Aalto, Juha and Pirinen, Pentti and Kauppi, Pekka E and Rantanen, Mika and Lussana, Cristian and Lyytikainen-Saarenmaa, Paivi and Gregow, Hilppa
(2021).
High-resolution analysis of observed thermal growing season variability over northern Europe.
Climate Dynamics
[Research article]
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Abstract
Strong historical and predicted future warming over high-latitudes prompt significant effects on agricultural and forest ecosystems. Thus, there is an urgent need for spatially-detailed information of current thermal growing season (GS) conditions and their past changes. Here, we deployed a large network of weather stations, high-resolution geospatial environmental data and semi-parametric regression to model the spatial variation in multiple GS variables (i.e. beginning, end, length, degree day sum [GDDS, base temperature + 5 degrees C]) and their intra-annual variability and temporal trends in respect to geographical location, topography, water and forest cover, and urban land use variables over northern Europe. Our analyses revealed substantial spatial variability in average GS conditions (1990-2019) and consistent temporal trends (1950-2019). We showed that there have been significant changes in thermal GS towards earlier beginnings (on average 15 days over the study period), increased length (23 days) and GDDS (287 degrees C days). By using a spatial interpolation of weather station data to a regular grid we predicted current GS conditions at high resolution (100 m x 100 m) and with high accuracy (correlation >= 0.92 between observed and predicted mean GS values), whereas spatial variation in temporal trends and interannual variability were more demanding to predict. The spatial variation in GS variables was mostly driven by latitudinal and elevational gradients, albeit they were constrained by local scale variables. The proximity of sea and lakes, and high forest cover suppressed temporal trends and inter-annual variability potentially indicating local climate buffering. The produced high-resolution datasets showcased the diversity in thermal GS conditions and impacts of climate change over northern Europe. They are valuable in various forest management and ecosystem applications, and in adaptation to climate change.
Authors/Creators: | Aalto, Juha and Pirinen, Pentti and Kauppi, Pekka E and Rantanen, Mika and Lussana, Cristian and Lyytikainen-Saarenmaa, Paivi and Gregow, Hilppa | ||||||
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Title: | High-resolution analysis of observed thermal growing season variability over northern Europe | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Climate Dynamics | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2021 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 17 | ||||||
Publisher: | SPRINGER | ||||||
ISSN: | 0930-7575 | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 105 Earth and Related Environmental Sciences > Climate Research | ||||||
Keywords: | Thermal growing season, Statistical modeling, Climate change, Generalized additive model, Local climate, GIS | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-113958 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-113958 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 26024 | ||||||
Faculty: | S - Faculty of Forest Sciences | ||||||
Department: | (S) > Dept. of Forest Ecology and Management | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 04 Nov 2021 15:29 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 04 Nov 2021 15:31 |
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