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Although the World Health Organization has declared that the COVID‐19 pandemic no longer qualifies as a global public health emergency, it still needs to explore the response of society to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Socio‐economic status (SES) was proven to be linearly associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic, although this relationship may be more complex due to regional differences. In the study, we analyzed and revealed the effects and mechanisms of SES on infections among low, lower‐middle, upper‐middle and high SES group (LSG, LMSG, UMSG, and HSG, respectively). The results showed that the relationship between SES and infections was inverted U‐shaped, especially in the first three phases. In Phase I, UMSG had the highest number of infections, with an average of 238.31/1M people (95%CI: 135.47–341.15/1M people). In Phases II and III, infections decreased insignificantly with increasing SES (r = −0.01, p = 0.92; r = −0.11, p = 0.22) and the highest number of infections were found in the LMSG. In Phase IV, SES was positively related to the number of infections (r = 0.54, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the nonlinear impact of multiple factors related to SES on the infections explains the complex relationships between SES and infections. SES affected infections mainly through medical resources, demographics and vaccination, and differed across the SES groups. Particularly, demographics could exert an impact on population mobility, subsequently influencing infections in LMSG, with an indirect effect of 0.01 (p < 0.05) in Phase II. This study argues for greater attention to countries with middle SES and the need for future targeted measures to cope with infectious diseases. Plain Language Summary: As the virulence of SARS‐CoV‐2 diminishes and vaccination coverage rises, countries around the world are gradually returning to normal development like the pre‐COVID‐19 period. However, the COVID‐19 pandemic crisis of the past three years calls for thoughtful reflection, presenting us with experiences and lessons to learn from. Previous studies suggested that the infections were linearly associated with socio‐economic status (SES). Nevertheless, SES was related with multiple factors (such as vaccination), leading to the complex relationship between infections and SES. Therefore, it still needs to analyze the impacts and mechanisms of SES on infections. Empirical results show the relationship between SES and infections was an inverted U‐shape in the progress of the COVID‐19 pandemic, and the infections in lower‐middle and upper‐middle SES countries was the highest in the first three phases. SES affected infections through multiple factors and the mechanisms differed across SES groups. This work emphasizes the need to be attentive to the further prevalence of infectious diseases in middle‐SES countries and implementing the target measures in different SES countries in the future. Key Points: The response of society to the COVID‐19 pandemic was exploredSocio‐economic status had an inverted U‐shaped relationship with infections during the COVID‐19 pandemicSES affected infections mainly through action time, demographics, medical resources and vaccination [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a crucial component of the climate system, snow cover plays an important role on surface energy budgets, hydrological cycles and socioeconomic development. This paper investigated the spatiotemporal patterns of snow depth across the Qinghai Plateau (QP) during 1980–2018 based on passive microwave (PMW) satellite observation and reanalysis products. The study identified the relationships between the changes in PMW snow depth and topographic features and revealed the impact of climatic variables (air temperature, precipitation and wind speed) and large‐scale atmospheric circulations on observed snow depth variability. The results show that the spatial pattern of snow depth climatology is similar in all datasets, except in terms of magnitude, with high values in the southern and southeastern parts of the QP and low values in the eastern and northwestern parts. Average snow depth correlates positively with precipitation, elevation and slope, and negatively with air temperature and wind speed. The long‐term trends in snow depth vary with the season and the datasets. The PMW snow depth across the QP shows a significant annual (−0.125 cm·decades−1, p <.10) and spring (−0.184 cm·decades−1, p <.05) negative trend, while snow depth for ERA5 and MERRA2 does not present significant trends. Air temperature dominates total snow depth variation over the QP, explaining 43.85, 24.88 and 47.28% of annual, winter and spring PMW snow depth variations, which significantly affects snow depth variations in most parts of the QP, yet the effects of precipitation and wind speed on snow depth variation exhibit significant regional differences, and atmospheric circulations (e.g., AMO) also have a remarkable controlling effect on some localized areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how crop phenology responds to climate change is critical for enabling agricultural adaptation measures. Pre‐season temperature alone leads to well‐understood changes in crop phenology. Nevertheless, the modulation effect of concurrent precipitation extremes on the response to temperature extremes has been largely under‐addressed. Here, we investigate the response of rice transplanting dates to pre‐season temperature extremes and reveal the modulation effects of concurrent precipitation extremes by using station‐observed rice transplanting dates from 1981 to 2018 across mainland China. We also evaluate the performance of a remotely sensed phenology product, ChinaCropPhen1km, in reproducing the above temperature responses and modulation effects. Our results showed that transplanting dates tended to advance in response to an extremely hot pre‐season, while concurrent extreme drought offset the advance by up to 2.6 days. Transplanting dates tended to be delayed in response to an extremely cold pre‐season, while concurrent extreme precipitation exacerbated the delay by up to 1 day. Responses to temperature extremes and modulation effects were divergent across different regions. Under extremely hot conditions, transplanting dates advanced further in hotter and wetter regions, while under extremely cold pre‐seasons, transplanting dates delayed less in colder and drier regions. Transplanting dates from the ChinaCropPhen1km product underestimated the responses to temperature extremes by up to 4.7 days and detected the opposite modulation effect compared to those obtained from observations. Our results highlight that the need to improve our understanding and modeling of modulation