Cambio climático

A climate shelter is a natural or an urban area with benign environmental conditions that offer protection from an unfavourable situation, such as too much heat, a shortage of water or a lack of access to suitable habitat. Climate shelters can be located in parks, promenades or avenues with trees and with fountains or access to natural water, such as a river or the sea. Each climate shelter’s conditions determine how well suited it is to different species — including humans — depending on their respective needs. 

The Third Vice-President of the Spanish Government and Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO, the Spanish acronym), Teresa Ribera, visited CREAF intending to know the centre and its scientific activity.

Our pre-doctoral researcher Javier de la Casa has written this article on the occasion of the first internationally coordinated action of peaceful civil disobedience, the week of 4-9 April, by members of the scientific community.

Close your eyes and think of the most solid living organism you know of. Did you think of a tree? Trees are solid, still, and impervious to the passing of time, right? Well, wrong actually. In reality, the trunk of a tree beats: it shrinks in the daytime due to water loss and swells at night as it rehydrates via the tree’s roots. That beat, according to a study published recently in Nature Communications, is weakened by heatwaves.

Two studies led by Jofre Carnicer, CREAF researcher and professor at the University of Barcelona-IRBIO, show that natural areas that maintain microclimates are more resilient to climate change and biodiversity loss. Both studies conclude that microclimates (areas of natural space with different temperature, shade or humidity) become climatic refuges when there are extreme conditions, and that they should be studied in detail to assess the real impacts of global warming on nature.