus and Alexandra Bl{\"o}cker and Uwe B{\"o}ttcher and Jan Conradt and Leonie F{\"a}rber and Nicole Funk and Steffen Funk and Helene Gutte and Hinrichsen, {Hans Harald} and Paul Kotterba and Uwe Krumme and Frane Madiraca and Meier, {H. E.Markus} and Steffi Meyer and Timo Moritz and Otto, {Saskia A.} and Guilherme Pinto and Patrick Polte and Riekhof, {Marie Catherine} and Victoria Sarrazin and Marco Scotti and Rudi Voss and Helmut Winkler and Christian M{\"o}llmann",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2024.",
year = "2024",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1038/s41598-024-67029-2",
language = "English",
volume = "14",
journal = "Scientific Reports",
issn = "2045-2322",
publisher = "Springer Nature",
number = "1",
}
@article{110b37943a4b47dfbcd522801ec92f9f,
title = "A missing link in the carbon cycle: phytoplankton light absorption under RCP emission scenarios",
abstract = "Marine biota and biogeophysical mechanisms, such as phytoplankton light absorption, have attracted increasing attention in recent climate studies. Under global warming, the influence of phytoplankton on the climate system is expected to change. Previous studies analyzed the impact of phytoplankton light absorption under prescribed future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, the role of this biogeophysical mechanism under freely evolving atmospheric CO2 concentration and future CO2 emissions remains unknown. To shed light on this research gap, we perform simulations with the EcoGEnIE Earth system model (ESM) and prescribe CO2 emissions out to the year 2500 following the four Extended Concentration Pathway (ECP) scenarios, which for practical purposes we call Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios. Under all RCP scenarios, our results indicate that phytoplankton light absorption leads to a shallower remineralization of organic matter and a reduced export efficiency, weakening the biological carbon pump. In contrast, this biogeophysical mechanism increases the surface chlorophyll by ∼ 2 %, the sea surface temperature (SST) by 0.2 to 0.6 °C, the atmospheric CO2 concentrations by 8 %–20 % and the atmospheric temperature by 0.3 to 0.9 °C. Under the RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 scenarios, the magnitude of changes due to phytoplankton light absorption is similar. However, under the RCP8.5 scenario, the changes in the climate system are less pronounced due to decreasing ecosystem productivity as temperature increases, highlighting a reduced effect of phytoplankton light absorption under strong warming. Additionally, this work highlights the major role of phytoplankton light absorption on the climate system, suggesting highly uncertain feedbacks on the carbon cycle with uncertainties that may be in the range of those known from the land biota.",
author = "R{\'e}my Asselot and Holden, {Philip B.} and Frank Lunkeit and Inga Hense",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.",
year = "2024",
month = jul,
day = "15",
doi = "10.5194/esd-15-875-2024",
language = "English",
volume = "15",
pages = "875--891",
journal = "Earth System Dynamics (ESD)",
issn = "2190-4979",
publisher = "Copernicus Publications",
number = "4",
}