effects of precipitation extremes on temperature–phenology relationship, which benefits the field of agriculture risk analysis and climate change adaptation. Plain Language Summary: Frequent climate extremes are projected with ongoing climate change. This paper reveals the effect of concurrent precipitation extremes in modulating rice transplanting date response to pre‐season temperature extremes in China and assesses remotely sensed transplanting dates from the ChinaCropPhen1km product in reproducing the above temperature responses and modulation effects. Results show that concurrent precipitation extremes substantially influence the temperature–transplanting date relationship. Two kinds of modulation effects are detected: (a) concurrent extreme precipitation tends to exacerbate the extremely cold‐induced delay by up to 1 day, and (b) concurrent extreme drought conditions tend to offset the extremely hot‐induced advance by up to 2.6 days. From a spatial perspective, responses to temperature extremes and modulation effects are divergent across regions. Additionally, remotely sensed transplanting dates from the ChinaCropPhen1km product underestimate the temperature responses and detect the opposite modulation effects compared to observations. This study highlights the critical role of concurrent precipitation extremes in modulating temperature impact on crop phenology, which requires more understanding and modeling in future analysis. Key Points: Concurrent extreme drought offset the extreme hot induced‐advance, and extreme precipitation exacerbate the extreme cold induced‐delayResponses to temperature extremes and modulation effects of precipitation extremes are divergent across regionsRemotely sensed transplanting dates from ChinaCropPhen1km underestimate the responses to temperature extremes and modulation effects [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many carabid beetles are among the most important biocontrol agents and are biological indicators of environmental change, although relatively little is known about how local and landscape factors affect forest ground beetle assemblages. Understanding such effects of multi‐scale environmental drivers on ground beetles can promote carabid diversity and conservation.Ground beetles were sampled by pitfall trapping in 40 poplar forest stands (sampling plots) along the Irtysh River in Northwestern China. We investigated responses of carabid activity density, species diversity and functional diversity (FD) to stand characteristics and surrounding landscape structure (the overall diversity and percentage cover of vegetation productivity classes in the surrounding area of each sampling plot based on normalised difference vegetation index).While carabid activity density only responded positively to the overall diversity of vegetation productivity classes, carabid species diversity was positively associated with this landscape factor as well as vegetation cover but negatively associated with the nearest distance from sampling plot to the river. Only carabid FD responded significantly to percentage cover of vegetation productivity classes, showing a positive correlation with the proportion of medium vegetation productivity. Furthermore, overall carabid FD declined with increasing tree canopy cover.Our results can help predicting spatial patterns of ground beetles according to landscape diversity and proportions of surrounding vegetation types and improve the design of conservation strategies (such as altering canopy cover) of carabids, especially forest specialist species. Any forest management strategies for promoting carabid diversity should consider the pervasive effects of landscape composition and configuration besides local stand characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electron beam generated in laser plasma accelerators (LPAs) has two main initial weaknesses – a large beam divergence (up to a few milliradians) and a few percent level energy spread. They reduce the beam brightness and worsen the coherence of the LPA‐based light source. To achieve fully coherent radiation, several methods have been proposed for generating strong microbunching on LPA beams. In these methods, a seed laser is used to induce an angular modulation into the electron beam, and the angular modulation is converted into a strong density modulation through a beamline with nonzero longitudinal position and transverse angle coupling. In this paper, an alternative method to generate microbunching into the LPA beam by using a seed laser that induces an energy modulation and transverse–longitudinal coupling beamlines that convert the energy modulation into strong density modulation is proposed. Compared with the angular modulation methods, the proposed method can use more than one order of magnitude lower seed laser power to achieve similar radiation performance. Simulations show that with the proposed method a coherent pulse of a few microjoules pulse energy and femtosecond duration can be generated with a typical LPA beam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been increasing interest in understanding climate change impacts on crop yield stability, including interannual yield variability and lower yield extremes, in addition to mean yield. In this study, we evaluated these impacts on wheat yield and investigated the contribution of changes in climate mean and variability, and their interaction, on the North China Plain (NCP). Wheat yield simulation experiments with control groups were conducted using the Crop Environment Resource Synthesis (CERES) model, with multiple general circulation model ensembles under two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), namely 4.5 and 8.5. Climate change was projected to reduce mean yield by 15 and 17%, increase yield interannual variability by 5 and 11%, and reduce 10‐year return period lower yield extremes by 31 and 34% under RCPs 4.5 and 8.5, respectively. When analysed, changes in climate mean proved the main cause for changes in mean yield (62–71%), followed by the interactive changes in climate mean and variability (26–33%). As for the impact on yield variability, the interaction of the changes in climate mean and variability proved the main cause (48–54%), followed by changes in climate mean (33–41%). Surprisingly, climate change in variability contributed the least in both cases. Our results pertaining to the decrease in both availability and stability of wheat yield on the NCP presents a greater challenge for building a resilient food system for local areas than before. They also highlighted the importance of separating the impacts of changes in climate mean and variability on crop yield stability in a holistic framework, with particular attention paid to the tangible and interactive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]