Table of Content

25 March 2007, Volume 17 Issue 1 Previous Issue    Next Issue

Climate and Environmental Change

The influence of micro-climate, snow cover, and soil moisture on ecosystem functioning in high mountains J?rg L?FFLER 2007, 17 (1):  3-19.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0003-3 Abstract ( )   PDF (1603KB) ( )   Save The dynamics of water and energy fluxes in the high mountains of central Norway was studied along micro-spatial topographic gradients in different altitudes and regions of the Scandes. Landscape ecological processes like snow accumulation during winter, snow melting, evaporation, percolation, soil moisture variability and temperature variations were quantified. Combining spatio-temporal data on physical environment functioning and vegeta-tion patterns resulted in a process-oriented characterisation of high mountain ecosystems. Extensive data from long-term measurements were synthesised illustrating the influence of micro-climate, snow cover, and soil moisture on high mountain ecosystem functioning. The results reveal that the micro-climatic impact on the vegetation is predominantly determined by snow cover overlaying soil moisture gradients. Water only becomes superior where near-surface water saturation and flooding occur. A lack of soil moisture availability was not found during any time of the year even under driest site conditions. Contrasting literature, the Norwegian mountain vegetation was found to be interpreted by environmental variable con-stellations excluding drought stress. Related Articles | Metrics

Changes and spatial patterns of the differences between ground and air temperature over the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau ZHANG Wengang, LI Shuxun, WU Tonghua, PANG Qiangqiang 2007, 17 (1):  20-32.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0020-2 Abstract ( )   PDF (816KB) ( )   Save The difference between ground soil and air temperature (Ts-Ta) was studied by using the data of ground and air temperature of 99 stations over the Qinghai–Xizang (Tibet) Plateau from 1960 to 2000,and its spatial distribution and time changing tendency have been diagnosed by principal component analysis and power spectral analysis methods. The results show that the values of (Ts-Ta) are the maximum in June and the minimum in December. The first three loading eigenvectors, which reflect the main spatially anomalous structure of (Ts-Ta) over the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau, contain the contrary changing pattern between the north-western and the southeastern regions, the pattern response of the sea level elevation and the geography, and the pattern response of the distribution of the permafrost. There are four patterns of time evolution including the patterns of monotonous increasing or decreasing trends, the basic stability pattern and the parabola pattern with the minimum value. (Ts-Ta) has a periodic variation about 2 years. According to the spatial distribution of the third loading eigenvectors of (Ts-Ta) over the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau in cold season, the permafrost re-sponse region and the seasonal frozen ground response region are identified. Related Articles | Metrics

Changing features of extreme precipitation in the Yangtze River basin during 1961-2002 ZHANG Zengxin| ZHANG Qiang, JIANG Tong 2007, 17 (1):  33-42.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0033-x Abstract ( )   PDF (581KB) ( )   Save The total precipitation of the highest 1 day, 3 day, 5 day and 7 day precipitation amount (R1D, R3D, R5D and R7D) in the Yangtze River basin was analyzed with the help of linear trend analysis and continuous wavelet transform method. The research results indi-cated that: 1) Spatial distribution of R1D is similar in comparison with that of R3D, R5D and R7D. The Jialingjiang and Hanjiang river basins are dominated by decreasing trend, which is significant at >95% confidence level in Jialingjiang River basin and insignificant at >95% con-fidence level in Hanjiang River basin. The southern part of the Yangtze River basin and the western part of the upper Yangtze River basin are dominated by significant increasing trend of R1D extreme precipitation at >95% confidence level. 2) As for the R3D, R5D and R7D, the western part of the upper Yangtze River basin is dominated by significant increasing trend at >95% confidence level. The eastern part of the upper Yangtze River basin is dominated by decreasing trend, but is insignificant at >95% confidence level. The middle and lower Yangtze River basin is dominated by increasing trend, but insignificant at >95% confidence level. 3) The frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events are intensified over time. Pre-cipitation anomalies indicated that the southeastern part, southern part and southwestern part of the Yangtze River basin are dominated by positive extreme precipitation anomalies be-tween 1993–2002 and 1961–1992. The research results of this text indicate that the occurrence probability of flash flood is higher in the western part of the upper Yangtze River basin and the middle and lower Yangtze River Related Articles | Metrics

