Search Results (619)

Understanding how urban morphology regulates Land Surface Temperature (LST) is important in the context of rapid urbanization and increasingly frequent extreme climate events. Although both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) morphological factors are known to affect urban thermal environments, their relative explanatory roles, factor-specific optimal scales, and nonlinear responses are still insufficiently quantified within a unified multi-scale framework. This study focuses on the area within Beijing’s Fifth Ring Road and applies an interpretable LightGBM-SHAP framework to examine the multi-scale relationships between integrated 2D/3D urban morphology and LST using a Landsat 8 image acquired during a typical summer daytime heatwave event. Five analytical scales (150, 300, 600, 900, and 1200 m) are evaluated to compare factor importance, identify optimal explanatory scales, and characterize threshold-like response patterns. The LightGBM models maintained relatively strong predictive performance across all scales under spatial cross-validation, with the highest mean R² observed at 600 m, followed closely by 300 m. The results indicate a clear scale-dependent contrast in explanatory dominance: 2D factors show stronger associations with LST at fine-to-medium scales, whereas 3D factors become more influential at coarser scales. From a process perspective, this contrast is consistent with differences in surface-cover-related and vertical-structure-related thermal regulation, although the underlying physical mechanisms are not directly tested in this study. SHAP analysis further identifies factor-specific nonlinear response intervals for several key indicators under the selected extreme-heat condition. For example, a cooling tendency is observed when Mean Building Height (MBH) exceeds 15 m at the 150 m scale. These findings provide scale-explicit and context-specific evidence for interpreting urban morphology–LST relationships and support heat-mitigation strategies that combine micro-scale surface-cover optimization with larger-scale regulation of building height variation and urban roughness. The identified response intervals should be interpreted as empirical references under a typical daytime heatwave condition rather than as universally transferable climatological thresholds. Full article

This study presents a comprehensive assessment of historical and projected variability in the wind climate over Ireland and its adjacent marine regions, including the North Atlantic Ocean, Irish Sea, and Celtic Sea. First, the long-term wind characteristics are examined using the ERA5 reanalysis dataset for the historical period (1979–2008), followed by an evaluation of five CMIP6 Global Climate Models (GCMs) to determine their performance in representing regional wind climatology. Based on spatial validation and relative bias analyses, the most suitable model is selected to investigate future wind changes under the SSP2-4.5 and 5-8.5 scenarios. The CMIP6 historical data is also compared locally at seven measurement stations. Two future projections are considered for the near-term (2031–2060) and mid-term (2071–2100), focusing on inter- and intra-annual variability and extreme wind behaviour. The results indicate an overall decrease in mean wind speed across the study area, with more pronounced reductions under SSP5-8.5 and during the mid-term period. In terms of seasonality, reductions are more pronounced during winter and summer than in the transitional seasons. According to the extreme value analysis based on the generalised extreme value distribution, general declines in extreme values are detected at selected critical locations, especially at wind speeds with large return periods. Full article

Understanding drought and water availability requires integrating multiple components of the hydrological cycle. Satellite observations enable consistent monitoring of water storage, groundwater variability, and water budget components at continental scales. This study synthesises results from several satellite-based analyses to examine hydrological signals across Europe within the Köppen–Geiger climate zones. Indicators were analysed jointly, including the Combined Climatologic Deviation Index (CCDI), Water Budget (WB), Water Storage Deficit Index (WSDI), and Groundwater Drought Index (GDI). The comparison of these indices reveals consistent spatial and temporal patterns of water deficit across Europe, with the strongest drying signals observed in temperate and Mediterranean regions. In contrast, northern climatic zones show higher retention capacity. The integrated approach highlights relationships among groundwater variability, water storage anomalies, climate anomalies, and water budget dynamics, providing a broader perspective on hydrological responses to climate variability. The results demonstrate the value of multi-indicator satellite analysis for large-scale drought monitoring and water resource assessment. Full article

