Effect of model resolution on a regional climate model simulation over southeast Australia

KAUST Repository

Evans, J. P.

2013-03-26

Dynamically downscaling climate projections from global climate models (GCMs) for use in impacts and adaptation research has become a common practice in recent years. In this study, the CSIRO Mk3.5 GCM is downscaled using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model (RCM) to medium (50 km) and high (10 km) resolution over southeast Australia. The influence of model resolution on the present-day (1985 to 2009) modelled regional climate and projected future (2075 to 2099) changes are examined for both mean climate and extreme precipitation characteristics. Increasing model resolution tended to improve the simulation of present day climate, with larger improvements in areas affected by mountains and coastlines. Examination of circumstances under which increasing the resolution decreased performance revealed an error in the GCM circulation, the effects of which had been masked by the coarse GCM topography. Resolution modifications to projected changes were largest in regions with strong topographic and coastline influences, and can be large enough to change the sign of the climate change projected by the GCM. Known physical mechanisms for these changes included orographic uplift and low-level blocking of air-masses caused by mountains. In terms of precipitation extremes, the GCM projects increases in extremes even when the projected change in the mean was a decrease: but this was not always true for the higher resolution models. Thus, while the higher resolution RCM climate projections often concur with the GCM projections, there are times and places where they differ significantly due to their better representation of physical processes. It should also be noted that the model resolution can modify precipitation characteristics beyond just its mean value.

Spatial scale separation in regional climate modelling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Feser, F.

2005-07-01

In this thesis the concept of scale separation is introduced as a tool for first improving regional climate model simulations and, secondly, to explicitly detect and describe the added value obtained by regional modelling. The basic idea behind this is that global and regional climate models have their best performance at different spatial scales. Therefore the regional model should not alter the global model's results at large scales. The for this purpose designed concept of nudging of large scales controls the large scales within the regional model domain and keeps them close to the global forcing model whereby the regional scales are left unchanged. For ensemble simulations nudging of large scales strongly reduces the divergence of the different simulations compared to the standard approach ensemble that occasionally shows large differences for the individual realisations. For climate hindcasts this method leads to results which are on average closer to observed states than the standard approach. Also the analysis of the regional climate model simulation can be improved by separating the results into different spatial domains. This was done by developing and applying digital filters that perform the scale separation effectively without great computational effort. The separation of the results into different spatial scales simplifies model validation and process studies. The search for 'added value' can be conducted on the spatial scales the regional climate model was designed for giving clearer results than by analysing unfiltered meteorological fields. To examine the skill of the different simulations pattern correlation coefficients were calculated between the global reanalyses, the regional climate model simulation and, as a reference, of an operational regional weather analysis. The regional climate model simulation driven with large-scale constraints achieved a high increase in similarity to the operational analyses for medium-scale 2 meter

FY08 LDRD Final Report Regional Climate

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bader, D C; Chin, H; Caldwell, P M

2009-05-19

An integrated, multi-model capability for regional climate change simulation is needed to perform original analyses to understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change on the time and space scales that are critical to California's future environmental quality and economic prosperity. Our intent was to develop a very high resolution regional simulation capability to address consequences of climate change in California to complement the global modeling capability that is supported by DOE at LLNL and other institutions to inform national and international energy policies. The California state government, through the California Energy Commission (CEC), institutionalized the State's climate change assessment process through its biennial climate change reports. The bases for these reports, however, are global climate change simulations for future scenarios designed to inform international policy negotiations, and are primarily focused on the global to continental scale impacts of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. These simulations do not meet the needs of California public and private officials who will make major decisions in the next decade that require an understanding of climate change in California for the next thirty to fifty years and its effects on energy use, water utilization, air quality, agriculture and natural ecosystems. With the additional development of regional dynamical climate modeling capability, LLNL will be able to design and execute global simulations specifically for scenarios important to the state, then use those results to drive regional simulations of the impacts of the simulated climate change for regions as small as individual cities or watersheds. Through this project, we systematically studied the strengths and weaknesses of downscaling global model results with a regional mesoscale model to guide others, particularly university researchers, who are using the technique based on models with less complete

CARICOF - The Caribbean Regional Climate Outlook Forum

Science.gov (United States)

Van Meerbeeck, Cedric

2013-04-01

Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) are viewed as a critical building block in the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The GFCS seeks to extend RCOFs to all vulnerable regions of the world such as the Caribbean, of which the entire population is exposed to water- and heat-related natural hazards. An RCOF is initially intended to identify gaps in information and technical capability; facilitate research cooperation and data exchange within and between regions, and improve coordination within the climate forecasting community. A focus is given on variations in climate conditions on a seasonal timescale. In this view, the relevance of a Caribbean RCOF (CARICOF) is the following: while the seasonality of the climate in the Caribbean has been well documented, major gaps in knowledge exist in terms of the drivers in the shifts of amplitude and phase of seasons (as evidenced from the worst region-wide drought period in recent history during 2009-2010). To address those gaps, CARICOF has brought together National Weather Services (NWSs) from 18 territories under the coordination of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), to produce region-wide, consensus, seasonal climate outlooks since March 2012. These outlooks include tercile rainfall forecasts, sea and air surface temperature forecasts as well as the likely evolution of the drivers of seasonal climate variability in the region, being amongst others the El Niño Southern Oscillation or tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea temperatures. Forecasts for both the national-scale forecasts made by the NWSs and CIMH's regional-scale forecast amalgamate output from several forecasting tools. These currently include: (1) statistical models such as Canonical Correlation Analysis run with the Climate Predictability Tool, providing tercile rainfall forecasts at weather station scale; (2) a global outlooks published by the WMO appointed Global Producing

Sensitivity of regional climate to global temperature and forcing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tebaldi, Claudia; O’Neill, Brian; Lamarque, Jean-François

2015-01-01

The sensitivity of regional climate to global average radiative forcing and temperature change is important for setting global climate policy targets and designing scenarios. Setting effective policy targets requires an understanding of the consequences exceeding them, even by small amounts, and the effective design of sets of scenarios requires the knowledge of how different emissions, concentrations, or forcing need to be in order to produce substantial differences in climate outcomes. Using an extensive database of climate model simulations, we quantify how differences in global average quantities relate to differences in both the spatial extent and magnitude of climate outcomes at regional (250–1250 km) scales. We show that differences of about 0.3 °C in global average temperature are required to generate statistically significant changes in regional annual average temperature over more than half of the Earth’s land surface. A global difference of 0.8 °C is necessary to produce regional warming over half the land surface that is not only significant but reaches at least 1 °C. As much as 2.5 to 3 °C is required for a statistically significant change in regional annual average precipitation that is equally pervasive. Global average temperature change provides a better metric than radiative forcing for indicating differences in regional climate outcomes due to the path dependency of the effects of radiative forcing. For example, a difference in radiative forcing of 0.5 W m −2 can produce statistically significant differences in regional temperature over an area that ranges between 30% and 85% of the land surface, depending on the forcing pathway. (letter)

Potential effects of climate change on hydrology in the oil sands region of Alberta

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Biftu, G.F.; Beersing, A.; Kalinga, O.A.; Pandit, K.N.

2007-01-01

The potential effects of climate change must be incorporated within environmental assessments of oil and gas developments. This paper evaluated the findings of a study examining the potential impacts of climate change on watershed hydrology in the oil sands region of Alberta. Components of the study included a review of trends in climate parameters and their effect on hydrology, as well as statistical analyses of precipitation, temperature and stream flow data of the Athabasca River at both the local and regional scale. The influences of tributary streams were also examined. Results of the study demonstrated that air temperatures have been steadily rising over the past few decades. Recorded annual precipitation also increased during the spring and summer months, and decreased during the winter and fall. Annual mean flows decreased. Results suggested that wet and dry cycles tended to exaggerate trends when only partial segments of the cycles were analyzed. The analysis of flows in the tributary streams indicated a that mean and peak flows were also decreasing. However, an increase in peak winter flows was observed. It was concluded that there is a large degree of uncertainty in the predictions of the hydrologic effects of climate change. 17 refs., 6 tabs

Climate change due to greenhouse effects in China as simulated by a regional climate model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gao, X.J.; Zhao, Z.C.; Ding, Y.H.; Huang, R.H.; Giorgi, F. [National Climate Centre, Beijing (China)

2001-07-01

Impacts of greenhouse effects (2 x CO{sub 2}) upon climate change over China as simulated by a regional climate model over China (RegCM / China) have been investigated. The model was based on RegCM2 and was nested to a global coupled ocean-atmosphere model (CSIRO R21L9 AOGCM model). Results of the control run (1 x CO{sub 2}) indicated that simulations of surface air temperature and precipitation in China by RegCM are much better than that by the global coupled model because of a higher resolution. Results of sensitive experiment by RegCM with 2 x CO{sub 2} showed that the surface air temperature over China might increase remarkably due to greenhouse effect, especially in winter season and in North China. Precipitation might also increase in most parts of China due to the CO{sub 2} doubling.

World Regionalization of Climate Change(1961–2010)

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Peijun; Shi; Shao; Sun; Daoyi; Gong; Tao; Zhou

2016-01-01

Traditional climate classification or regionalization characterizes the mean state of climate condition, which cannot meet the demand of addressing climate change currently. We have developed a climate change classification method, as well as the fundamental principles, an indicator system, and mapping techniques of climate change regionalization. This study used annual mean temperature and total precipitation as climatic indices, and linear trend and variation change as change indices to characterize climate change quantitatively. The study has proposed a scheme for world climate change regionalization based on a half century of climate data(1961–2010). Level-I regionalization divides the world into 12 tendency zones based on the linear trend of climate, level-II regionalization resulted in 28 fluctuation regions based on the variation change of climate. Climate change regionalization provides a scientific basis for countries and regions to develop plans for adapting to climate change, especially for managing climate-related disaster or environmental risks.

Regionalizing global climate models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pitman, A.J.; Arneth, A.; Ganzeveld, L.N.

2012-01-01

Global climate models simulate the Earth's climate impressively at scales of continents and greater. At these scales, large-scale dynamics and physics largely define the climate. At spatial scales relevant to policy makers, and to impacts and adaptation, many other processes may affect regional and

Regional climate change and national responsibilities

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, James; Sato, Makiko

2016-03-01

Global warming over the past several decades is now large enough that regional climate change is emerging above the noise of natural variability, especially in the summer at middle latitudes and year-round at low latitudes. Despite the small magnitude of warming relative to weather fluctuations, effects of the warming already have notable social and economic impacts. Global warming of 2 °C relative to preindustrial would shift the ‘bell curve’ defining temperature anomalies a factor of three larger than observed changes since the middle of the 20th century, with highly deleterious consequences. There is striking incongruity between the global distribution of nations principally responsible for fossil fuel CO2 emissions, known to be the main cause of climate change, and the regions suffering the greatest consequences from the warming, a fact with substantial implications for global energy and climate policies.

The new WMO RA VI Regional Climate Centre on Climate Monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Rapp, J.; Nitsche, H.

2010-09-01

Regional Climate Centres (RCCs) are institutions with the capacity and mandate by WMO to develop high quality regional-scale products using global products and incorporating regional information. Recently a pilot network of three RCC consortia was established for the WMO region RA VI (Europe and Middle East): • RCC node on climate data, • RCC node on climate monitoring, • RCC node on long-range forecasting. DWD/Germany has taken the responsibility of the RCC node on climate monitoring (RRC-CM). Further consortium members are Armstatehydromet/Armenia, Météo-France/France, KNMI/The Netherlands, RHMS/Serbia, and TSMS/Turkey. RCCs provide online access to their products and services to national meteorological and hydrological services and to other regional users. Vice versa, RCCs receive data, products, know-how and feedbacks from the meteorological services as a main source for regional information. By the same time, they provide regional data, products and feedbacks to Global Production Centres and Lead Centres for respective verification and product optimisation of the global-scale information. The RCC-CM will perform basic functions covering the domain of climate monitoring: • Annual and monthly climate diagnostic bulletins, • Monthly monitoring maps: global, RAVI, Eastern Mediterranean, South Caucasus, • Reference climatologies and trend maps, • RA VI climate monitoring WebPortal, • Climate watches, • Training; Research and Development (R&D). The poster shows the current stage of development of the RCC-CM by means of example products.

Regional Highlights of Climate Change

Science.gov (United States)

David L. Peterson; J.M. Wolken; Teresa Hollingsworth; Christian Giardina; J.S. Littell; Linda Joyce; Chris Swanston; Stephen Handler; Lindsey Rustad; Steve McNulty

2014-01-01

Climatic extremes, ecological disturbance, and their interactions are expected to have major effects on ecosystems and social systems in most regions of the United States in the coming decades. In Alaska, where the largest temperature increases have occurred, permafrost is melting, carbon is being released, and fire regimes are changing, leading to a...

Simulated effects of climate change on the Death Valley regional ground-water flow system, Nevada and California

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

D'Agnese, F.A.; O'Brien, G.M.; Faunt, C.C.; San Juan, C.A.

1999-01-01

The US Geological Survey, in cooperation with the US Department of Energy, is evaluating the geologic and hydrologic characteristics of the Death Valley regional flow system as part of the Yucca Mountain Project. As part of the hydrologic investigation, regional, three-dimensional conceptual and numerical ground-water-flow models have been developed to assess the potential effects of past and future climates on the regional flow system. A simulation that is based on climatic conditions 21,000 years ago was evaluated by comparing the simulated results to observation of paleodischarge sites. Following acceptable simulation of a past climate, a possible future ground-water-flow system, with climatic conditions that represent a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, was simulated. The steady-state simulations were based on the present-day, steady-state, regional ground-water-flow model. The finite-difference model consisted of 163 rows, 153 columns, and 3 layers and was simulated using MODFLOWP. Climate changes were implemented in the regional ground-water-flow model by changing the distribution of ground-water recharge. Global-scale, average-annual, simulated precipitation for both past- and future-climate conditions developed elsewhere were resampled to the model-grid resolution. A polynomial function that represents the Maxey-Eakin method for estimating recharge from precipitation was used to develop recharge distributions for simulation

Evaluating the performance and utility of regional climate models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Jens H.; Carter, Timothy R.; Rummukainen, Markku

2007-01-01

This special issue of Climatic Change contains a series of research articles documenting co-ordinated work carried out within a 3-year European Union project 'Prediction of Regional scenarios and Uncertainties for Defining European Climate change risks and Effects' (PRUDENCE). The main objective...... of the PRUDENCE project was to provide high resolution climate change scenarios for Europe at the end of the twenty-first century by means of dynamical downscaling (regional climate modelling) of global climate simulations. The first part of the issue comprises seven overarching PRUDENCE papers on: (1) the design...... of the model simulations and analyses of climate model performance, (2 and 3) evaluation and intercomparison of simulated climate changes, (4 and 5) specialised analyses of impacts on water resources and on other sectors including agriculture, ecosystems, energy, and transport, (6) investigation of extreme...

Regional climate change scenarios

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Somot, S.

2005-01-01

Because studies of the regional impact of climate change need higher spatial resolution than that obtained in standard global climate change scenarios, developing regional scenarios from models is a crucial goal for the climate modelling community. The zoom capacity of ARPEGE-Climat, the Meteo-France climate model, allows use of scenarios with a horizontal resolution of about 50 km over France and the Mediterranean basin. An IPCC-A2 scenario for the end of the 21. century in France shows higher temperatures in each season and more winter and less summer precipitation than now. Tuning the modelled statistical distributions to observed temperature and precipitation allows us to study changes in the frequency of extreme events between today's climate and that at the end of century. The frequency of very hot days in summer will increase. In particular, the frequency of days with a maximum temperature above 35 deg C will be multiplied by a factor of 10, on average. In our scenario, the Toulouse area and Provence might see one quarter of their summer days with a maximum temperature above 35 deg C. (author)

Regional climate projection of the Maritime Continent using the MIT Regional Climate Model

Science.gov (United States)

IM, E. S.; Eltahir, E. A. B.

2014-12-01

Given that warming of the climate system is unequivocal (IPCC AR5), accurate assessment of future climate is essential to understand the impact of climate change due to global warming. Modelling the climate change of the Maritime Continent is particularly challenge, showing a high degree of uncertainty. Compared to other regions, model agreement of future projections in response to anthropogenic emission forcings is much less. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal behaviors of climate projections seem to vary significantly due to a complex geographical condition and a wide range of scale interactions. For the fine-scale climate information (27 km) suitable for representing the complexity of climate change over the Maritime Continent, dynamical downscaling is performed using the MIT regional climate model (MRCM) during two thirty-year period for reference (1970-1999) and future (2070-2099) climate. Initial and boundary conditions are provided by Community Earth System Model (CESM) simulations under the emission scenarios projected by MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM). Changes in mean climate as well as the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events are investigated at various temporal and spatial scales. Our analysis is primarily centered on the different behavior of changes in convective and large-scale precipitation over land vs. ocean during dry vs. wet season. In addition, we attempt to find the added value to downscaled results over the Maritime Continent through the comparison between MRCM and CESM projection. Acknowledgements.This research was supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore through the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology's Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling interdisciplinary research program.

Regional Analysis of Energy, Water, Land and Climate Interactions

Science.gov (United States)

Tidwell, V. C.; Averyt, K.; Harriss, R. C.; Hibbard, K. A.; Newmark, R. L.; Rose, S. K.; Shevliakova, E.; Wilson, T.

2014-12-01

Energy, water, and land systems interact in many ways and are impacted by management and climate change. These systems and their interactions often differ in significant ways from region-to-region. To explore the coupled energy-water-land system and its relation to climate change and management a simple conceptual model of demand, endowment and technology (DET) is proposed. A consistent and comparable analysis framework is needed as climate change and resource management practices have the potential to impact each DET element, resource, and region differently. These linkages are further complicated by policy and trade agreements where endowments of one region are used to meet demands in another. This paper reviews the unique DET characteristics of land, energy and water resources across the United States. Analyses are conducted according to the eight geographic regions defined in the 2014 National Climate Assessment. Evident from the analyses are regional differences in resources endowments in land (strong East-West gradient in forest, cropland and desert), water (similar East-West gradient), and energy. Demands likewise vary regionally reflecting differences in population density and endowment (e.g., higher water use in West reflecting insufficient precipitation to support dryland farming). The effect of technology and policy are particularly evident in differences in the energy portfolios across the eight regions. Integrated analyses that account for the various spatial and temporal differences in regional energy, water and land systems are critical to informing effective policy requirements for future energy, climate and resource management. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

Regional climate service in Southern Germany

Science.gov (United States)

Schipper, Janus; Hackenbruch, Julia

2013-04-01

Climate change challenges science, politics, business and society at the international, national and regional level. The South German Climate Office at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a contact for the structuring and dissemination of information on climate and climate change in the South German region. It provides scientifically based and user-oriented climate information. Thereby it builds a bridge between the climate sciences and society and provides scientific information on climate change in an understandable way. The expertise of KIT, in which several institutions operate on fundamental and applied climate research, and of partner institutions is the basis for the work in the climate office. The regional focus is on the south of Germany. Thematic focuses are e.g. regional climate modeling, trends in extreme weather events such as heavy rain and hail event, and issues for energy and water management. The South German Climate Office is one of four Regional Helmholtz Climate Offices, of which each has a regional and thematic focus. The users of the Climate Office can be summarized into three categories. First, there is the general public. This category consists mainly of non-professionals. Here, special attention is on an understandable translation of climate information. Attention is paid to application-related aspects, because each individual is affected in a different way by climate change. Typical examples of this category are school groups, citizens and the media. The second category consists of experts of other disciplines. Unlike the first category they are mainly interested in the exchange of results and data. It is important to the climate office to provide support for the use of climatological results. Typical representatives of this category are ministries, state offices, and companies. In the third and final category are scientists. In addition to the climatologists, this category also holds representatives from other scientific

Effects of increasing aerosol on regional climate change in China: Observation and modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Qian, Y.; Leung, L.; Ghan, S. J.

2002-12-01

We present regional simulations of climate, aerosol properties, and direct radiative forcing and climatic effects of aerosol and analyze the pollutant emissions and observed climatic data during the latter decades of last century in China. The regional model generally captures the spatial distributions and seasonal pattern of temperature and precipitation. Aerosol extinction coefficient and aerosol optical depth are generally well simulated in both magnitude and spatial distribution, which provides a reliable foundation for estimating the radiative forcing and climatic effects of aerosol. The radiative forcing of aerosol is in the range of -1 to -14 W m-2 in autumn and summer and -1 to -9 W m-2 in spring and winter, with substantial spatial variability at the sub-regional scale. A strong maximum in negative radiative forcing corresponding to the maximum optical depth is found over the Sichuan Basin, where emission as well as relative humidity are high, and stagnant atmospheric conditions inhibit pollutants dispersion. Negative radiative forcing of aerosol induces a surface cooling, which is stronger in the range of -0.6 to -1.2oC in autumn and winter than in spring (-0.3 to -0.6oC) and summer (0.0 to -0.9oC) over the Sichuan Basin and East China due to more significant effects of cloud and precipitation in the summer and spring. Aerosol-induced cooling is mainly contributed by cooling in the daytime temperature. The cooling reaches a maximum and is statistically significant in the Sichuan Basin. The effect of aerosol on precipitation is not evident in our simulations. The temporal and spatial patterns of temperature trends observed in the second half of the twentieth century, including the asymmetric daily maximum and minimum temperature trends, are at least qualitatively consistent with the simulated aerosol-induced cooling over the Sichuan Basin and East China. It supports the hypothesis that the observed temperature trends during the latter decades of the

Potential effects of climate change on freshwater ecosystems of the New England/Mid-Atlantic Region

Science.gov (United States)

Marianne V. Moore; Michael L. Pace; John R. Mather; [and others; [Editor’s note: Patricia A. Flebbe is the SRS co-author for this publication.

1997-01-01

Numerous freshwater ecosystems, dense concentrations of humans along the eastern seaboard, extensive forests, and a history of intensive land use distinguish the New England/Mid-Atlantic Region. Human population densities are forecast to increase in portions of the region at the same time that climate is expected to be changing. Consequently, the effects of humans and...

Regional analysis of ground and above-ground climate

Science.gov (United States)

1981-12-01

The regional suitability of underground construction as a climate control technique is discussed with reference to (1) a bioclimatic analysis of long term weather data for 29 locations in the United States to determine appropriate above ground climate control techniques, (2) a data base of synthesized ground temperatures for the coterminous United States, and (3) monthly dew point ground temperature comparisons for identifying the relative likelihood of condensation from one region to another. It is concluded that the suitability of Earth tempering as a practice and of specific Earth sheltered design stereotypes varies geographically; while the subsurface almost always provides a thermal advantage on its own terms when compared to above ground climatic data, it can, nonetheless, compromise the effectiveness of other, regionally more important climate control techniques. Reviews of above and below ground climate mapping schemes related to human comfort and architectural design, and detailed description of a theoretical model of ground temperature, heat flow, and heat storage in the ground are included. Strategies of passive climate control are presented in a discussion of the building bioclimatic analysis procedure which has been applied in a computer analysis of 30 years of weather data for each of 20 locations in the United States.

Regional analysis of ground and above-ground climate

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1981-12-01

The regional suitability of underground construction as a climate control technique is discussed with reference to (1) a bioclimatic analysis of long-term weather data for 29 locations in the United States to determine appropriate above ground climate control techniques, (2) a data base of synthesized ground temperatures for the coterminous United States, and (3) monthly dew point ground temperature comparisons for identifying the relative likelihood of condensation from one region to another. It is concluded that the suitability of earth tempering as a practice and of specific earth-sheltered design stereotypes varies geographically; while the subsurface almost always provides a thermal advantage on its own terms when compared to above ground climatic data, it can, nonetheless, compromise the effectiveness of other, regionally more important climate control techniques. Also contained in the report are reviews of above and below ground climate mapping schemes related to human comfort and architectural design, and detailed description of a theoretical model of ground temperature, heat flow, and heat storage in the ground. Strategies of passive climate control are presented in a discussion of the building bioclimatic analysis procedure which has been applied in a computer analysis of 30 years of weather data for each of 29 locations in the United States.

Modeling the Impacts of Global Climate and Regional Land Use Change on Regional Climate, Air Quality and Public Health in the New York Metropolitan Region

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenthal, J. E.; Knowlton, K. M.; Kinney, P. L.

2002-12-01

There is an imminent need to downscale the global climate models used by international consortiums like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to predict the future regional impacts of climate change. To meet this need, a "place-based" climate model that makes specific regional projections about future environmental conditions local inhabitants could face is being created by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, in collaboration with other researchers and universities, for New York City and the 31 surrounding counties. This presentation describes the design and initial results of this modeling study, aimed at simulating the effects of global climate change and regional land use change on climate and air quality over the northeastern United States in order to project the associated public health impacts in the region. Heat waves and elevated concentrations of ozone and fine particles are significant current public health stressors in the New York metropolitan area. The New York Climate and Health Project is linking human dimension and natural sciences models to assess the potential for future public health impacts from heat stress and air quality, and yield improved tools for assessing climate change impacts. The model will be applied to the NY metropolitan east coast region. The following questions will be addressed: 1. What changes in the frequency and severity of extreme heat events are likely to occur over the next 80 years due to a range of possible scenarios of land use and land cover (LU/LC) and climate change in the region? 2. How might the frequency and severity of episodic concentrations of ozone (O3) and airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 æm in diameter (PM2.5) change over the next 80 years due to a range of possible scenarios of land use and climate change in the metropolitan region? 3. What is the range of possible human health impacts of these changes in the region? 4. How might projected future human

Climate Prediction Center - Monitoring and Data - Regional Climate Maps:

Science.gov (United States)

National Weather Service NWS logo - Click to go to the NWS home page Climate Prediction Center Home Site government Web resources and services. HOME > Monitoring and Data > U.S. Climate Data > ; Precipitation & Temperature > Regional Climate Maps: USA Menu Weekly 1-Month 3-Month 12-Month Weekly

Ensemble-based Regional Climate Prediction: Political Impacts

Science.gov (United States)

Miguel, E.; Dykema, J.; Satyanath, S.; Anderson, J. G.

2008-12-01

Accurate forecasts of regional climate, including temperature and precipitation, have significant implications for human activities, not just economically but socially. Sub Saharan Africa is a region that has displayed an exceptional propensity for devastating civil wars. Recent research in political economy has revealed a strong statistical relationship between year to year fluctuations in precipitation and civil conflict in this region in the 1980s and 1990s. To investigate how climate change may modify the regional risk of civil conflict in the future requires a probabilistic regional forecast that explicitly accounts for the community's uncertainty in the evolution of rainfall under anthropogenic forcing. We approach the regional climate prediction aspect of this question through the application of a recently demonstrated method called generalized scalar prediction (Leroy et al. 2009), which predicts arbitrary scalar quantities of the climate system. This prediction method can predict change in any variable or linear combination of variables of the climate system averaged over a wide range spatial scales, from regional to hemispheric to global. Generalized scalar prediction utilizes an ensemble of model predictions to represent the community's uncertainty range in climate modeling in combination with a timeseries of any type of observational data that exhibits sensitivity to the scalar of interest. It is not necessary to prioritize models in deriving with the final prediction. We present the results of the application of generalized scalar prediction for regional forecasts of temperature and precipitation and Sub Saharan Africa. We utilize the climate predictions along with the established statistical relationship between year-to-year rainfall variability in Sub Saharan Africa to investigate the potential impact of climate change on civil conflict within that region.

Global Climate Models Intercomparison of Anthropogenic Aerosols Effects on Regional Climate over North Pacific

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, J.; Zhang, R.; Wang, Y.; Ming, Y.; Lin, Y.; Pan, B.

2015-12-01

Aerosols can alter atmospheric radiation and cloud physics, which further exert impacts on weather and global climate. With the development and industrialization of the developing Asian countries, anthropogenic aerosols have received considerable attentions and remain to be the largest uncertainty in the climate projection. Here we assess the performance of two stat-of-art global climate models (National Center for Atmospheric Research-Community Atmosphere Model 5 (CAM5) and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Atmosphere Model 3 (AM3)) in simulating the impacts of anthropogenic aerosols on North Pacific storm track region. By contrasting two aerosol scenarios, i.e. present day (PD) and pre-industrial (PI), both models show aerosol optical depth (AOD) enhanced by about 22%, with CAM5 AOD 40% lower in magnitude due to the long range transport of anthropogenic aerosols. Aerosol effects on the ice water path (IWP), stratiform precipitation, convergence and convection strengths in the two models are distinctive in patterns and magnitudes. AM3 shows qualitatively good agreement with long-term satellite observations, while CAM5 overestimates convection and liquid water path resulting in an underestimation of large-scale precipitation and IWP. Due to coarse resolution and parameterization in convection schemes, both models' performance on convection needs to be improved. Aerosols performance on large-scale circulation and radiative budget are also examined in this study.

