Publications by authors named "F Hrbacek"

Climate change and its impacts on sensitive polar ecosystems are relatively little studied in Antarctic regions. Permafrost and active layer changes over time in periglacial regions of the world are important indicators of climate variability. These changes (e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Research discusses how current global climate models are based on air temperatures but fail to capture the soil temperatures beneath vegetation where many species thrive.
  • New global maps present soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at 1-km resolution for specific depths, revealing that mean annual soil temperatures can differ significantly from air temperatures by up to 10°C.
  • The findings indicate that relying on air temperature could misrepresent climate impacts on ecosystems, especially in colder regions, highlighting the need for more precise soil temperature data for ecological studies.
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Current analyses and predictions of spatially explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long-term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate-forcing factors that operate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions are overlooked.

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Permafrost controls geomorphological dynamics in maritime Antarctic ecosystems. Here, we analyze and model ground thermal regime in bordering conditions between continuous and discontinuous permafrost to better understand its relationship with the timing of glacial retreat. In February 2017, a transect including 10 sites for monitoring ground temperatures was installed in the eastern fringe of Byers Peninsula (Livingston Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula), together with one station recording air temperatures and snow thickness.

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The Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring - South (CALM-S) site was established in February 2014 on James Ross Island as the first CALM-S site in the eastern Antarctic Peninsula region. The site, located near Johann Gregor Mendel Station, is labelled CALM-S JGM. The grid area is gently sloped (<3°) and has an elevation of between 8 and 11ma.

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