This study analyzes climatological trends and variability of the main greenhouse gases (GHGs)—carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and carbon monoxide (CO)—over Greece using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) data (EAC4 and EGG4) alongside global emission inventories and satellite-derived fluxes. A statistically significant positive long-term trend was identified for both CO₂ and CH₄. CO₂ concentrations have been increased by approximately 2 ppm/year, reaching over 415 ppm in 2020 compared to 380 ppm in 2003, following the global trends of ground-based measurements in the northern hemisphere. CH₄ showed a rapid increase since 2007, linked to anthropogenic activities, although natural sources also contribute. In contrast, CO exhibits a negative trend of about 0.6 ppb/year, with significant seasonal variability due to both anthropogenic sources and wildfires. Notably, CO concentrations increased during wildfire episodes in 2021 and 2023, with enhanced CO concentrations over 100 ± 20 ppb, well above typical summer values of 80 ± 10 ppb. Both CO₂ and CH₄ exhibit positive seasonal anomalies relative to the 2003–2013 reference period. Analysis of short- and mid-term variability reveals that CO₂ fluctuates within ±0.5%, with higher winter concentrations linked to anthropogenic emissions, while CH₄ variability reaches ±2%, reflecting diverse urban, industrial, and agricultural sources. CO exhibits the highest variability (±10–50%) due to its shorter atmospheric lifetime and sensitivity to local emissions and wildfire events. Sectoral comparisons with the Greek National Inventory Report indicate a general decline in GHG emissions in Greece, although sector-specific differences persist. Seasonal patterns show elevated fossil CO₂ emissions during colder months, CH₄ emissions peaking in agricultural seasons, and CO peaks during summer wildfires. In general, CAMS GHG emission trends fall well within the National Inventory Report of Greece. These findings emphasize the importance of combining long-term trends with short- and mid-term variability to capture both anthropogenic and natural influences on GHGs, providing a more comprehensive understanding of emission dynamics in Greece, when global warming and climate change remain an inherently challenging issue during the last decades. Full article

The need to isolate tides during model runtime, such as for data assimilation of sea level anomaly and tidal transports and for internal wave drag parameterization, has motivated the adaptation or development of three online filters for tidal isolation: a recursive climatological filter (RCF), an online harmonic analysis (OHA) and a streaming band-pass filter (SBP). Here, we evaluated these approaches and showed that, although derived from different mathematical frameworks, all three show identical frequency responses, characterized by passbands of equal magnitude centered on target frequencies and zero phase shift. In practice, however, OHA is more costly, while SBP suffers from discretization errors. Both RCF and OHA also allow the extraction of time-varying harmonic constants, allowing additional applications. Given its low cost and being free from discretization error, we further assessed RCF for de-tiding modelled coastal sea levels. We found that long-term nodal modulations become increasingly influential as the passband narrows and adaptation time increases, leading to degraded filter skill. This issue is mitigated by using constituent-dependent passbands accounting for nodal effects. Overall, the RCF effectively and efficiently isolates coastal tides and storm surges, with extreme peak surge differences of 2.0 ± 1.2% relative to those obtained from conventional harmonic analysis. Full article

The transition to sustainable energy systems requires the effective integration of offshore wind energy with hydrogen production. In this context, the paper assesses the potential for offshore hydrogen production in eight locations, three of which are located in the Black Sea, using data from the ERA5 database (period 2016–2025) at a height of 10 m and then extrapolated to a height of 150 m. The methodology includes estimating the annual energy production for four types of offshore turbines (Siemens Gamesa (Zamudio, Spain) SG 14-236 DD, Vestas (Aarhus, Denmark) V236-15.0, GE (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) Haliade-X 13, and MingYang (Guangdong, China) MySE12-242) and correlating it with six electrolyzer configurations (PEM and AWE) in gross and net scenarios, as well as analyzing the energy compatibility related to the number of electrolyzers. The novelty of the study lies in the integrated multi-site approach and in the direct quantification of the relationship between wind production and electrolysis requirements for different turbine–electrolyzer combinations. The results indicate a variation in gross annual energy production (AEP) in the range of 45.65 to 81.11 GWh/year, while the net scenario, accounting for operational losses, ranged from 37.75 to 67.05 GWh/year, and hydrogen production between 327 and 1075 t/year, highlighting that the optimal performance is determined by the compatibility between turbine and electrolyzer and the specific energy consumption rather than the nominal power. The ${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{net}}$ analysis shows that, in most cases, the energy produced by a single turbine is insufficient for the full operation of large capacity electrolyzers, resulting in a sub-unit utilization rate and necessitating the use of multiple turbines to reach the nominal operating regime. The analysis is limited to a technical assessment based on historical climatological data, excluding economic aspects, grid constraints, and variations in equipment performance over time. The results underscore the importance of integrating the sizing of offshore wind–hydrogen systems with local resources and energy conversion efficiency. Full article