Climate change projections for Greek viticulture as simulated by a regional climate model

Science.gov (United States)

Lazoglou, Georgia; Anagnostopoulou, Christina; Koundouras, Stefanos

2017-07-01

Viticulture represents an important economic activity for Greek agriculture. Winegrapes are cultivated in many areas covering the whole Greek territory, due to the favorable soil and climatic conditions. Given the dependence of viticulture on climate, the vitivinicultural sector is expected to be affected by possible climatic changes. The present study is set out to investigate the impacts of climatic change in Greek viticulture, using nine bioclimatic indices for the period 1981-2100. For this purpose, reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and data from the regional climatic model Regional Climate Model Version 3 (RegCM3) are used. It was found that the examined regional climate model estimates satisfactorily these bioclimatic indices. The results of the study show that the increasing trend of temperature and drought will affect all wine-producing regions in Greece. In vineyards in mountainous regions, the impact is positive, while in islands and coastal regions, it is negative. Overall, it should be highlighted that for the first time that Greece is classified into common climatic characteristic categories, according to the international Geoviticulture Multicriteria Climatic Classification System (MCC system). According to the proposed classification, Greek viticulture regions are estimated to have similar climatic characteristics with the warmer wine-producing regions of the world up to the end of twenty-first century. Wine growers and winemakers should take the findings of the study under consideration in order to take measures for Greek wine sector adaptation and the continuation of high-quality wine production.

Climate Change in Africa: Impacts and Effects on the Inhabitants of the Lake Chad Region.

Science.gov (United States)

Abubakar, B.; Tahir, S. M.; Olisa, O.

2009-05-01

The Department of Energy and Climate Change defined climate as the average weather experienced over a long period. This includes temperature, wind and rainfall patterns. The climate of the Earth is not static, and has changed many times in response to a variety of natural causes. Due to human activities in emmiting green house gases has resulted the Earth to get warmed by 0.74°C over the last hundred years. Around 0.4°C of this warming has occurred since the 1970s. Climate is now one of the major phenomenon threatening lives and humanity in general since the beginning of industrial revolution. Climate exerts a profound influence on the lives of poor populations in the Lake Chad region of Africa who depend on fishing and crop cultivation for livelihood and sustenance, who are unprotected against climate-related diseases, who lacked secure access to water and food and who are vulnerable to hydro meteorological hazard. The effects of climate change on the study area are many and include diminishing resources and conflicts over the available limited water resources. The Lake Chad region is a fragile area with high climate variability and extremes of weather. As this inland water is used for domestic and agricultural purposes, salt mining, as well as transportation by Nigerians, Nigeriens, Chadian and Cameroonians, it is an area of trans-boundary water conflicts. This paper examines the part played by climate change in the decline of fishery resources and livelihood activities in the Lake Chad region. Data from field studies, structured interview and secondary sources show that fish catches and livelihood activities have declined tremendously in recent times due to several factors including overexploitation and increasing demands on the aquatic resources. Findings from the study show that droughty periods have resulted in the reduction of open lake water surface from about 25,000 km2 in 1973 to less than 2,000 km2 in the 1990s. This has led to the diminishing aquatic

The Swedish Regional Climate Modelling Programme, SWECLIM: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Rummukainen, Markku; Bergström, Sten; Persson, Gunn; Rodhe, Johan; Tjernström, Michael

2004-06-01

The Swedish Regional Climate Modelling Programme, SWECLIM, was a 6.5-year national research network for regional climate modeling, regional climate change projections and hydrological impact assessment and information to a wide range of stakeholders. Most of the program activities focussed on the regional climate system of Northern Europe. This led to the establishment of an advanced, coupled atmosphere-ocean-hydrology regional climate model system, a suite of regional climate change projections and progress on relevant data and process studies. These were, in turn, used for information and educational purposes, as a starting point for impact analyses on different societal sectors and provided contributions also to international climate research.

Effect of climatic change on surface environments in the typical region of Horqin Sandy Land

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2010-01-01

The town of Agura,a typical region in Horqin Sandy Land,was selected as the study area in this paper.Using 12 remote sensing images and climatic data from the past 20 years,the effects of climate change on surface environments were analyzed.The impact indices of climatic factors,along with their corresponding ranks,were used to characterize the responses of different types of surface environments to climate change.Results show that in the past 20 years,the surface environments of the study area have been deteriorating.Furthermore,there is a positive relationship between the changes in surface environments and those in climatic factors.Various climatic factors influence surface environments in different ways and at different levels.The most sensitive factor is relative humidity,followed by precipitation and evaporation.Overall,moisture is the key factor that affects the changes in surface environments of arid and semi-arid areas.

Regional climate model simulations indicate limited climatic impacts by operational and planned European wind farms.

Science.gov (United States)

Vautard, Robert; Thais, Françoise; Tobin, Isabelle; Bréon, François-Marie; Devezeaux de Lavergne, Jean-Guy; Colette, Augustin; Yiou, Pascal; Ruti, Paolo Michele

2014-01-01

The rapid development of wind energy has raised concerns about environmental impacts. Temperature changes are found in the vicinity of wind farms and previous simulations have suggested that large-scale wind farms could alter regional climate. However, assessments of the effects of realistic wind power development scenarios at the scale of a continent are missing. Here we simulate the impacts of current and near-future wind energy production according to European Union energy and climate policies. We use a regional climate model describing the interactions between turbines and the atmosphere, and find limited impacts. A statistically significant signal is only found in winter, with changes within ±0.3 °C and within 0-5% for precipitation. It results from the combination of local wind farm effects and changes due to a weak, but robust, anticyclonic-induced circulation over Europe. However, the impacts remain much weaker than the natural climate interannual variability and changes expected from greenhouse gas emissions.

[Research on climatic factors of ecology suitability regionalization of atractylodis].

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Zhe-tian; Wang, Hao; Zhu, Shou-dong; Yan, Yu-ping; Guo, Lan-ping; Zheng, Yu-guang

2015-11-01

Through study on the correlation between atractylodis lactones ingredient content and climatic factors, we research regionalization from climatic of five main producing provinces of the country, in order to provide a scientific basis for atractylodis' conscious cultivation. By sampling from 40 origins which from five main producing provinces of the country, we use SPSS to analysis variation of atractylodis lactones ingredient content in different conditions of climatic factors and the effect of each factors. Then according to the relationship between atractylodis lactones ingredient content and climatic factors, we use ArcGIS to conduct ecological suitability regionalization based on climatic factors. The most suitable climatic condition for cultivation of atractylodis: the wettest month precipitation 220-230 mm, the warmest average temperature 25 degrees C, the average temperature of driest season 10 degrees C.

The Effect of Mitigation Policy on Regional Climate Impacts on the U.S. Electric Sector

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, S. M.; Sun, Y.; Strzepek, K.; McFarland, J.; Boehlert, B.; Fant, C.

2017-12-01

Climate change can influence the U.S. electricity sector in many ways, the nature of which can be shaped by energy and environmental policy choices. Changing temperatures affect electricity demand largely through heating and cooling needs, and temperatures also affect generation and transmission system performance. Altered precipitation patterns affect the regional and seasonal distribution of surface water runoff, which changes hydropower operation and thermal cooling water availability. The extent to which these stimuli influence U.S. power sector operation and planning will depend to some extent on whether or not proactive policies are enacted to mitigate these impacts. Mitigation policies such as CO2 emissions limits or technology restrictions can change the makeup of the electricity system while reducing the extent of climate change itself. We use the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS), a U.S. electric sector capacity expansion model, to explore electric sector evolution through 2050 under alternative climate and policy assumptions. The model endogenously represents climate impacts on load, power system performance, cooling water availability, and hydropower, allowing internally consistent system responses to climate change along with projected technology, market, and policy conditions. We compare climate impacts across 5 global circulation models for a 8.5 W/m2 representative concentration pathway (RCP) without a climate mitigation policy and a 4.5 W/m2 RCP with climate mitigation. Climate drivers affect the capacity and generation mix at the national and regional levels, with relative growth of wind, solar, and natural gas-based technologies depending on local electricity system characteristics. These differences affect regional economic impacts, measured here as changes to electricity price and system costs. Mitigation policy reduces the economic and system impacts of climate change largely by moderating

Oasis Irrigation-Induced Hydro-Climatic Effects: A Case Study in the Hyper-Arid Region of Northwest China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nan Shan

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The response of potential evapotranspiration (ET0 to widespread irrigation is important to fully understand future regional climate changes and to infer adaptive management of agricultural water resources. The quantitative impact of irrigation on ET0 from 1960 to 2013 was evaluated using historical time series data of daily meteorological observations in the hyper-arid region of northwest China. The decreasing trends in ET0 were accelerated for meteorological stations in regions with oasis agriculture, especially in the summer and during the growing season. Irrigation led to a cooling effect on temperature, increased relative humidity and precipitation. All of these changes contributed to a larger decrease of ET0 trend. The findings of this study advance our insight into the effects of irrigation on dynamics in ET0 and meteorological factors. Further investigations to understand how ET0 responds to climate change and agricultural irrigation could provide guidance for determining effective measures of water resources for adapting to global change.

Effects of lateral boundary condition resolution and update frequency on regional climate model predictions

Science.gov (United States)

Pankatz, Klaus; Kerkweg, Astrid

2015-04-01

The work presented is part of the joint project "DecReg" ("Regional decadal predictability") which is in turn part of the project "MiKlip" ("Decadal predictions"), an effort funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to improve decadal predictions on a global and regional scale. In MiKlip, one big question is if regional climate modeling shows "added value", i.e. to evaluate, if regional climate models (RCM) produce better results than the driving models. However, the scope of this study is to look more closely at the setup specific details of regional climate modeling. As regional models only simulate a small domain, they have to inherit information about the state of the atmosphere at their lateral boundaries from external data sets. There are many unresolved questions concerning the setup of lateral boundary conditions (LBC). External data sets come from global models or from global reanalysis data-sets. A temporal resolution of six hours is common for this kind of data. This is mainly due to the fact, that storage space is a limiting factor, especially for climate simulations. However, theoretically, the coupling frequency could be as high as the time step of the driving model. Meanwhile, it is unclear if a more frequent update of the LBCs has a significant effect on the climate in the domain of the RCM. The first study examines how the RCM reacts to a higher update frequency. The study is based on a 30 year time slice experiment for three update frequencies of the LBC, namely six hours, one hour and six minutes. The evaluation of means, standard deviations and statistics of the climate in the regional domain shows only small deviations, some statistically significant though, of 2m temperature, sea level pressure and precipitation. The second part of the first study assesses parameters linked to cyclone activity, which is affected by the LBC update frequency. Differences in track density and strength are found when comparing the simulations

Regional-Scale Climate Change: Observations and Model Simulations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bradley, Raymond S; Diaz, Henry F

2010-12-14

This collaborative proposal addressed key issues in understanding the Earth's climate system, as highlighted by the U.S. Climate Science Program. The research focused on documenting past climatic changes and on assessing future climatic changes based on suites of global and regional climate models. Geographically, our emphasis was on the mountainous regions of the world, with a particular focus on the Neotropics of Central America and the Hawaiian Islands. Mountain regions are zones where large variations in ecosystems occur due to the strong climate zonation forced by the topography. These areas are particularly susceptible to changes in critical ecological thresholds, and we conducted studies of changes in phonological indicators based on various climatic thresholds.

Natural responses to Quaternary climatic change in the Nevada Test Site region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gibson, J.D.

1993-01-01

Migration of hazardous contaminants within geologic settings depends on natural processes. Climatic fluctuations can affect the magnitudes and rates of many of these processes. In any long-term environmental evaluation of natural processes, responses to climatic change must be considered. Four generalized categories of natural responses to Quaternary climatic change are recognized for the Nevada Test Site (NTS) region of southwestern Nevada and adjacent California: (1) biologic, (2) geomorphic, (3) hydrologic (including surface and subsurface) and (4) pedologic/diagenetic. Specific examples that correspond to the four categories illustrate the broad range of complex natural processes the are affected by climatic change. These responses dictate the potential effects of climatic change on contaminant transport, effects that are being examined by existing and planned environmental-restoration and waste-management programs within the region. Regulatory requirements for many of these programs include long-term (>10,000-year) waste isolation because of radiologic components. The purpose here is not to be exhaustive in documenting all known natural responses to climatic change in the NTS region, but rather to give a flavor of the scope of interdisciplinary and interrelated fields of Quaternary science that must be considered in evaluating the possible effects of climatic change on long-term environmental programs

Assessment of future extreme climate events over the Porto wine Region

Science.gov (United States)

Viceto, Carolina; Cardoso, Susana; Marta-Almeida, Martinho; Gorodetskaya, Irina; Rocha, Alfredo

2017-04-01

The Douro Demarcated Region (DDR) is a wine region, in the northern Portugal, recognized for the Porto wine, which is responsible for more than 60% of the total value of national wine exportations. Since the viticulture is highly dependent on weather/climate patterns, the global warming is expected to affect the areas suitable to the growth of a certain variety of grape, its production and quality. This highlights the need of regional studies that assess the future climate changes effects in the vineyard, which might allow an early adjustment. We explore future climate change in the DDR region using a high-resolution regional climate model for Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) forced by the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model - low resolution (MPI-ESM-LR). Two future periods have been simulated using the emission scenario RCP8.5 - for the mid- (2046-2065) and late 21st century (2081-2100) - and compared to a reference period (1986-2005). The RCP8.5 is a "baseline" scenario without any climate mitigation and corresponds to the pathway with the highest greenhouse gas emissions compared to other scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. Our regional WRF implementation uses three online-nested domains with increasing resolution at a downscaling ratio of three. The coarser domain of 81-km resolution covers part of the North Atlantic Ocean and most of the Europe. The innermost 9-km horizontal resolution domain includes the Iberian Peninsula, a portion of Northern Africa and the adjacent part of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Our study uses this 9-km resolution domain and focuses on a confined area, which comprises the DDR. Such dynamical downscaling approach gives an advantage to assess climate effects on the DDR region, where the high horizontal resolution allows including effects of the oceanic coastline, local riverbeds and complex topography. The climatology of the DDR region determines the more suitable wine variety

Etude Climat no. 36 'Regional Climate - Air - Energy Plans: a tool for guiding the energy and climate transition in French regions'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Charentenay, Jeremie; Leseur, Alexia; Bordier, Cecile

2012-01-01

Among the publications of CDC Climat Research, 'Climate Reports' offer in-depth analyses on a given subject. This issue addresses the following points: The Regional Climate-Air-Energy Plan (SRCAE - Schema Regional Climat-Air-Energie) was introduced by the Grenelle II legislation. The Plans are co-authored by the State through its decentralised services and the 'Conseil Regionaux' (regional councils) with the objective to guide climate and energy policy in the 26 French regions through to 2020 and 2050. Starting from an assessment of regional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the SRCAE establishes energy transition scenarios based on the sectoral and structural guidelines that constitute the principal framework of the regional strategy. This report offers a detailed analysis of the strategies chosen by the various Regions for a successful transition to low-carbon energy sources, via the study of eleven SRCAEs that were opened to public consultation before the end of July 2012 (Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Bourgogne, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Ile-de-France, Midi-Pyrenees, Nord-Pas de Calais, Picardie and Rhone-Alpes regions). The wide range of methodologies used by the Regions, both to draw up their inventories of GHG emissions and for their scenarios, means that a quantitative comparison between regions or against the national objectives is not possible. Nevertheless, the report establishes a typology of regions and identifies policies that are common to all regions and those chosen in response to local characteristics. Certain guidelines could be applied by other regions of the same type, or could feed into discussions at national level. The report also indicates that the SRCAEs go beyond the competencies of the Regions, highlighting the role of local, national and European decision-making in the success of a regional energy transition. Particular attention was paid to the building and transport sectors, often identified as having the largest potential for reducing

Does temperature nudging overwhelm aerosol radiative effects in regional integrated climate models?

Science.gov (United States)

For over two decades, data assimilation (popularly known as nudging) methods have been used for improving regional weather and climate simulations by reducing model biases in meteorological parameters and processes. Similar practice is also popular in many regional integrated met...

Late Cenozoic climate and the phylogenetic structure of regional conifer floras worldwide

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Eiserhardt, W.L.; Borchsenius, F.; Sandel, B.; Kissling, W.D.; Svenning, J.-C.

2015-01-01

Aim Using conifers as a model system, we aim to test four hypotheses. H1: the processes that shape the phylogenetic structure of regional species assemblages depend on climate. H2: apparent effects of current climate can be equally well explained by past climate. H3: strong Quaternary climate

How Does a Regional Climate Model Modify the Projected Climate Change Signal of the Driving GCM: A Study over Different CORDEX Regions Using REMO

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Claas Teichmann

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Global and regional climate model simulations are frequently used for regional climate change assessments and in climate impact modeling studies. To reflect the inherent and methodological uncertainties in climate modeling, the assessment of regional climate change requires ensemble simulations from different global and regional climate model combinations. To interpret the spread of simulated results, it is useful to understand how the climate change signal is modified in the GCM-RCM modelmodelgeneral circulation model-regional climate model (GCM-RCM chain. This kind of information can also be useful for impact modelers; for the process of experiment design and when interpreting model results. In this study, we investigate how the simulated historical and future climate of the Max-Planck-Institute earth system model (MPI-ESM is modified by dynamic downscaling with the regional model REMO in different world regions. The historical climate simulations for 1950–2005 are driven by observed anthropogenic forcing. The climate projections are driven by projected anthropogenic forcing according to different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs. The global simulations are downscaled with REMO over the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX domains Africa, Europe, South America and West Asia from 2006–2100. This unique set of simulations allows for climate type specific analysis across multiple world regions and for multi-scenarios. We used a classification of climate types by Köppen-Trewartha to define evaluation regions with certain climate conditions. A systematic comparison of near-surface temperature and precipitation simulated by the regional and the global model is done. In general, the historical time period is well represented by the GCM and the RCM. Some different biases occur in the RCM compared to the GCM as in the Amazon Basin, northern Africa and the West Asian domain. Both models project similar warming

Warming effects on the urban hydrology in cold climate regions.

Science.gov (United States)

Järvi, L; Grimmond, C S B; McFadden, J P; Christen, A; Strachan, I B; Taka, M; Warsta, L; Heimann, M

2017-07-19

While approximately 338 million people in the Northern hemisphere live in regions that are regularly snow covered in winter, there is little hydro-climatologic knowledge in the cities impacted by snow. Using observations and modelling we have evaluated the energy and water exchanges of four cities that are exposed to wintertime snow. We show that the presence of snow critically changes the impact that city design has on the local-scale hydrology and climate. After snow melt, the cities return to being strongly controlled by the proportion of built and vegetated surfaces. However in winter, the presence of snow masks the influence of the built and vegetated fractions. We show how inter-year variability of wintertime temperature can modify this effect of snow. With increasing temperatures, these cities could be pushed towards very different partitioning between runoff and evapotranspiration. We derive the dependency of wintertime runoff on this warming effect in combination with the effect of urban densification.

A SIMULATION STUDY ON THE SHRUNK WETLAND AROUND QINGHAI LAKE AND REGIONAL CLIMATE

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

WANG HanJie; JING Li; GAO YunXiao

2005-01-01

Because of the increasing concerns about global climate change, it has been known by more and more peoples that there is a close relationship between wetland and/or peatland resources and climate change. This paper presents a new methodology to study the local climate variation caused by wetland shrinking around Qinghai Lake, the largest in-land salty lake in China, by use of a regional climate model (RCM) that commonly used in climate change study. The objective focuses on the regional climate effect of the shrunk wetland coverage in recent years. The results of numerical experiment showed that if the wetland coverage around Qinhai Lake were recovered as if in early 50s of last century,the regional climate in this area could be better with more cloud covers, higher relative humidity and more precipitation. In the other word, the area of wetland reduced is one of the most important reasons that caused regional climate aridification,eco-environmental deterioration and even desertification around Qinhai Lake.

Regional climate services: A regional partnership between NOAA and USDA

Science.gov (United States)

Climate services in the Midwest and Northern Plains regions have been enhanced by a recent addition of the USDA Climate Hubs to NOAA’s existing network of partners. This new partnership stems from the intrinsic variability of intra and inter-annual climatic conditions, which makes decision-making fo...

Effects of Climatic Region on Peritonitis Risk, Microbiology, Treatment, and Outcomes: a Multicenter Registry Study

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Yeoungjee; Badve, Sunil V.; Hawley, Carmel M.; McDonald, Stephen P.; Brown, Fiona G.; Boudville, Neil; Wiggins, Kathryn J.; Bannister, Kym M.; Clayton, Philip; Johnson, David W.

2013-01-01

♦ Background: The impact of climatic variations on peritoneal dialysis (PD)-related peritonitis has not been studied in detail. The aim of the current study was to determine whether various climatic zones influenced the probability of occurrence or the clinical outcomes of peritonitis. ♦ Methods: Using ANZDATA registry data, the study in cluded all Australian patients receiving PD between 1 October 2003 and 31 December 2008. Climatic regions were defined according to the Köppen classification. ♦ Results: The overall peritonitis rate was 0.59 episodes per patient-year. Most of the patients lived in Temperate regions (65%), with others residing in Subtropical (26%), Tropical (6%), and Other climatic regions (Desert, 0.6%; Grassland, 2.3%). Compared with patients in Temperate regions, those in Tropical regions demonstrated significantly higher overall peritonitis rates and a shorter time to a first peritonitis episode [adjusted hazard ratio: 1.15; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01 to 1.31]. Culture-negative peritonitis was significantly less likely in Tropical regions [adjusted odds ratio (OR): 0.42; 95% CI: 0.25 to 0.73]; its occurrence in Subtropical and Other regions was comparable to that in Temperate regions. Fungal peritonitis was independently associated with Tropical regions (OR: 2.18; 95% CI: 1.22 to 3.90) and Other regions (OR: 3.46; 95% CI: 1.73 to 6.91), where rates of antifungal prophylaxis were also lower. Outcomes after first peritonitis episodes were comparable in all groups. ♦ Conclusions: Tropical regions were associated with a higher overall peritonitis rate (including fungal peritonitis) and a shorter time to a first peritonitis episode. Augmented peritonitis prophylactic measures such as antifungal therapy and exit-site care should be considered in PD patients residing in Tropical climates. PMID:22942270

Implementing climate change adaptation in forested regions of the United States

Science.gov (United States)

Jessica E. Halofsky; David L. Peterson; Linda A. Joyce; Constance I. Millar; Janine M. Rice; Christopher W. Swanston

2014-01-01

Natural resource managers need concrete ways to adapt to the effects of climate change. Science-management partnerships have proven to be an effective means of facilitating climate change adaptation for natural resource management agencies. Here we describe the process and results of several science-management partnerships in different forested regions of the United...

Water quality management and climate change mitigation: cost-effectiveness of joint implementation in the Baltic Sea region

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nainggolan, Doan; Hasler, Berit; Andersen, Hans Estrup

2018-01-01

of contrasting strategies: single environmental objective management versus joint implementation strategy. The results show that implementing land-based measures with a sole focus on water quality (to meet the HELCOM's 2013 Baltic Sea Action Plan nutrient abatement targets) can produce climate change mitigation......This paper explores the scope for simultaneously managing nutrient abatement and climate change mitigation in the Baltic Sea (BS) region through the implementation of a selection of measures. The analysis is undertaken using a cost-minimisation model for the entire BS region, the BALTCOST model....... In the present research, the model has been extended to include greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions effects, enabling us to analyse the tradeoffs between cost-effective GHG and nutrient load reductions. We run the model for four different scenarios in order to compare the environmental and economic consequences...

Assessing the combined effect of dams and climate warming on streamflow in California's Sierra Nevada for regional-scale adaptation

Science.gov (United States)

Rheinheimer, D. E.; Viers, J. H.

2012-12-01

Dams and their operations harm river ecosystems, in part by altering the natural flow regimes that those ecosystems depend on. In the multi-reservoir water management systems of California's Sierra Nevada, greater emphasis is being placed on re-operating existing reservoir systems to recover downstream ecosystems. However, climate change is changing inflow patterns, affecting both ecosystems and traditional water system benefits across the region. As new reservoir operation schemes will be needed to manage for natural resources management objectives at the regional scale, characterizing historical and future environmental impacts of current operations across the region can aid in prioritizing planning efforts. We used a coarse-scale water resources simulation model developed for the western Sierra Nevada to explore the independent and combined effects of dams and climate warming on the flow regime directly below reservoirs, the focal point for instream flow requirements in operations licenses. We quantified changes to mean annual flow, annual low flow duration, annual runoff centroid timing, and weekly rate of decrease under binary combinations of management (unregulated/regulated) and climate (historical/future) conditions. We demonstrate that although rivers in the Sierra Nevada are currently managed in ways that are harmful to instream ecosystems, and that streamflow effects of operations are typically much worse than climate change effects, there are signals that reservoirs can potentially be used to help adapt to some of climate changes harmful effects with little additional effort in some cases. This study is the first step toward a better understanding of the environmental costs from and opportunities afforded by the current stock of reservoirs in a large hydroregion under changing social and environmental conditions.

The air quality and regional climate effects of widespread solar power generation under a changing regulatory environment

Science.gov (United States)

Millstein, D.; Zhai, P.; Menon, S.

2011-12-01

Over the past decade significant reductions of NOx and SOx emissions from coal burning power plants in the U.S. have been achieved due to regulatory action and substitution of new generation towards natural gas and wind power. Low natural gas prices, ever decreasing solar generation costs, and proposed regulatory changes, such as to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, promise further long-run coal power plant emission reductions. Reduced power plant emissions have the potential to affect ozone and particulate air quality and influence regional climate through aerosol cloud interactions and visibility effects. Here we investigate, on a national scale, the effects on future (~2030) air quality and regional climate of power plant emission regulations in contrast to and combination with policies designed to aggressively promote solar electricity generation. A sophisticated, economic and engineering based, hourly power generation dispatch model is developed to explore the integration of significant solar generation resources (>10% on an energy basis) at various regions across the county, providing detailed estimates of substitution of solar generation for fossil fuel generation resources. Future air pollutant emissions from all sectors of the economy are scaled based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Emission Inventory to account for activity changes based on population and economic projections derived from county level U.S. Census data and the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook. Further adjustments are made for technological and regulatory changes applicable within various sectors, for example, emission intensity adjustments to on-road diesel trucking due to exhaust treatment and improved engine design. The future year 2030 is selected for the emissions scenarios to allow for the development of significant solar generation resources. A regional climate and air quality model (Weather Research and Forecasting, WRF model) is

The regional climate model RegCM3 performances over several regions and climate regimes

Science.gov (United States)

Coppola, E.; Rauscher, S.; Gao, X.; Giorgi, F.; Im, E. S.; Mariotti, L.; Seth, A.; Sylla, M. B.

2009-04-01

Regional Climate models are more and more needed to provide high resolution regional climate information in climate impact studies. Water availability in a future scenario is the main request of policy makers for adaptation and mitigation purposes. However precipitation changes are unlikely to be as spatially coherent as temperature changes and they are closely related to the regional model itself. In addition model skill varies regionally. An example of several ICTP regional climate model (RegCM3) simulations is reported over China, Korea, Africa, Central and Southern America, Europe and Australia. Over China, Australia, and Korea the regional model improves the simulation compared to the driving GCM when compared with CRU observations. In China, for example, the higher resolution of the regional model inhibits the penetration of the monsoon precipitation front from the southern slope of the Himalaya onto the Tibetan Plateau. In Korea the nested domain simulation (20 km) shows an encouraging performance with regard to capturing extreme precipitation episodes and the finer spatial distribution reflects the detailed geography of the Korean Peninsula. Over South America, RegCM captures the annual cycle of precipitation over Northeast Brazil and the South American Monsoon region, although the monsoon onset occurs too early in the model. Precipitation over the Amazon is not well captured, with too little precipitation associated with weak easterlies and reduced moisture transport into the interior of the continent. RegCM simulates the annual cycle of precipitation over Central America and the Caribbean fairly well; in particular, the complex spatial distribution of the Mid-Summer Drought, a decrease in precipitation that occurs during the middle of the rainy season in July and August, is better captured by RegCM than by the GCM. In addition, RegCM simulates the strength and position of the Caribbean low level jet, a mesoscale feature related to precipitation anomalies

Producing custom regional climate data sets for impact assessment with xarray

Science.gov (United States)

Simcock, J. G.; Delgado, M.; Greenstone, M.; Hsiang, S. M.; Kopp, R. E.; Carleton, T.; Hultgren, A.; Jina, A.; Nath, I.; Rising, J. A.; Rode, A.; Yuan, J.; Chong, T.; Dobbels, G.; Hussain, A.; Song, Y.; Wang, J.; Mohan, S.; Larsen, K.; Houser, T.

