Extreme climatic events drive mammal irruptions: regression analysis of 100-year trends in desert rainfall and temperature.

ABSTRACT: Extreme climatic events, such as flooding rains, extended decadal droughts and heat waves have been identified increasingly as important regulators of natural populations. Climate models predict that global warming will drive changes in rainfall and increase the frequency and severity of extreme events. Consequently, to anticipate how organisms will respond we need to document how changes in extremes of temperature and rainfall compare to trends in the mean values of these variables and over what spatial scales the patterns are consistent. Using the longest historical weather records available for central Australia - 100 years - and quantile regression methods, we investigate if extreme climate events have changed at similar rates to median events, if annual rainfall has increased in varia

SUBMITTER: Greenville AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3501619 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature