THE SCIENCE UNDERLYING THE ISSUE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND PROSPECTS FOR ADAPTATION

2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 689
Author(s):  
C.D. Mitchell ◽  
G.I. Pearman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Initial Response ◽  
Lower Atmosphere ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Atmospheric Concentration

The prospect of global-scale changes in climate resulting from changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations has produced a complex set of public and private- sector responses. This paper reviews several elements of this issue that are likely to be most important to industry.Scientific research continues to provide evidence to suggest that global climate will change significantly over the coming decades due to increases in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. Nonetheless, there exists a debate over the difference between observations of temperature retrieved from satellite and temperature measurements taken from the surface. Recent research undertaken to inform the debate is discussed, with the conclusion that there are real differences in trend between the surface and the lower atmosphere that can be explained in physical terms. Attention is turning to developing an understanding as to why climate model results show apparently consistent trends between the surface and the lower atmosphere, in contrast to these observations.While such uncertainties in the underlying science have been used to question whether action on the greenhouse issues is necessary, the initial response, as evidenced by international negotiations, has been to start mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation to future climate change has received less attention than mitigation. A number of reasons for this are discussed, including the fact that regional scenarios of climate change are uncertain.The principles of risk management may be one way to manage the uncertainties associated with projections of regional climate change. Although the application of risk management to the potential impacts of climate change requires further investigation, elements of such a framework are identified, and include:Identifying the critical climate-related thresholds that are important to industry and its operations (for example, a 1-in-100 year return tropical cyclone).Using this understanding to analyse, and where possible quantify, industry’s pre-existing or baseline adaptive state through the use of sensitivity surfaces and quantified thresholds (for example, were facilities designed for a 1-in-100 event or a 1-in-500 year event?)Establishing probabilistic statements or scenarios of climate that are relevant to industry practice (for example, risk of a storm surge may be more important to operations than elevated wind strength; if so, what is the probability that an event will exceed the design threshold during the lifetime of the facility?).Bringing information on existing adaptive mechanisms together with climate scenarios to produce a quantitative risk assessment.Deciding on risk treatment (additional adaptive measures).

scholarly journals New Tendencies in Global Climate Change and Their Effects on the Climate of Hungary

Hadmérnök ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-107
Author(s):  
László Földi ◽  
László Halász
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Lower Atmosphere ◽  
The Earth

Defining the term of climate, we investigate the role of natural causes and effects of human activities in climate change. The temperature of the Earth is determined by the balance between the amount of radiation energy received from the Sun and that emitted from the surface of the Earth towards the outer space. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides, act to make the surface much warmer, because they absorb and emit heat energy in all directions (including downwards), keeping Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere warm. The primary cause of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, which emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – primarily carbon dioxide. We give a review about the activity of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations Climate Change Conferences. Shortly investigate the different global climate models and some regional climate models. Finally discuss the results of regional climate model simulations for the Carpathian Basin.

scholarly journals Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claas Teichmann ◽  
Daniela Jacob ◽  
Armelle Reca Remedio ◽  
Thomas Remke ◽  
Lars Buntemeyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Change Information ◽  
Mean Climate

<p>The Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluations (CORE) simulation ensemble is an effort of the WCRP CORDEX community to provide high resolution regional climate change information for the major inhabited areas of the world and thus to generate the solid scientific basis for further research related to vulnerability, impact, adaptation and climate services (VIACS). This is especially important in those areas in which so far only few high-resolution simulations or only global comparatively coarse simulations were available. The driving simulations were selected to cover the spread of high, medium and low climate sensitivity at a global scale. Initially, the two RCMs REMO and RegCM4 were used to downscale these data global climate model output to a resolution of 0.22° (about 25km) while it is intended that the CORDEX CORE ensemble can then be extended by additional regional simulations to further increase the ensemble size and thus the representation of possible future climate change pathways.</p> <p>The aim of this study is to investigate and document the climate change information provided by the current CORDEX CORE ensemble with respect to mean climate change in different regions and in comparison to previously existing global climate information, especially those global climate simulations used as boundary forcing for CORDEX CORE, but also in comparison to the entire AR5-GCM ensemble. The analysis focuses on the representation of the AR5-GCM range of climate change signals by the CORDEX CORE ensemble with respect to mean temperature and precipitation changes and corresponding shifts in the annual cycles in the new AR6 IPCC physical reference regions. This also provides an indication for CORDEX CORE suitability for VIACS applications in each region.</p>

scholarly journals Future climate change and it`s impact on precipitation and temperature in Ukraine