2017-12-01

Research in the field of climate impact assessment and valuation frequently requires the pairing of economic observations with historical or projected weather variables. Impact assessments with large geographic scope or spatially aggregated data frequently require climate variables to be prepared for use with administrative/political regions, economic districts such as utility service areas, physical regions such as watersheds, or other larger, non-gridded shapes. Approaches to preparing such data in the literature vary from methods developed out of convenience to more complex measures intended to account for spatial heterogeneity. But more sophisticated methods are difficult to implement, from both a theoretical and a technical standpoint. We present a new python package designed to assist researchers in the preparation of historical and projected climate data for arbitrary spatial definitions. Users specify transformations by providing (a) sets of regions in the form of shapefiles, (b) gridded data to be transformed, and, optionally, (c) gridded weights to use in the transformation. By default, aggregation to regions is conducted such that the resulting regional data draws from each grid cell according to the cell's share of total region area. However, researchers can provide alternative weighting schemes, such that the regional data is weighted by, for example, the population or planted agricultural area within each cell. An advantage of this method is that it enables easy preparation of nonlinear transformations of the climate data before aggregation to regions, allowing aggregated variables to more accurately capture the spatial heterogeneity within a region in the transformed data. At this session, we will allow attendees to view transformed climate projections, examining the effect of various weighting schemes and nonlinear transformations on aggregate regional values, highlighting the implications for climate impact assessment work.

The regional characteristics of climatic change in China

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Longxun

1994-01-01

Using abundant historical records, the Chinese climatologists have analyzed regional climatic change during the past 2,000 years. Recently, more research on regional climatic change has been done by using the data of the instrumental period. The data show that Chinese climatic change has obvious regional characteristics. The average temperature in the whole country has kept increasing since the last century, and reached its highest value in the 1940s, then it decreased. Although there was a warming trend in the 1980s, the temperature declined again. Especially in the area south of 35 degree N and east of 100 degree E in the mainland China, the air temperature decreased continuously from the 1940s. So climatic change in China is not consistent with global warming, but has its own regional characteristics

Effects of climate change on forest vegetation in the Northern Rockies Region [Chapter 6

Science.gov (United States)

Keane, Robert E.; Mahalovich, Mary Frances; Bollenbacher, Barry L.; Manning, Mary E.; Loehman, Rachel A.; Jain, Terrie B.; Holsinger, Lisa M.; Larson, Andrew J.; Webster, Meredith M.

2018-01-01

The projected rapid changes in climate will affect the unique vegetation assemblages of the Northern Rockies region in myriad ways, both directly through shifts in vegetation growth, mortality, and regeneration, and indirectly through changes in disturbance regimes and interactions with changes in other ecosystem processes, such as hydrology, snow dynamics, and exotic invasions (Bonan 2008; Hansen and Phillips 2015; Hansen et al. 2001; Notaro et al. 2007). These impacts, taken collectively, could change the way vegetation is managed by public land agencies in this area. Some species may be in danger of rapid decreases in abundance, while others may undergo range expansion (Landhäusser et al. 2010). New vegetation communities may form, while historical vegetation complexes may simply shift to other areas of the landscape or become rare. Juxtaposed with climate change concerns are the consequences of other land management policies and past activities, such as fire exclusion, fuels treatments, and grazing. A thorough assessment of the responses of vegetation to projected climate change is needed, along with an evaluation of the vulnerability of important species, communities, and vegetation-related resources that may be influenced by the effects, both direct and indirect, of climate change. This assessment must also account for past management actions and current vegetation conditions and their interactions with future climates.

The effect of a giant wind farm on precipitation in a regional climate model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fiedler, B H; Bukovsky, M S

2011-01-01

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is employed as a nested regional climate model to study the effect of a giant wind farm on warm-season precipitation in the eastern two-thirds of the USA. The boundary conditions for WRF are supplied by 62 years of NCEP/NCAR (National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research) global reanalysis. In the model, the presence of a mid-west wind farm, either giant or small, can have an enormous impact on the weather and the amount of precipitation for one season, which is consistent with the known sensitivity of long-term weather forecasts to initial conditions. The effect on climate is less strong. In the average precipitation of 62 warm seasons, there is a statistically significant 1.0% enhancement of precipitation in a multi-state area surrounding and to the south-east of the wind farm.

High-resolution regional climate model evaluation using variable-resolution CESM over California

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, X.; Rhoades, A.; Ullrich, P. A.; Zarzycki, C. M.

2015-12-01

Understanding the effect of climate change at regional scales remains a topic of intensive research. Though computational constraints remain a problem, high horizontal resolution is needed to represent topographic forcing, which is a significant driver of local climate variability. Although regional climate models (RCMs) have traditionally been used at these scales, variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) have recently arisen as an alternative for studying regional weather and climate allowing two-way interaction between these domains without the need for nudging. In this study, the recently developed variable-resolution option within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) is assessed for long-term regional climate modeling over California. Our variable-resolution simulations will focus on relatively high resolutions for climate assessment, namely 28km and 14km regional resolution, which are much more typical for dynamically downscaled studies. For comparison with the more widely used RCM method, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model will be used for simulations at 27km and 9km. All simulations use the AMIP (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project) protocols. The time period is from 1979-01-01 to 2005-12-31 (UTC), and year 1979 was discarded as spin up time. The mean climatology across California's diverse climate zones, including temperature and precipitation, is analyzed and contrasted with the Weather Research and Forcasting (WRF) model (as a traditional RCM), regional reanalysis, gridded observational datasets and uniform high-resolution CESM at 0.25 degree with the finite volume (FV) dynamical core. The results show that variable-resolution CESM is competitive in representing regional climatology on both annual and seasonal time scales. This assessment adds value to the use of VRGCMs for projecting climate change over the coming century and improve our understanding of both past and future regional climate related to fine

The regional governance of climate adaptation: a framework for developing legitimate, effective, and resilient governance arrangements

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Termeer, C.J.A.M.; Dewulf, A.; Rijswick, H.F.M.W.; Buuren, van A.; Huitema, D.; Meijerink, S.; Rayner, T.; Wiering, M.

2011-01-01

Adaptation to climate change raises important governance issues. Notwithstanding the increasing attention on climate adaptation at the global and European level, the variety of local conditions and climate impacts points towards a prime role for regional actors in climate change adaptation. They

The regional governance of climate adaptation : A framework for developing legitimate, effective, and resilient governance arrangements

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Termeer, Catrien C. J. A. M.; Dewulf, Art; Van Rijswick, Helena; Van Buuren, Arwin; Huitema, Dave; Meijerink, Sander; Rayner, Tim; Wiering, Mark

2011-01-01

Adaptation to climate change raises important governance issues. Notwithstanding the increasing attention on climate adaptation at the global and European level, the variety of local conditions and climate impacts points towards a prime role for regional actors in climate change adaptation. They

Integration of climatic indices in an objective probabilistic model for establishing and mapping viticultural climatic zones in a region

Science.gov (United States)

Moral, Francisco J.; Rebollo, Francisco J.; Paniagua, Luis L.; García, Abelardo; Honorio, Fulgencio

2016-05-01

Different climatic indices have been proposed to determine the wine suitability in a region. Some of them are related to the air temperature, but the hydric component of climate should also be considered which, in turn, is influenced by the precipitation during the different stages of the grapevine growing and ripening periods. In this study, we propose using the information obtained from ten climatic indices [heliothermal index (HI), cool night index (CI), dryness index (DI), growing season temperature (GST), the Winkler index (WI), September mean thermal amplitude (MTA), annual precipitation (AP), precipitation during flowering (PDF), precipitation before flowering (PBF), and summer precipitation (SP)] as inputs in an objective and probabilistic model, the Rasch model, with the aim of integrating the individual effects of them, obtaining the climate data that summarize all main climatic indices, which could influence on wine suitability from a climate viewpoint, and utilizing the Rasch measures to generate homogeneous climatic zones. The use of the Rasch model to estimate viticultural climatic suitability constitutes a new application of great practical importance, enabling to rationally determine locations in a region where high viticultural potential exists and establishing a ranking of the climatic indices which exerts an important influence on wine suitability in a region. Furthermore, from the measures of viticultural climatic suitability at some locations, estimates can be computed using a geostatistical algorithm, and these estimates can be utilized to map viticultural climatic zones in a region. To illustrate the process, an application to Extremadura, southwestern Spain, is shown.

Analysis of the Effect of Interior Nudging on Temperature and Precipitation Distributions of Multi-year Regional Climate Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Nolte, C. G.; Otte, T. L.; Bowden, J. H.; Otte, M. J.

2010-12-01

There is disagreement in the regional climate modeling community as to the appropriateness of the use of internal nudging. Some investigators argue that the regional model should be minimally constrained and allowed to respond to regional-scale forcing, while others have noted that in the absence of interior nudging, significant large-scale discrepancies develop between the regional model solution and the driving coarse-scale fields. These discrepancies lead to reduced confidence in the ability of regional climate models to dynamically downscale global climate model simulations under climate change scenarios, and detract from the usability of the regional simulations for impact assessments. The advantages and limitations of interior nudging schemes for regional climate modeling are investigated in this study. Multi-year simulations using the WRF model driven by reanalysis data over the continental United States at 36km resolution are conducted using spectral nudging, grid point nudging, and for a base case without interior nudging. The means, distributions, and inter-annual variability of temperature and precipitation will be evaluated in comparison to regional analyses.

Different regional climatic drivers of Holocene large wildfires in boreal forests of northeastern America

Science.gov (United States)

Remy, Cécile C.; Hély, Christelle; Blarquez, Olivier; Magnan, Gabriel; Bergeron, Yves; Lavoie, Martin; Ali, Adam A.

2017-03-01

Global warming could increase climatic instability and large wildfire activity in circumboreal regions, potentially impairing both ecosystem functioning and human health. However, links between large wildfire events and climatic and/or meteorological conditions are still poorly understood, partly because few studies have covered a wide range of past climate-fire interactions. We compared palaeofire and simulated climatic data over the last 7000 years to assess causes of large wildfire events in three coniferous boreal forest regions in north-eastern Canada. These regions span an east-west cline, from a hilly region influenced by the Atlantic Ocean currently dominated by Picea mariana and Abies balsamea to a flatter continental region dominated by Picea mariana and Pinus banksiana. The largest wildfires occurred across the entire study zone between 3000 and 1000 cal. BP. In western and central continental regions these events were triggered by increases in both the fire-season length and summer/spring temperatures, while in the eastern region close to the ocean they were likely responses to hydrological (precipitation/evapotranspiration) variability. The impact of climatic drivers on fire size varied spatially across the study zone, confirming that regional climate dynamics could modulate effects of global climate change on wildfire regimes.

Regional climate scenarios - A study on precipitation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hesselbjerg Christensen, J.; Boessing Christensen, O.

2001-01-01

A set of nested climate change simulations for the Nordic region and Denmark has been revisited. In the present work we have re-examined the results of CCMB and MBC with special emphasis on precipitation intensity frequencies, in particular the more extreme part of the frequency distribution. It has been demonstrated that the role of extreme precipitation events appears to be more realistically described in a high-resolution model, in terms of numerical agreement as well as seasonal variation. This is mainly due to a better simulation of deep low-pressure systems and mesoscale circulation. Generally, the analysis has confirmed the results from CCMB, but furthermore a resolution effect has been identified which seems essential to the understanding of climate change effects on the extreme end of the precipitation intensity distribution. In order to analyse the role of the model resolution we have aggregated both the nested model data and observational records to the GCM grid from the driving AOGCM. It was found that, in spite of changes in absolute numbers, the seasonal behaviour of decay constants does not change appreciably because of the aggregation. The RCM results show a seasonal behaviour very similar to an observed data set. It is therefore concluded that the GCM has an unrealistic simulation of the dependence of heavy precipitation on climate, as manifested in seasonal variation. In contrast, the regional simulations remain close to observation in this respect. Furthermore, they agree on a conclusion that extreme precipitation generally scales with average precipitation (no significant change in decay constants were detected), but that crucial summer season may be an exception, exhibiting an anomalous increase in heavy precipitation due to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. The analysis has only been performed over Denmark due to lack of daily observational data for other regions. It is, however, necessary to extend the work to other areas, for instance

Impact of surface waves in a Regional Climate Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rutgersson, Anna; Sætra, Oyvind; Semedo, Alvaro

2010-01-01

A coupled regional atmosphere-wave model system is developed with the purpose of investigating the impact of climate changes on the wave field, as well as feed-back effects of the wave field on the atmospheric parameters. This study focuses on the effects of introducing a two-way atmosphere...

Climate in Context - How partnerships evolve in regions

Science.gov (United States)

Parris, A. S.

2014-12-01

In 2015, NOAA's RISA program will celebrate its 20th year of exploration in the development of usable climate information. In the mid-1990s, a vision emerged to develop interdisciplinary research efforts at the regional scale for several important reasons. Recognizable climate patterns, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), emerge at the regional level where our understanding of observations and models coalesce. Critical resources for society are managed in a context of regional systems, such as water supply and human populations. Multiple scales of governance (local, state, and federal) with complex institutional relationships can be examined across a region. Climate information (i.e. data, science, research etc) developed within these contexts has greater potential for use. All of this work rests on a foundation of iterative engagement between scientists and decision makers. Throughout these interactions, RISAs have navigated diverse politics, extreme events and disasters, socio-economic and ecological disruptions, and advances in both science and technology. Our understanding of information needs is evolving into a richer understanding of complex institutional, legal, political, and cultural contexts within which people can use science to make informed decisions. The outcome of RISA work includes both cases where climate information was used in decisions and cases where capacity for using climate information and making climate resilient decisions has increased over time. In addition to balancing supply and demand of scientific information, RISAs are engaged in a social process of reconciling climate information use with important drivers of society. Because partnerships are critical for sustained engagement, and because engagement is critically important to the use of science, the rapid development of new capacity in regionally-based science programs focused on providing climate decision support is both needed and challenging. New actors can bolster

Climate and chemistry effects of a regional scale nuclear conflict

Science.gov (United States)

Stenke, A.; Hoyle, C. R.; Luo, B.; Rozanov, E.; Gröbner, J.; Maag, L.; Brönnimann, S.; Peter, T.

2013-10-01

Previous studies have highlighted the severity of detrimental effects for life on earth after an assumed regionally limited nuclear war. These effects are caused by climatic, chemical and radiative changes persisting for up to one decade. However, so far only a very limited number of climate model simulations have been performed, giving rise to the question how realistic previous computations have been. This study uses the coupled chemistry climate model (CCM) SOCOL, which belongs to a different family of CCMs than previously used, to investigate the consequences of such a hypothetical nuclear conflict. In accordance with previous studies, the present work assumes a scenario of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, each applying 50 warheads with an individual blasting power of 15 kt ("Hiroshima size") against the major population centers, resulting in the emission of tiny soot particles, which are generated in the firestorms expected in the aftermath of the detonations. Substantial uncertainties related to the calculation of likely soot emissions, particularly concerning assumptions of target fuel loading and targeting of weapons, have been addressed by simulating several scenarios, with soot emissions ranging from 1 to 12 Tg. Their high absorptivity with respect to solar radiation leads to a rapid self-lofting of the soot particles into the strato- and mesosphere within a few days after emission, where they remain for several years. Consequently, the model suggests earth's surface temperatures to drop by several degrees Celsius due to the shielding of solar irradiance by the soot, indicating a major global cooling. In addition, there is a substantial reduction of precipitation lasting 5 to 10 yr after the conflict, depending on the magnitude of the initial soot release. Extreme cold spells associated with an increase in sea ice formation are found during Northern Hemisphere winter, which expose the continental land masses of North America and Eurasia to a

Climate and chemistry effects of a regional scale nuclear conflict

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Stenke

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Previous studies have highlighted the severity of detrimental effects for life on earth after an assumed regionally limited nuclear war. These effects are caused by climatic, chemical and radiative changes persisting for up to one decade. However, so far only a very limited number of climate model simulations have been performed, giving rise to the question how realistic previous computations have been. This study uses the coupled chemistry climate model (CCM SOCOL, which belongs to a different family of CCMs than previously used, to investigate the consequences of such a hypothetical nuclear conflict. In accordance with previous studies, the present work assumes a scenario of a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan, each applying 50 warheads with an individual blasting power of 15 kt ("Hiroshima size" against the major population centers, resulting in the emission of tiny soot particles, which are generated in the firestorms expected in the aftermath of the detonations. Substantial uncertainties related to the calculation of likely soot emissions, particularly concerning assumptions of target fuel loading and targeting of weapons, have been addressed by simulating several scenarios, with soot emissions ranging from 1 to 12 Tg. Their high absorptivity with respect to solar radiation leads to a rapid self-lofting of the soot particles into the strato- and mesosphere within a few days after emission, where they remain for several years. Consequently, the model suggests earth's surface temperatures to drop by several degrees Celsius due to the shielding of solar irradiance by the soot, indicating a major global cooling. In addition, there is a substantial reduction of precipitation lasting 5 to 10 yr after the conflict, depending on the magnitude of the initial soot release. Extreme cold spells associated with an increase in sea ice formation are found during Northern Hemisphere winter, which expose the continental land masses of North

Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled regional climate system model

Science.gov (United States)

Nabat, Pierre; Somot, Samuel; Mallet, Marc; Sevault, Florence; Chiacchio, Marc; Wild, Martin

2015-02-01

A fully coupled regional climate system model (CNRM-RCSM4) has been used over the Mediterranean region to investigate the direct and semi-direct effects of aerosols, but also their role in the radiation-atmosphere-ocean interactions through multi-annual ensemble simulations (2003-2009) with and without aerosols and ocean-atmosphere coupling. Aerosols have been taken into account in CNRM-RCSM4 through realistic interannual monthly AOD climatologies. An evaluation of the model has been achieved, against various observations for meteorological parameters, and has shown the ability of CNRM-RCSM4 to reproduce the main patterns of the Mediterranean climate despite some biases in sea surface temperature (SST), radiation and cloud cover. The results concerning the aerosol radiative effects show a negative surface forcing on average because of the absorption and scattering of the incident radiation. The SW surface direct effect is on average -20.9 Wm-2 over the Mediterranean Sea, -14.7 Wm-2 over Europe and -19.7 Wm-2 over northern Africa. The LW surface direct effect is weaker as only dust aerosols contribute (+4.8 Wm-2 over northern Africa). This direct effect is partly counterbalanced by a positive semi-direct radiative effect over the Mediterranean Sea (+5.7 Wm-2 on average) and Europe (+5.0 Wm-2) due to changes in cloud cover and atmospheric circulation. The total aerosol effect is consequently negative at the surface and responsible for a decrease in land (on average -0.4 °C over Europe, and -0.5 °C over northern Africa) and sea surface temperature (on average -0.5 °C for the Mediterranean SST). In addition, the latent heat loss is shown to be weaker (-11.0 Wm-2) in the presence of aerosols, resulting in a decrease in specific humidity in the lower troposphere, and a reduction in cloud cover and precipitation. Simulations also indicate that dust aerosols warm the troposphere by absorbing solar radiation, and prevent radiation from reaching the surface, thus

Impacts of climate change on mangrove ecosystems: A region by region overview

Science.gov (United States)

Ward, Raymond D.; Friess, Daniel A.; Day, Richard H.; MacKenzie, Richard A.

2016-01-01

Inter-related and spatially variable climate change factors including sea level rise, increased storminess, altered precipitation regime and increasing temperature are impacting mangroves at regional scales. This review highlights extreme regional variation in climate change threats and impacts, and how these factors impact the structure of mangrove communities, their biodiversity and geomorphological setting. All these factors interplay to determine spatially variable resiliency to climate change impacts, and because mangroves are varied in type and geographical location, these systems are good models for understanding such interactions at different scales. Sea level rise is likely to influence mangroves in all regions although local impacts are likely to be more varied. Changes in the frequency and intensity of storminess are likely to have a greater impact on N and Central America, Asia, Australia, and East Africa than West Africa and S. America. This review also highlights the numerous geographical knowledge gaps of climate change impacts, with some regions particularly understudied (e.g., Africa and the Middle East). While there has been a recent drive to address these knowledge gaps especially in South America and Asia, further research is required to allow researchers to tease apart the processes that influence both vulnerability and resilience to climate change. A more globally representative view of mangroves would allow us to better understand the importance of mangrove type and landscape setting in determining system resiliency to future climate change.

Combined effects of global climate change and regional ecosystem drivers on an exploited marine food web

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Niiranen, S.; Yletyinen, J.; Tomczak, M.T.

2013-01-01

approach to project how the interaction of climate, nutrient loads, and cod fishing may affect the future of the open Central Baltic Sea food web. Regionally downscaled global climate scenarios were, in combination with three nutrient load scenarios, used to drive an ensemble of three regional...... biogeochemical models (BGMs). An Ecopath with Ecosim food web model was then forced with the BGM results from different nutrient-climate scenarios in combination with two different cod fishing scenarios. The results showed that regional management is likely to play a major role in determining the future......Changes in climate, in combination with intensive exploitation of marine resources, have caused large-scale reorganizations in many of the world's marine ecosystems during the past decades. The Baltic Sea in Northern Europe is one of the systems most affected. In addition to being exposed...

Public perception of climate change in the cold regions of Russia: an example of Yakutia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O. A. Anisimov

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The rate of climate change in the Russian cold regions is nearly twice larger than the global‑mean rate. Besides climate risks, such changes lead to new possibilities, which require scientifically based regional adaptation strategies. Climate could be viewed as an inexhaustible public resource that creates opportuni‑ ties for sustainable development. Long‑term trends show that climate as a resource is becoming more read‑ ily available in the cold regions, notwithstanding the general perception that globally climate change is one of the challenges of the 21st century. Adaptation strategies are required for balancing the risks and potential benefits resulting from the changing climate. Success of such strategies depends on the public perception of climate change. This study compares the observational data on climate and environmental changes with the results of the public survey conducted in Yakutia in the period 2012–2017. The survey involved nearly 2000 respondents in several cities and 2 villages (Ust‑Maja, Saskhulakh representing different economical, socio‑ logical, permafrost, vegetation, and climatic conditions. Results indicated that public perception of the climatic and environmental changes is not univocal, and depends on many factors. Low probability extreme events, such as unusual weather patterns or abrupt land‑ scape changes may have greater effect than the long‑term climate trends. Currently less than half of the pop‑ ulation in Yakutia consider climate change as an established fact, and are ready to take actions in this regard. Meanwhile, Yakutia is a region where observational records demonstrate the most pronounced changes in climatic regime compared to other Russian regions. The contrast between the actual changes and public per‑ ception of such changes has important implication for developing adaptation strategies. To be effective, such strategies should combine knowledge coming from instrumental‑ and

A characteristics of East Asian climate using high-resolution regional climate model

Science.gov (United States)

Yhang, Y.

2013-12-01

Climate research, particularly application studies for water, agriculture, forestry, fishery and energy management require fine scale multi-decadal information of meteorological, oceanographic and land states. Unfortunately, spatially and temporally homogeneous multi-decadal observations of these variables in high horizontal resolution are non-existent. Some long term surface records of temperature and precipitation exist, but the number of observation is very limited and the measurements are often contaminated by changes in instrumentation over time. Some climatologically important variables, such as soil moisture, surface evaporation, and radiation are not even measured over most of East Asia. Reanalysis is one approach to obtaining long term homogeneous analysis of needed variables. However, the horizontal resolution of global reanalysis is of the order of 100 to 200 km, too coarse for many application studies. Regional climate models (RCMs) are able to provide valuable regional finescale information, especially in regions where the climate variables are strongly regulated by the underlying topography and the surface heterogeneity. In this study, we will provide accurately downscaled regional climate over East Asia using the Global/Regional Integrated Model system [GRIMs; Hong et al. 2013]. A mixed layer model is embedded within the GRIMs in order to improve air-sea interaction. A detailed description of the characteristics of the East Asian summer and winter climate will be presented through the high-resolution numerical simulations. The increase in horizontal resolution is expected to provide the high-quality data that can be used in various application areas such as hydrology or environmental model forcing.

Climate Justice in Rural Southeastern United States: A Review of Climate Change Impacts and Effects on Human Health.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutierrez, Kristie S; LePrevost, Catherine E

2016-02-03

Climate justice is a local, national, and global movement to protect at-risk populations who are disproportionately affected by climate change. The social context for this review is the Southeastern region of the United States, which is particularly susceptible to climate change because of the geography of the area and the vulnerabilities of the inhabiting populations. Negative human health effects on variable and vulnerable populations within the Southeast region due to changing climate are concerning, as health threats are not expected to produce parallel effects among all individuals. Vulnerable communities, such as communities of color, indigenous people, the geographically isolated, and those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and already experiencing poor environmental quality, are least able to respond and adapt to climate change. Focusing on vulnerable populations in the Southeastern United States, this review is a synthesis of the recent (2010 to 2015) literature-base on the health effects connected to climate change. This review also addresses local and regional mitigation and adaptation strategies for citizens and leaders to combat direct and indirect human health effects related to a changing climate.

Future extreme events in European climate: An exploration of regional climate model projections

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beniston, M.; Stephenson, D.B.; Christensen, O.B.

2007-01-01

-90) and future (2071-2 100) climate on the basis of regional climate model simulations produced by the PRUDENCE project. A summary of the main results follows. Heat waves - Regional surface warming causes the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves to increase over Europe. By the end of the twenty first...

A multi-model assessment of regional climate disparities caused by solar geoengineering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kravitz, Ben; Rasch, Philip J; Singh, Balwinder; Yoon, Jin-Ho; MacMartin, Douglas G; Robock, Alan; Ricke, Katharine L; Cole, Jason N S; Curry, Charles L; Irvine, Peter J; Ji, Duoying; Moore, John C; Keith, David W; Egill Kristjánsson, Jón; Muri, Helene; Tilmes, Simone; Watanabe, Shingo; Yang, Shuting

2014-01-01

Global-scale solar geoengineering is the deliberate modification of the climate system to offset some amount of anthropogenic climate change by reducing the amount of incident solar radiation at the surface. These changes to the planetary energy budget result in differential regional climate effects. For the first time, we quantitatively evaluate the potential for regional disparities in a multi-model context using results from a model experiment that offsets the forcing from a quadrupling of CO 2 via reduction in solar irradiance. We evaluate temperature and precipitation changes in 22 geographic regions spanning most of Earth's continental area. Moderate amounts of solar reduction (up to 85% of the amount that returns global mean temperatures to preindustrial levels) result in regional temperature values that are closer to preindustrial levels than an un-geoengineered, high CO 2 world for all regions and all models. However, in all but one model, there is at least one region for which no amount of solar reduction can restore precipitation toward its preindustrial value. For most metrics considering simultaneous changes in both variables, temperature and precipitation values in all regions are closer to the preindustrial climate for a moderate amount of solar reduction than for no solar reduction. (letter)

Study of effects of climate change in the Great South East. Stage 1. PACA report - Part I: Context and study summary, Part II: Climate simulations, Part III: Impact sector sheets, General report. Prospective study of effects of climate change in the Great South East (phase 2) - Mission of study of inter-regional and European collaborations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kornmann, Francois; Guiran, Ghislaine; Sadoux, Emmanuel; Weill, Frederic; Benkhelifa, Fouzi

2008-01-01

After a presentation of study objectives and scope, a first report outlines the actuality of climate change, describes predicted climate changes for the PACA region in terms of warming and decrease of precipitations. Regional social-economic challenges and sector impacts are also briefly described. The second report presents the adopted climate simulation parameters, and discusses results obtained in terms of temperature and of precipitations by 2030, 2050 and 2080 for the whole Great South East region. The third part proposes sector sheets which contain discussions of effects of climate change on the water resource, on biodiversity, on forest, on agriculture, on human health, on tourism, on energy, on building and transports, on natural risks. The next document is based on the previous ones. It discusses and comments the outcome of the first phase, the present situation of the region in terms of territorial dynamics and effects of climate change, and indicators of climate change. It also draws lessons from the prospective study which resulted in three scenarios for which a strategic assessment is proposed

Land radiative management as contributor to regional-scale climate adaptation and mitigation

Science.gov (United States)

Seneviratne, Sonia I.; Phipps, Steven J.; Pitman, Andrew J.; Hirsch, Annette L.; Davin, Edouard L.; Donat, Markus G.; Hirschi, Martin; Lenton, Andrew; Wilhelm, Micah; Kravitz, Ben

2018-02-01

Greenhouse gas emissions urgently need to be reduced. Even with a step up in mitigation, the goal of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 °C remains challenging. Consequences of missing these goals are substantial, especially on regional scales. Because progress in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions has been slow, climate engineering schemes are increasingly being discussed. But global schemes remain controversial and have important shortcomings. A reduction of global mean temperature through global-scale management of solar radiation could lead to strong regional disparities and affect rainfall patterns. On the other hand, active management of land radiative effects on a regional scale represents an alternative option of climate engineering that has been little discussed. Regional land radiative management could help to counteract warming, in particular hot extremes in densely populated and important agricultural regions. Regional land radiative management also raises some ethical issues, and its efficacy would be limited in time and space, depending on crop growing periods and constraints on agricultural management. But through its more regional focus and reliance on tested techniques, regional land radiative management avoids some of the main shortcomings associated with global radiation management. We argue that albedo-related climate benefits of land management should be considered more prominently when assessing regional-scale climate adaptation and mitigation as well as ecosystem services.