Climate change comparison between Arctic and other areas in the Northern Hemisphere since the last Interstade XU Juan, WANG Guo, ZHANG Baiping 2007, 17 (1):  43-50.  doi: 1007/s11442-007-0043-8 Abstract ( )   PDF (225KB) ( )   Save Based on temperature reconstruction and proxy data from 14 sites in the Northern Hemisphere, this paper focused on comparing the cycles of temperature variations between the Arctic and other areas, including Atlantic, Europe, China, Asia, Pacific, Indian Ocean, and America during the transition from the last Interstade to the Last Glacial Maximum, from the Last Glacial Maximum to megathermal period in Holocene and the transition of the Little Ice Age (LIA) by the methods of Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) and Maximum Entropy Spec-trum (MES). The results showed that environmental changes in the Arctic are most similar to that in the North American and better similar to Asia, Atlantic and Pacific, the least similar to Indian Ocean and Europe. The 1500-year oscillation of temperature existed both in Arctic and Europe. Related Articles | Metrics

Streamflow trends and hydrological response to climatic change in Tarim headwater basin JIANG Yan, ZHOU Chenghu, CHENG Weiming 2007, 17 (1):  51-61.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0051-8 Abstract ( )   PDF (832KB) ( )   Save This paper has studied the change of streamflow and the impact of climatic vari-ability conditions on regional hydrological cycle in the headwater of the Tarim River Basin. This study investigates possible causes of observed trends in streamflow in an environment which is highly variable in terms of atmospheric conditions, and where snow and ice melt play an important role in the natural hydrological regime. The discharge trends of three head streams have a significant increase trend from 1957 to 2002 with the Mann–Kendall test. Complex time-frequency distributions in the streamflow regime are demonstrated especially by Morlet wavelet analysis over 40 years. The purpose is to ascertain the nature of climatic factors spatial and temporal distribution, involved the use of EOF (Empirical Orthogonal Function) to compare the dominant temperature, precipitation and evaporation patterns from normally climatic records over the Tarim’s headwater basin. It shows that the first principal component was dominated since the 1990s for temperature and precipitation, which identifies the significant ascending trend of spatial and temporal pattern characteristics under the con-dition of the global warming. An exponential correlation is highlighted between surface air temperature and mean river discharge monthly, so the regional runoff increases by 10%–16% when surface air temperature rises by 1℃. Results suggest that headwater basins are the most vulnerable environments from the point of view of climate change, because their wa-tershed properties promote runoff feeding by glacier and snow melt water and their funda-mental vulnerability to temperature changes affects rainfall, snowfall, and glacier and ice melt. Related Articles | Metrics

Environmental changes during modern period from the record of Gaoyou Lake sediments, Jiangsu LI Shuheng, FU Guanghe, GUO Wei, HE Huachun, ZHANG Zhenke 2007, 17 (1):  62-72.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0062-5 Abstract ( )   PDF (431KB) ( )   Save Based on analysis of parameters of cores taken from Gaoyou Lake, including magnetic susceptibility, grain-size characteristics and sedimentary rate, environmental changes during the modern period were examined with the assistance of historical records and Gaoyou Lake water level materials. It is concluded that during the modern period a higher value of magnetic susceptibility and a lower sediment grain size coincided with a wet climate, while a lower value of magnetic susceptibility and a higher grain size were related with a dry climate. The results indicate that the climate in the 123 years period from 1880 to 2003AD can be divided into four stages: two low water level stages (1880–1915AD, 1948–1981AD) and two high water level stages (1915–1948AD, 1981–2003AD). It appears that the regional cli-mate generally underwent a dry–wet–dry–wet pattern in 30-year cycles. At present, it is at the end of a wet period, so the regional climate is expected to become dry in the near future. This conclusion corresponds with the climate records in the historical literature of the Gaoyou area, and it also matches with the climatic changes in North Jiangsu area. Related Articles | Metrics