2017 ◽  
pp. 76-82
Author(s):  
V. Khokhlov ◽  
N. Yermolenko
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climatic Change ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Annual Precipitation ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Southern Ukraine

Global climate change has provoked an active development in modern methods relating to the prediction of spatiotemporal hydrometeorological fields. Numerical modeling of nearest-future climatic changes allows to generate strategies of development for different areas of economic activity. The paper aims to assess the expected air temperature and precipitation features in Ukraine considering different scenarios of climatic change. The modeling future changes of air temperature and precipitation were carried out using the A1B and A2 scenarios of climatic change. The outcomes of regional climate model ECHAM5 from ENSEMBLES Project were used as initial data. It was revealed that the air temperature will gradually increase in most of Ukrainian regions. Moreover highest air temperature will be recorded in Southern Ukraine during 2031-2050. The analysis of linear trends for 2031-2050 showed that the air temperature for the scenario A1B will exhibit a tendency to the decrease of temperature. However, the annually mean temperature in 2031-2050 for the ‘moderate’ scenario A1B will be higher than for the ‘hard’, in terms of greenhouse gases concentrations, scenario A2. The annual precipitation in Ukraine, both for the A1B and A2 scenario, will slightly increase toward the 2050 with the exception of Southern Ukraine. Also, the highest annual precipitation will be registered in the western part of Ukraine, and lowest – in the southern one. The paper can be expanded to the analysis of future dangerous weather phenomena depending on the changes of air temperature and precipitation.

scholarly journals Early emergence in a butterfly causally linked to anthropogenic warming

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 674-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Kearney ◽  
Natalie J. Briscoe ◽  
David J. Karoly ◽  
Warren P. Porter ◽  
Melanie Norgate ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Regional Warming

There is strong correlative evidence that human-induced climate warming is contributing to changes in the timing of natural events. Firm attribution, however, requires cause-and-effect links between observed climate change and altered phenology, together with statistical confidence that observed regional climate change is anthropogenic. We provide evidence for phenological shifts in the butterfly Heteronympha merope in response to regional warming in the southeast Australian city of Melbourne. The mean emergence date for H. merope has shifted −1.5 days per decade over a 65-year period with a concurrent increase in local air temperatures of approximately 0.16°C per decade. We used a physiologically based model of climatic influences on development, together with statistical analyses of climate data and global climate model projections, to attribute the response of H. merope to anthropogenic warming. Such mechanistic analyses of phenological responses to climate improve our ability to forecast future climate change impacts on biodiversity.

scholarly journals Historical greenhouse gas concentrations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Meinshausen ◽  
Elisabeth Vogel ◽  
Alexander Nauels ◽  
Katja Lorbacher ◽  
Nicolai Meinshausen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Sulfur Hexafluoride ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Mixing Ratios ◽  
Surface Mixing ◽  
Cooling Effects

Abstract. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are at unprecedented, record-high levels compared to pre-industrial reconstructions over the last 800,000 years. Those elevated greenhouse gas concentrations warm the planet and together with net cooling effects by aerosols, they are the reason of observed climate change over the past 150 years. An accurate representation of those concentrations is hence important to understand and model recent and future climate change. So far, community efforts to create composite datasets with seasonal and latitudinal information have focused on marine boundary layer conditions and recent trends since 1980s. Here, we provide consolidated data sets of historical atmospheric (volume) mixing ratios of 43 greenhouse gases specifically for the purpose of climate model runs. The presented datasets are based on AGAGE and NOAA networks and a large set of literature studies. In contrast to previous intercomparisons, the new datasets are latitudinally resolved, and include seasonality over the period between year 0 to 2014. We assimilate data for CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), 5 chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), 3 hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), 16 hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), 3 halons, methyl bromide (CH3Br), 3 perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), nitrogen triflouride (NF3) and sulfuryl fluoride (SO2F2). We estimate 1850 annual and global mean surface mixing ratios of CO2 at 284.3 ppmv, CH4 at 808.2 ppbv and N2O at 273.0 ppbv and quantify the seasonal and hemispheric gradients of surface mixing ratios. Compared to earlier intercomparisons, the stronger implied radiative forcing in the northern hemisphere winter (due to the latitudinal gradient and seasonality) may help to improve the skill of climate models to reproduce past climate and thereby reduce uncertainty in future projections.