Evaluation of regional climate simulations over the Great Lakes region driven by three global data sets

Science.gov (United States)

Shiyuan Zhong; Xiuping Li; Xindi Bian; Warren E. Heilman; L. Ruby Leung; William I. Jr. Gustafson

2012-01-01

The performance of regional climate simulations is evaluated for the Great Lakes region. Three 10-year (1990-1999) current-climate simulations are performed using the MM5 regional climate model (RCM) with 36-km horizontal resolution. The simulations employed identical configuration and physical parameterizations, but different lateral boundary conditions and sea-...

Climate change effects on extreme flows of water supply area in Istanbul: utility of regional climate models and downscaling method.

Science.gov (United States)

Kara, Fatih; Yucel, Ismail

2015-09-01

This study investigates the climate change impact on the changes of mean and extreme flows under current and future climate conditions in the Omerli Basin of Istanbul, Turkey. The 15 regional climate model output from the EU-ENSEMBLES project and a downscaling method based on local implications from geophysical variables were used for the comparative analyses. Automated calibration algorithm is used to optimize the parameters of Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdel-ning (HBV) model for the study catchment using observed daily temperature and precipitation. The calibrated HBV model was implemented to simulate daily flows using precipitation and temperature data from climate models with and without downscaling method for reference (1960-1990) and scenario (2071-2100) periods. Flood indices were derived from daily flows, and their changes throughout the four seasons and year were evaluated by comparing their values derived from simulations corresponding to the current and future climate. All climate models strongly underestimate precipitation while downscaling improves their underestimation feature particularly for extreme events. Depending on precipitation input from climate models with and without downscaling the HBV also significantly underestimates daily mean and extreme flows through all seasons. However, this underestimation feature is importantly improved for all seasons especially for spring and winter through the use of downscaled inputs. Changes in extreme flows from reference to future increased for the winter and spring and decreased for the fall and summer seasons. These changes were more significant with downscaling inputs. With respect to current time, higher flow magnitudes for given return periods will be experienced in the future and hence, in the planning of the Omerli reservoir, the effective storage and water use should be sustained.

Regional monitoring of environmental physics climate related anomalies

Science.gov (United States)

El-Askary, Hesham

2004-11-01

Scientific communities have been working in creating and enhancing scientific research programs in which in situ and satellite data as well as remote sensing (RS) technologies are being applied to regional environmental issues. These issues include the effects of climate change on regional flooding, droughts and the impact of human activities as they relate to feedbacks on the global climate. More specifically, one needs to evaluate the potential impact of climatological variability on social, economic, and human activities. In addition, the study of their effects on agriculture, forests, local natural ecosystems and water climate-related resources, is most important. Finally, dust storms and other natural events such as droughts can have great local impacts. Approximately half of the dust in today's atmosphere may be the result of changes to the environment caused by human activities, including agriculture, overgrazing, and deforestation. Climate variability may lead to the occurrence of some severe environmental phenomena like dust storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts. Under normal conditions we can detect different dust effects associated with the movement of storms as well as different rain patterns that do not affect much of the surrounding environment either at regional or global scales. On the other hand, under abnormal climatological conditions, high anomalies of precipitation might occur due to the presence of hurricanes or other events, leading to severe flooding events. In this dissertation, we apply time series analysis techniques to remote sensing and in situ data to detect precipitation and dust storm anomalies and study their behavior on regional scales. The first application is the detection and monitoring of dust storms events over parts of the Middle East and Asia. Dust storms cause health and economic hazards. In this thesis dust storms development is examined based on using remote sensing. It utilizes a combination of optical

Climatic Changes and Evaluation of Their Effects on Agriculture in Asian Monsoon Region- A project of GRENE-ei programs in Japan

Science.gov (United States)

Mizoguchi, M.; Matsumoto, J.; Takahashi, H. G.; Tanaka, K.; Kuwagata, T.

2015-12-01

It is important to predict climate change correctly in regional scale and to build adaptation measures and mitigation measures in the Asian monsoon region where more than 60 % of the world's population are living. The reliability of climate change prediction model is evaluated by the reproducibility of past climate in general. However, because there are many developing countries in the Asian monsoon region, adequate documentations of past climate which are needed to evaluate the climate reproducibility have not been prepared. In addition, at present it is difficult to get information on wide-area agricultural meteorological data which affect the growth of agricultural crops when considering the impact on agriculture of climate. Therefore, we have started a research project entitled "Climatic changes and evaluation of their effects on agriculture in Asian monsoon region (CAAM)" under the research framework of the Green Network of Excellence (GRENE) for the Japanese fiscal years from 2011 to 2015 supported by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). This project aims to improve the reliability of future climate prediction and to develop the information platform which will be useful to design adaptation and mitigation strategies in agriculture against the predicted climatic changes in Asian monsoon regions. What is GRENE?Based on the new growth strategy which was approved by the Cabinet of Japan in June 2010, Green Network of Excellence program (GRENE) has started under MEXT from FY 2011. The objectives of this program are that the domestic leading universities work together strategically and promote a comprehensive human resource development and research of the highest level in the world while sharing research resources and research goals. In the field of environmental information, it is required that universities and research institutions, which are working on issues such as adaptation to climate change, cooperate to

Contributions of changes in climatology and perturbation and the resulting nonlinearity to regional climate change.

Science.gov (United States)

Adachi, Sachiho A; Nishizawa, Seiya; Yoshida, Ryuji; Yamaura, Tsuyoshi; Ando, Kazuto; Yashiro, Hisashi; Kajikawa, Yoshiyuki; Tomita, Hirofumi

2017-12-20

Future changes in large-scale climatology and perturbation may have different impacts on regional climate change. It is important to understand the impacts of climatology and perturbation in terms of both thermodynamic and dynamic changes. Although many studies have investigated the influence of climatology changes on regional climate, the significance of perturbation changes is still debated. The nonlinear effect of these two changes is also unknown. We propose a systematic procedure that extracts the influences of three factors: changes in climatology, changes in perturbation and the resulting nonlinear effect. We then demonstrate the usefulness of the procedure, applying it to future changes in precipitation. All three factors have the same degree of influence, especially for extreme rainfall events. Thus, regional climate assessments should consider not only the climatology change but also the perturbation change and their nonlinearity. This procedure can advance interpretations of future regional climates.

Assessment on the Effect of Climate Change on Streamflow in the Source Region of the Yangtze River, China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huanqing Bian

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Tuotuo River basin, known as the source region of the Yangtze River, is the key area where the impact of climate change has been observed on many of the hydrological processes of this central region of the Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we examined six Global Climate Models (GCMs under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs scenarios. First, the already impacted climate change was analyzed, based on the historical data available and then, the simulation results of the GCMs and RCPs were used for future scenario assessments. Results indicated that the annual mean temperature will likely be increased, ranging from −0.66 °C to 6.68 °C during the three future prediction periods (2020s, 2050s and 2080s, while the change in the annual precipitation ranged from −1.18% to 66.14%. Then, a well-known distributed hydrological soil vegetation model (DHSVM was utilized to evaluate the effects of future climate change on the streamflow dynamics. The seasonal mean streamflows, predicted by the six GCMs and the three RCPs scenarios, were also shown to likely increase, ranging from −0.52% to 22.58%. Watershed managers and regulators can use the findings from this study to better implement their conservation practices in the face of climate change.

Estimating the effects of regional political climate on Russian tourists to Spain

OpenAIRE

ALVAREZ DIAZ MARCOS; MANUEL GONZÁLEZ-GÓMEZ; OTERO-GIRÁLDEZ MARÍA SOLEDAD

2017-01-01

Regional political climate has become an increasingly significant force influencing travel behaviour in many tourist destinations. This paper attempts to address impacts of regional political stability on Russian inbound tourism into Spain within a demand model framework and using a cointegration approach. The results show that visa openness as well as political instability and civil unrest in substitute destinations attract more Russian tourists boosting economic growth and reducing unemploy...

Climate optimized planting windows for cotton in the lower Mississippi Delta region

Science.gov (United States)

Unique, variable summer climate of the lower Mississippi Delta region poses a critical challenge to cotton producers in deciding when to plant for optimized production. Traditional 2- to 4-year agronomic field trials conducted in this area fail to capture the effects of long-term climate variabiliti...

A conceptual framework for regional feedbacks in a changing climate

Science.gov (United States)

Batlle Bayer, L.; van den Hurk, B. J. J. M.; Strengers, B.

2012-04-01

Terrestrial ecosystems and climate influence each other through biogeochemical (e.g. carbon cycle) and biogeophysical (e.g. albedo, water fluxes) processes. These interactions might be disturbed when a climate human-induced forcing takes place (e.g. deforestation); and the ecosystem responses to the climate system might amplify (positive feedback) or dampen (negative feedback) the initial forcing. Research on feedbacks has been mainly based on the carbon cycle at the global scale. However, biogeophysical feedbacks might have a great impact at the local or regional scale, which is the main focus of this article. A conceptual framework, with the major interactions and processes between terrestrial ecosystems and climate, is presented to further explore feedbacks at the regional level. Four hot spots with potential changes in land use/management and climate are selected: sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Europe, the Amazon Basin and South and Southeast Asia. For each region, diverse climate human-induced forcings and feedbacks were identified based on relevant published literature. For Europe, the positive soil moisture-evapotranspiration (ET) is important for natural vegetation during a heat wave event, while the positive soil moisture-precipitation feedback plays a more important role for droughts in the Amazon region. Agricultural expansion in SSA will depend on the impacts of the changing climate on crop yields and the adopted agro-technologies. The adoption of irrigation in the commonly rainfed systems might turn the positive soil moisture- ET feedback into a negative one. In contrast, South and Southeast Asia might face water shortage in the future, and thus turning the soil moisture-ET feedback into a positive one. Further research is needed for the major processes that affect the ultimate sign of the feedbacks, as well as for the interactions, which effect remains uncertain, such as ET-precipitation interaction. In addition, socio-economic feedbacks need to be added

REGIONAL CLIMATE MODELING STUDY FOR THE CARPATHIAN REGION USING REGCM4 EXPERIMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

PIECZKA I.

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The newest model version of RegCM is adapted with the ultimate aim of providing climate projection for the Carpathian region with 10 km horizontal resolution. For this purpose, first, coarse resolution reanalysis data and global climate model outputs are used to drive 50 km resolution model experiments, from which the outputs are used to provide necessary boundary conditions for the fine scale model runs. Besides the historical runs (for the period 1981-2010, RCP4.5 scenario is also analyzed in this paper for the 21st century. These experiments are essential since they form the basis of national climate and adaptation strategies by providing detailed regional scale climatic projections and enabling specific impact studies for various sectors.

Collaborative Observation and Research (CORE) Watersheds: new strategies for tracking the regional effects of climate change on complex systems

Science.gov (United States)

Murdoch, P. S.

2007-12-01

The past 30 years of environmental research have shown that our world is not made up of discrete components acting independently, but rather of a mosaic of complex relations among air, land, water, living resources, and human activities. Recent warming of the climate is having a significant effect on the functioning of those systems. A national imperative is developing to quickly establish local, regional, and national systems for anticipating environmental degradation from a changing climate and developing cost-effective adaptation or mitigation strategies. In these circumstances, the debate over research versus monitoring becomes moot--there is a clear need for the integrated application of both across a range of temporal and spatial scales. A national framework that effectively addresses the multiple scales and complex multi-disciplinary processes of climate change is being assembled largely from existing programs through collaboration among Federal, State, local, and NGO organizations. The result will be an observation and research network capable of interpreting complex environmental changes at a range of spatial and temporal scales, but at less cost than if the network were funded as an independent initiative. A pilot implementation of the collaborative framework in the Delaware River Basin yielded multi-scale assessments of carbon storage and flux, and the effects of forest fragmentation and soil calcium depletion on ecosystem function. A prototype of a national climate-effects observation and research network linking research watersheds, regional surveys, remote sensing, and ecosystem modeling is being initiated in the Yukon River Basin where carbon flux associated with permafrost thaw could accelerate global warming.

Optimum soil frost depth to alleviate climate change effects in cold region agriculture.

Science.gov (United States)

Yanai, Yosuke; Iwata, Yukiyoshi; Hirota, Tomoyoshi

2017-03-21

On-farm soil frost control has been used for the management of volunteer potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.), a serious weed problem caused by climate change, in northern Japan. Deep soil frost penetration is necessary for the effective eradication of unharvested small potato tubers; however, this process can delay soil thaw and increase soil wetting in spring, thereby delaying agricultural activity initiation and increasing nitrous oxide emissions from soil. Conversely, shallow soil frost development helps over-wintering of unharvested potato tubers and nitrate leaching from surface soil owing to the periodic infiltration of snowmelt water. In this study, we synthesised on-farm snow cover manipulation experiments to determine the optimum soil frost depth that can eradicate unharvested potato tubers without affecting agricultural activity initiation while minimising N pollution from agricultural soil. The optimum soil frost depth was estimated to be 0.28-0.33 m on the basis of the annual maximum soil frost depth. Soil frost control is a promising practice to alleviate climate change effects on agriculture in cold regions, which was initiated by local farmers and further promoted by national and local research institutes.

Optimum soil frost depth to alleviate climate change effects in cold region agriculture

Science.gov (United States)

Yanai, Yosuke; Iwata, Yukiyoshi; Hirota, Tomoyoshi

2017-03-01

On-farm soil frost control has been used for the management of volunteer potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.), a serious weed problem caused by climate change, in northern Japan. Deep soil frost penetration is necessary for the effective eradication of unharvested small potato tubers; however, this process can delay soil thaw and increase soil wetting in spring, thereby delaying agricultural activity initiation and increasing nitrous oxide emissions from soil. Conversely, shallow soil frost development helps over-wintering of unharvested potato tubers and nitrate leaching from surface soil owing to the periodic infiltration of snowmelt water. In this study, we synthesised on-farm snow cover manipulation experiments to determine the optimum soil frost depth that can eradicate unharvested potato tubers without affecting agricultural activity initiation while minimising N pollution from agricultural soil. The optimum soil frost depth was estimated to be 0.28-0.33 m on the basis of the annual maximum soil frost depth. Soil frost control is a promising practice to alleviate climate change effects on agriculture in cold regions, which was initiated by local farmers and further promoted by national and local research institutes.

Climate Change Assessments for Lakes Region of Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ayten Erol

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Climate change is one of the most important challenges for forestry. Forests are known to be most efficient natural tools to ensure availability and quality of water in many regions. Besides, planning of forest resources towards water quality and quantity is essential in countries that are expected to face with more frequent drought periods in the next decades due to climate change. Watershed management concept has been supposed as the primary tool to plan natural resources in a more efficient and sustainable way by both academicians and practitioners to mitigate and adapt climate change. Forest cover among other land use types provides the best regulating mechanism to mitigate erosion, sedimentation, desertification, and pollution. In addition, climate change can potentially affect forest stand dynamics by influencing the availability of water resources. Therefore, the amount of forest cover in a watershed is an indicator of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Climate change is a concern and risk for the sustainability of water resources in Lakes Region of Turkey. The objective of this study is to make a comprehensive assessment in lake watersheds of the Lakes region considering the forest cover. For this purpose, the study gives a general view of trends in climatic parameters using Mann Kendall trend test. The results showed that Mann Kendall trend test for temperature and precipitation data is not enough to evaluate the magnitude of potential changes of climate in terms of forest cover. Understanding impacts of changes in temperature and precipitation on forest cover, runoff data should be evaluated with temperature and precipitation for watersheds of forest areas in Lakes Region.

Evaluation of the regional climate response in Australia to large-scale climate modes in the historical NARCliM simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Fita, L.; Evans, J. P.; Argüeso, D.; King, A.; Liu, Y.

2017-10-01

NARCliM (New South Wales (NSW)/Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Regional Climate Modelling project) is a regional climate modeling project for the Australian area. It is providing a comprehensive dynamically downscaled climate dataset for the CORDEX-AustralAsia region at 50-km resolution, and south-East Australia at a resolution of 10 km. The first phase of NARCliM produced 60-year long reanalysis driven regional simulations to allow evaluation of the regional model performance. This long control period (1950-2009) was used so that the model ability to capture the impact of large scale climate modes on Australian climate could be examined. Simulations are evaluated using a gridded observational dataset. Results show that using model independence as a criteria for choosing atmospheric model configuration from different possible sets of parameterizations may contribute to the regional climate models having different overall biases. The regional models generally capture the regional climate response to large-scale modes better than the driving reanalysis, though no regional model improves on all aspects of the simulated climate.

Impacts of land use/cover classification accuracy on regional climate simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Jianjun; Qi, Jiaguo; Lofgren, Brent M.; Moore, Nathan; Torbick, Nathan; Olson, Jennifer M.

2007-03-01

Land use/cover change has been recognized as a key component in global change. Various land cover data sets, including historically reconstructed, recently observed, and future projected, have been used in numerous climate modeling studies at regional to global scales. However, little attention has been paid to the effect of land cover classification accuracy on climate simulations, though accuracy assessment has become a routine procedure in land cover production community. In this study, we analyzed the behavior of simulated precipitation in the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) over a range of simulated classification accuracies over a 3 month period. This study found that land cover accuracy under 80% had a strong effect on precipitation especially when the land surface had a greater control of the atmosphere. This effect became stronger as the accuracy decreased. As shown in three follow-on experiments, the effect was further influenced by model parameterizations such as convection schemes and interior nudging, which can mitigate the strength of surface boundary forcings. In reality, land cover accuracy rarely obtains the commonly recommended 85% target. Its effect on climate simulations should therefore be considered, especially when historically reconstructed and future projected land covers are employed.

Effect of climate on the seminal characteristics of boars in a region of humid tropical forest

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henao Restrepo, Guillermo; Trujillo Aramburo, Luis Emilio; Buritica Henao, Maria Elizabet; Sierra Perez, Carlos Ignacio; Correa Londono, Guillermo; Gonzalez Boto, Oscar Domingo

2004-01-01

In a region of humid tropical forest, ten boars of from 12 to 24 months of age were selected to evaluate the effect of climatic variables measured on the day of semen collection and for each of preceding 45 days. On seminal characteristics, the variability of each characteristic was separated into an intra individual component and an interindividual component, using maximum likelihood estimators (PROC VARCOMP of SAS). In order to relate the seminal characteristics with the climatic variables, morphological abnormalities were grouped according to the affected spermatic region, into head. Midsection and main section abnormalities; the other characteristics were evaluated without any modification. Possible correlations between seminal characteristics and climatic variables were evaluated. In a total of 298 ejaculates collected weekly during a period of 30 weeks, except for total volume and morphological abnormalities. The seminal characteristics presented low or moderate intra and interindividual variation and were similar to those found in other latitudes, with a tendency to present greater seminal volumes and concentrations maximum temperature minimum temperature. Range among temperatures. Relative humidity and precipitation of the day of the semen collection and on each of the preceding 45 days had low effects on the seminal characteristics. It is possible that the boars in warm humid tropical areas develop a high level of adaptation that permits an adequate testicular thermoregulation that favors the spermatogenic function of the seminiferous tubules in a way that does not perceptibly affect production the seminal quality

Global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change: a modelling study.

Science.gov (United States)

Springmann, Marco; Mason-D'Croz, Daniel; Robinson, Sherman; Garnett, Tara; Godfray, H Charles J; Gollin, Douglas; Rayner, Mike; Ballon, Paola; Scarborough, Peter

2016-05-07

One of the most important consequences of climate change could be its effects on agriculture. Although much research has focused on questions of food security, less has been devoted to assessing the wider health impacts of future changes in agricultural production. In this modelling study, we estimate excess mortality attributable to agriculturally mediated changes in dietary and weight-related risk factors by cause of death for 155 world regions in the year 2050. For this modelling study, we linked a detailed agricultural modelling framework, the International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT), to a comparative risk assessment of changes in fruit and vegetable consumption, red meat consumption, and bodyweight for deaths from coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, and an aggregate of other causes. We calculated the change in the number of deaths attributable to climate-related changes in weight and diets for the combination of four emissions pathways (a high emissions pathway, two medium emissions pathways, and a low emissions pathway) and three socioeconomic pathways (sustainable development, middle of the road, and more fragmented development), which each included six scenarios with variable climatic inputs. The model projects that by 2050, climate change will lead to per-person reductions of 3·2% (SD 0·4%) in global food availability, 4·0% (0·7%) in fruit and vegetable consumption, and 0·7% (0·1%) in red meat consumption. These changes will be associated with 529,000 climate-related deaths worldwide (95% CI 314,000-736,000), representing a 28% (95% CI 26-33) reduction in the number of deaths that would be avoided because of changes in dietary and weight-related risk factors between 2010 and 2050. Twice as many climate-related deaths were associated with reductions in fruit and vegetable consumption than with climate-related increases in the prevalence of underweight, and most climate-related deaths were projected to

Climatic change and environmental implications in the Medicine Hat region using Billings, Montana as an analogue

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Proudfoot, W.A.

1994-01-01

There is concern that climatic change due to anthropogenic enhancement of the greenhouse effect may have considerable impacts on the natural and agricultural environments in Canada. The Palliser Triangle in the southern prairie region is an area in which the impacts of climatic change could be significant; it is an important agricultural zone and is already sensitive due to its semi-arid climate. The possible effects of a change in the climate of the Medicine Hat (Alberta) area in the Palliser Triangle is examined through the use of a regional analogue in a warmer, more southerly area. The selected analogue region is the area around Billings, Montana. Aspects of the natural environment, including potential vegetation distribution, frost-free period, and drought, as well as aspects of the agricultural environment, including agricultural practices and examination of wheat yields, are studied within each region. Comparisons are drawn between the two regions to evaluate whether significant differences exist in the environmental aspects examined. It is shown that although a change in Medicine Hat's climate to one more like that of Billings may not have drastic impacts on the environment, such a change may require adjustments in current practices or adaptations to altered environmental conditions. Reviews of several policy areas will be necessary to ensure appropriate adjustments in agricultural or resource management practices. Regional analogy is shown to be an essential preliminary tool for determining possible effects of climatic change. 138 refs., 42 figs., 22 tabs

A climate robust integrated modelling framework for regional impact assessment of climate change

Science.gov (United States)

Janssen, Gijs; Bakker, Alexander; van Ek, Remco; Groot, Annemarie; Kroes, Joop; Kuiper, Marijn; Schipper, Peter; van Walsum, Paul; Wamelink, Wieger; Mol, Janet

2013-04-01

Decision making towards climate proofing the water management of regional catchments can benefit greatly from the availability of a climate robust integrated modelling framework, capable of a consistent assessment of climate change impacts on the various interests present in the catchments. In the Netherlands, much effort has been devoted to developing state-of-the-art regional dynamic groundwater models with a very high spatial resolution (25x25 m2). Still, these models are not completely satisfactory to decision makers because the modelling concepts do not take into account feedbacks between meteorology, vegetation/crop growth, and hydrology. This introduces uncertainties in forecasting the effects of climate change on groundwater, surface water, agricultural yields, and development of groundwater dependent terrestrial ecosystems. These uncertainties add to the uncertainties about the predictions on climate change itself. In order to create an integrated, climate robust modelling framework, we coupled existing model codes on hydrology, agriculture and nature that are currently in use at the different research institutes in the Netherlands. The modelling framework consists of the model codes MODFLOW (groundwater flow), MetaSWAP (vadose zone), WOFOST (crop growth), SMART2-SUMO2 (soil-vegetation) and NTM3 (nature valuation). MODFLOW, MetaSWAP and WOFOST are coupled online (i.e. exchange information on time step basis). Thus, changes in meteorology and CO2-concentrations affect crop growth and feedbacks between crop growth, vadose zone water movement and groundwater recharge are accounted for. The model chain WOFOST-MetaSWAP-MODFLOW generates hydrological input for the ecological prediction model combination SMART2-SUMO2-NTM3. The modelling framework was used to support the regional water management decision making process in the 267 km2 Baakse Beek-Veengoot catchment in the east of the Netherlands. Computations were performed for regionalized 30-year climate change

Evaluation of uncertainties in regional climate change simulations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pan, Z.; Christensen, J. H.; Arritt, R. W.

2001-01-01

, an atmosphere-ocean coupled general circulation model (GCM) current climate, and a future scenario of transient climate change. Common precipitation climatology features simulated by both models included realistic orographic precipitation, east-west transcontinental gradients, and reasonable annual cycles over...... to different subgrid scale processes in individual models. The ratio of climate change to biases, which we use as one measure of confidence in projected climate changes, is substantially larger than 1 in several seasons and regions while the ratios are always less than 1 in summer. The largest ratios among all...... regions are in California. Spatial correlation coefficients of precipitation were computed between simulation pairs in the 2x3 set. The climate change correlation is highest and the RCM performance correlation is lowest while boundary forcing and intermodel correlations are intermediate. The high spatial...

Regional decadal predictions of coupled climate-human systems

Science.gov (United States)

Curchitser, E. N.; Lawrence, P.; Felder, F.; Large, W.; Bacmeister, J. T.; Andrews, C.; Kopp, R. E.

2016-12-01

We present results from a project to develop a framework for investigating the interactions between human activity and the climate system using state-of-the-art multi-scale, climate and economic models. The model is applied to the highly industrialized and urbanized coastal region of the northeast US with an emphasis on New Jersey. The framework is developed around the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM). The CESM model capabilities are augmented with enhanced resolution of the atmosphere (25 km), land surface (I km) and ocean models (7 km) in our region of interest. To the climate model, we couple human activity models for the utility sector and a 300-equation econometric model with sectorial details of an input-output model for the New Jersey economy. We will present results to date showing the potential impact of climate change on electricity markets on its consequences on economic activity in the region.

Climate Variability and Change in the Mediterranean Region

Science.gov (United States)

Lionello, Piero; Özsoy, Emin; Planton, Serge; Zanchetta, Giovanni

2017-04-01

This special issue collects new research results on the climate of the Mediterranean region. It covers traditional topics of the MedCLIVAR programme (www.medclivar.eu, Lionello et al. 2006, Lionello et al. 2012b) being devoted to papers addressing on-going and future climate changes in the Mediterranean region and their impacts on its environment.

Shallow Horizontal GCHP Effectiveness in Arid Climate Soils

Science.gov (United States)

North, Timothy James

Ground coupled heat pumps (GCHPs) have been used successfully in many environments to improve the heating and cooling efficiency of both small and large scale buildings. In arid climate regions, such as the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, where the air condi-tioning load is dominated by cooling in the summer, GCHPs are difficult to install and operate. This is because the nature of soils in arid climate regions, in that they are both dry and hot, renders them particularly ineffective at dissipating heat. The first part of this thesis addresses applying the SVHeat finite element modeling soft-ware to create a model of a GCHP system. Using real-world data from a prototype solar-water heating system coupled with a ground-source heat exchanger installed in Menlo Park, California, a relatively accurate model was created to represent a novel GCHP panel system installed in a shallow vertical trench. A sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the accuracy of the calibrated model. The second part of the thesis involved adapting the calibrated model to represent an ap-proximation of soil conditions in arid climate regions, using a range of thermal properties for dry soils. The effectiveness of the GCHP in the arid climate region model was then evaluated by comparing the thermal flux from the panel into the subsurface profile to that of the prototype GCHP. It was shown that soils in arid climate regions are particularly inefficient at heat dissipation, but that it is highly dependent on the thermal conductivity inputted into the model. This demonstrates the importance of proper site characterization in arid climate regions. Finally, several soil improvement methods were researched to evaluate their potential for use in improving the effectiveness of shallow horizontal GCHP systems in arid climate regions.

CLIMATIC JUMP IN THE POLAR REGION (I)

OpenAIRE

ヤマモト, リョウザブロウ; イワシマ, タツヤ; ホシアイ, マコト; Ryozaburo, YAMAMOTO; Tatsuya, IWASHIMA; Makoto, HOSHIAI

1987-01-01

From the analysis of the climatic elements over Japan, we can detect the "climatic jumps" around the years 1920 and 1950,which is a new concept in the climatic diagnosis proposed by the present authors (R. YAMAMOTO et al. : J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn., 63,1157,1985,64,273,1986). Taking account of several results which show the simultaneous occurrence of the climatic jumps of the surface air temperature, precipitation, etc., in the other regions by the other investigators, we may infer the "climati...

