Extreme Events Flashcards
Are trends chronic or acute?
Chronic
Are extreme events chronic or acute?
Acute
What do trends include?
Mean temperatures
Mean precipitation
CO2
What do extreme events include?
Droughts/heavy rainfall
Heat waves
Storms
How is global extreme heat being affected?
Global number of record-breaking monthly temperature extremes is six times larger than expected with no climate change
How are storms being affected?
Northern hemisphere temperature is increasing
Tropical Atlantic Sea surface temperature is increasing
The power dissipation index of storms is increasing as sea surface temperature increases
Sea surface temperature is key for giving energy to storms
What are the ecological implications of extreme events?
Pass lethal threshold
Accelerate changes by reducing inertia
Results in a system with a new balance under new trend climatic conditions
What are the ecological implications of trend climate change?
Extreme events push organisms pass their lethal thresholds
May wipe out biomass and a better adapted organism grows instead
Creates a new organism/ecosystem
What are the ecological implications of extreme climate change?
Extreme events wipe out a species
A new species moves in faster than another and takes over
Becomes the dominant species in that ecosystem
What counts as extreme?
Climatically = in the 95th percentile
Ecologically = abruptness
What is the equation of abruptness?
Abruptness = magnitude/duration
Therefore, high magnitude and short duration would cause steep abruptness
Why is ecological extreme hard to agree on?
Duration can differ depending on an organism’s lifespan
Which can make ecological extremes messy
How do extreme events affect the arctic?
Warm air blows in and causes snow to melt
Re-freezes when the warm weather leaves
This means ice encasement and ice lenses increase and this causes:
* plants to become inaccesable
* damage to the plants therefore reduces the amount of summer food
How does ground ice affect reindeer populations?
Ground ice increases
Reindeer population decreases as population growth falls below zero
How are trophic intercations drive by extreme events in