scholarly journals An update of IPCC climate reference regions for subcontinental analysis of climate model data: definition and aggregated datasets

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 2959-2970
Author(s):  
Maialen Iturbide ◽  
José M. Gutiérrez ◽  
Lincoln M. Alves ◽  
Joaquín Bedia ◽  
Ruth Cerezo-Mota ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Atmospheric Model ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Scatter Plots ◽  
Projected Changes

Abstract. Several sets of reference regions have been used in the literature for the regional synthesis of observed and modelled climate and climate change information. A popular example is the series of reference regions used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Adaptation (SREX). The SREX regions were slightly modified for the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC and used for reporting subcontinental observed and projected changes over a reduced number (33) of climatologically consistent regions encompassing a representative number of grid boxes. These regions are intended to allow analysis of atmospheric data over broad land or ocean regions and have been used as the basis for several popular spatially aggregated datasets, such as the Seasonal Mean Temperature and Precipitation in IPCC Regions for CMIP5 dataset. We present an updated version of the reference regions for the analysis of new observed and simulated datasets (including CMIP6) which offer an opportunity for refinement due to the higher atmospheric model resolution. As a result, the number of land and ocean regions is increased to 46 and 15, respectively, better representing consistent regional climate features. The paper describes the rationale for the definition of the new regions and analyses their homogeneity. The regions are defined as polygons and are provided as coordinates and a shapefile together with companion R and Python notebooks to illustrate their use in practical problems (e.g. calculating regional averages). We also describe the generation of a new dataset with monthly temperature and precipitation, spatially aggregated in the new regions, currently for CMIP5 and CMIP6, to be extended to other datasets in the future (including observations). The use of these reference regions, dataset and code is illustrated through a worked example using scatter plots to offer guidance on the likely range of future climate change at the scale of the reference regions. The regions, datasets and code (R and Python notebooks) are freely available at the ATLAS GitHub repository: https://github.com/SantanderMetGroup/ATLAS (last access: 24 August 2020), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3998463 (Iturbide et al., 2020).

scholarly journals Downscaling a global climate model to simulate climate change over the US and the implication on regional and urban air quality

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1429-1445 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Trail ◽  
A. P. Tsimpidi ◽  
P. Liu ◽  
K. Tsigaridis ◽  
Y. Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Southeastern Us ◽  
The Us ◽  
Ozone Levels

Abstract. Climate change can exacerbate future regional air pollution events by making conditions more favorable to form high levels of ozone. In this study, we use spectral nudging with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to downscale NASA earth system GISS modelE2 results during the years 2006 to 2010 and 2048 to 2052 over the contiguous United States in order to compare the resulting meteorological fields from the air quality perspective during the four seasons of five-year historic and future climatological periods. GISS results are used as initial and boundary conditions by the WRF regional climate model (RCM) to produce hourly meteorological fields. The downscaling technique and choice of physics parameterizations used are evaluated by comparing them with in situ observations. This study investigates changes of similar regional climate conditions down to a 12 km by 12 km resolution, as well as the effect of evolving climate conditions on the air quality at major US cities. The high-resolution simulations produce somewhat different results than the coarse-resolution simulations in some regions. Also, through the analysis of the meteorological variables that most strongly influence air quality, we find consistent changes in regional climate that would enhance ozone levels in four regions of the US during fall (western US, Texas, northeastern, and southeastern US), one region during summer (Texas), and one region where changes potentially would lead to better air quality during spring (Northeast). Changes in regional climate that would enhance ozone levels are increased temperatures and stagnation along with decreased precipitation and ventilation. We also find that daily peak temperatures tend to increase in most major cities in the US, which would increase the risk of health problems associated with heat stress. Future work will address a more comprehensive assessment of emissions and chemistry involved in the formation and removal of air pollutants.