This study utilized a high-resolution, three-dimensional hydrodynamic model with improved model evaluation to investigate seasonal variations in key hydrographic conditions, including sea level, water temperature, salinity, current speed, and circulation in the Gulf of Thailand (GoT), as well as its interaction with the South China Sea (SCS). The analysis focuses on a climatological year calculated from a 15-year average for 2006–2020, which is categorized into four seasons: northeast monsoon, the first inter-monsoon, southwest monsoon, and the second inter-monsoon. Evaluation of model performance, based on observational data with temporal resolutions ranging from 30 min to monthly average with a duration from 10 months to 5 years, demonstrated good accuracy through high coefficients of determination and low root mean square errors. Results clearly depicted seasonal variability in hydrographic properties, characterized by alternating patterns of high and low sea level, high and low water temperatures, saline and fresh water, along with a persistent anticyclonic gyre in the central area of GoT and a smaller anticyclonic gyre in the southern area. Seasonal exchange flows between the SCS and the GoT were also evident, with the strongest outflow in northeast monsoon and the weakest in the second inter-monsoon. Full article

As climate-driven disasters intensify globally, this study investigates how environmental volatility influences the pro-environmental initiatives of micro-entrepreneurs in Chile. While Chile possesses world-class seismic resilience, the 2020–2025 period marked a dramatic shift toward hydro-climatological extremes, including mega-fires and catastrophic flooding. Integrating construal level theory, protection motivation theory, and the concept of focusing events, this research examines the psychological and structural drivers of business adaptation. Results indicate that residing in disaster-prone regions is insufficient to trigger proactivity; instead, a stark distinction exists between abstract geographic proximity and the behavior triggered by personal exposure. Furthermore, mediation analysis provides mixed support for the role of business profit; while profit loss negatively mediated equipment efficiency and recycling, the magnitude was marginal. This coping gap suggests that resource-constrained actors favor low-cost survivalist tactics over systemic shifts due to depleted organizational slack. Ultimately, the study highlights that disasters are powerful but inefficient teachers; without addressing technical and financial barriers to mitigation, global supply chains remain fragile despite localized disaster experiences. Full article

Egypt generally experiences a hot and arid climate, with rainfall primarily confined to the northern coast during winter season. However, on 31 May 2025, Alexandria experienced an unusual late-spring convective storm that was associated with heavy rainfall, strong winds, intense lightning, and localized hail. This rare event caused temporary disruptions to urban life and underscored the growing vulnerability of coastal cities to short-duration, high-intensity precipitation events occurring outside the climatological rainy season. This study investigates the atmospheric mechanisms underlying this event through a comprehensive synoptic and dynamic analysis of pressure systems, wind fields, and temperature structures extending from the surface to the 200 hPa level. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of moisture convergence and upper-level dynamical forcing in triggering the rapid development of deep convection. Furthermore, the influence of anomalous large-scale circulation patterns on storm initiation and intensification is systematically examined. Improved understanding of these processes provides valuable insight into off-season convective activity over the southeastern Mediterranean and enhances forecasting capability, risk assessment, and early warning strategies for similar extreme events in the region. Furthermore, the influence of anomalous large-scale circulation patterns on storm initiation and intensification is quantitatively assessed to clarify their contribution to the event’s development. A deeper understanding of these processes offers critical insight into the mechanisms governing off-season convective activity over the southeastern Mediterranean and strengthens forecasting skill, risk assessment frameworks, and early warning systems for comparable extreme events in the region. Full article