Regional climate change-Science in the Southeast

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Sonya A.

2010-01-01

Resource managers are at the forefront of a new era of management. They must consider the potential impacts of climate change on the Nation's resources and proactively develop strategies for dealing with those impacts on plants, animals, and ecosystems. This requires rigorous, scientific understanding of environmental change. The role of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in this effort is to analyze climate-change data and develop tools for assessing how changing conditions are likely to impact resources. This information will assist Federal, State, local, and tribal partners manage resources strategically. The 2008 Omnibus Budget Act and Secretarial Order 3289 established a new network of eight Department of Interior Regional Climate Science Centers to provide technical support for resource managers. The Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP) is the first regional assessment to be funded by the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (http://nccw.usgs.gov/). The USGS is working closely with the developing Department of Interior Landscape Conservation Cooperatives to ensure that the project will meet the needs of resource managers in the Southeast. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is providing resources to the SERAP to expand the scope of the project.

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: TOWARDS ADVANCED UNDERSTANDING AND PREDICTIVE CAPABILITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ARCTIC USING A HIGH-RESOLUTION REGIONAL ARCTIC CLIMATE SYSTEM MODEL

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gutowski, William J.

2013-02-07

The motivation for this project was to advance the science of climate change and prediction in the Arctic region. Its primary goals were to (i) develop a state-of-the-art Regional Arctic Climate system Model (RACM) including high-resolution atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice and land hydrology components and (ii) to perform extended numerical experiments using high performance computers to minimize uncertainties and fundamentally improve current predictions of climate change in the northern polar regions. These goals were realized first through evaluation studies of climate system components via one-way coupling experiments. Simulations were then used to examine the effects of advancements in climate component systems on their representation of main physics, time-mean fields and to understand variability signals at scales over many years. As such this research directly addressed some of the major science objectives of the BER Climate Change Research Division (CCRD) regarding the advancement of long-term climate prediction.

Combining super-ensembles and statistical emulation to improve a regional climate and vegetation model

Science.gov (United States)

Hawkins, L. R.; Rupp, D. E.; Li, S.; Sarah, S.; McNeall, D. J.; Mote, P.; Betts, R. A.; Wallom, D.

2017-12-01

Changing regional patterns of surface temperature, precipitation, and humidity may cause ecosystem-scale changes in vegetation, altering the distribution of trees, shrubs, and grasses. A changing vegetation distribution, in turn, alters the albedo, latent heat flux, and carbon exchanged with the atmosphere with resulting feedbacks onto the regional climate. However, a wide range of earth-system processes that affect the carbon, energy, and hydrologic cycles occur at sub grid scales in climate models and must be parameterized. The appropriate parameter values in such parameterizations are often poorly constrained, leading to uncertainty in predictions of how the ecosystem will respond to changes in forcing. To better understand the sensitivity of regional climate to parameter selection and to improve regional climate and vegetation simulations, we used a large perturbed physics ensemble and a suite of statistical emulators. We dynamically downscaled a super-ensemble (multiple parameter sets and multiple initial conditions) of global climate simulations using a 25-km resolution regional climate model HadRM3p with the land-surface scheme MOSES2 and dynamic vegetation module TRIFFID. We simultaneously perturbed land surface parameters relating to the exchange of carbon, water, and energy between the land surface and atmosphere in a large super-ensemble of regional climate simulations over the western US. Statistical emulation was used as a computationally cost-effective tool to explore uncertainties in interactions. Regions of parameter space that did not satisfy observational constraints were eliminated and an ensemble of parameter sets that reduce regional biases and span a range of plausible interactions among earth system processes were selected. This study demonstrated that by combining super-ensemble simulations with statistical emulation, simulations of regional climate could be improved while simultaneously accounting for a range of plausible land

Great plains regional climate assessment technical report

Science.gov (United States)

The Great Plains region (GP) plays important role in providing food and energy to the economy of the United States. Multiple climatic and non-climatic stressors put multiple sectors, livelihoods and communities at risk, including agriculture, water, ecosystems and rural and tribal communities. The G...

Reconstruction of regional climate and climate change in past decades

Science.gov (United States)

von Storch, H.; Feser, F.; Weisse, R.; Zahn, M.

2009-12-01

Regional climate models, which are constrained by large scale information (spectral nudging) provided by re-analyses, allow for the construction of a mostly homogeneous description of regional weather statistics since about 1950. The potential of this approach has been demonstrated for Northern Europe. That data set, named CoastDat, does not only contain hourly data on atmospheric variables, in particular wind, but also on marine weather, i.e., short term water level, current and sea state variations. Another example is the multi-decadal variability of Polar Lows in the subarctic waters. The utility of such data sets is broad, from risk assessments related to coastal wind and wave conditions, assessment of determining the causes for regional climate change, a-posteriori analysis of the efficiency of environmental legislation (example: lead). In the paper, the methodology is outlined, examples are provided and the utility of the product discussed.

Does Nudging Squelch the Extremes in Regional Climate Modeling?

Science.gov (United States)

An important question in regional climate downscaling is whether to constrain (nudge) the interior of the limited-area domain toward the larger-scale driving fields. Prior research has demonstrated that interior nudging can increase the skill of regional climate predictions origin...

Inflated Uncertainty in Multimodel-Based Regional Climate Projections

Science.gov (United States)

Madsen, Marianne Sloth; Langen, Peter L.; Boberg, Fredrik; Christensen, Jens Hesselbjerg

2017-11-01

Multimodel ensembles are widely analyzed to estimate the range of future regional climate change projections. For an ensemble of climate models, the result is often portrayed by showing maps of the geographical distribution of the multimodel mean results and associated uncertainties represented by model spread at the grid point scale. Here we use a set of CMIP5 models to show that presenting statistics this way results in an overestimation of the projected range leading to physically implausible patterns of change on global but also on regional scales. We point out that similar inconsistencies occur in impact analyses relying on multimodel information extracted using statistics at the regional scale, for example, when a subset of CMIP models is selected to represent regional model spread. Consequently, the risk of unwanted impacts may be overestimated at larger scales as climate change impacts will never be realized as the worst (or best) case everywhere.

Regionalizing Africa: Patterns of Precipitation Variability in Observations and Global Climate Models

Science.gov (United States)

Badr, Hamada S.; Dezfuli, Amin K.; Zaitchik, Benjamin F.; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.

2016-01-01

Many studies have documented dramatic climatic and environmental changes that have affected Africa over different time scales. These studies often raise questions regarding the spatial extent and regional connectivity of changes inferred from observations and proxies and/or derived from climate models. Objective regionalization offers a tool for addressing these questions. To demonstrate this potential, applications of hierarchical climate regionalizations of Africa using observations and GCM historical simulations and future projections are presented. First, Africa is regionalized based on interannual precipitation variability using Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) data for the period 19812014. A number of data processing techniques and clustering algorithms are tested to ensure a robust definition of climate regions. These regionalization results highlight the seasonal and even month-to-month specificity of regional climate associations across the continent, emphasizing the need to consider time of year as well as research question when defining a coherent region for climate analysis. CHIRPS regions are then compared to those of five GCMs for the historic period, with a focus on boreal summer. Results show that some GCMs capture the climatic coherence of the Sahel and associated teleconnections in a manner that is similar to observations, while other models break the Sahel into uncorrelated subregions or produce a Sahel-like region of variability that is spatially displaced from observations. Finally, shifts in climate regions under projected twenty-first-century climate change for different GCMs and emissions pathways are examined. A projected change is found in the coherence of the Sahel, in which the western and eastern Sahel become distinct regions with different teleconnections. This pattern is most pronounced in high-emissions scenarios.

Assessing Regional Scale Variability in Extreme Value Statistics Under Altered Climate Scenarios

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brunsell, Nathaniel [Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States); Mechem, David [Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States); Ma, Chunsheng [Wichita State Univ., KS (United States)

2015-02-20

Recent studies have suggested that low-frequency modes of climate variability can significantly influence regional climate. The climatology associated with extreme events has been shown to be particularly sensitive. This has profound implications for droughts, heat waves, and food production. We propose to examine regional climate simulations conducted over the continental United States by applying a recently developed technique which combines wavelet multi–resolution analysis with information theory metrics. This research is motivated by two fundamental questions concerning the spatial and temporal structure of extreme events. These questions are 1) what temporal scales of the extreme value distributions are most sensitive to alteration by low-frequency climate forcings and 2) what is the nature of the spatial structure of variation in these timescales? The primary objective is to assess to what extent information theory metrics can be useful in characterizing the nature of extreme weather phenomena. Specifically, we hypothesize that (1) changes in the nature of extreme events will impact the temporal probability density functions and that information theory metrics will be sensitive these changes and (2) via a wavelet multi–resolution analysis, we will be able to characterize the relative contribution of different timescales on the stochastic nature of extreme events. In order to address these hypotheses, we propose a unique combination of an established regional climate modeling approach and advanced statistical techniques to assess the effects of low-frequency modes on climate extremes over North America. The behavior of climate extremes in RCM simulations for the 20th century will be compared with statistics calculated from the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) and simulations from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). This effort will serve to establish the baseline behavior of climate extremes, the

Regional and Global Climate Response to Anthropogenic SO2 Emissions from China in Three Climate Models

Science.gov (United States)

Kasoar, M.; Voulgarakis, Apostolos; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Shindell, Drew T.; Bellouin, Nicholas; Collins, William J.; Faluvegi, Greg; Tsigaridis, Kostas

2016-01-01

We use the HadGEM3-GA4, CESM1, and GISS ModelE2 climate models to investigate the global and regional aerosol burden, radiative flux, and surface temperature responses to removing anthropogenic sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from China. We find that the models differ by up to a factor of 6 in the simulated change in aerosol optical depth (AOD) and shortwave radiative flux over China that results from reduced sulfate aerosol, leading to a large range of magnitudes in the regional and global temperature responses. Two of the three models simulate a near-ubiquitous hemispheric warming due to the regional SO2 removal, with similarities in the local and remote pattern of response, but overall with a substantially different magnitude. The third model simulates almost no significant temperature response. We attribute the discrepancies in the response to a combination of substantial differences in the chemical conversion of SO2 to sulfate, translation of sulfate mass into AOD, cloud radiative interactions, and differences in the radiative forcing efficiency of sulfate aerosol in the models. The model with the strongest response (HadGEM3-GA4) compares best with observations of AOD regionally, however the other two models compare similarly (albeit poorly) and still disagree substantially in their simulated climate response, indicating that total AOD observations are far from sufficient to determine which model response is more plausible. Our results highlight that there remains a large uncertainty in the representation of both aerosol chemistry as well as direct and indirect aerosol radiative effects in current climate models, and reinforces that caution must be applied when interpreting the results of modelling studies of aerosol influences on climate. Model studies that implicate aerosols in climate responses should ideally explore a range of radiative forcing strengths representative of this uncertainty, in addition to thoroughly evaluating the models used against

The Integration of Climate Science and Collaborative Processes in Building Regional Climate Resiliency in Southeast Florida

Science.gov (United States)

Jurado, J.

2016-12-01

Southeast Florida is widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions in the United States to the impacts of climate change, especially sea level rise. Dense urban populations, low land elevations, flat topography, complex shorelines and a porous geology all contribute to the region's challenges. Regional and local governments have been working collaboratively to address shared climate mitigation and adaptation concerns as part of the four-county Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact (Compact). This partnership has emphasized, in part, the use of climate data and the development of advanced technical tools and visualizations to help inform decision-making, improve communications, and guide investments. Prominent work products have included regional vulnerability maps and assessments, a unified sea level rise projection for southeast Florida, the development and application of hydrologic models in scenario planning, interdisciplinary resilient redesign planning workshops, and the development of regional climate indicators. Key to the Compact's efforts has been the engagement and expertise of academic and agency partners, including a formal collaboration between the Florida Climate Institute and the Compact to improve research and project collaborations focused on southeast Florida. This presentation will focus on the collaborative processes and work products that have served to accelerate resiliency planning and investments in southeast Florida, with specific examples of how local governments are using these work products to modernize agency processes, and build support among residents and business leaders.

Climate change scenarios of precipitation extremes in the Carpathian region based on an ENSEMBLE of regional climate models

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Gaál, Ladislav; Beranová, Romana; Hlavčová, K.; Kyselý, Jan

2014-01-01

Roč. 2014, č. 943487 (2014), s. 1-14 ISSN 1687-9309 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA14-18675S Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : precipitation extremes * regional climate models * climate change Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology Impact factor: 0.946, year: 2014 http://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/2014/943487/

Regional differences in climate change impacts on groundwater and stream discharge in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Van Roosmalen, Lieke Petronella G; Christensen, Britt S.B.; Sonnenborg, Torben O.

2007-01-01

of the hydrological response to the simulated climate change is highly dependant on the geological setting of the model area. In the Jylland area, characterized by sandy top soils and large interconnected aquifers, groundwater recharge increases significantly, resulting in higher groundwater levels and increasing......Regional impact studies of the effects of future climate change are necessary because projected changes in meteorological variables vary regionally and different hydrological systems can react in various ways to the same changes. In this study the effects of climate change on groundwater recharge...... simulates changes in groundwater head, recharge, and discharge. Precipitation, temperature, and reference evapotranspiration increase for both the A2 and B2 scenarios. This results in a significant increase in mean annual net precipitation, but with decreased values in the summer months. The magnitude...

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

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Trail

2013-09-01

Full Text Available 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

Regional Climate Change Impact on Agricultural Land Use in West Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmed, K. F.; Wang, G.; You, L.

2014-12-01

Agriculture is a key element of the human-induced land use land cover change (LULCC) that is influenced by climate and can potentially influence regional climate. Temperature and precipitation directly impact the crop yield (by controlling photosynthesis, respiration and other physiological processes) that then affects agricultural land use pattern. In feedback, the resulting changes in land use and land cover play an important role to determine the direction and magnitude of global, regional and local climate change by altering Earth's radiative equilibrium. The assessment of future agricultural land use is, therefore, of great importance in climate change study. In this study, we develop a prototype land use projection model and, using this model, project the changes to land use pattern and future land cover map accounting for climate-induced yield changes for major crops in West Africa. Among the inputs to the land use projection model are crop yield changes simulated by the crop model DSSAT, driven with the climate forcing data from the regional climate model RegCM4.3.4-CLM4.5, which features a projected decrease of future mean crop yield and increase of inter-annual variability. Another input to the land use projection model is the projected changes of food demand in the future. In a so-called "dumb-farmer scenario" without any adaptation, the combined effect of decrease in crop yield and increase in food demand will lead to a significant increase in agricultural land use in future years accompanied by a decrease in forest and grass area. Human adaptation through land use optimization in an effort to minimize agricultural expansion is found to have little impact on the overall areas of agricultural land use. While the choice of the General Circulation Model (GCM) to derive initial and boundary conditions for the regional climate model can be a source of uncertainty in projecting the future LULCC, results from sensitivity experiments indicate that the changes

Quantifying the effects of climate variability and human activities on runoff for Kaidu River Basin in arid region of northwest China

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zhongsheng; Chen, Yaning; Li, Baofu

2013-02-01

Much attention has recently been focused on the effects that climate variability and human activities have had on runoff. In this study, data from the Kaidu River Basin in the arid region of northwest China were analyzed to investigate changes in annual runoff during the period of 1960-2009. The nonparametric Mann-Kendall test and the Mann-Kendall-Sneyers test were used to identify trend and step change point in the annual runoff. It was found that the basin had a significant increasing trend in annual runoff. Step change point in annual runoff was identified in the basin, which occurred in the year around 1993 dividing the long-term runoff series into a natural period (1960-1993) and a human-induced period (1994-2009). Then, the hydrologic sensitivity analysis method was employed to evaluate the effects of climate variability and human activities on mean annual runoff for the human-induced period based on precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. In 1994-2009, climate variability was the main factor that increased runoff with contribution of 90.5 %, while the increasing percentage due to human activities only accounted for 9.5 %, showing that runoff in the Kaidu River Basin is more sensitive to climate variability than human activities. This study quantitatively distinguishes the effects between climate variability and human activities on runoff, which can do duty for a reference for regional water resources assessment and management.

Attributing regional effects of the 2014 Jordanian extreme drought to external climate drivers

Science.gov (United States)

Bergaoui, Karim; Mitchell, Dann; Zaaboul, Rashyd; Otto, Friederike; McDonnell, Rachael; Dadson, Simon; Allen, Myles

2015-04-01

Throughout 2014, the regions of Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria have experienced a persistent draught with clear impacts on the local populations. In this study we perform an extreme event attribution analysis of how such a draught has changed under climate change, with a specific focus on the flow rate of the Upper Jordan river and the water level of Lake Tiberious (AKA the Sea of Galilee). Both of which hold major societal, political and religious importance. To perform the analysis we make use of distributed computing power to run thousands of modelled years of 2014 with slightly different initial conditions. We use an atmosphere only model (HadAM3p) with a nested 50 km regional model covering Africa and the Middle East. The 50 km model atmospheric variables will be used directly to force offline our 1 km LIS surface model. Two separate experiments and simulations are performed, 1. for all known climate forcings that are present in 2014, and 2. for a naturalised 2014 scenario where we assume humans never impacted the climate. We perform sensitivity analyses on the observed precipitation over the regions of interest, and determine that the TRMM data is in good agreement with station data obtained from the Jordanian Ministry of Water. Using a combination of the TRMM and model data we are able to make clear statements on the attribution of a 2014-like extreme draught event to human causal factors.

Climate Justice in Rural Southeastern United States: A Review of Climate Change Impacts and Effects on Human Health

OpenAIRE

Gutierrez, Kristie S.; LePrevost, Catherine E.

2016-01-01

Climate justice is a local, national, and global movement to protect at-risk populations who are disproportionately affected by climate change. The social context for this review is the Southeastern region of the United States, which is particularly susceptible to climate change because of the geography of the area and the vulnerabilities of the inhabiting populations. Negative human health effects on variable and vulnerable populations within the Southeast region due to changing climate are ...

Climate programs update: USDA Southwest Regional Climate Hub update

Science.gov (United States)

PROGRAM OVERVIEW: The overarching goal of the USDA SW Climate Hub is to assist farmers, ranchers and foresters in addressing the effects of climate change including prolonged drought, increased insect outbreaks and severe wildfires. In the first year of operations, the SW Climate Hub (est. Februa...

Regional climate science: lessons and opportunities

Science.gov (United States)

Mote, P. W.; Miles, E. L.; Whitely Binder, L.

2008-12-01

Since its founding in 1995, the Climate Impacts Group (CIG) at the University of Washington (UW) has achieved remarkable success at translating global- and regional-scale science into forms and products that are useful to, and used by, decision-makers. From GCM scenarios to research on the connection between global climate patterns and locally important factors like floods and wildfires, CIG's strong physical science foundation is matched by a vigorous and successful outreach program. As a result, CIG and its partner the Office of Washington State Climatologist at UW have made substantial progress at bridging the gap between climate science and decision-making, and are deeply involved in advising all levels of government and many business interests on adapting to climate variability and change. This talk will showcase some of the specific activities and tools, describe lessons learned, and illustrate how such efforts fit into a "National Climate Service."

Aerosol indirect effects on summer precipitation in a regional climate model for the Euro-Mediterranean region

Science.gov (United States)

Da Silva, Nicolas; Mailler, Sylvain; Drobinski, Philippe

2018-03-01

Aerosols affect atmospheric dynamics through their direct and semi-direct effects as well as through their effects on cloud microphysics (indirect effects). The present study investigates the indirect effects of aerosols on summer precipitation in the Euro-Mediterranean region, which is located at the crossroads of air masses carrying both natural and anthropogenic aerosols. While it is difficult to disentangle the indirect effects of aerosols from the direct and semi-direct effects in reality, a numerical sensitivity experiment is carried out using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, which allows us to isolate indirect effects, all other effects being equal. The Mediterranean hydrological cycle has often been studied using regional climate model (RCM) simulations with parameterized convection, which is the approach we adopt in the present study. For this purpose, the Thompson aerosol-aware microphysics scheme is used in a pair of simulations run at 50 km resolution with extremely high and low aerosol concentrations. An additional pair of simulations has been performed at a convection-permitting resolution (3.3 km) to examine these effects without the use of parameterized convection. While the reduced radiative flux due to the direct effects of the aerosols is already known to reduce precipitation amounts, there is still no general agreement on the sign and magnitude of the aerosol indirect forcing effect on precipitation, with various processes competing with each other. Although some processes tend to enhance precipitation amounts, some others tend to reduce them. In these simulations, increased aerosol loads lead to weaker precipitation in the parameterized (low-resolution) configuration. The fact that a similar result is obtained for a selected area in the convection-permitting (high-resolution) configuration allows for physical interpretations. By examining the key variables in the model outputs, we propose a causal chain that links the aerosol

Geographical patterns in cyanobacteria distribution: climate influence at regional scale.

Science.gov (United States)

Pitois, Frédéric; Thoraval, Isabelle; Baurès, Estelle; Thomas, Olivier

2014-01-28

Cyanobacteria are a component of public health hazards in freshwater environments because of their potential as toxin producers. Eutrophication has long been considered the main cause of cyanobacteria outbreak and proliferation, whereas many studies emphasized the effect of abiotic parameters (mainly temperature and light) on cell growth rate or toxin production. In view of the growing concerns of global change consequences on public health parameters, this study attempts to enlighten climate influence on cyanobacteria at regional scale in Brittany (NW France). The results show that homogeneous cyanobacteria groups are associated with climatic domains related to temperature, global radiation and pluviometry, whereas microcystins (MCs) occurrences are only correlated to local cyanobacteria species composition. As the regional climatic gradient amplitude is similar to the projected climate evolution on a 30-year timespan, a comparison between the present NW and SE situations was used to extrapolate the evolution of geographical cyanobacteria distribution in Brittany. Cyanobacteria composition should shift toward species associated with more frequent Microcystins occurrences along a NW/SE axis whereas lakes situated along a SW/NE axis should transition to species (mainly Nostocales) associated with lower MCs detection frequencies.

Spatiotemporal analysis of the effect of climate change on vegetation health in the Drakensberg Mountain Region of South Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Mukwada, Geoffrey; Manatsa, Desmond

2018-05-24

The impact of climate change on mountain ecosystems has been in the spotlight for the past three decades. Climate change is generally considered to be a threat to ecosystem health in mountain regions. Vegetation indices can be used to detect shifts in ecosystem phenology and climate change in mountain regions while satellite imagery can play an important role in this process. However, what has remained problematic is determining the extent to which ecosystem phenology is affected by climate change under increasingly warming conditions. In this paper, we use climate and vegetation indices that were derived from satellite data to investigate the link between ecosystem phenology and climate change in the Namahadi Catchment Area of the Drakensberg Mountain Region of South Africa. The time series for climate indices as well as those for gridded precipitation and temperature data were analyzed in order to determine climate shifts, and concomitant changes in vegetation health were assessed in the resultant epochs using vegetation indices. The results indicate that vegetation indices should only be used to assess trends in climate change under relatively pristine conditions, where human influence is limited. This knowledge is important for designing climate change monitoring strategies that are based on ecosystem phenology and vegetation health.

Regional Climate Change and Development of Public Health Decision Aids

Science.gov (United States)

Hegedus, A. M.; Darmenova, K.; Grant, F.; Kiley, H.; Higgins, G. J.; Apling, D.

2011-12-01

According to the World Heath Organization (WHO) climate change is a significant and emerging threat to public health, and changes the way we must look at protecting vulnerable populations. Worldwide, the occurrence of some diseases and other threats to human health depend predominantly on local climate patterns. Rising average temperatures, in combination with changing rainfall patterns and humidity levels, alter the lifecycle and regional distribution of certain disease-carrying vectors, such as mosquitoes, ticks and rodents. In addition, higher surface temperatures will bring heat waves and heat stress to urban regions worldwide and will likely increase heat-related health risks. A growing body of scientific evidence also suggests an increase in extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and hurricanes that can be destructive to human health and well-being. Therefore, climate adaptation and health decision aids are urgently needed by city planners and health officials to determine high risk areas, evaluate vulnerable populations and develop public health infrastructure and surveillance systems. To address current deficiencies in local planning and decision making with respect to regional climate change and its effect on human health, our research is focused on performing a dynamical downscaling with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to develop decision aids that translate the regional climate data into actionable information for users. WRF model is initialized with the Max Planck Institute European Center/Hamburg Model version 5 (ECHAM5) General Circulation Model simulations forced with the Special Report on Emissions (SRES) A1B emissions scenario. Our methodology involves development of climatological indices of extreme weather, quantifying the risk of occurrence of water/rodent/vector-borne diseases as well as developing various heat stress related decision aids. Our results indicate that the downscale simulations provide the necessary

Simulated trends of extreme climate indices for the Carpathian basin using outputs of different regional climate models

Science.gov (United States)

Pongracz, R.; Bartholy, J.; Szabo, P.; Pieczka, I.; Torma, C. S.

2009-04-01

Regional climatological effects of global warming may be recognized not only in shifts of mean temperature and precipitation, but in the frequency or intensity changes of different climate extremes. Several climate extreme indices are analyzed and compared for the Carpathian basin (located in Central/Eastern Europe) following the guidelines suggested by the joint WMO-CCl/CLIVAR Working Group on climate change detection. Our statistical trend analysis includes the evaluation of several extreme temperature and precipitation indices, e.g., the numbers of severe cold days, winter days, frost days, cold days, warm days, summer days, hot days, extremely hot days, cold nights, warm nights, the intra-annual extreme temperature range, the heat wave duration, the growing season length, the number of wet days (using several threshold values defining extremes), the maximum number of consecutive dry days, the highest 1-day precipitation amount, the greatest 5-day rainfall total, the annual fraction due to extreme precipitation events, etc. In order to evaluate the future trends (2071-2100) in the Carpathian basin, daily values of meteorological variables are obtained from the outputs of various regional climate model (RCM) experiments accomplished in the frame of the completed EU-project PRUDENCE (Prediction of Regional scenarios and Uncertainties for Defining EuropeaN Climate change risks and Effects). Horizontal resolution of the applied RCMs is 50 km. Both scenarios A2 and B2 are used to compare past and future trends of the extreme climate indices for the Carpathian basin. Furthermore, fine-resolution climate experiments of two additional RCMs adapted and run at the Department of Meteorology, Eotvos Lorand University are used to extend the trend analysis of climate extremes for the Carpathian basin. (1) Model PRECIS (run at 25 km horizontal resolution) was developed at the UK Met Office, Hadley Centre, and it uses the boundary conditions from the HadCM3 GCM. (2) Model Reg

Responses of terrestrial ecosystems' net primary productivity to future regional climate change in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Dongsheng; Wu, Shaohong; Yin, Yunhe

2013-01-01

The impact of regional climate change on net primary productivity (NPP) is an important aspect in the study of ecosystems' response to global climate change. China's ecosystems are very sensitive to climate change owing to the influence of the East Asian monsoon. The Lund-Potsdam-Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model for China (LPJ-CN), a global dynamical vegetation model developed for China's terrestrial ecosystems, was applied in this study to simulate the NPP changes affected by future climate change. As the LPJ-CN model is based on natural vegetation, the simulation in this study did not consider the influence of anthropogenic activities. Results suggest that future climate change would have adverse effects on natural ecosystems, with NPP tending to decrease in eastern China, particularly in the temperate and warm temperate regions. NPP would increase in western China, with a concentration in the Tibetan Plateau and the northwest arid regions. The increasing trend in NPP in western China and the decreasing trend in eastern China would be further enhanced by the warming climate. The spatial distribution of NPP, which declines from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, would have minimal variation under scenarios of climate change.

Responses of terrestrial ecosystems' net primary productivity to future regional climate change in China.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dongsheng Zhao

Full Text Available The impact of regional climate change on net primary productivity (NPP is an important aspect in the study of ecosystems' response to global climate change. China's ecosystems are very sensitive to climate change owing to the influence of the East Asian monsoon. The Lund-Potsdam-Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model for China (LPJ-CN, a global dynamical vegetation model developed for China's terrestrial ecosystems, was applied in this study to simulate the NPP changes affected by future climate change. As the LPJ-CN model is based on natural vegetation, the simulation in this study did not consider the influence of anthropogenic activities. Results suggest that future climate change would have adverse effects on natural ecosystems, with NPP tending to decrease in eastern China, particularly in the temperate and warm temperate regions. NPP would increase in western China, with a concentration in the Tibetan Plateau and the northwest arid regions. The increasing trend in NPP in western China and the decreasing trend in eastern China would be further enhanced by the warming climate. The spatial distribution of NPP, which declines from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, would have minimal variation under scenarios of climate change.

