Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic

Expansion of the Sahara Desert (SD) and greening of the Arctic tundra-glacier region (ArcTG) have been hot subjects under extensive investigations. However, quantitative and comprehensive assessments of the landform changes in these regions are lacking. Here we use both observations and climate-ecos...

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Autores principales: Liu, Ye, Xue, Yongkang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7057959/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32139761
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61085-0
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author Liu, Ye
Xue, Yongkang
author_facet Liu, Ye
Xue, Yongkang
author_sort Liu, Ye
collection PubMed
description Expansion of the Sahara Desert (SD) and greening of the Arctic tundra-glacier region (ArcTG) have been hot subjects under extensive investigations. However, quantitative and comprehensive assessments of the landform changes in these regions are lacking. Here we use both observations and climate-ecosystem models to quantify/project changes in the extents and boundaries of the SD and ArcTG based on climate and vegetation indices. It is found that, based on observed climate indices, the SD expands 8% and the ArcTG shrinks 16% during 1950–2015, respectively. SD southern boundaries advance 100 km southward, and ArcTG boundaries are displaced about 50 km poleward in 1950–2015. The simulated trends based on climate and vegetation indices show consistent results with some differences probably due to missing anthropogenic forcing and two-way vegetation-climate feedback effect in simulations. The projected climate and vegetation indices show these trends will continue in 2015–2050.
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spelling pubmed-70579592020-03-12 Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic Liu, Ye Xue, Yongkang Sci Rep Article Expansion of the Sahara Desert (SD) and greening of the Arctic tundra-glacier region (ArcTG) have been hot subjects under extensive investigations. However, quantitative and comprehensive assessments of the landform changes in these regions are lacking. Here we use both observations and climate-ecosystem models to quantify/project changes in the extents and boundaries of the SD and ArcTG based on climate and vegetation indices. It is found that, based on observed climate indices, the SD expands 8% and the ArcTG shrinks 16% during 1950–2015, respectively. SD southern boundaries advance 100 km southward, and ArcTG boundaries are displaced about 50 km poleward in 1950–2015. The simulated trends based on climate and vegetation indices show consistent results with some differences probably due to missing anthropogenic forcing and two-way vegetation-climate feedback effect in simulations. The projected climate and vegetation indices show these trends will continue in 2015–2050. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-03-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7057959/ /pubmed/32139761 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61085-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Liu, Ye
Xue, Yongkang
Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic
title Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic
title_full Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic
title_fullStr Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic
title_full_unstemmed Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic
title_short Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic
title_sort expansion of the sahara desert and shrinking of frozen land of the arctic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7057959/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32139761
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61085-0
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