Sorghum is a resilient crop important for sustainable intensification in semi-arid regions, yet the impact of variable seeding rates on its early development remains under-researched. This research investigated the early establishment of hybrid sorghum under three seeding strategies, ”Uniformise” (medium density across all zones), “Optimise” (increased density in low-soil apparent Electrical Conductivity (ECa)), and “Maximise” (increased density in high-soil ECa), at the Herdade da Comenda (Innovation Center—Elvas, Portugal). Crop performance was monitored over 33 days, the established window for safe direct grazing, using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) multispectral imagery to derive the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Canopy Cover (Cveg), alongside physical sampling of plant height and biomass. Statistical analysis revealed that both the seeding strategy and soil variability significantly affected early growth. The “Uniformise” strategy recorded the highest plant height, NDVI, and Cveg values, whereas the “Optimise” strategy performed the poorest. Additionally, an accumulation of 407.5 Growing Degree-Days (GDDs; °C) accelerated the phenological cycle by five days relative to the climatological normal. Despite differences in vegetative vigour, no statistically significant variations were observed in final biomass across the strategies. These results indicate that while the “Uniformise” approach provided a more balanced environment for early establishment under these specific Mediterranean conditions, the lack of biomass differentiation highlights the potential for resource optimisation. The study demonstrates that UAV-based remote sensing is a useful diagnostic tool to identify these spatial limitations, providing the data to refine variable-rate seeding (VRS) algorithms and improve the economic efficiency of precision sowing. Full article

The policymakers of Bangladesh have been mapping the energy mix to shift its high dependency on fossil fuels to sustainable energy; wind energy is addressed as a highly potential option. A feasible site selection process is essential for wind power plant establishment; thus, this study aims to identify potential areas for the sustainable development of large-scale wind plants by considering socio-economic, safety and environmental factors. In this study, two techniques of multi-criteria analysis (MCA), analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and ratio scale weighting (RSW), were incorporated with geographic information system (GIS) to select the optimal area in Bangladesh. This study considers fifteen sub-criteria under four main criteria, namely, socio-economy, geology, ecology, and climatology. AHP and RSW assign suitable weights to the sub-criteria based on their significant impact on the plant. GIS analyzes spatial data layers and produces suitability maps with the following categories: 5—most suitable, 4—suitable, 3—moderately suitable, 2—unsuitable, 1—completely unsuitable, and 0—excluded area. The final suitability map was generated using suitability maps of AHP and RSW. Finally, a combination of the final suitability map and the wind speed suitability map provide a total suitable area of 1595.8293 km². This could produce 2.96 GW power with 1418 wind turbines and be able to reduce 4,992,346.42 tons of CO₂ emissions annually (calculated using a reference turbine). The study was uniquely carried out at a 150 m hub height, and integration of AHP and RSW for weight cross-validation was performed for the first time in large-scale wind plant siting in Bangladesh. The findings of the study can be helpful for decision-makers in developing large-scale wind power plants. Full article

The creation of unified, open, secure, reliable, and agile data spaces is essential for collecting, storing, and sharing data in a standardized and accessible manner, promoting data reuse and addressing current interoperability limitations. In this context, this research presents a proof of concept for a unified agronomic data space based on the structured integration of heterogeneous open data sources. The central hypothesis is that the automated acquisition, preprocessing, and harmonization of publicly available agronomic data can significantly improve accessibility, usability, and interoperability for agricultural decision support applications. To this end, a comprehensive analysis of relevant open data sources was conducted, followed by the design and implementation of configurable algorithms for automated data downloading, cleaning, validation, and integration. The proposed approach explicitly addresses key challenges such as heterogeneous data formats, inconsistent spatial and temporal resolutions, missing values, and outlier detection. As a result, a unified access point was developed, providing reliable agronomic information, including (i) preprocessed climatological time series, (ii) crop and phytosanitary data, (iii) high-resolution aerial orthophotography, (iv) remote-sensing imagery, (v) pest-related information, and (vi) time series of major vegetation indices. The proof of concept was implemented for olive groves in the Andalusian region of Spain; however, the methodology is fully transferable to other crops, regions, and institutional contexts where comparable open data sources are available. The results demonstrate the potential of shared agronomic data spaces to enhance data reuse, support scalable analytics, and facilitate interoperable, data-driven agricultural management beyond the specific regional case study. Full article