Regional climate change mitigation analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rowlands, Ian H [UNEP Collaborating Centre on Energy and Environment, and Univ. of Waterloo (Canada)

1998-10-01

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the key methodological issues that arise from an analysis of regional climate change mitigation options. The rationale for any analysis of regional mitigation activities, emphasising both the theoretical attractiveness and the existing political encouragement and the methodology that has been developed are reviewed. The differences arising from the fact that mitigation analyses have been taken from the level of the national - where the majority of the work has been completed to date - to the level of the international - that is, the `regional` - will be especially highlighted. (EG)

Regional climate change mitigation analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rowlands, Ian H.

1998-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the key methodological issues that arise from an analysis of regional climate change mitigation options. The rationale for any analysis of regional mitigation activities, emphasising both the theoretical attractiveness and the existing political encouragement and the methodology that has been developed are reviewed. The differences arising from the fact that mitigation analyses have been taken from the level of the national - where the majority of the work has been completed to date - to the level of the international - that is, the 'regional' - will be especially highlighted. (EG)

The Impact Snow Albedo Feedback over Mountain Regions as Examined through High-Resolution Regional Climate Change Experiments over the Rocky Mountains

Science.gov (United States)

Letcher, Theodore

As the climate warms, the snow albedo feedback (SAF) will play a substantial role in shaping the climate response of mid-latitude mountain regions with transient snow cover. One such region is the Rocky Mountains of the western United States where large snow packs accumulate during the winter and persist throughout the spring. In this dissertation, the Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF) configured as a regional climate model is used to investigate the role of the SAF in determining the regional climate response to forced anthropogenic climate change. The regional effects of climate change are investigated by using the pseudo global warming (PGW) framework, which is an experimental configuration in a which a mean climate perturbation is added to the boundary forcing of a regional model, thus preserving the large-scale circulation entering the region through the model boundaries and isolating the mesoscale climate response. Using this framework, the impact of the SAF on the regional energetics and atmospheric dynamics is examined and quantified. Linear feedback analysis is used to quantify the strength of the SAF over the Headwaters region of the Colorado Rockies for a series of high-resolution PGW experiments. This technique is used to test sensitivity of the feedback strength to model resolution and land surface model. Over the Colorado Rockies, and integrated over the entire spring season, the SAF strength is largely insensitive to model resolution, however there are more substantial differences on the sub-seasonal (monthly) timescale. In contrast, the SAF strength over this region is very sensitive to choice of land surface model. These simulations are also used to investigate how spatial and diurnal variability in warming caused by the SAF influences the dynamics of thermally driven mountain-breeze circulations. It is shown that, the SAF causes stronger daytime mountain-breeze circulations by increasing the warming on the mountains slopes thus enhancing

NOAA's Regional Climate Services Program: Building Relationships with Partners and Customers to Deliver Trusted Climate Information at Usable Scales

Science.gov (United States)

Mecray, E. L.; Dissen, J.

2016-12-01

Federal agencies across multiple sectors from transportation to health, emergency management and agriculture, are now requiring their key stakeholders to identify and plan for climate-related impacts. Responding to the drumbeat for climate services at the regional and local scale, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) formed its Regional Climate Services (RCS) program to include Regional Climate Services Directors (RCSD), Regional Climate Centers, and state climatologists in a partnership. Since 2010, the RCS program has engaged customers across the country and amongst many of the nation's key economic sectors to compile information requirements, deliver climate-related products and services, and build partnerships among federal agencies and their regional climate entities. The talk will include a sketch from the Eastern Region that may shed light on the interaction of the multiple entities working at the regional scale. Additionally, we will show examples of our interagency work with the Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and others in NOAA to deliver usable and trusted climate information and resources. These include webinars, print material, and face-to-face customer engagements to gather and respond to information requirements. NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Information's RCSDs work on-the-ground to learn from customers about their information needs and their use of existing tools and resources. As regional leads, the RCSDs work within NOAA and with our regional partners to ensure the customer receives a broad picture of the tools and information from across the nation.

Influence of land use and climate on wetland breeding birds in the Prairie Pothole region of Canada

Science.gov (United States)

Forcey, G.M.; Linz, G.M.; Thogmartin, W.E.; Bleier, W.J.

2007-01-01

Bird populations are influenced by a variety of factors at both small and large scales that range from the presence of suitable nesting habitat, predators, and food supplies to climate conditions and land-use patterns. We evaluated the influences of regional climate and land-use variables on wetland breeding birds in the Canada section of Bird Conservation Region 11 (CA-BCR11), the Prairie Potholes. We used bird abundance data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, land-use data from the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, and weather data from the National Climatic Data and Information Archive to model effects of regional environmental variables on bird abundance. Models were constructed a priori using information from published habitat associations in the literature, and fitting was performed with WinBUGS using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. Both land-use and climate variables contributed to predicting bird abundance in CA-BCR11, although climate predictors contributed the most to improving model fit. Examination of regional effects of climate and land use on wetland birds in CA-BCR11 revealed relationships with environmental covariates that are often overlooked by small-scale habitat studies. Results from these studies can be used to improve conservation and management planning for regional populations of avifauna. ?? 2007 NRC.

Climatic change impacts in Lombardia region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fiorese, G.; Gatto, M.; De Leo, G.

2008-01-01

Climatic change will change significantly our Country through impacts of natural and physical systems, on human health and the productive sectors. This article describes the expected impacts in Lombardia region [it

The Haute-Normandie Climate Air Energy Regional Scheme - Synthesis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2016-01-01

This regional public and planning document (SRCAE) first proposes a regional diagnosis in terms of energetic situation, climatic situation, air quality situation, building condition (in terms of energy), transports (characteristics of regional transport, of person and goods transport), industries and enterprises (important role of oil and chemical activities, low level of renewable and recovery energies), agriculture and forest, renewable energies (biomass and wastes, wind energy, solar photovoltaic, hydroelectricity, renewable heat production), and territory vulnerability in front of climate change. The second part states objectives and orientations: definition of scenarios, and of sector-based objectives (in the building, transport, agricultural, and industrial sectors, in the development of renewable energies, and in terms of adaptation to climate change). Synthetic approaches are then stated in relationship with different challenges related to sustainable behaviours and consumption, promotion of professions related to energy transition, diffusion of good practices in the fields of energy efficiency and emission reduction, sustainable land development, promotion of environmental mutations for the regional economy, innovation to face climate and energy challenges, development of renewable energies, anticipation of the adaptation to climate change, and SRCAE follow-up and assessment. Sheets of definitions of objectives are given for each sector. A synthetic version of this study is provided

Winter precipitation and cyclones in the Mediterranean region: future climate scenarios in a regional simulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. Lionello

2007-11-01

Full Text Available Future climate projections show higher/lower winter (Dec-Jan-Feb precipitation in the northern/southern Mediterranean region than in present climate conditions. This paper analyzes the results of regional model simulations of the A2 and B2 scenarios, which confirm this opposite precipitation change and link it to the change of cyclone activity. The increase of the winter cyclone activity in future climate scenarios over western Europe is responsible for the larger precipitation at the northern coast of the basin, though the bulk of the change is located outside the Mediterranean region. The reduction of cyclone activity inside the Mediterranean region in future scenarios is responsible for the lower precipitation at the southern and eastern Mediterranean coast.

Building America Best Practices Series: Guide to Determining Climate Regions by County

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gilbride, Theresa L.

2008-10-01

This document describes the eight climate region designations used by the US Department of Energy Building America Program. In addition to describing the climate zones, the document includes a complete list of every county in the United States and their climate region designations. The county lists are grouped by state. The doucment is intended to assist builders to easily identify what climate region they are building in and therefore which climate-specific Building America best practices guide would be most appropriate for them.

Development of ALARO-Climate regional climate model for a very high resolution

Science.gov (United States)

Skalak, Petr; Farda, Ales; Brozkova, Radmila; Masek, Jan

2014-05-01

ALARO-Climate is a new regional climate model (RCM) derived from the ALADIN LAM model family. It is based on the numerical weather prediction model ALARO and developed at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. The model is expected to able to work in the so called "grey zone" physics (horizontal resolution of 4 - 7 km) and at the same time retain its ability to be operated in resolutions in between 20 and 50 km, which are typical for contemporary generation of regional climate models. Here we present the main results of the RCM ALARO-Climate model simulations in 25 and 6.25 km resolutions on the longer time-scale (1961-1990). The model was driven by the ERA-40 re-analyses and run on the integration domain of ~ 2500 x 2500 km size covering the central Europe. The simulated model climate was compared with the gridded observation of air temperature (mean, maximum, minimum) and precipitation from the E-OBS version dataset 8. Other simulated parameters (e.g., cloudiness, radiation or components of water cycle) were compared to the ERA-40 re-analyses. The validation of the first ERA-40 simulation in both, 25 km and 6.25 km resolutions, revealed significant cold biases in all seasons and overestimation of precipitation in the selected Central Europe target area (0° - 30° eastern longitude ; 40° - 60° northern latitude). The differences between these simulations were small and thus revealed a robustness of the model's physical parameterization on the resolution change. The series of 25 km resolution simulations with several model adaptations was carried out to study their effect on the simulated properties of climate variables and thus possibly identify a source of major errors in the simulated climate. The current investigation suggests the main reason for biases is related to the model physic. Acknowledgements: This study was performed within the frame of projects ALARO (project P209/11/2405 sponsored by the Czech Science Foundation) and CzechGlobe Centre (CZ.1

Detection and Attribution of Regional Climate Change

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bala, G; Mirin, A

2007-01-19

We developed a high resolution global coupled modeling capability to perform breakthrough studies of the regional climate change. The atmospheric component in our simulation uses a 1{sup o} latitude x 1.25{sup o} longitude grid which is the finest resolution ever used for the NCAR coupled climate model CCSM3. Substantial testing and slight retuning was required to get an acceptable control simulation. The major accomplishment is the validation of this new high resolution configuration of CCSM3. There are major improvements in our simulation of the surface wind stress and sea ice thickness distribution in the Arctic. Surface wind stress and ocean circulation in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current are also improved. Our results demonstrate that the FV version of the CCSM coupled model is a state of the art climate model whose simulation capabilities are in the class of those used for IPCC assessments. We have also provided 1000 years of model data to Scripps Institution of Oceanography to estimate the natural variability of stream flow in California. In the future, our global model simulations will provide boundary data to high-resolution mesoscale model that will be used at LLNL. The mesoscale model would dynamically downscale the GCM climate to regional scale on climate time scales.

Urban effects on regional climate: a case study in the Phoenix and Tucson ‘sun’ corridor

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao Yang,; Francina Dominguez,; Hoshin Gupta,; Xubin Zeng,; Norman, Laura M.

2016-01-01

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) due to urban expansion alter the surface albedo, heat capacity, and thermal conductivity of the surface. Consequently, the energy balance in urban regions is different from that of natural surfaces. To evaluate the changes in regional climate that could arise due to projected urbanization in the Phoenix-Tucson corridor, Arizona, we applied the coupled WRF-NOAH-UCM (which includes a detailed urban radiation scheme) to this region. Land cover changes were represented using land cover data for 2005 and projections to 2050, and historical North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) data were used to specify the lateral boundary conditions. Results suggest that temperature changes will be well defined, reflecting the urban heat island (UHI) effect within areas experiencing LULCC. Changes in precipitation are less robust, but seem to indicate reductions in precipitation over the mountainous regions northeast of Phoenix and decreased evening precipitation over the newly-urbanized area.

Regional climate change for the Pacific Northwest

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McBean, G.A.; Thomas, G.

1991-01-01

The Pacific Northwest climate is dominated by topography and the Pacific Ocean; the forests have become adapted to the present climate. Within short distances there are large changes in precipitation and temperature, with resultant changes in ecosystems. As the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases increase, global climate is expected to warm and precipitation to increase. Global climate model simulations show enhanced warming at high northern latitudes. For the Pacific Northwest, models show 2-6 degree C warming and increased precipitation in the winter for doubled atmospheric CO 2 concentration. However, the regional details of these models are presently not very reliable. The results and limitations of present global climate models are reviewed. The roles of the oceans, clouds, and other feedback mechanisms are described along with some of the possible impacts of climate change on forest resources. 24 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab

Downscaling a Global Climate Model to Simulate Climate Change Impacts on U.S. Regional and Urban Air Quality

Science.gov (United States)

Trail, M.; Tsimpidi, A. P.; Liu, P.; Tsigaridis, K.; Hu, Y.; Nenes, A.; Russell, A. G.

2013-01-01

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 WRF to downscale NASA earth system GISS modelE2 results during the years 2006 to 2010 and 2048 to 2052 over the continental 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 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 12km by 12km resolution, as well as the effect of evolving climate conditions on the air quality at major U.S. 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 U.S. during fall (Western U.S., Texas, Northeastern, and Southeastern U.S), one region during summer (Texas), and one region where changes potentially would lead to better air quality during spring (Northeast). We also find that daily peak temperatures tend to increase in most major cities in the U.S. 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.

Evaluating the impacts of climate change on diurnal wind power cycles using multiple regional climate models

KAUST Repository

Goddard, Scott D.

2015-05-01

Electrical utility system operators must plan resources so that electricity supply matches demand throughout the day. As the proportion of wind-generated electricity in the US grows, changes in daily wind patterns have the potential either to disrupt the utility or increase the value of wind to the system over time. Wind power projects are designed to last many years, so at this timescale, climate change may become an influential factor on wind patterns. We examine the potential effects of climate change on the average diurnal power production cycles at 12 locations in North America by analyzing averaged and individual output from nine high-resolution regional climate models comprising historical (1971–1999) and future (2041–2069) periods. A semi-parametric mixed model is fit using cubic B-splines, and model diagnostics are checked. Then, a likelihood ratio test is applied to test for differences between the time periods in the seasonal daily averaged cycles, and agreement among the individual regional climate models is assessed. We investigate the significant changes by combining boxplots with a differencing approach and identify broad categories of changes in the amplitude, shape, and position of the average daily cycles. We then discuss the potential impact of these changes on wind power production.

Can regional climate engineering save the summer Arctic sea ice?

Science.gov (United States)

Tilmes, S.; Jahn, Alexandra; Kay, Jennifer E.; Holland, Marika; Lamarque, Jean-Francois

2014-02-01

Rapid declines in summer Arctic sea ice extent are projected under high-forcing future climate scenarios. Regional Arctic climate engineering has been suggested as an emergency strategy to save the sea ice. Model simulations of idealized regional dimming experiments compared to a business-as-usual greenhouse gas emission simulation demonstrate the importance of both local and remote feedback mechanisms to the surface energy budget in high latitudes. With increasing artificial reduction in incoming shortwave radiation, the positive surface albedo feedback from Arctic sea ice loss is reduced. However, changes in Arctic clouds and the strongly increasing northward heat transport both counteract the direct dimming effects. A 4 times stronger local reduction in solar radiation compared to a global experiment is required to preserve summer Arctic sea ice area. Even with regional Arctic dimming, a reduction in the strength of the oceanic meridional overturning circulation and a shut down of Labrador Sea deep convection are possible.

Impact of anthropogenic aerosols on regional climate change in Beijing, China

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, B.; Liou, K. N.; He, C.; Lee, W. L.; Gu, Y.; Li, Q.; Leung, L. R.

2015-12-01

Anthropogenic aerosols affect regional climate significantly through radiative (direct and semi-direct) and indirect effects, but the magnitude of these effects over megacities are subject to large uncertainty. In this study, we evaluated the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on regional climate change in Beijing, China using the online-coupled Weather Research and Forecasting/Chemistry Model (WRF/Chem) with the Fu-Liou-Gu radiation scheme and a spatial resolution of 4km. We further updated this radiation scheme with a geometric-optics surface-wave (GOS) approach for the computation of light absorption and scattering by black carbon (BC) particles in which aggregation shape and internal mixing properties are accounted for. In addition, we incorporated in WRF/Chem a 3D radiative transfer parameterization in conjunction with high-resolution digital data for city buildings and landscape to improve the simulation of boundary-layer, surface solar fluxes and associated sensible/latent heat fluxes. Preliminary simulated meteorological parameters, fine particles (PM2.5) and their chemical components agree well with observational data in terms of both magnitude and spatio-temporal variations. The effects of anthropogenic aerosols, including BC, on radiative forcing, surface temperature, wind speed, humidity, cloud water path, and precipitation are quantified on the basis of simulation results. With several preliminary sensitivity runs, we found that meteorological parameters and aerosol radiative effects simulated with the incorporation of improved BC absorption and 3-D radiation parameterizations deviate substantially from simulation results using the conventional homogeneous/core-shell configuration for BC and the plane-parallel model for radiative transfer. Understanding of the aerosol effects on regional climate change over megacities must consider the complex shape and mixing state of aerosol aggregates and 3D radiative transfer effects over city landscape.

Developing a Process for Sustained Climate Assessment in the US Southwest Region

Science.gov (United States)

Duncan, B.; Rick, U. K.; McNie, E. C.

2017-12-01

Climate information needs often vary across states, regions, and sectors. While a national assessment provides foundational guidance about the science and impacts of climate change, there is also value in an ongoing climate assessment process with a more targeted regional geographic scale and sectoral focus. Such a process could provide timely and relevant climate information that is sometimes more detailed than what can be included in a national assessment, while also providing a foundation of knowledge and relationships that can be drawn on in larger-scale assessment processes. In the Sustained Climate Assessment in the Southwest project, researchers are investigating opportunities for sustained assessment in the US Southwest National Climate Assessment (NCA) region - an area that consists of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. This work is focused on identifying key elements of an ongoing climate assessment process for the region in collaboration with climate service providers and users, with the goal of connecting providers and users to increase access to information and understanding of climate impacts in decision-making contexts. It is focused on four key sectors that represent a range of existing capacity in the region: water, oceans and coasts, agriculture, and transportation. Recommendations for an ongoing assessment process may vary by sector - a reflection of the capacity and opportunity associated with each. In this presentation, we will share case studies of particularly useful or successful existing assessment activities and identify common characteristics across the case studies. We will also share preliminary recommendations for a regional sustained climate assessment process that draws on the broad existing capacity for climate assessment in the region and complements national-scale assessment processes.

Problems and Ways of Improving the Business Climate in the Regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nazym Aminovna Uruzbaeva

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The existence of the specific conditions and development factors of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs in the regions of Kazakhstan supposes the differentiated state policy in order to maintain a favorable business climate. The article presents the results of the research whose purpose was to determine the main issues and directions of the improvement of the business climate in the regions. This allows to intensify the activities of local authorities in support of SMEs considering the peculiarities of the territories’ development. The subject matter of this research is the conditions and factors generating the business climate of the region. As a hypothesis, a direct connection between the prevailing regional business climate and the development of the quantitative indicators of active SMEs in the field was assumed. The study used the method of comparative analysis, sociological methods of focus groups, survey research, statistical methods and statistical methods of ranking and grouping. The article theoretically substantiates the correctness of the usage of «business climate» category as a scope of the study in the framework of the project of «Implementation of «Business Climate» as an Independent Rating», which makes possible the argumentation of the used methodology and concretization of the factors affecting the functioning of SMEs in the regions. This research has confirmed the direct correlation between the established business climate in the regions and quantitative indicators of the development of SMEs at the local level. Such factors as “financial resources” and “government support” have been determined as limiting the business development in a greater degree. In conclusion, a set of measures to improve the business climate in the region both at national and regional levels of government has been provided. In addition, it has been concluded that to generate a favorable business environment in the regions of

An observational and modeling study of the regional impacts of climate variability

Science.gov (United States)

Horton, Radley M.

Climate variability has large impacts on humans and their agricultural systems. Farmers are at the center of this agricultural network, but it is often agricultural planners---regional planners, extension agents, commodity groups and cooperatives---that translate climate information for users. Global climate models (GCMs) are a leading tool for understanding and predicting climate and climate change. Armed with climate projections and forecasts, agricultural planners adapt their decision-making to optimize outcomes. This thesis explores what GCMs can, and cannot, tell us about climate variability and change at regional scales. The question is important, since high-quality regional climate projections could assist farmers and regional planners in key management decisions, contributing to better agricultural outcomes. To answer these questions, climate variability and its regional impacts are explored in observations and models for the current and future climate. The goals are to identify impacts of observed variability, assess model simulation of variability, and explore how climate variability and its impacts may change under enhanced greenhouse warming. Chapter One explores how well Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) atmospheric models, forced by historical sea surface temperatures (SST), simulate climatology and large-scale features during the exceptionally strong 1997--1999 El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. Reasonable performance in this 'proof of concept' test is considered a minimum requirement for further study of variability in models. All model versions produce appropriate local changes with ENSO, indicating that with correct ocean temperatures these versions are capable of simulating the large-scale effects of ENSO around the globe. A high vertical resolution model (VHR) provides the best simulation. Evidence is also presented that SST anomalies outside the tropical Pacific may play a key role in generating remote teleconnections even

Integrated regional changes in arctic climate feedbacks: Implications for the global climate system

Science.gov (United States)

McGuire, A.D.; Chapin, F. S.; Walsh, J.E.; Wirth, C.; ,

2006-01-01

The Arctic is a key part of the global climate system because the net positive energy input to the tropics must ultimately be resolved through substantial energy losses in high-latitude regions. The Arctic influences the global climate system through both positive and negative feedbacks that involve physical, ecological, and human systems of the Arctic. The balance of evidence suggests that positive feedbacks to global warming will likely dominate in the Arctic during the next 50 to 100 years. However, the negative feedbacks associated with changing the freshwater balance of the Arctic Ocean might abruptly launch the planet into another glacial period on longer timescales. In light of uncertainties and the vulnerabilities of the climate system to responses in the Arctic, it is important that we improve our understanding of how integrated regional changes in the Arctic will likely influence the evolution of the global climate system. Copyright ?? 2006 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.

Climate change collaboration among natural resource management agencies: lessons learned from two US regions

Science.gov (United States)

Lemieux, Christopher J.; Thompson, Jessica; Slocombe, D. Scott; Schuster, Rudy

2015-01-01

It has been argued that regional collaboration can facilitate adaptation to climate change impacts through integrated planning and management. In an attempt to understand the underlying institutional factors that either support or contest this assumption, this paper explores the institutional factors influencing adaptation to climate change at the regional scale, where multiple public land and natural resource management jurisdictions are involved. Insights from two mid-western US case studies reveal that several challenges to collaboration persist and prevent fully integrative multi-jurisdictional adaptation planning at a regional scale. We propose that some of these challenges, such as lack of adequate time, funding and communication channels, be reframed as opportunities to build interdependence, identify issue-linkages and collaboratively explore the nature and extent of organisational trade-offs with respect to regional climate change adaptation efforts. Such a reframing can better facilitate multi-jurisdictional adaptation planning and management of shared biophysical resources generally while simultaneously enhancing organisational capacity to mitigate negative effects and take advantage of potentially favourable future conditions in an era characterised by rapid climate change.

Climate effects of a hypothetical regional nuclear war: Sensitivity to emission duration and particle composition

Science.gov (United States)

Pausata, Francesco S. R.; Lindvall, Jenny; Ekman, Annica M. L.; Svensson, Gunilla

2016-11-01

Here, we use a coupled atmospheric-ocean-aerosol model to investigate the plume development and climate effects of the smoke generated by fires following a regional nuclear war between emerging third-world nuclear powers. We simulate a standard scenario where 5 Tg of black carbon (BC) is emitted over 1 day in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere. However, it is likely that the emissions from the fires ignited by bomb detonations include a substantial amount of particulate organic matter (POM) and that they last more than 1 day. We therefore test the sensitivity of the aerosol plume and climate system to the BC/POM ratio (1:3, 1:9) and to the emission length (1 day, 1 week, 1 month). We find that in general, an emission length of 1 month substantially reduces the cooling compared to the 1-day case, whereas taking into account POM emissions notably increases the cooling and the reduction of precipitation associated with the nuclear war during the first year following the detonation. Accounting for POM emissions increases the particle size in the short-emission-length scenarios (1 day/1 week), reducing the residence time of the injected particle. While the initial cooling is more intense when including POM emission, the long-lasting effects, while still large, may be less extreme compared to the BC-only case. Our study highlights that the emission altitude reached by the plume is sensitive to both the particle type emitted by the fires and the emission duration. Consequently, the climate effects of a nuclear war are strongly dependent on these parameters.

The Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program, Climate Services, and Meeting the National Climate Change Adaptation Challenge

Science.gov (United States)

Overpeck, J. T.; Udall, B.; Miles, E.; Dow, K.; Anderson, C.; Cayan, D.; Dettinger, M.; Hartmann, H.; Jones, J.; Mote, P.; Ray, A.; Shafer, M.; White, D.

2008-12-01

The NOAA-led RISA Program has grown steadily to nine regions and a focus that includes both natural climate variability and human-driven climate change. The RISAs are, at their core, university-based and heavily invested in partnerships, particularly with stakeholders, NOAA, and other federal agencies. RISA research, assessment and partnerships have led to new operational climate services within NOAA and other agencies, and have become important foundations in the development of local, state and regional climate change adaptation initiatives. The RISA experience indicates that a national climate service is needed, and must include: (1) services prioritized based on stakeholder needs; (2) sustained, ongoing regional interactions with users, (3) a commitment to improve climate literacy; (4) support for assessment as an ongoing, iterative process; (5) full recognition that stakeholder decisions are seldom made using climate information alone; (6) strong interagency partnership; (7) national implementation and regional in focus; (8) capability spanning local, state, tribal, regional, national and international space scales, and weeks to millennia time scales; and (9) institutional design and scientific support flexible enough to assure the effort is nimble enough to respond to rapidly-changing stakeholder needs. The RISA experience also highlights the central role that universities must play in national climate change adaptation programs. Universities have a tradition of trusted regional stakeholder partnerships, as well as the interdisciplinary expertise - including social science, ecosystem science, law, and economics - required to meet stakeholder climate-related needs; project workforce can also shift rapidly in universities. Universities have a proven ability to build and sustain interagency partnerships. Universities excel in most forms of education and training. And universities often have proven entrepreneurship, technology transfer and private sector

Responses of Terrestrial Ecosystems’ Net Primary Productivity to Future Regional Climate Change in China

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Dongsheng; Wu, Shaohong; Yin, Yunhe

2013-01-01

The impact of regional climate change on net primary productivity (NPP) is an important aspect in the study of ecosystems’ response to global climate change. China’s ecosystems are very sensitive to climate change owing to the influence of the East Asian monsoon. The Lund–Potsdam–Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model for China (LPJ-CN), a global dynamical vegetation model developed for China’s terrestrial ecosystems, was applied in this study to simulate the NPP changes affected by future climate change. As the LPJ-CN model is based on natural vegetation, the simulation in this study did not consider the influence of anthropogenic activities. Results suggest that future climate change would have adverse effects on natural ecosystems, with NPP tending to decrease in eastern China, particularly in the temperate and warm temperate regions. NPP would increase in western China, with a concentration in the Tibetan Plateau and the northwest arid regions. The increasing trend in NPP in western China and the decreasing trend in eastern China would be further enhanced by the warming climate. The spatial distribution of NPP, which declines from the southeast coast to the northwest inland, would have minimal variation under scenarios of climate change. PMID:23593325

Climate change scenarios of precipitation extremes in Central Europe from ENSEMBLES regional climate models

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Gaál, Ľ.; Beranová, R.; Hlavčová, K.; Kyselý, Jan

2014-01-01

Roč. 2014, č. 943487 (2014), s. 1-14 ISSN 1687-9309 Institutional support: RVO:67179843 ; RVO:68378289 Keywords : precipitation extremes * regional climate models * climate change Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour Impact factor: 0.946, year: 2014

Daily precipitation statistics in regional climate models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frei, Christoph; Christensen, Jens Hesselbjerg; Déqué, Michel

2003-01-01

An evaluation is undertaken of the statistics of daily precipitation as simulated by five regional climate models using comprehensive observations in the region of the European Alps. Four limited area models and one variable-resolution global model are considered, all with a grid spacing of 50 km...

A regional approach to climate adaptation in the Nile Basin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. B. Butts

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The Nile Basin is one of the most important shared basins in Africa. Managing and developing the water resources within the basin must not only address different water uses but also the trade-off between developments upstream and water use downstream, often between different countries. Furthermore, decision-makers in the region need to evaluate and implement climate adaptation measures. Previous work has shown that the Nile flows can be highly sensitive to climate change and that there is considerable uncertainty in climate projections in the region with no clear consensus as to the direction of change. Modelling current and future changes in river runoff must address a number of challenges; including the large size of the basin, the relative scarcity of data, and the corresponding dramatic variety of climatic conditions and diversity in hydrological characteristics. In this paper, we present a methodology, to support climate adaptation on a regional scale, for assessing climate change impacts and adaptation potential for floods, droughts and water scarcity within the basin.

