1. |
- Blunden, Jessica, et al.
(author)
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State of the climate in 2013
- 2014
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In: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. - 0003-0007. ; 95
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- © 2014, American Meteorological Society. All rights reserved. In 2013, the vast majority of the monitored climate variables reported here maintained trends established in recent decades. ENSO was in a neutral state during the entire year, remaining mostly on the cool side of neutral with modest impacts on regional weather patterns around the world. This follows several years dominated by the effects of either La Niña or El Niño events. According to several independent analyses, 2013 was again among the 10 warmest years on record at the global scale, both at the Earth’s surface and through the troposphere. Some regions in the Southern Hemisphere had record or near-record high temperatures for the year. Australia observed its hottest year on record, while Argentina and New Zealand reported their second and third hottest years, respectively. In Antarctica, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station reported its highest annual temperature since records began in 1957. At the opposite pole, the Arctic observed its seventh warmest year since records began in the early 20th century. At 20-m depth, record high temperatures were measured at some permafrost stations on the North Slope of Alaska and in the Brooks Range. In the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, anomalous meridional atmospheric circulation occurred throughout much of the year, leading to marked regional extremes of both temperature and precipitation. Cold temperature anomalies during winter across Eurasia were followed by warm spring temperature anomalies, which were linked to a new record low Eurasian snow cover extent in May. Minimum sea ice extent in the Arctic was the sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. Including 2013, all seven lowest extents on record have occurred in the past seven years. Antarctica, on the other hand, had above-average sea ice extent throughout 2013, with 116 days of new daily high extent records, including a new daily maximum sea ice area of 19.57 million km2 reached on 1 October. ENSO-neutral conditions in the eastern central Pacific Ocean and a negative Pacific decadal oscillation pattern in the North Pacific had the largest impacts on the global sea surface temperature in 2013. The North Pacific reached a historic high temperature in 2013 and on balance the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was among the 10 highest on record. Overall, the salt content in nearsurface ocean waters increased while in intermediate waters it decreased. Global mean sea level continued to rise during 2013, on pace with a trend of 3.2 mm yr-1 over the past two decades. A portion of this trend (0.5 mm yr-1) has been attributed to natural variability associated with the Pacific decadal oscillation as well as to ongoing contributions from the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and ocean warming. Global tropical cyclone frequency during 2013 was slightly above average with a total of 94 storms, although the North Atlantic Basin had its quietest hurricane season since 1994. In the Western North Pacific Basin, Super Typhoon Haiyan, the deadliest tropical cyclone of 2013, had 1-minute sustained winds estimated to be 170 kt (87.5 m s-1) on 7 November, the highest wind speed ever assigned to a tropical cyclone. High storm surge was also associated with Haiyan as it made landfall over the central Philippines, an area where sea level is currently at historic highs, increasing by 200 mm since 1970. In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide all continued to increase in 2013. As in previous years, each of these major greenhouse gases once again reached historic high concentrations. In the Arctic, carbon dioxide and methane increased at the same rate as the global increase. These increases are likely due to export from lower latitudes rather than a consequence of increases in Arctic sources, such as thawing permafrost. At Mauna Loa, Hawaii, for the first time since measurements began in 1958, the daily average mixing ratio of carbon dioxide exceeded 400 ppm on 9 May. The state of these variables, along with dozens of others, and the 2013 climate conditions of regions around the world are discussed in further detail in this 24th edition of the State of the Climate series.
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2. |
- Li, Wei, et al.