Improved version of BTOPMC model and its application in event-based hydrologic simulations WANG Guoqiang, ZHOU Maichun, TAKEUCHI Kuniyoshi, ISHIDAIRA Hiroshi 2007, 17 (1):  73-84.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0073-2 Abstract ( )   PDF (501KB) ( )   Save In this paper, a grid-based distributed hydrological model BTOPMC (Block-wise use of TOPMODEL) is introduced, which was developed from the original TOPMODEL. In order to broaden the model’s application to arid regions, improvement methodology is also implemented. The canopy interception and soil infiltration processes were incorporated into the original BTOPMC to model event-based runoff simulation in large arid regions. One de-signed infiltration model with application of time compression approximation method is emphasized and validated for improving model’s performance for event hydrological simulations with a case study of Lushi River basin. Related Articles | Metrics

The characteristics of dike-break flood in different scenarios of the lower Yellow River based on numerical simulations MA Xin, YANG Peiguo, YANG Qinye, KANG Xiangwu, XIA Fuqiang 2007, 17 (1):  85-100.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0085-y Abstract ( )   PDF (596KB) ( )   Save The lower Yellow River still faces the threat of flood due to the unusual precipita-tion caused by global environmental change, river channel sedimentation, hidden danger in the dike and unfavorable river regime of “hanging river”. According to the characteristics of the dike-break flood of the Yellow River, this paper has simulated, in six different scenarios, the dike-break flood routing by inputting the terrain data, typical historical flood data and land use data of study area to two-dimensional unsteady flow model. The results show that: firstly, the routing process of flood will occupy other rivers on the way and return to the rivers after reaching the lower reaches; secondly, in the same river reach, flood inundating area of north band is bigger than that at corresponding location of south bank under the same historical flood; thirdly, it is different in the degree of flood inundation in different regions due to different geographical locations in flood plain; fourthly, the area of mainstream where flood is deep and flow velocity is quick is relatively smaller, but the area of non-mainstream, where flood is shallow and flow velocity is slow, is relatively big; and finally, the possible influenced area of the dike-break flood is 141,948 km2. Related Articles | Metrics

Trends of soil organic matter turnover in the salt marsh of the Yangtze River estuary CHEN Qingqiang, GU Hequan, ZHOU Juzhen, MENG Yi, HU Kelin 2007, 17 (1):  101-113.  doi: 10.1007/s11442-007-0101-2 Abstract ( )   PDF (383KB) ( )   Save Characteristics and tidal flat trends of soil organic matter (SOM) turnover were studied for the Chongmingdongtan Salt Marsh in the Yangtze River estuary, based on analyses of stable carbon isotope composition (δ13C), grain sizes and contents of particulate organic carbon (POC), total nitrogen (TN) and inorganic carbon (TIC) for three cores exca-vated from high tidal flat, middle tidal flat and bare flat. Results demonstrate that correlations between soil POC contents and δ13C values of the salt marsh cores were similar to those between soil organic carbon (SOC) contents and δ13C values of the upper soil layers of mountainous soil profiles with different altitudes. SOM of salt marsh was generally younger than 100 years, and originated mainly from topsoil erosions in catchments of the Yangtze River. Correlations of TN content with C/N ratio, POC content with TIC content and POC content with δ13C values for the cores suggest that turnover degrees of SOM from the salt marsh are overall low, and trends of SOM turnover are clear from the bare flat to the high tidal flat. Bare flat samples show characteristics of original sediments, with minor SOM turnover. Turnover processes of SOM have occurred and are discernable in the high and middle tidal flats, and the mixing degrees of SOM compartments with different turnover rates increase with evolution of the muddy tidal flat. The exclusive strata structure of alternate muddy lami-nae and silty laminae originated from dynamic depositional processes on muddy tidal flat was a great obstacle to vertical migration of dissolved materials, and SOM turnover was then constrained. The muddy tidal flat processes exerted direct influences on sequestration and turnover of SOM in the salt marsh, and had great constraints on the spatial and temporal characteristics of SOM turnover of the Chongmingdongtan Salt Marsh in the Yangtze River estuary. Related Articles | Metrics