Research

Shiuh-Shen Chien Professor / Department of Geography Dr. Shiuh-Shen CHIEN, professor in geography, environment and development studies at National Taiwan University who has published a series of paper on sustainability research and volume geography studies, finds that weather modification practice is surprisingly popular in China. Despite the fact that the weather modification, a cloud seeding technology to manipulate raining, is not encouraged by the World Meteorological Organization, China is conducting nation-wide weather modification practices, with more than two third of county-level governments setting their own weather modification offices. By doing…

Hsiao-Pei Lu、 Chih-hao Hsieh -- / Institute of Oceanography －－－

Cho-ying Huang Associate Professor / Department of geological Ramifications of short-term meteorological variability on elevational range size   Spatial distributions of fauna are sensitive to climate variabilities. Classic ecological hypotheses have all suggested that greater seasonal climatic fluctuations will result in a wider species geographic distribution. These were proposed about a half century ago and have been heavily tested through the years. However, animals experience not only seasonal climatic but diurnal meteorological dynamics, and the latter one has rarely been addressed and investigated. A collaborative study led by Wei-Ping Chan…

Min-Hui Lo Assistant professor / Department of Atmospheric Sciences “How much does groundwater contribute to sea level rise?“ Min-Hui Lo Rising sea level is a threat to people who live near the coastal regions and in small islands; hence, accurately projecting rates of sea level rise is important, especially under climate changes. Recent assessments indicate that groundwater depletion (GWD) may become the most important positive terrestrial contribution. Future projections of increasing reliance on groundwater suggests that GWD will become the most important singular terrestrial contribution to sea level rise over…

Chih-hao Hsieh Professor / Institute of Oceanography   Fishing causes age/size truncation and drives marine fishes to aggregate in space, elevating ecosystem risk   A population usually does not uniformly distribute in space. Previous studies have found that when a population is getting larger, the variance of the population abundance over a space (i.e., aggregation degree) will also be increasing. This mean-variance relationship is the well-known Taylor’s power law (V=aMb). The exponent b in Taylor’s power law is an indicator of the “aggregation potential” of a species. That is, for…

Min-Hui Lo Assistant professor / Department of Atmospheric Sciences "A decade of sea level rise slowed by climate-driven hydrology“ J. T. Reager, A. S. Gardner, J. S. Famiglietti, D. N. Wiese, A. Eicker, M.-H. Lo. While the ice sheets and mountain glaciers continue melting, changes in climate over the past decade have led to Earth’s continents to store an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in land (over soils, lakes and underground aquifers), temporarily lowering the rate of sea level rise by about 20% that is called “climate-driven sea level…

Chih-hao Hsieh Professor / Institute of Oceanography Synergistic effects of predator and prey size diversity on trophic transfer efficiency in ocean ecosystems   Carmen García-Comas and Chih-hao Hsieh Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University   A group of scientists from the Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, led by Dr. Carmen García-Comas and Prof. Chih-hao Hsieh, demonstrate that the interaction of predator and prey size diversities affects trophic transfer efficiency in marine plankton. This is the first study to analyze individual size structure at two trophic levels in plankton, and…

Chuan-Chou Shen Professor / Department of Geosciences Dynamics of tropical rainfall belt in the western Pacific over the past 282 thousand years The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), the most important realm for global ecosystem and human population, encompasses the heaviest tropical seasonal rain belt on Earth. Due to its intensive rainfall gradient, a small displacement can cause dramatic changes in hydroclimate. Being the corresponding author, Dr. Chuan-Chou Shen, a Distinguished Professor of the Department of Geosciences, and his team published their newest research results in the internationally renowned journal “Nature…