(author)
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Land-use and land-cover change carbon emissions between 1901 and 2012 constrained by biomass observations
- 2017
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In: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 14:22, s. 5053-5067
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The use of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to estimate CO2 emissions from land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) offers a new window to account for spatial and temporal details of emissions and for ecosystem processes affected by LULCC. One drawback of LULCC emissions from DGVMs, however, is lack of observation constraint. Here, we propose a new method of using satellite-and inventory-based biomass observations to constrain historical cumulative LULCC emissions (E-LUC(c)) from an ensemble of nine DGVMs based on emerging relationships between simulated vegetation biomass and E-LUC(c). This method is applicable on the global and regional scale. The original DGVM estimates of E-LUC(c) range from 94 to 273 PgC during 1901-2012. After constraining by current biomass observations, we derive a best estimate of 155 +/- 50 PgC (1 sigma Gaussian error). The constrained LULCC emissions are higher than prior DGVM values in tropical regions but significantly lower in North America. Our emergent constraint approach independently verifies the median model estimate by biomass observations, giving support to the use of this estimate in carbon budget assessments. The uncertainty in the constrained Ec LUC is still relatively large because of the uncertainty in the biomass observations, and thus reduced uncertainty in addition to increased accuracy in biomass observations in the future will help improve the constraint. This constraint method can also be applied to evaluate the impact of land-based mitigation activities.
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3. |
- Mariathasan, Sanjeev, et al.
(author)
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TGFβ attenuates tumour response to PD-L1 blockade by contributing to exclusion of T cells
- 2018
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In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 554:7693, s. 544-548
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Therapeutic antibodies that block the programmed death-1 (PD-1)-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) pathway can induce robust and durable responses in patients with various cancers, including metastatic urothelial cancer. However, these responses only occur in a subset of patients. Elucidating the determinants of response and resistance is key to improving outcomes and developing new treatment strategies. Here we examined tumours from a large cohort of patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who were treated with an anti-PD-L1 agent (atezolizumab) and identified major determinants of clinical outcome. Response to treatment was associated with CD8 + T-effector cell phenotype and, to an even greater extent, high neoantigen or tumour mutation burden. Lack of response was associated with a signature of transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) signalling in fibroblasts. This occurred particularly in patients with tumours, which showed exclusion of CD8 + T cells from the tumour parenchyma that were instead found in the fibroblast-and collagen-rich peritumoural stroma; a common phenotype among patients with metastatic urothelial cancer. Using a mouse model that recapitulates this immune-excluded phenotype, we found that therapeutic co-Administration of TGFβ-blocking and anti-PD-L1 antibodies reduced TGFβ signalling in stromal cells, facilitated T-cell penetration into the centre of tumours, and provoked vigorous anti-Tumour immunity and tumour regression. Integration of these three independent biological features provides the best basis for understanding patient outcome in this setting and suggests that TGFβ shapes the tumour microenvironment to restrain anti-Tumour immunity by restricting T-cell infiltration.
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4. |
- Scheuermann, Fabian, et al.
(author)
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Stellar associations powering H ii regions - I. Defining an evolutionary sequence
- 2023
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In: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 522:2, s. 2369-2383
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Connecting the gas in H II regions to the underlying source of the ionizing radiation can help us constrain the physical processes of stellar feedback and how H II regions evolve over time. With PHANGS-MUSE, we detect nearly 24 000 H II regions across 19 galaxies and measure the physical properties of the ionized gas (e.g. metallicity, ionization parameter, and density). We use catalogues of multiscale stellar associations from PHANGS-HST to obtain constraints on the age of the ionizing sources. We construct a matched catalogue of 4177 H II regions that are clearly linked to a single ionizing association. A weak anticorrelation is observed between the association ages and the H a equi v alent width EW (H a), the H a/ FUV flux ratio, and the ionization parameter, log q . As all three are expected to decrease as the stellar population ages, this could indicate that we observe an evolutionary sequence. This interpretation is further supported by correlations between all three properties. Interpreting these as evolutionary tracers, we find younger nebulae to be more attenuated by dust and closer to giant molecular clouds, in line with recent models of feedback-regulated star formation. We also observe strong correlations with the local metallicity variations and all three proposed age tracers, suggestive of star formation preferentially occurring in locations of locally enhanced metallicity. Overall, EW (H a) and log q show the most consistent trends and appear to be most reliable tracers for the age of an H II region.
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