Regional Climate Effects of Aerosols Over South Asia: a Synthesis of Hybrid-Synergistic Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Subba, T.; Gogoi, M. M.; Pathak, B.; Bhuyan, P. K.

2017-12-01

The south-Asian region faces formidable challenges in the accurate estimation of the aerosol-climate forcing due to the increasing demographic pressure and the rapid socio-economic growth which intensify the anthropogenic emissions causing degradation of regional air quality and climate. In this context, the present study employs a hybrid-method synergizing the aerosol data from ground-based measurements, satellite retrievals and radiative transfer simulations over the south-Asian region. The ground based aerosol and solar radiation data (2010-2015) are considered for nine selected locations of India as well as the adjoining Bay of Bengal representing distinct aerosol environment. The land use land cover (LULC) data from Indian remote sensing satellite (IRS-P6) is used to understand the association of aerosol environment with the change in the land surface pattern.The results indicate that the northern part, pre-dominantly the Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) experiences the highest aerosol optical depth throughout the year. While the presence of dust plays a significant role in modifying the radiation balance over the west Asian region, extending to IGP; the highest Fire Radiative Power is observed over Eastern India ( 30 MW), the hotspot of biomass burning sources, followed by Central, South/West and Northern India. Considering the distinct source processes, incoming ground reaching fluxes are simulated using radiative transfer model, which showed a good correlation with the measured values (R2 0.97) with the mean bias errors between -40 to +7 Wm-2 (an overestimation of 2-4%). Estimated aerosol direct radiative forcing efficiency (DRFE) is highest over the eastern IGP due to heavy loading of long range transported aerosols from the arid region in the west, followed by the Himalayan foothills and west-Asian regions which are mostly dominated by agro-industrial and dust activities. However, a pristine high altitude location in the Western Ghats showed lower DRFE compared

Seroprevalence and risk factor analysis of human leptospirosis in distinct climatic regions of Pakistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Sohail, Muhammad Luqman; Khan, Muhammad Sarwar; Ijaz, Muhammad; Naseer, Omer; Fatima, Zahida; Ahmad, Abdullah Saghir; Ahmad, Waqas

2018-05-01

Leptospirosis is a worldwide emerging infectious disease of zoonotic importance and large epidemics and epizootics have been reported all over the globe. A cross survey study was conducted to estimate seroprevalence of human leptospirosis in climatically distinct regions of Pakistan and to identify the risk factors associated with the disease. Blood samples from 360 humans were collected through convenient sampling, 120 from each of three study areas. Serological testing was performed using ELISA kit as per manufacturer's recommendations. The results showed an overall prevalence of 40.83% (95% CI; 35.71-46.11). Statistical analysis showed significant (P climatic region (50.83%; 95% CI; 41.55-60.07), followed by semi-arid region (44.16%; 95% CI; 35.11-53.52) and lowest in hot and dry region (27.50%; 95% CI; 19.75-36.40). After multivariate analysis age, gender, exposure to flooding water, source of water usage, disinfection schedule of surroundings and history of cut and wound were found significantly associated with the seropositivity of Leptospira. The present study, first to uncover seroprevalence of human Leptospira in different climatic regions of Pakistan, alarms about effect of climate on prevalence of Leptospira in the region. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Crop Yield Simulations Using Multiple Regional Climate Models in the Southwestern United States

Science.gov (United States)

Stack, D.; Kafatos, M.; Kim, S.; Kim, J.; Walko, R. L.

2013-12-01

Agricultural productivity (described by crop yield) is strongly dependent on climate conditions determined by meteorological parameters (e.g., temperature, rainfall, and solar radiation). California is the largest producer of agricultural products in the United States, but crops in associated arid and semi-arid regions live near their physiological limits (e.g., in hot summer conditions with little precipitation). Thus, accurate climate data are essential in assessing the impact of climate variability on agricultural productivity in the Southwestern United States and other arid regions. To address this issue, we produced simulated climate datasets and used them as input for the crop production model. For climate data, we employed two different regional climate models (WRF and OLAM) using a fine-resolution (8km) grid. Performances of the two different models are evaluated in a fine-resolution regional climate hindcast experiment for 10 years from 2001 to 2010 by comparing them to the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) dataset. Based on this comparison, multi-model ensembles with variable weighting are used to alleviate model bias and improve the accuracy of crop model productivity over large geographic regions (county and state). Finally, by using a specific crop-yield simulation model (APSIM) in conjunction with meteorological forcings from the multi-regional climate model ensemble, we demonstrate the degree to which maize yields are sensitive to the regional climate in the Southwestern United States.

Climate Change in U.S. South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Fisheries Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Roffer, M. A.; Hernandez, D. L.; Lamkin, J. T.; Pugliese, R.; Reichert, M.; Hall, C.

2016-02-01

A review of the recent evidence that climate change is affecting marine ecosystems in the U.S. fishery management zones of the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean regions will be presented. This will include affects on the living marine resources (including fish, invertebrates, marine mammals and turtles), fisheries, habitat and people. Emphasis will be given on the effects that impact managed species and the likely new challenges that they present to fishery managers. The evidence is being derived from the results of the "Climate Variability and Fisheries Workshop: Setting Research Priorities for the Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic, and Caribbean Regions," October 26-28, 2015 in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida. Commonalities and regional differences will be presented in terms of how climate variability is likely to impact distribution, catch, catchability, socioeconomics, and management.

Responding to climate change impacts in the Sky Island Region: From planning to action

Science.gov (United States)

Louise W. Misztal; Gregg Garfin; Lara Hansen

2013-01-01

Addressing the increasing effects of climate change on natural resources requires multiple organizations, agencies, and institutions working cooperatively to incorporate climate change into resource management. In the Sky Island region of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, Sky Island Alliance, a non-governmental organization, has convened a series of...

Effects of emissions change, climate change and long-range transport on regional modeling of future U.S. particulate matter pollution and speciation

Science.gov (United States)

He, Hao; Liang, Xin-Zhong; Wuebbles, Donald J.

2018-04-01

This study investigates the future U.S. PM2.5 pollution under multiple emissions scenarios, climate states, and long-range transport (LRT) effects using the regional Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model integrated with a regional climate model. CMAQ with fixed chemical lateral boundary conditions (LBCs) successfully reproduces the present-day PM2.5 pollution and its major species in rural and suburban areas, but has some discrepancies in urban areas such as the Los Angeles Basin, where detailed emissions and meteorology conditions cannot be resolved by the 30 km grid. Its performance is slightly worsened when using dynamic chemical LBCs from global chemical transport model (CTM) simulations, which provide cleaner conditions into the CMAQ lateral boundaries. Under future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emission scenarios, CMAQ projects large PM2.5 reductions (∼40% for A1B and ∼20% for A1Fi scenario) in the eastern United States, but slight to moderate increases (∼5% for A1B and ∼10% for A1Fi) in the western United States. The projected increases are particularly large (up to 30%) near the Mexico-U.S. border, suggesting that Mexico is a major source for future U.S. PM2.5 pollution. The effect from climate change alone is estimated to increase PM2.5 levels ubiquitously (∼5% for both A1B and A1Fi) over the United States, except for a small decrease in the Houston, Texas area, where anthropogenic non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) emissions dominate. This climate penalty, however, is substantially smaller than effects of emissions change, especially in the eastern United States. Future PM2.5 pollution is affected substantially (up to -20%) by changes in SO2 emissions and moderately (3-5%) by changes in NOx and NH3 emissions. The long-range transport (LRT) effects, which are estimated by comparing CMAQ simulations with fixed and dynamic LBCs, are regional dependent, causing up to 10-20% decrease over the western United

Fish but Not Macroinvertebrates Promote Trophic Cascading Effects in High Density Submersed Plant Experimental Lake Food Webs in Two Contrasting Climate Regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Iglesias

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Predators play a key role in the functioning of shallow lakes. Differences between the response of temperate and subtropical systems to fish predation have been proposed, but experimental evidence is scarce. To elucidate cascading effects produced by predators in contrasting climatic zones, we conducted a mesocosm experiment in three pairs of lakes in Uruguay and Denmark. We used two typical planktivorous-omnivorous fish species (Jenynsia multidentata + Cnesterodon decemmaculatus and Gasterosteus aculeatus + Perca fluviatilis and one littoral omnivorous-predatory macroinvertebrate (Palaemonetes argentinus and Gammarus lacustris, alone and combined, in numbers resembling natural densities. Fish predation on zooplankton increased phytoplankton biomass in both climate zones, whereas the effects of predatory macroinvertebrates on zooplankton and phytoplankton were not significant in either climate zone. Macroinvertebrates (that freely colonized the sampling devices were diminished by fish in both climate areas; however, periphyton biomass did not vary among treatments. Our experiments demonstrated that fish affected the structure of both planktonic and littoral herbivorous communities in both climate regions, with a visible positive cascading effect on phytoplankton biomass, but no effects on periphyton. Altogether, fish impacts appeared to be a strong driver of turbid water conditions in shallow lakes regardless of climatic zone by indirectly contributing to increasing phytoplankton biomass.

Effect of power engineering on the climate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Legasov, V.A.; Kuz'min, I.I.; Chernoplekov, A.N.

1984-01-01

The influence on global, regional and local climate caused by power plants waste heat and carbon dioxide effluents by organic and nuclear fuel energetics development is investigated in the frame of summarized world energy product in growth long-term forecasts until the year 2100. Conclusion on the significance of energetics as a climate modification factor and necessity to form energy production development strategy is made with due regard for possible climatic consequences. Importance of investigation of possible climatic effects of atmospheric electroconductivity changes is stresses as caused by nuclear fuel cycle plants emission of 85 Kr. Climatic factors quantitative analysis methology is proposed in the problem of safe energy production development

Natural emissions under future climate condition and their effects on surface ozone in the Yangtze River Delta region, China

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Min; Shu, Lei; Wang, Ti-jian; Liu, Qian; Gao, Da; Li, Shu; Zhuang, Bing-liang; Han, Yong; Li, Meng-meng; Chen, Pu-long

2017-02-01

The natural emissions of ozone precursors (NOx and VOCs) are sensitive to climate. Future climate change can impact O3 concentrations by perturbing these emissions. To better estimate the variation of natural emissions under different climate conditions and understand its effect on surface O3, we model the present and the future air quality over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region by running different simulations with the aid of the WRF-CALGRID model system that contains a natural emission module. Firstly, we estimate the natural emissions at present and in IPCC A1B scenario. The results show that biogenic VOC emission and soil NOx emission over YRD in 2008 is 657 Gg C and 19.1 Gg N, respectively. According to climate change, these emissions in 2050 will increase by 25.5% and 11.5%, respectively. Secondly, the effects of future natural emissions and meteorology on surface O3 are investigated and compared. It is found that the variations in meteorological fields can significantly alter the spatial distribution of O3 over YRD, with the increases of 5-15 ppb in the north and the decreases of -5 to -15 ppb in the south. However, only approximately 20% of the surface O3 increases caused by climate change can be attributed to the natural emissions, with the highest increment up to 2.4 ppb. Finally, Ra (the ratio of impacts from NOx and VOCs on O3 formation) and H2O2/HNO3 (the ratio between the concentrations of H2O2 and HNO3) are applied to study the O3 sensitivity in YRD. The results show that the transition value of H2O2/HNO3 will turn from 0.3 to 0.5 in 2008 to 0.4-0.8 in 2050. O3 formation in the YRD region will be insensitive to VOCs under future climate condition, implying more NOx need to be cut down. Our findings can help us understand O3 variation trend and put forward the reasonable and effective pollution control policies in these famous polluted areas.

Sensitivity of global and regional terrestrial carbon storage to the direct CO2 effect and climate change based on the CMIP5 model intercomparison.

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, Jing; Dan, Li; Huang, Mei

2014-01-01

Global and regional land carbon storage has been significantly affected by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change. Based on fully coupled climate-carbon-cycle simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), we investigate sensitivities of land carbon storage to rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change over the world and 21 regions during the 130 years. Overall, the simulations suggest that consistently spatial positive effects of the increasing CO2 concentrations on land carbon storage are expressed with a multi-model averaged value of 1.04 PgC per ppm. The stronger positive values are mainly located in the broad areas of temperate and tropical forest, especially in Amazon basin and western Africa. However, large heterogeneity distributed for sensitivities of land carbon storage to climate change. Climate change causes decrease in land carbon storage in most tropics and the Southern Hemisphere. In these regions, decrease in soil moisture (MRSO) and enhanced drought somewhat contribute to such a decrease accompanied with rising temperature. Conversely, an increase in land carbon storage has been observed in high latitude and altitude regions (e.g., northern Asia and Tibet). The model simulations also suggest that global negative impacts of climate change on land carbon storage are predominantly attributed to decrease in land carbon storage in tropics. Although current warming can lead to an increase in land storage of high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere due to elevated vegetation growth, a risk of exacerbated future climate change may be induced due to release of carbon from tropics.

Sensitivity of global and regional terrestrial carbon storage to the direct CO2 effect and climate change based on the CMIP5 model intercomparison.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing Peng

Full Text Available Global and regional land carbon storage has been significantly affected by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change. Based on fully coupled climate-carbon-cycle simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5, we investigate sensitivities of land carbon storage to rising atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change over the world and 21 regions during the 130 years. Overall, the simulations suggest that consistently spatial positive effects of the increasing CO2 concentrations on land carbon storage are expressed with a multi-model averaged value of 1.04 PgC per ppm. The stronger positive values are mainly located in the broad areas of temperate and tropical forest, especially in Amazon basin and western Africa. However, large heterogeneity distributed for sensitivities of land carbon storage to climate change. Climate change causes decrease in land carbon storage in most tropics and the Southern Hemisphere. In these regions, decrease in soil moisture (MRSO and enhanced drought somewhat contribute to such a decrease accompanied with rising temperature. Conversely, an increase in land carbon storage has been observed in high latitude and altitude regions (e.g., northern Asia and Tibet. The model simulations also suggest that global negative impacts of climate change on land carbon storage are predominantly attributed to decrease in land carbon storage in tropics. Although current warming can lead to an increase in land storage of high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere due to elevated vegetation growth, a risk of exacerbated future climate change may be induced due to release of carbon from tropics.

Climate and climate variability of the wind power resources in the Great Lakes region of the United States

Science.gov (United States)

X. Li; S. Zhong; X. Bian; W.E. Heilman

2010-01-01

The climate and climate variability of low-level winds over the Great Lakes region of the United States is examined using 30 year (1979-2008) wind records from the recently released North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), a three-dimensional, high-spatial and temporal resolution, and dynamically consistent climate data set. The analyses focus on spatial distribution...

Observations from old forests underestimate climate change effects on tree mortality.

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Yong; Chen, Han Y H

2013-01-01

Understanding climate change-associated tree mortality is central to linking climate change impacts and forest structure and function. However, whether temporal increases in tree mortality are attributed to climate change or stand developmental processes remains uncertain. Furthermore, interpreting the climate change-associated tree mortality estimated from old forests for regional forests rests on an un-tested assumption that the effects of climate change are the same for young and old forests. Here we disentangle the effects of climate change and stand developmental processes on tree mortality. We show that both climate change and forest development processes influence temporal mortality increases, climate change-associated increases are significantly higher in young than old forests, and higher increases in younger forests are a result of their higher sensitivity to regional warming and drought. We anticipate our analysis to be a starting point for more comprehensive examinations of how forest ecosystems might respond to climate change.

Regional aerosol emissions and temperature response: Local and remote climate impacts of regional aerosol forcing

Science.gov (United States)

Lewinschal, Anna; Ekman, Annica; Hansson, Hans-Christen

2017-04-01

Emissions of anthropogenic aerosols vary substantially over the globe and the short atmospheric residence time of aerosols leads to a highly uneven radiative forcing distribution, both spatially and temporally. Regional aerosol radiative forcing can, nevertheless, exert a large influence on the temperature field away from the forcing region through changes in heat transport or the atmospheric or ocean circulation. Moreover, the global temperature response distribution to aerosol forcing may vary depending on the geographical location of the forcing. In other words, the climate sensitivity in one region can vary depending on the location of the forcing. The surface temperature distribution response to changes in sulphate aerosol forcing caused by sulphur dioxide (SO2) emission perturbations in four different regions is investigated using the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM). The four regions, Europe, North America, East and South Asia, are all regions with historically high aerosol emissions and are relevant from both an air-quality and climate policy perspective. All emission perturbations are defined relative to the year 2000 emissions provided for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5. The global mean temperature change per unit SO2 emission change is similar for all four regions for similar magnitudes of emissions changes. However, the global temperature change per unit SO2 emission in simulations where regional SO2 emission were removed is substantially higher than that obtained in simulations where regional SO2 emissions were increased. Thus, the climate sensitivity to regional SO2 emissions perturbations depends on the magnitude of the emission perturbation in NorESM. On regional scale, on the other hand, the emission perturbations in different geographical locations lead to different regional temperature responses, both locally and in remote regions. The results from the model simulations are used to construct regional temperature potential

Regional and inter–regional effects in evolving climate network

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Hlinka, Jaroslav; Hartman, David; Jajcay, Nikola; Vejmelka, Martin; Donner, R.; Marwan, N.; Kurths, J.; Paluš, Milan

2014-01-01

Roč. 16, - (2014), EGU2014-13557 ISSN 1607-7962. [EGU General Assembly /11./. 27.04.2014-02.05.2014, Vienna] Institutional support: RVO:67985807 Keywords : causality * climate * nonlinearity * transfer entropy * network * stability Subject RIV: BB - Applied Statistics, Operational Research

The effect of education on climate change risks

Science.gov (United States)

O'Neill, B. C.; KC, S.; Jiang, L.; Fuchs, R.; Pachauri, S.; Ren, X.; Zhang, T.; Laidlaw, E.

2017-12-01

Changes in the demographic and socio-economic compositions of populations are relevant to the climate change issue because these characteristics can be important determinants both of the capacity to adapt to climate change impacts as well as of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore climate change. However, the incorporation of major trends such as aging, urbanization, and changes in household size into projections of future energy use and emissions is rare. Here we build on our previous work in this area by exploring the implications of future changes in educational attainment for the climate issue. Changes in the educational composition of the population may reduce the vulnerability of the population to climate change impacts, reducing risks. However they may also have effects on energy use and land use, and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change and increase risks. The direction of the effect of education on emissions is itself ambiguous. On the one hand, improvements in education can be expected to lead to faster fertility decline and slower population growth which, all else equal, would be expected to reduce emissions. On the other hand, education can also be expected to lead to faster economic growth, which would tend to increase emissions, and also to changes in consumption patterns. We employ iPETS, an integrated assessment model that includes a multi-region model of the world economy, driven with a new set of country-specific projections of future educational composition, to test the net effect of education on energy use and emissions on four world regions (China, India, Latin America, and Rest of Asia + Middle East) and therefore on climate. We also calculate the Human Development Index (HDI) for each region resulting from these scenarios, as an indicator of vulnerability to climate impacts. We find that the net effect of improved education is to increase emissions in the medium term driven primarily by increased

Climate change and landscape evolution in Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. Volume 1 - Phase 1: identification of large landscape settings; Volume 2 - Phase 2: Hypotheses for climate change in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region; Phase 3: Predictable effects of climate change on emblematic landscapes and action plan (technical sheets)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2015-08-01

The main objective of this study is to give an insight on possible effects climate change may have on landscapes of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region on the medium and long term according to current hypotheses regarding global warming for Mediterranean regions. A first phase aimed at identifying the main landscape settings of the region. This comprised a definition of the notion of landscape, a discussion of landscape definitions with respect to a regional scale, a framework for the definition of the main landscape settings, an identification of these landscape settings and their characterisation according to a set of criteria and parameters. The second phase aimed at giving an overview of hypotheses regarding climate change. The authors discuss various issues and knowledge about the world climate, available climate models and their uncertainties, and climatic predictions for the region. The third phase aimed at assessing predictable effects of climate change on emblematic landscapes and at defining actions plans. The different components of these action plans are then discussed for the identified landscapes for which the landscape context and challenges are described, and potential actors are indicated. These different phases are first presented, and more detailed reports are provided for each of them, notably with detailed reports and sheets for each landscape setting

The effect of climate change on urban drainage

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grum, M.; Jørgensen, A.T.; Johansen, R.M.

2006-01-01

and consequences of climate change on urban drainage and urban runoff pollution issues. This study uses predictions from a regional climate model to look at the effects of climate change on extreme precipitation events. Results are presented in terms of point rainfall extremes. The analysis involves three steps......That we are in a period of extraordinary rates of climate change is today evident. These climate changes are likely to impact local weather conditions with direct impacts on precipitation patterns and urban drainage. In recent years several studies have focused on revealing the nature, extent...... to urban drainage. However, in spite of these uncertainties, and others raised in the discussion, the tendency is clear: extreme precipitation events effecting urban drainage and causing flooding will become more frequent as a result of climate change....

Climate change effects on regions of Canada

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bruce, J.P.

2002-01-01

This report describes the major effects of climatic change being experienced in different parts of Canada, and emphasizes those that they are likely to become so severe that they may disrupt social, ecological and economic systems. The report notes that the driving force behind these impacts is change in temperature, precipitation, and in extreme weather events. The report strongly suggests that greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide will likely continue to increase due to human activities such as burning of fossil fuels for heating, cooling and transportation. Loss of tropical forests is also listed as a cause for increased greenhouse gases. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, Canada must use energy much more efficiently, use more alternative renewable energy source and substitute natural gas for coal and oil whenever possible. It was emphasized that the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol would slow down the rate of increase of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn affect atmospheric concentrations. The author states that Canada's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is key to global success, particularly since some countries have backed away from it and some are wavering. The report outlined the following major impacts of climate change in various parts of Canada: sea ice, permafrost, forest fires, transportation, toxic contaminants, storminess, precipitation, water supply, water quality, fisheries, hydropower, agriculture and human adaptation. refs., tabs

Regional hydro-climatic impacts of contemporary Amazonian deforestation

Science.gov (United States)

Khanna, Jaya

More than 17% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared in the past three decades triggering important climatological and societal impacts. This thesis is devoted to identifying and explaining the regional hydroclimatic impacts of this change employing multidecadal satellite observations and numerical simulations providing an integrated perspective on this topic. The climatological nature of this study motivated the implementation and application of a cloud detection technique to a new geostationary satellite dataset. The resulting sub daily, high spatial resolution, multidecadal time series facilitated the detection of trends and variability in deforestation triggered cloud cover changes. The analysis was complemented by satellite precipitation, reanalysis and ground based datasets and attribution with the variable resolution Ocean-Land-Atmosphere-Model. Contemporary Amazonian deforestation affects spatial scales of hundreds of kilometers. But, unlike the well-studied impacts of a few kilometers scale deforestation, the climatic response to contemporary, large scale deforestation is neither well observed nor well understood. Employing satellite datasets, this thesis shows a transition in the regional hydroclimate accompanying increasing scales of deforestation, with downwind deforested regions receiving 25% more and upwind deforested regions receiving 25% less precipitation from the deforested area mean. Simulations robustly reproduce these shifts when forced with increasing deforestation alone, suggesting a negligible role of large-scale decadal climate variability in causing the shifts. Furthermore, deforestation-induced surface roughness variations are found necessary to reproduce the observed spatial patterns in recent times illustrating the strong scale-sensitivity of the climatic response to Amazonian deforestation. This phenomenon, inconsequential during the wet season, is found to substantially affect the regional hydroclimate in the local dry and parts of

Life cycle environmental impacts of domestic solar water heaters in Turkey: The effect of different climatic regions.

Science.gov (United States)

Uctug, Fehmi Gorkem; Azapagic, Adisa

2018-05-01

Solar water heating (SWH) systems could help reduce environmental impacts from energy use but their performance and impacts depend on the climate. This paper considers how these vary for residential SWH across four different climatic regions in Turkey, ranging from hot to cold climates. Life cycle assessment was used for these purposes. The results suggest that in the hotter regions, the impacts of SWH are 1.5-2 times lower than those of natural gas boilers. A similar trend was observed in the two colder regions except for acidification, which was four times higher than that of the boiler. The raw materials and electricity required for the manufacturing of the systems were found to be the most important contributors to the impacts. Recycling the major components instead of landfilling reduced human toxicity potential by 50% but had only a small effect (5%) on the other impacts. The impacts were highly sensitive to the type of material used for the construction of the hot storage tank, but were not affected by transport and end-of life recycling. The only exception to the latter is human toxicity potential which decreased significantly with greater recycling. Extrapolating the results at the national level showed that SWH systems could reduce the annual greenhouse gas emissions in Turkey by 790kt CO 2 -eq. and would save the economy $162.5millionperyear through the avoided imports of natural gas. All other impacts would also be reduced significantly (3-32 times), except for acidification which would double. Therefore, SWH systems should be deployed more extensively in Turkey but government incentives may be needed to stimulate the uptake. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An integrated framework to address climate change (ESCAPE) and further developments of the global and regional climate modules (MAGICC)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hulme, M.; Raper, S.C.B.

1995-01-01

ESCAPE (the Evaluation of Strategies to address Climate change by Adapting to and Preventing Emissions) is an integrated climate change assessment model constructed between 1990 and 1992 for DG XI of the Commission of the European Community by a consortium of research institutes headed by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). It has been designed to enable the user to generate future scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions (through an energy-economic model), examine their impact on global climate and sea level (through two independent global climate models), and illustrate some of the consequences of this global climate change at a regional scale for the European Community (through a regional climate scenario generator and impact models). We provide a very brief overview of the ESCAPE model which, although innovative, suffers from a number of major limitations. Subsequent work in the CRU has concentrated on improvements to the global climate module and work has also commenced on an improved regional climate scenario generating module. These improvements will lead to a new integrated climate change assessment model, MAGICC (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse gas Induced Climate Change) which can easily be incorporated into new larger integrated frameworks developed by other institutes. (Author)

The role of land-climate interactions for the regional amplification of temperature extremes in climate projections

Science.gov (United States)

Seneviratne, S. I.; Vogel, M.; Zscheischler, J.; Schwingshackl, C.; Davin, E.; Gudmundsson, L.; Guillod, B.; Hauser, M.; Hirsch, A.; Hirschi, M.; Humphrey, V.; Thiery, W.

2017-12-01

Regional hot extremes are projected to increase more strongly than the global mean temperature, with substantially larger changes than 2°C even if global warming is limited to this level (Seneviratne et al. 2016). This presentation will highlight the processes underlying this behavior, which is strongly related to land-climate feedbacks (Vogel et al. 2017). The identified feedbacks are also affecting the occurrence probability of compound drought and heat events (Zscheischler and Seneviratne 2017), with high relevance for impacts on forest fire and agriculture production. Moreover, the responsible land processes strongly contribute to the inter-model spread in the projections, and can thus be used to derive observations-based constraints to reduce the uncertainty of projected changes in climate extremes. Finally, we will also discuss the role of soil moisture effects on carbon uptake and their relevance for projections, as well as the role of land use changes in affecting the identified feedbacks and projected changes in climate extremes. References: Seneviratne, S.I., M. Donat, A.J. Pitman, R. Knutti, and R.L. Wilby, 2016: Allowable CO2 emissions based on regional and impact-related climate targets. Nature, 529, 477-483, doi:10.1038/nature16542. Vogel, M.M., R. Orth, F. Cheruy, S. Hagemann, R. Lorenz, B.J.J.M. Hurk, and S.I. Seneviratne, 2017: Regional amplification of projected changes in extreme temperatures strongly controlled by soil moisture-temperature feedbacks. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(3), 1511-1519, doi:10.1002/2016GL071235. Zscheischler, J., and S.I. Seneviratne, 2017: Dependence of drivers affects risks associated with compound events. Science Advances, 3(6), doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1700263

Effects of climate change on ecological disturbance in the Northern Rockies Region [Chapter 8

Science.gov (United States)

Loehman, Rachel A.; Bentz, Barbara J.; DeNitto, Gregg A.; Keane, Robert E.; Manning, Mary E.; Duncan, Jacob P.; Egan, Joel M.; Jackson, Marcus B.; Kegley, Sandra; Lockman, I. Blakey; Pearson, Dean E.; Powell, James A.; Shelly, Steve; Steed, Brytten E.; Zambino, Paul J.

