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Research related to teaching climate change, system thinking, current reform in science education, and the research on reform-oriented assessment indicate that we need to explore student understanding in greater detail instead of only testing for an incremental gain in disciplinary knowledge. Using open-ended items we assessed details in student successes and challenges in thinking about climate change and climate system. Twelve teachers of the 7th and 8th grades and 457 students from four schools in a Midwestern state participated in this study. Statistical analysis of student responses on the pre- and post-test showed a significant (p<0.0001) gain in knowledge but more importantly, qualitative analysis of student responses showed that they learned that our climate is changing but had constructed a linear connection between variables such as surface temperature and drought. The students did not develop a connected body of knowledge or an understanding of climate as a system. Future research needs to focus on curriculum development, effective system pedagogy, assessment, and teacher development in the context of climate change as an interlinked system.

Current carbon cycle-climate models predict that future soil carbon storage will be determined by the balance between CO2 fertilization and warming. However, it is uncertain whether greater carbon inputs to soils with elevated CO2 will be sequestered, particularly since warming hastens soil carbon decomposition rates, and may alter the response of soils to new plant inputs. We studied the effects of elevated CO2 and warming on microbial soil carbon decomposition processes using laboratory manipulations of carbon inputs and soil temperature. We incubated soils from the Aspen Free Air CO2 Enrichment experiment, where no accumulation of soil carbon has been observed despite a decade of increased carbon inputs to soils under elevated CO2. We added isotopically-labeled sucrose to these soils in the laboratory to mimic and trace the effects of increased carbon inputs on soil organic carbon decomposition and its temperature sensitivity. Sucrose additions caused a positive priming of soil organic carbon decomposition, demonstrated by increased respiration derived from soil carbon, increased microbial abundance, and a shift in the microbial community towards faster growing microorganisms. Similar patterns were observed for elevated CO2 soils, suggesting that the priming effect was responsible for reductions in soil carbon accumulation at the site. Laboratory warming accelerated the rate of the priming effect, but the magnitude of the priming effect was not different amongst temperatures, suggesting that the priming effect was limited by substrate availability, not soil temperature. No changes in substrate use efficiency were observed with elevated CO2 or warming. The stimulatory effects of warming on the priming effect suggest that increased belowground carbon inputs from CO2 fertilization are not likely to be stored in mineral soils. © 2014 The Authors.

Prompted with the ongoing and projected climate change, a wide range of cities have committed, not only to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions but also to implement different climate change adaptation measures. These measures serve to ensure the well-being of the urban population. In practice, however, the planning of realistic adaptation measures is a complex process. Prior to starting such endeavor, it may therefore be useful to explore the maximum potential benefit that can be gained through adaptation measures. In this work, simple, extreme yet realistic adaptation measures are proposed in terms of changes in albedo and vegetation fraction. The impact of these land-use scenarios is explored by use of the land surface model SURFEX on the summer climate in terms of heat waves and the urban heat island for the city of Brussels. This is done for different periods in the future using the greenhouse gas scenario RCP8.5.

To allow for climate impact studies on human and natural systems high-resolution climate information is needed. Over some parts of the world plenty of regional climate simulations have been carried out, while in other regions hardly any high-resolution climate information is available. This publication aims at addressing one of these regional gaps by presenting an evaluation study for two regional climate models (RCMs) (REMO and ALARO-0) at a horizontal resolution of 0.22° (25 km) over Central Asia. The output of the ERA-Interim driven RCMs is compared with different observational datasets over the 1980-2017 period. The choice of the observational dataset has an impact on the scores but in general one can conclude that both models reproduce reasonably well the spatial patterns for temperature and precipitation. The evaluation of minimum and maximum temperature demonstrates that both models underestimate the daily temperature range. More detailed studies of the annual cycle over subregions should be carried out to reveal whether this is due to an incorrect simulation in cloud cover, atmospheric circulation or heat and moisture fluxes. In general, the REMO model scores better for temperature whereas the ALARO-0 model prevails for precipitation. This publication demonstrates that the REMO and ALARO-0 RCMs can be used to perform climate projections over Central Asia and that the produced climate data can be applied in impact modelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations can change chemistry and input rate of plant tissue to soil, potentially influencing above- and below-ground biogeochemical cycles. Given the important role played by leaf and root litter chemistry in controlling ecosystem function and vulnerability to environmental stresses, we investigated the hydrolyzable amino acid distribution and concentration in leaf and fine root litter among control and elevated CO2 treatments at the Rhinelander free air CO2 enrichment ( FACE) experiment ( WI, USA)., We extracted hydrolyzable amino acids from leaf litter and fine (< 2 mm) roots at three depths for both control and elevated CO2 plots., We found that elevated CO2 decreased the proportion of total leaf amino acid carbon (C), but had no effect on total leaf amino acid nitrogen (N). There was no treatment effect for total root amino acid N or amino acid C for any depth., The decrease in leaf amino acids is probably a result of the shift of protein compounds to more structural compounds. Despite the decrease in leaf amino acid C concentrations, the overall increase in annual plant production under elevated CO2 would result in an increase in plant amino acids to the soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many environmental and science educators have explored students’ conceptual understandings, misconceptions, and knowledge of the greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change, few have investigated the ways students conceptualize climate as a system or how components of the system influence climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to begin the process of understanding how US students conceptualize a climate system. A total of 42 seventh grade students (ages 12–13) from the Midwest completed an open-response task. From the inductive analysis of student written responses, 22 codes emerged that reflected students’ conceptions of the climate system. From these codes, three path diagrams were constructed that illustrate these students’ conceptions about how a climate system influences climate and how greenhouse gases and global warming impact the climate system. A generalized model of students’ conception of a climate system was generated. Students in this study conceptualized a climate system in a unidirectional, linear, cause and effect relationship that emphasized the atmospheric component of the climate system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The interdisciplinary research project AFTER, funded by the ERA.Net RUS PLUS program, started in 2018. The aim of AFTER is to investigate the "Impacts of climate change and climate extremes on Agriculture and Forestry in the Europe-Russia-Turkey Region". To meet this goal, regional climate information at high resolution is essential. Although various high-resolution climate experiments are currently available for Europe and Turkey (e.g. EURO-CORDEX or Med-CORDEX), Russia and Central Asia are covered by only a few and low-resolution simulations. There is a need for a consistent set of climate projections over Europe, Russia and Turkey to complete the research objectives of AFTER. Therefore, the CORDEX Central Asia (CAS-CORDEX) domain, which encompasses the region of interest, is selected. To enlarge the available climate data over the CAS-CORDEX domain we follow the CORDEX-CORE protocol and run two RCMs at a resolution from 25 km up to 12.5 km: ALARO-0 (RMIB-UGent) and REMO (HZG-GERICS). Moreover, for both models we carry out ERA-Interim as well as coupled model intercomparison project 5 (CMIP5) driven simulations using the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5. The first results on the evaluation of the ALARO-0 (RMIB-UGent) and REMO (HZG-GERICS) models will be presented. More specifically, inter-model comparison results with respect to high-quality observational station data for Latvia, Russia, and Turkey will be given. This allows for an accurate estimation of local climate information together with their uncertainties, that in turn will be used as input to study the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems, phenological processes of the crops and quality and quantity of the crop yields. Finally, in collaboration with stakeholders of the agriculture and forestry sectors for the selected regions, the best available climate data will be translated into tailored information required for the formulation of adaptation and mitigation strategies. The forthcoming scientifically based assessment with multiple risks of observed and future climate change for agriculture and forestry that will result from this research project is crucial since the effects of climate change in both sectors are already felt in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]