Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change.

Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.

Designing Multi-Stage 2 A/O-MBR Processes for a Higher Removal Rate of Pollution in Wastewater.

Multi-stage A/O-MBR processes were designed to improve wastewater treatment efficiency; three different designs were carried out and compared in this study. The 2(A/O)-MBR process, i.e., with two sets of anoxic/oxic tanks in series, showed better effluent quality than A/O-MBR and 3(A/O)-MBR processes. The removal rates of COD, NH4+-N, TP and TN were 95.29%, 89.47%, 83.55% and 78.58%, respectively, complying satisfactorily with China's urban sewage treatment plant pollutant discharge standards. In terms of membrane fouling, the 3(A/O)-MBR process demonstrated the lowest fouling propensity. The microbial community structure in each bioreaction tank was analyzed, the results from which matched with the process efficiency and fouling behavior.

Shifting El Niño inhibits summer Arctic warming and Arctic sea-ice melting over the Canada Basin.

Arctic climate changes include not only changes in trends and mean states but also strong interannual variations in various fields. Although it is known that tropical-extratropical teleconnection is sensitive to changes in flavours of El Niño, whether Arctic climate variability is linked to El Niño, in particular on interannual timescale, remains unclear. Here we demonstrate for the first time a long-range linkage between central Pacific (CP) El Niño and summer Arctic climate. Observations show that the CP warming related to CP El Niño events deepens the tropospheric Arctic polar vortex and strengthens the circumpolar westerly wind, thereby contributing to inhibiting summer Arctic warming and sea-ice melting. Atmospheric model experiments can generally capture the observed responses of Arctic circulation and robust surface cooling to CP El Niño forcing. We suggest that identification of the equator-Arctic teleconnection, via the 'atmospheric bridge', can potentially contribute to improving the skill of predicting Arctic climate.

Significant anthropogenic-induced changes of climate classes since 1950.

Anthropogenic forcings have contributed to global and regional warming in the last few decades and likely affected terrestrial precipitation. Here we examine changes in major Köppen climate classes from gridded observed data and their uncertainties due to internal climate variability using control simulations from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5). About 5.7% of the global total land area has shifted toward warmer and drier climate types from 1950-2010, and significant changes include expansion of arid and high-latitude continental climate zones, shrinkage in polar and midlatitude continental climates, poleward shifts in temperate, continental and polar climates, and increasing average elevation of tropical and polar climates. Using CMIP5 multi-model averaged historical simulations forced by observed anthropogenic and natural, or natural only, forcing components, we find that these changes of climate types since 1950 cannot be explained as natural variations but are driven by anthropogenic factors.

[Cause of unilateral vocal cord paralysis in aged (report of 51 cases)].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the cause of unilateral vocal cord paralysis in aged. METHOD: Fifty-one patients with unilateral vocal cord paralysis in aged were retrospectively analyzed. RESULT: The main cause of unilateral vocal cord paralysis in aged was malignant tumor. CONCLUSION: Extralaryngeal malignant tumor should be greatly suspected in aged with unilateral vocal cord paralysis. When the cause could not be identified through systematic examination, the patient should be followed up regularly.