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Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century
Better understanding of the changing relationship between human populations and climate is a global research priority. The 20(th) century in the contiguous United States offers a particularly well-documented example of human demographic expansion during a period of radical socioeconomic and environm...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480346/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23115624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045683 |
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author | Samson, Jason Berteaux, Dominique McGill, Brian J. Humphries, Murray M. |
author_facet | Samson, Jason Berteaux, Dominique McGill, Brian J. Humphries, Murray M. |
author_sort | Samson, Jason |
collection | PubMed |
description | Better understanding of the changing relationship between human populations and climate is a global research priority. The 20(th) century in the contiguous United States offers a particularly well-documented example of human demographic expansion during a period of radical socioeconomic and environmental change. One would expect that as human society has been transformed by technology, we would become increasingly decoupled from climate and more dependent on social infrastructure. Here we use spatially-explicit models to evaluate climatic, socio-economic and biophysical correlates of demographic change in the contiguous United States between 1900 and 2000. Climate-correlated variation in population growth has caused the U.S. population to shift its realized climate niche from cool, seasonal climates to warm, aseasonal climates. As a result, the average annual temperature experienced by U.S. citizens between 1920 and 2000 has increased by more than 1.5°C and the temperature seasonality has decreased by 1.1°C during a century when climate change accounted for only a 0.24°C increase in average annual temperature and a 0.15°C decrease in temperature seasonality. Thus, despite advancing technology, climate-correlated demographics continue to be a major feature of contemporary U.S. society. Unfortunately, these demographic patterns are contributing to a substantial warming of the climate niche during a period of rapid environmental warming, making an already bad situation worse. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3480346 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-34803462012-10-31 Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century Samson, Jason Berteaux, Dominique McGill, Brian J. Humphries, Murray M. PLoS One Research Article Better understanding of the changing relationship between human populations and climate is a global research priority. The 20(th) century in the contiguous United States offers a particularly well-documented example of human demographic expansion during a period of radical socioeconomic and environmental change. One would expect that as human society has been transformed by technology, we would become increasingly decoupled from climate and more dependent on social infrastructure. Here we use spatially-explicit models to evaluate climatic, socio-economic and biophysical correlates of demographic change in the contiguous United States between 1900 and 2000. Climate-correlated variation in population growth has caused the U.S. population to shift its realized climate niche from cool, seasonal climates to warm, aseasonal climates. As a result, the average annual temperature experienced by U.S. citizens between 1920 and 2000 has increased by more than 1.5°C and the temperature seasonality has decreased by 1.1°C during a century when climate change accounted for only a 0.24°C increase in average annual temperature and a 0.15°C decrease in temperature seasonality. Thus, despite advancing technology, climate-correlated demographics continue to be a major feature of contemporary U.S. society. Unfortunately, these demographic patterns are contributing to a substantial warming of the climate niche during a period of rapid environmental warming, making an already bad situation worse. Public Library of Science 2012-10-24 /pmc/articles/PMC3480346/ /pubmed/23115624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045683 Text en © 2012 Samson et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Samson, Jason Berteaux, Dominique McGill, Brian J. Humphries, Murray M. Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century |
title | Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century |
title_full | Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century |
title_fullStr | Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century |
title_full_unstemmed | Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century |
title_short | Demographic Amplification of Climate Change Experienced by the Contiguous United States Population during the 20(th) Century |
title_sort | demographic amplification of climate change experienced by the contiguous united states population during the 20(th) century |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480346/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23115624 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045683 |
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