Despite documented intra-urban heterogeneity in the urban heat island (UHI) effect, little is known about spatial or temporal variability in plant response to the UHI. Using an automated temperature sensor network in conjunction with Landsat-derived remotely sensed estimates of start/end of the growing season, we investigate the impacts of the UHI on plant phenology in the city of Madison WI (USA)for the 2012–2014 growing seasons.

Understanding how the emergence of the anthropogenic warming signal from the noise of internal variability translates to changes in extreme event occurrence is of crucial societal importance.

There are strong interdependencies between water use in agriculture and energy consumption as water saving technologies can require increased pumping and pressurizing. The Chinese Government includes water efficiency improvement and carbon intensity reduction targets in the 12th Five-Year Plan (5YP. 2011–2015), yet the links between energy use and irrigation modernization are not always addressed in policy targets. Here we build an original model of the energy embedded in water pumpingfor irrigated agriculture and its related processes.