This paper exposes the latent but potent role of seemingly hidden spatial autocorrelation (SA) in all geographic theories, highlighting that it is everywhere, matters, and is a fundamental property of geotagged phenomena. This narrative examines and extends the literature about the inescapable nature of the SA paradigm and the near-universal mixing of positive and negative SA. This study summary transcends the widespread but often implicit treatment of SA within geographic theories that their assumptions help achieve when they embed spatial processes, shape geospatial expectations, and define independent areal units so that these theory-delineating constraints largely absorb SA, reducing residual spatial dependence/correlation and improving conjectural validity, masking its presence for decades if not centuries. This paper explores selected prominent human geography theories (spatial optimization, agricultural location, gravity-model-based spatial interaction, central place systems), cultural and humanistic geography, geohumanities abstractions, physical geography theories (plate tectonics, climatology, uniformitarianism, soil formation), cartographic theories (geometric projections, semiotic/communication, cognitive/perceptual, geographic information systems anchored spatial analysis), and basic geospatial data gathering methodologies (qualitative and quantitative spatial sampling). It demonstrates that across the discipline of geography, exposing masquerading SA deepens theoretical coherence and strengthens methodological integrity, encouraging integrated spatial reasoning that bridges interpretive and analytical traditions. This article concludes by providing exemplifications of bringing scholastically unrealized SA in geographic theories out of obscurity, together with certain salient benefits from doing so, affirming the magnitude of fulfilling its major objective: SA is poised for discovery in all geospatial theories, from those for human and humanistic geography, through physical geography, to those for cartography as well as methodologies concerning all georeferenced data collection missions. Full article

Fungal exposure is strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of asthma in horses, but the importance of specific fungi is unknown. Geographic variation in equine asthmatic endotypes is suspected and might be related to different fungal exposures due to different climatological and geographical conditions. This study had two objectives: evaluate the effect of the ecoregion upon BALF inflammatory cells and fungal community composition in horses with asthma and evaluate the effect of BALF fungal community composition upon the likelihood of neutrophilic, mastocytic and eosinophilic inflammation in these horses. Differential cytology counts were obtained from 916 BALF samples submitted from horses with poor performance and/or clinical signs of respiratory disease from five ecoregions. The effect of the ecoregion upon BALF inflammatory cell proportions was modeled using generalized linear models. Seventy banked BALF samples were subjected to sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer regions of fungal DNA. Diversity analysis was performed in QIIME, including alpha diversity metrics and the Bray–Curtis dissimilarity metric. After taxonomy was assigned, differential abundances between ecoregions and inflammatory phenotypes were estimated by generalized linear models in DESeq2. BALF neutrophil (p < 0.0001) and eosinophil (p < 0.0001) proportions varied by ecoregion, while mast cell proportions did not (p = 0.18). Alternaria, Aspergillus, Cladosporium and Epicoccum spp. were found to differ in abundance between regions. These geographical variations in fungal exposure might be responsible for differences in BALF neutrophil and eosinophil proportions between ecoregions. Full article

Aridity represents a fundamental climatic constraint governing water resources, ecosystem functioning, and agricultural systems in transitional climate zones. This study examines the spatial organization and temporal variability of aridity and thermal continentality in North Macedonia using observational records from 13 meteorological stations distributed across contrasting altitudinal and physiographic settings. The analysis is based on homogenized monthly and annual air temperature and precipitation series covering the period 1991–2020. Aridity and continentality were quantified using the Johansson Continentality Index (JCI), the De Martonne Aridity Index (I_DM), and the Pinna Combinative Index (I_P). Temporal consistency and trend behavior were evaluated using Pettitt’s nonparametric change-point test, linear regression, the Mann–Kendall test, and Sen’s slope estimator. Links between aridity variability and large-scale atmospheric circulation were examined using correlations with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). The results show a spatially consistent and statistically significant increase in mean annual air temperature, with a common change point around 2006, while precipitation displays strong spatial variability and limited temporal coherence. Aridity patterns display a strong altitudinal control, with extremely humid to very humid conditions prevailing in mountainous western regions and semi-humid to semi-dry conditions dominating lowland and southeastern areas, particularly during summer. Trend analyses do not reveal statistically significant long-term changes in aridity or continentality over the study period, although low-elevation stations exhibit weak drying tendencies. A moderate positive association between I_DM and I_P (r = 0.66) confirms internal consistency among aridity indices, while summer aridity shows a statistically significant relationship with the NAO. These results provide a robust climatic reference for North Macedonia, establishing a first climatological baseline of aridity conditions based on multiple indices applied to homogenized observations, and contributing to regional assessments of hydroclimatic variability relevant to climate adaptation planning. Full article