Browsing by Subject "Ecology,
 Evolution,
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    Climate Tracking: Applications of a Novel Technique to Sustainability
    (2012-07-24) Barnes, Richard; Lehman, Clarence; Williams, Shelby; Frelich, Lee
    Climate
 change
 has 
profound 
implications 
for 
the
 sustainability 
of 
society 
and
 the
 environment, 
yet 
estimates 
of 
climate 
change 
cover 
times 
scales 
which 
make
 results 
difficult 
to 
verify, 
are 
often 
computationally 
expensive 
to 
make,
 and
 have 
uncertainties 
which 
are 
not 
easily 
communicated,
 especially 
outside
 the 
area
 of 
computational
 meteorology
 and 
mathematics.
 We 
present
 a
 method 
of 
quantifying 
climate 
change 
over
 the 
past 
century 
and
 into 
the 
near‐future
 which 
bypasses 
many 
of 
these 
problems.
 Using 
historical 
weather
 data 
and 
a 
surface‐fitting 
algorithm,
 we 
are 
able 
to 
extract 
"climate 
velocities", 
representing
 the
 surface
 speed
 and 
direction
 of
the 
climate 
for 
any 
location.
 Projections 
from
 these 
velocities 
can 
be 
used
 to 
extract
 possible 
future 
locations 
and
 direction‐of‐movement
 of 
biomes, 
biofuel 
hotspots, 
and
 agricultural
 productivity, 
with
 implications
 for
 conservation 
parkways, 
preemptive 
revegetation,
 agricultural 
policy.