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In this publication, researchers from the social and economic sciences and medicine as well as practitioners from the media and politics reflect on the influence of scientific expertise in times of crisis. Differences and similarities between the Covid-19 pandemic, the financial and economic crisis, the refugee crisis and the climate crisis are elaborated. The interviews were conducted in November/December 2021.
Extreme convective precipitation events are among the most severe hazards in central Europe and are expected to intensify under global warming. However, the degree of intensification and the underlying processes are still uncertain. In this thesis, recent advances in continuous, radar-based precipitation monitoring and convection-permitting climate modeling are used to investigate Lagrangian properties of convective rain cells such as precipitation intensity, cell area, and precipitation sum and their relationship to large-scale, environmental conditions.
Firstly, convective precipitation objects are tracked in a gauge-adjusted radar-data set and the properties of these cells are related to large-scale environmental variables to investigate the observed super-Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) scaling of convective extreme precipitation. The Lagrangian precipitation sum of convective cells increases with dew point temperature at rates well above the CC-rate with increasing rates for higher dew point temperatures. These varying, high rates are caused by a covarying increase of CAPE with dew point temperature as well as the effect of high vertical wind shear causing an increase in cell area and thus precipitation sum. At the same time, cells move faster at high vertical wind shear so that Eulerian scaling rates are lower than Lagrangian but still above the CC-rate. The results show that wind shear and static instability need to be taken into account when transferring precipitation scaling under current climate conditions to future conditions. Secondly, the representation of convective cell properties in the convection-permitting climate model COSMO-CLM is evaluated. The model can simulate the observed frequency distributions of cell properties such as lifetime, area, mean and maximum intensity, and precipitation sum. The increase of area and intensity with lifetime is also well captured despite an underestimation of the intensity of the most severe cells. Furthermore, the model can represent the temperature scaling of intensity, area, and precipitation sum but fails to simulate the observed increase of lifetime. Thus, the model is suitable to study climatologies of convective storms in Germany. Thirdly, two COSMO-CLM projections at the end of the century under emission scenario RCP8.5 were investigated. While the number of convective cells and their lifetime remain approximately constant compared to present conditions, intensity and area increase strongly. The relative increase of intensity and area is largest for the highest percentiles meaning that extreme events intensify the most. The characteristic afternoon maximum of convective precipitation is damped, and shifted to later times of day which leads to an increase of nighttime precipitation in the future. Scaling rates of cell properties with dew point temperature are nearly identical in present and future in the simulation driven by the EC-Earth model which means that the upper limit of cell properties like intensity, area, and precipitation sum could be predicted from near-surface dew point temperature. However, this result could not be reproduced by the simulation driven by MIROC5 and needs further investigation.
This monograph contributes to research in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Amidst the absence of any educational standards as well as other research deficits, Chapter II sketches a conceptual framework with a competence model for multilingual CLIL classes in the social sciences. It develops a line of argument for the promotion of global discourse competence for democratic participation within a transnational civil society. The subsequent four chapters, comprising one conceptual, one methodological and two empirical contributions, look at different aspects of the conceptual framework. Chapter III defends the developed competence model and further specifies its idea of thought in proposing the construction of multilingual 'cosmopolitan classroom glocalities' for the genesis of 21st century skills. The example of #climonomics, a multilingual EU parliamentary debate about climate change, illustrates its practical realization within school education and exemplifies the contribution to education for sustainable development (ESD) and the value of democratic and participatory learning arrangements. Chapter IV introduces design-based action research (DBAR), the method used in Chapters V & VI. DBAR is a hybrid of action and design-based research and is thereby ideally suited for bridging the gap of theory and practice in educational research. Chapter IV argues for closer cooperation between academics and practitioners, along with pragmatic stakeholder participation by involving students and teachers into research, in a quest for inductively making practical knowledge scientific. Chapter V, more language-biased, draws on the notion of translanguaging and presents the concept of 'trans-foreign-languaging' as a multilingual approach to CLIL with first language (L1) use. During six weeks DBAR, a comprehensive CLIL teaching model with judicious and principled L1 use was designed together with the study group. The model offers affordance-based and differentiated methods for different learner types. Its genesis is reconstructed by a thick description of the natural classroom dynamics. Chapter VI, rather subjectbased, asks about the influence of such bilingual language use on emotions, in particular on the formation of political judgments. It suggests different ways to measure emotions during various natural classroom settings. The chapter concludes that CLIL with L1 use has the potential to engender a perfect equilibrium of emotional and rational learning, integrating emotions into learning and valuing its positive contribution towards appropriate and multilayered political judgments. The concluding Chapter VII binds the previous chapters together and discusses the results. Criteria for the generalization of the results are assessed, and limits demarcated. It highlights the contribution to CLIL research and looks into the future, suggesting further direct classroom interventions, also with the goal to prepare the research field for larger undertakings.
To understand the rapid rate of change in global biodiversity, it is necessary to analyse the present condition of ecosystems and to elucidate relationships of species to their environment. The BIOKLIM Project (Biodiversity and Climate Change Project) is intended to close this gap in our knowledge of montane and high montane forests of Central European low mountain ranges, one of the most threatened mixed montane systems worldwide. The Bavarian Forest National Park is characterised by its altitude range of ca. 800 m and a strongly developed gradient of forest structure. Relicts of old growth forests (areas of former local nature reserves) and dead stands, mostly killed by bark beetles, are accompanied by widely varying levels of woody debris and light. The gradients comprise a wide range of abiotic and forest structure factors, making the study area well suited for a multidisciplinary investigation of biodiversity. Unconstrained ordination (CA) of six taxa (vascular plants, wood inhabiting fungi, birds, carabids, spiders and molluscs) indicate the altitudinal gradient to be the main driver for distribution patterns of species assemblages. Objectives, structure, study design and data sampling of the BIOKLIM Project are described in detail. We set up 293 sampling plots along four main straight transects following the altitudinal gradient. All abiotic and stand structure data regarded as relevant are available for each plot. Vascular plants, wood inhabiting fungi and birds were sampled or mapped on all 293 plots. For the other 22 investigated taxa we used subsamples pre-stratified according to the sampling methods. The necessity of dealing with spatial autocorrelation, arising from sampling along linear transects, is described. Finally, study approach of our biodiversity project is compared with others involving altitudinal gradients. Worldwide, only a few multidisciplinary biodiversity studies have been previously conducted on long altitudinal gradients. However, in most cases sampling techniques were similar to ours, which allows comparison of results between continents. Keywords: Climate Change, Biodiversity, species-environment relationships
Groundwater recharge is the major limiting factor for the sustainable use of groundwater. To support water management in a globalized world, it is necessary to estimate, in a spatially resolved way, global-scale groundwater recharge. In this report, improved model estimates of diffuse groundwater recharge at the global-scale, with a spatial resolution of 0.5° by 0.5°, are presented. They are based on calculations of the global hydrological model WGHM (WaterGAP Global Hydrology Model) which, for semi-arid and arid areas of the globe, was tuned against independent point estimates of diffuse groundwater recharge. This has led to a decrease of estimated groundwater recharge under semi-arid and arid conditions as compared to the model results before tuning, and the new estimates are more similar to country level data on groundwater recharge. Using the improved model, the impact of climate change on groundwater recharge was simulated, applying two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios as interpreted by two different climate models.