scholarly journals A novel method for assessing climate change impacts in ecotron experiments

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (10) ◽  
pp. 1709-1727
Author(s):  
Inne Vanderkelen ◽  
Jakob Zscheischler ◽  
Lukas Gudmundsson ◽  
Klaus Keuler ◽  
Francois Rineau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Responses ◽  
Model Projection ◽  
Global Mean

Abstract Ecotron facilities allow accurate control of many environmental variables coupled with extensive monitoring of ecosystem processes. They therefore require multivariate perturbation of climate variables, close to what is observed in the field and projections for the future. Here, we present a new method for creating realistic climate forcing for manipulation experiments and apply it to the UHasselt Ecotron experiment. The new methodology uses data derived from the best available regional climate model projection and consists of generating climate forcing along a gradient representative of increasingly high global mean air temperature anomalies. We first identified the best-performing regional climate model simulation for the ecotron site from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment in the European domain (EURO-CORDEX) ensemble based on two criteria: (i) highest skill compared to observations from a nearby weather station and (ii) representativeness of the multi-model mean in future projections. The time window is subsequently selected from the model projection for each ecotron unit based on the global mean air temperature of the driving global climate model. The ecotron units are forced with 3-hourly output from the projections of the 5-year period in which the global mean air temperature crosses the predefined values. With the new approach, Ecotron facilities become able to assess ecosystem responses on changing climatic conditions, while accounting for the co-variation between climatic variables and their projection in variability, well representing possible compound events. The presented methodology can also be applied to other manipulation experiments, aiming at investigating ecosystem responses to realistic future climate change.

scholarly journals Brief Communication: An update of the article "Modelling flood damages under climate change conditions – a case study for Germany"

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 1617-1622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Fokko Hattermann ◽  
Shaochun Huang ◽  
Olaf Burghoff ◽  
Peter Hoffmann ◽  
Zbigniew W. Kundzewicz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Considerable Increase ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Impact Modelling ◽  
Flood Damages

Abstract. In our first study on possible flood damages under climate change in Germany, we reported that a considerable increase in flood-related losses can be expected in a future warmer climate. However, the general significance of the study was limited by the fact that outcome of only one global climate model (GCM) was used as a large-scale climate driver, while many studies report that GCMs are often the largest source of uncertainty in impact modelling. Here we show that a much broader set of global and regional climate model combinations as climate drivers show trends which are in line with the original results and even give a stronger increase of damages.

scholarly journals Quantification of the Expected Changes in Annual Maximum Daily Precipitation Quantiles under Climate Change in the Iberian Peninsula

Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Garijo ◽  
Luis Mediero
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Control Period ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
The Future

Climate model projections can be used to assess the expected behaviour of extreme precipitations in the future due to climate change. The European part of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscalling Experiment (EURO-CORDEX) provides precipitation projections for the future under various representative concentration pathways (RCPs) through regionalised Global Climate Model (GCM) outputs by a set of Regional Climate Models (RCMs). In this work, 12 combinations of GCM and RCM under two scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) supplied by the EURO-CORDEX are analysed for the Iberian Peninsula. Precipitation quantiles for a set of probabilities of non-exceedance are estimated by using the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution and L-moments. Precipitation quantiles expected in the future are compared with the precipitation quantiles in the control period for each climate model. An approach based on Monte Carlo simulations is developed in order to assess the uncertainty from the climate model projections. Expected changes in the future are compared with the sampling uncertainty in the control period. Thus, statistically significant changes are identified. The higher the significance threshold, the fewer cells with significant changes are identified. Consequently, a set of maps are obtained in order to assist the decision-making process in subsequent climate change studies.

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