2018-01-01

This chapter describes the ecology of important disturbance regimes in the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USFS) Northern Region and the Greater Yellowstone Area, hereafter called the Northern Rockies region, and potential shifts in these regimes as a consequence of observed and projected climate change. The term disturbance regime describes the general temporal and spatial characteristics of a disturbance agent - insect, disease, fire, weather, even human activity - and the effects of that agent on the landscape (table 8.1). More specifically, a disturbance regime is the cumulative effect of multiple disturbance events over space and time (Keane 2013). Disturbances disrupt an ecosystem, community, or population structure and change elements of the biological environment, physical environment, or both (White and Pickett 1985). The resulting shifting mosaic of diverse ecological patterns and structures in turn affects future patterns of disturbance, in a reciprocal, linked relationship that shapes the fundamental character of landscapes and ecosystems. Disturbance creates and maintains biological diversity in the form of shifting, heterogeneous mosaics of diverse communities and habitats across a landscape (McKinney and Drake 1998), and biodiversity is generally highest when disturbance is neither too rare nor too frequent on the landscape (Grime 1973).

Scale dependency of regional climate modeling of current and future climate extremes in Germany

Science.gov (United States)

Tölle, Merja H.; Schefczyk, Lukas; Gutjahr, Oliver

2017-11-01

A warmer climate is projected for mid-Europe, with less precipitation in summer, but with intensified extremes of precipitation and near-surface temperature. However, the extent and magnitude of such changes are associated with creditable uncertainty because of the limitations of model resolution and parameterizations. Here, we present the results of convection-permitting regional climate model simulations for Germany integrated with the COSMO-CLM using a horizontal grid spacing of 1.3 km, and additional 4.5- and 7-km simulations with convection parameterized. Of particular interest is how the temperature and precipitation fields and their extremes depend on the horizontal resolution for current and future climate conditions. The spatial variability of precipitation increases with resolution because of more realistic orography and physical parameterizations, but values are overestimated in summer and over mountain ridges in all simulations compared to observations. The spatial variability of temperature is improved at a resolution of 1.3 km, but the results are cold-biased, especially in summer. The increase in resolution from 7/4.5 km to 1.3 km is accompanied by less future warming in summer by 1 ∘C. Modeled future precipitation extremes will be more severe, and temperature extremes will not exclusively increase with higher resolution. Although the differences between the resolutions considered (7/4.5 km and 1.3 km) are small, we find that the differences in the changes in extremes are large. High-resolution simulations require further studies, with effective parameterizations and tunings for different topographic regions. Impact models and assessment studies may benefit from such high-resolution model results, but should account for the impact of model resolution on model processes and climate change.

Simulating future wheat yield under climate change, carbon dioxide enrichment and technology improvement in Iran. Case study: Azarbaijan region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mansouri, H.; Raei, Y.; Zaeim, A.N.

2015-07-01

Climate change and technology development can affect crop productivity in future conditions. Precise estimation of crops yield change as affected by climate and technology in the future is an effective approach for management strategies. The aim of this study was to estimate the impacts of climate change, technology improvement, CO2 enrichment, and overall impacts on wheat yield under future conditions. Wheat yield was projected for three future time periods (2020, 2050 and 2080) compared to baseline year (2011) under two scenarios of IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) including SRES-A2 as regional economic scenario and SRES-B1 as global environmental scenario in Azarbaijan region (NW of Iran). A linear regression model, describing the relationship between wheat yield and historical year, was developed to investigate technology development effect. The decision support system for agro-technology transfer (DSSAT4.5) was used to evaluate the influence of climate change on wheat yield. The most positive effects were found for wheat yield as affected by technology in all studied regions. Under future climate change, the SRES projected a decrease in yield, especially in West Azarbaijan region. When the effects of elevated CO2 were considered, all regions resulted to increase in wheat yield. Considering all components effect in comparison with baseline (2011), yield increase would range from 5% to 38% across all times, scenarios and regions. According to our findings, it seems that we may expect a higher yield of wheat in NW Iran in the future if technology development continues as well as past years. (Author)

Topographical effects of climate dataset and their impacts on the estimation of regional net primary productivity

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, L. Qing; Feng, Feng X.

2014-11-01

In this study, we first built and compared two different climate datasets for Wuling mountainous area in 2010, one of which considered topographical effects during the ANUSPLIN interpolation was referred as terrain-based climate dataset, while the other one did not was called ordinary climate dataset. Then, we quantified the topographical effects of climatic inputs on NPP estimation by inputting two different climate datasets to the same ecosystem model, the Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS), to evaluate the importance of considering relief when estimating NPP. Finally, we found the primary contributing variables to the topographical effects through a series of experiments given an overall accuracy of the model output for NPP. The results showed that: (1) The terrain-based climate dataset presented more reliable topographic information and had closer agreements with the station dataset than the ordinary climate dataset at successive time series of 365 days in terms of the daily mean values. (2) On average, ordinary climate dataset underestimated NPP by 12.5% compared with terrain-based climate dataset over the whole study area. (3) The primary climate variables contributing to the topographical effects of climatic inputs for Wuling mountainous area were temperatures, which suggest that it is necessary to correct temperature differences for estimating NPP accurately in such a complex terrain.

Climate change and fire management in the mid-Atlantic region

Science.gov (United States)

Kenneth L. Clark; Nicholas Skowronski; Heidi Renninger; Robert. Scheller

2014-01-01

In this review, we summarize the potential impacts of climate change on wildfire activity in the mid-Atlantic region, and then consider how the beneficial uses of prescribed fire could conflict with mitigation needs for climate change, focusing on patters of carbon (C) sequestration by forests in the region. We use a synthesis of field studies, eddy flux tower...

Climate change impacts on risks of groundwater pollution by herbicides: a regional scale assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Steffens, Karin; Moeys, Julien; Lindström, Bodil; Kreuger, Jenny; Lewan, Elisabet; Jarvis, Nick

2014-05-01

Groundwater contributes nearly half of the Swedish drinking water supply, which therefore needs to be protected both under present and future climate conditions. Pesticides are sometimes found in Swedish groundwater in concentrations exceeding the EU-drinking water limit and thus constitute a threat. The aim of this study was to assess the present and future risks of groundwater pollution at the regional scale by currently approved herbicides. We identified representative combinations of major crop types and their specific herbicide usage (product, dose and application timing) based on long-term monitoring data from two agricultural catchments in the South-West of Sweden. All these combinations were simulated with the regional version of the pesticide fate model MACRO (called MACRO-SE) for the periods 1970-1999 and 2070-2099 for a major crop production region in South West Sweden. To represent the uncertainty in future climate data, we applied a five-member ensemble based on different climate model projections downscaled with the RCA3-model (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute). In addition to the direct impacts of changes in the climate, the risks of herbicide leaching in the future will also be affected by likely changes in weed pressure and land use and management practices (e.g. changes in crop rotations and application timings). To assess the relative importance of such factors we performed a preliminary sensitivity analysis which provided us with a hierarchical structure for constructing future herbicide use scenarios for the regional scale model runs. The regional scale analysis gave average concentrations of herbicides leaching to groundwater for a large number of combinations of soils, crops and compounds. The results showed that future scenarios for herbicide use (more autumn-sown crops, more frequent multiple applications on one crop, and a shift from grassland to arable crops such as maize) imply significantly greater risks of herbicide

Regional Climate Impacts of Stabilizing Global Warming at 1.5 K Using Solar Geoengineering

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Anthony C.; Hawcroft, Matthew K.; Haywood, James M.; Jones, Andy; Guo, Xiaoran; Moore, John C.

2018-02-01

The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2 K above preindustrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 K, in order to avert dangerous climate change. However, current greenhouse gas emissions targets are more compatible with scenarios exhibiting end-of-century global warming of 2.6-3.1 K, in clear contradiction to the 1.5 K target. In this study, we use a global climate model to investigate the climatic impacts of using solar geoengineering by stratospheric aerosol injection to stabilize global-mean temperature at 1.5 K for the duration of the 21st century against three scenarios spanning the range of plausible greenhouse gas mitigation pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5). In addition to stabilizing global mean temperature and offsetting both Arctic sea-ice loss and thermosteric sea-level rise, we find that solar geoengineering could effectively counteract enhancements to the frequency of extreme storms in the North Atlantic and heatwaves in Europe, but would be less effective at counteracting hydrological changes in the Amazon basin and North Atlantic storm track displacement. In summary, solar geoengineering may reduce global mean impacts but is an imperfect solution at the regional level, where the effects of climate change are experienced. Our results should galvanize research into the regionality of climate responses to solar geoengineering.

Sensitivity of simulated maize crop yields to regional climate in the Southwestern United States

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, S.; Myoung, B.; Stack, D.; Kim, J.; Hatzopoulos, N.; Kafatos, M.

2013-12-01

The sensitivity of maize yield to the regional climate in the Southwestern United States (SW US) has been investigated by using a crop-yield simulation model (APSIM) in conjunction with meteorological forcings (daily minimum and maximum temperature, precipitation, and radiation) from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) dataset. The primary focus of this study is to look at the effects of interannual variations of atmospheric components on the crop productivity in the SW US over the 21-year period (1991 to 2011). First of all, characteristics and performance of APSIM was examined by comparing simulated maize yields with observed yields from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the leaf-area index (LAI) from MODIS satellite data. Comparisons of the simulated maize yield with the available observations show that the crop model can reasonably reproduce observed maize yields. Sensitivity tests were performed to assess the relative contribution of each climate driver to regional crop yield. Sensitivity experiments show that potential crop production responds nonlinearly to climate drivers and the yield sensitivity varied among geographical locations depending on their mean climates. Lastly, a detailed analysis of both the spatial and temporal variations of each climate driver in the regions where maize is actually grown in three states (CA, AZ, and NV) in the SW US was performed.

Assessing climate change impacts on water resources in remote mountain regions

Science.gov (United States)

Buytaert, Wouter; De Bièvre, Bert

2013-04-01

From a water resources perspective, remote mountain regions are often considered as a basket case. They are often regions where poverty is often interlocked with multiple threats to water supply, data scarcity, and high uncertainties. In these environments, it is paramount to generate locally relevant knowledge about water resources and how they impact local livelihoods. This is often problematic. Existing environmental data collection tends to be geographically biased towards more densely populated regions, and prioritized towards strategic economic activities. Data may also be locked behind institutional and technological barriers. These issues create a "knowledge trap" for data-poor regions, which is especially acute in remote and hard-to-reach mountain regions. We present lessons learned from a decade of water resources research in remote mountain regions of the Andes, Africa and South Asia. We review the entire tool chain of assessing climate change impacts on water resources, including the interrogation and downscaling of global circulation models, translating climate variables in water availability and access, and assessing local vulnerability. In global circulation models, mountain regions often stand out as regions of high uncertainties and lack of agreement of future trends. This is partly a technical artifact because of the different resolution and representation of mountain topography, but it also highlights fundamental uncertainties in climate impacts on mountain climate. This problem also affects downscaling efforts, because regional climate models should be run in very high spatial resolution to resolve local gradients, which is computationally very expensive. At the same time statistical downscaling methods may fail to find significant relations between local climate properties and synoptic processes. Further uncertainties are introduced when downscaled climate variables such as precipitation and temperature are to be translated in hydrologically

Climate Change and Climate Variability in the Latin American Region

Science.gov (United States)

Magrin, G. O.; Gay Garcia, C.; Cruz Choque, D.; Gimenez-Sal, J. C.; Moreno, A. R.; Nagy, G. J.; Nobre, C.; Villamizar, A.

2007-05-01

Over the past three decades LA was subjected to several climate-related impacts due to increased El Niño occurrences. Two extremely intense episodes of El Niño and other increased climate extremes happened during this period contributing greatly to augment the vulnerability of human systems to natural disasters. In addition to weather and climate, the main drivers of the increased vulnerability are demographic pressure, unregulated urban growth, poverty and rural migration, low investment in infrastructure and services, and problems in inter-sector coordination. As well, increases in temperature and increases/decreases in precipitation observed during the last part of 20th century have yet led to intensification of glaciers melting, increases in floods/droughts and forest fires frequency, increases in morbidity and mortality, increases in plant diseases incidence; lost of biodiversity, reduction in dairy cattle production, and problems with hydropower generation, highly affecting LA human system. For the end of the 21st century, the projected mean warming for LA ranges from 1 to 7.5ºC and the frequency of weather and climate extremes could increase. Additionally, deforestation is projected to continue leading to a reduction of 25 percent in Amazonia forest in 2020 and 40 percent in 2050. Soybeans planted area in South America could increase by 55 percent by 2020 enhancing aridity/desertification in many of the already water- stressed regions. By 2050 LA population is likely to be 50 percent larger than in 2000, and migration from the country sides to the cities will continue. In the near future, these predicted changes are very likely to severely affect a number of ecosystems and sectors distribution; b) Disappearing most tropical glaciers; c) Reducing water availability and hydropower generation; d) Increasing desertification and aridity; e) Severely affecting people, resources and economic activities in coastal areas; f) Increasing crop's pests and diseases

Simulation of climate characteristics and extremes of the Volta Basin using CCLM and RCA regional climate models

Science.gov (United States)

Darko, Deborah; Adjei, Kwaku A.; Appiah-Adjei, Emmanuel K.; Odai, Samuel N.; Obuobie, Emmanuel; Asmah, Ruby

2018-06-01

The extent to which statistical bias-adjusted outputs of two regional climate models alter the projected change signals for the mean (and extreme) rainfall and temperature over the Volta Basin is evaluated. The outputs from two regional climate models in the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment for Africa (CORDEX-Africa) are bias adjusted using the quantile mapping technique. Annual maxima rainfall and temperature with their 10- and 20-year return values for the present (1981-2010) and future (2051-2080) climates are estimated using extreme value analyses. Moderate extremes are evaluated using extreme indices (viz. percentile-based, duration-based, and intensity-based). Bias adjustment of the original (bias-unadjusted) models improves the reproduction of mean rainfall and temperature for the present climate. However, the bias-adjusted models poorly reproduce the 10- and 20-year return values for rainfall and maximum temperature whereas the extreme indices are reproduced satisfactorily for the present climate. Consequently, projected changes in rainfall and temperature extremes were weak. The bias adjustment results in the reduction of the change signals for the mean rainfall while the mean temperature signals are rather magnified. The projected changes for the original mean climate and extremes are not conserved after bias adjustment with the exception of duration-based extreme indices.

Regional climate, local climate and ozone air pollution in Tours and Orleans cities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berthelot, M.

2006-10-01

The importance of the relations between climate and the air pollution justifies the interest related to the role of the urban heat island of heat with respect to the night persistence of ozone in urban environment. When the days are favourable with important ozone concentrations, the agglomerations of the area observe a dynamics day laborer of ozone different from that observed in rural environment. The study is undertaken on the towns of Turns and Orleans where the observations of Lig'Air revealed a night persistence of ozone whereas the concentrations drop more quickly in periphery. This phenomenon is remarkable during the little broken down anticyclonic days. The region region Centre is a ground of study privileged for ozone because of its situation in the south-west of the Island of France rich in precursors of ozone. When flow is of continental origin, the Centre area is found then under the influence of the Paris area. The investigation of a study of the air pollution must take into account the notes of the regional climate and local climate. Several preliminary studies must intervene to answer our principal problems. First of all a descriptive study of the regional climate is carried out with the participation of Meteo-France. The current absence of climatic atlas as well as the many disparities of the climate related to extended from the territory partly justify the interest of our study. The regional approach of the climate is also essential for the continuation of work on a finer scale on the agglomerations of Turns and Orleans in order to detect the urban heat island of heat there. Collaboration with Meteo-France and Lig'Air made it possible to establish a satisfying network of measurement making it possible to obtain notable thermal differences between the downtown area and the surrounding rural environment. The correlation between meteorology and the proven air pollution leads us to establish the climatology of ozone. Many are the studies having

Scalability of regional climate change in Europe for high-end scenarios

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, O. B.; Yang, S.; Boberg, F.

2015-01-01

With the help of a simulation using the global circulation model (GCM) EC-Earth, downscaled over Europe with the regional model DMI-HIRHAM5 at a 25 km grid point distance, we investigated regional climate change corresponding to 6°C of global warming to investigate whether regional climate change...... are close to the RCP8.5 emission scenario. We investigated the extent to which pattern scaling holds, i.e. the approximation that the amplitude of any climate change will be approximately proportional to the amount of global warming. We address this question through a comparison of climate change results...... from downscaling simulations over the same integration domain, but for different driving and regional models and scenarios, mostly from the EU ENSEMBLES project. For almost all quantities investigated, pattern scaling seemed to apply to the 6° simulation. This indicates that the single 6° simulation...

Regional hydrological impacts of climate change: implications for water management in India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Mondal

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Climate change is most likely to introduce an additional stress to already stressed water systems in developing countries. Climate change is inherently linked with the hydrological cycle and is expected to cause significant alterations in regional water resources systems necessitating measures for adaptation and mitigation. Increasing temperatures, for example, are likely to change precipitation patterns resulting in alterations of regional water availability, evapotranspirative water demand of crops and vegetation, extremes of floods and droughts, and water quality. A comprehensive assessment of regional hydrological impacts of climate change is thus necessary. Global climate model simulations provide future projections of the climate system taking into consideration changes in external forcings, such as atmospheric carbon-dioxide and aerosols, especially those resulting from anthropogenic emissions. However, such simulations are typically run at a coarse scale, and are not equipped to reproduce regional hydrological processes. This paper summarizes recent research on the assessment of climate change impacts on regional hydrology, addressing the scale and physical processes mismatch issues. Particular attention is given to changes in water availability, irrigation demands and water quality. This paper also includes description of the methodologies developed to address uncertainties in the projections resulting from incomplete knowledge about future evolution of the human-induced emissions and from using multiple climate models. Approaches for investigating possible causes of historically observed changes in regional hydrological variables are also discussed. Illustrations of all the above-mentioned methods are provided for Indian regions with a view to specifically aiding water management in India.

Aerosol Radiative Impact on the Middle East Regional Climate and the Red Sea

KAUST Repository

Osipov, Sergey

2017-10-01

The climate in the Middle East is complex and remains poorly understood. Due to the vast Arabian Desert, it is very sensitive to radiative forcing. Mineral dust is the dominant aerosol in this region. High background dust loading and frequent dust outbreaks significantly perturb the radiative balance and contribute to climate variability in the Middle East. To assess the climatological impact of dust in the region, we derived the aerosol optical properties and used a standalone column model to quantify radiative forcing sensitivity to a range of parameters representative of the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea. Simulations and modeling assumptions were validated using available in situ observations and satellite retrievals for fair weather and dust storm conditions. We incorporated the optical properties into the regional coupled ocean-atmosphere model and conducted simulations that represent the regional climate. The analysis shows that dust cools the Earth-atmosphere system and thus offsets the warming due to greenhouse gases. Dust reduces the sea surface temperature by 0.4 K, significantly perturbs energy balance, overturning circulation, and its purely dynamical impact reduces biological productivity in the Red Sea. In the real world, dust is present permanently and this does not allow to directly observe the climate response to the dust forcing. Volcanic eruptions produce a transient radiative impact that causes a detectable climate response that could be evaluated from observations and compared with simulations. Large equatorial eruptions are known to significantly perturb the Earth’s climate on the global scale, but their regional impact on the Middle East has not been thoroughly investigated. For example, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption had a profound effect on the MENA and caused extensive coral bleaching in the Gulf of Aqaba. The analysis shows that observed cooling in the Middle East was mostly driven by changes in the atmospheric large

Shifts in climate suitability for wine production as a result of climate change in a temperate climate wine region of Romania

Science.gov (United States)

Irimia, Liviu Mihai; Patriche, Cristian Valeriu; Quenol, Hervé; Sfîcă, Lucian; Foss, Chris

2018-02-01

Climate change is causing important shifts in the suitability of regions for wine production. Fine scale mapping of these shifts helps us to understand the evolution of vineyard climates, and to find solutions through viticultural adaptation. The aim of this study is to identify and map the structural and spatial shifts that occurred in the climatic suitability for wine production of the Cotnari wine growing region (Romania) between 1961 and 2013. Discontinuities in trends of temperature were identified, and the averages and trends of 13 climatic parameters for the 1961 to 1980 and 1981 to 2013 time periods were analysed. Using the averages of these climatic parameters, climate suitability for wine production was calculated at a resolution of 30 m and mapped for each time period, and the changes analysed. The results indicate shifts in the area's historic climatic profile, due to an increase of heliothermal resources and precipitation constancy. The area's climate suitability for wine production was modified by the loss of climate suitability for white table wines, sparkling wines and wine for distillates; shifts in suitability to higher altitudes by about 67 m, and a 48.6% decrease in the area suitable for quality white wines; and the occurrence of suitable climates for red wines at lower altitudes. The study showed that climate suitability for wine production has a multi-level spatial structure, with classes requiring a cooler climate being located at a higher altitude than those requiring a warmer climate. Climate change has therefore resulted in the shift of climate suitability classes for wine production to higher altitudes.

Regional model simulations of New Zealand climate

Science.gov (United States)

Renwick, James A.; Katzfey, Jack J.; Nguyen, Kim C.; McGregor, John L.

1998-03-01

Simulation of New Zealand climate is examined through the use of a regional climate model nested within the output of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation nine-level general circulation model (GCM). R21 resolution GCM output is used to drive a regional model run at 125 km grid spacing over the Australasian region. The 125 km run is used in turn to drive a simulation at 50 km resolution over New Zealand. Simulations with a full seasonal cycle are performed for 10 model years. The focus is on the quality of the simulation of present-day climate, but results of a doubled-CO2 run are discussed briefly. Spatial patterns of mean simulated precipitation and surface temperatures improve markedly as horizontal resolution is increased, through the better resolution of the country's orography. However, increased horizontal resolution leads to a positive bias in precipitation. At 50 km resolution, simulated frequency distributions of daily maximum/minimum temperatures are statistically similar to those of observations at many stations, while frequency distributions of daily precipitation appear to be statistically different to those of observations at most stations. Modeled daily precipitation variability at 125 km resolution is considerably less than observed, but is comparable to, or exceeds, observed variability at 50 km resolution. The sensitivity of the simulated climate to changes in the specification of the land surface is discussed briefly. Spatial patterns of the frequency of extreme temperatures and precipitation are generally well modeled. Under a doubling of CO2, the frequency of precipitation extremes changes only slightly at most locations, while air frosts become virtually unknown except at high-elevation sites.

Increasing bioenergy production on arable land: Does the regional and local climate respond? Germany as a case study

Science.gov (United States)

Tölle, Merja H.; Gutjahr, Oliver; Busch, Gerald; Thiele, Jan C.

2014-03-01

The extent and magnitude of land cover change effect on local and regional future climate during the vegetation period due to different forms of bioenergy plants are quantified for extreme temperatures and energy fluxes. Furthermore, we vary the spatial extent of plant allocation on arable land and simulate alternative availability of transpiration water to mimic both rainfed agriculture and irrigation. We perform climate simulations down to 1 km scale for 1970-1975 C20 and 2070-2075 A1B over Germany with Consortium for Small-Scale Modeling in Climate Mode. Here an impact analysis indicates a strong local influence due to land cover changes. The regional effect is decreased by two thirds of the magnitude of the local-scale impact. The changes are largest locally for irrigated poplar with decreasing maximum temperatures by 1°C in summer months and increasing specific humidity by 0.15 g kg-1. The increased evapotranspiration may result in more precipitation. The increase of surface radiative fluxes Rnet due to changes in latent and sensible heat is estimated by 5 W m-2locally. Moreover, increases in the surface latent heat flux cause strong local evaporative cooling in the summer months, whereas the associated regional cooling effect is pronounced by increases in cloud cover. The changes on a regional scale are marginal and not significant. Increasing bioenergy production on arable land may result in local temperature changes but not in substantial regional climate change in Germany. We show the effect of agricultural practices during climate transitions in spring and fall.

Regional Scale/Regional Climate Model Development and Its Applications at Goddard

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, W.-K.; Lau, W.; Qian, J.; Jia, Y.; Wetzel, P.; Chou, M.-D.; Wang, Y.; Lynn, B.

2000-01-01

A Regional Land-Atmosphere Climate Simulation System (RELACS) is being developed and implemented at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. One of the major goals of RELACS is to use a regional scale model (Penn State/NCAR MM5) with improved physical processes and in particular land-related processes, to understand the role of the land surface and its interaction with convection and radiation as well as the water/energy cycles in the Indo-China/South China Sea (SCS)/China, N. America and S. America region.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ORIENTAL SPRUCE (PICEA ORIENTALIS ECOSYSTEMS IN EASTERN BLACKSEA REGION OF TURKEY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aydın Tüfekçioğlu

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Climate change has been getting more attention from scientific community recently. Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey will get significant influences from the climate change according to regional climate model (RegCM3. Oriental spruce (Picea orientalis L. is an important tree species of Turkey and it only grows in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey. With the increase in global warming, spruce forests started to have serious bark beetle problems. More than 200 000 trees died in the region recently due to bark beetle attack. We used existing literature related to oriental spruce and future climate of the region and field observations done in the different times to assess current status of the spruce stands. Future climate of the region has been predicted using RegCM3 regional climate model. Climate change could significantly influence distribution, diversity, structure and stability of the oriental spruce ecosystems. According to RegCM3 regional climate model, the temperatures will increase 2-4 °C in the region in the next century. Future climate scenarios predict 200-300 mm increases in precipitation in the eastern part of the region while the western part won't have any increase in precipitation in the next century. Temperature increases in the western part of the region can cause more stress on spruce trees and would probably increase bark beetle attacks. Also, fire could become an important threat in the western part of the region. It is possible to observe 400-800 m upward shift in the spruce belt in the western part. Treeline of spruce stands would probably move upward both in western and eastern part of the North-eastern Blacksea Region.

Regional and Inter-Regional Effects in Evolving Climate Networks

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Hlinka, Jaroslav; Hartman, David; Jajcay, Nikola; Vejmelka, Martin; Donner, R.; Marwan, N.; Kurths, J.; Paluš, Milan

2014-01-01

Roč. 21, č. 2 (2014), s. 451-462 ISSN 1023-5809 R&D Projects: GA ČR GCP103/11/J068 Institutional support: RVO:67985807 Keywords : climate networks * evolving networks * principal component analysis * network connectivity * El Nino Subject RIV: BB - Applied Statistics, Operational Research Impact factor: 0.987, year: 2014

Effect assessment of Future Climate Change on Water Resource and Snow Quality in cold snowy regions in Japan

Science.gov (United States)

Taniguchi, Y.; Nakatsugawa, M.; Kudo, K.

2017-12-01

It is predicted that the effects of global warming on everyday life will be clearly seen in cold, snowy regions such as Hokkaido. In relation to climate change, there is the concern that the warmer climate will affect not only water resources, but also local economies, in snowy areas, when air temperature increases and snowfall decreases become more marked in the future. Communities whose economies are greatly dependent on snow as a tourism resource, such as for winter sports and snow events, will lose large numbers of visitors because of the shortened winter season. This study was done as a basic study to provide basic ideas for planning adaptation strategies against climate change based on the local characteristics of a cold, snowy region. By taking dam catchment basins in Hokkaido as the subject areas and by using the climate change prediction data that correspond to IPCCAR5, the local-level influence of future climate change on snowfall and snow quality in relation to water resources and winter sports was quantitatively assessed. The water budget was examined for a dam catchment basin in Hokkaido under the present climate (September 1984 to August 2004) and under the future climate (September 2080 to August 2100) by using rainfall, snowfall and evapotranspiration estimated by the LoHAS heat and water balance analysis model.The examination found that, under the future climate, the net annual precipitation will decrease by up to 200 mm because of decreases in precipitation and in runoff height that will result from increased evapotranspiration. The predicted decrease in annual hydro potential of snowfall was considered to greatly affect the dam reservoir operation during the snowmelt season. The snow quality analysis by SNOWPACK revealed that the future snow would become granular earlier than it does at present. Most skiers' snow preferences, from best to worst, are light dry snow (i.e., fresh snow), lightly compacted snow, compacted snow and, finally, granular

Point Climat no. 26 'Regional Climate - Air - Energy Plans at the heart of the debate on the energy transition'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bordier, Cecile; Leseur, Alexia

2013-01-01

Among the publications of CDC Climat Research, 'Climate Briefs' presents, in a few pages, hot topics in climate change policy. This issue addresses the following points: On the eve of the introduction of the environmental assessment procedure for planning documents, almost all Regional Climate - Air - Energy Plans have now been published. This Climate Brief assesses regional climate strategies, which rely on significant commitment from those involved, including citizens by changing their behaviour, companies by improving their energy efficiency and the banking sector through financial support. Identification of these challenges and areas for action will feed into the national debate on energy transition which began last autumn

Implications of climate change in the ROPME region: an overview

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hassan, M.E.; Gerges, M.A.

1994-12-31

The Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME) region is divided into three areas: SA-I, the northern part of the Arabian Sea bounded by the south coast of the Sultanate of Oman, the mouth of the Gulf of Oman and the southern coast of the Islamic Republic of Iran; SA-II, the Gulf of Oman; and SA-III named as the Persian or Arabian Gulf. SA-I is the prime representative of the monsoonal weather system, which produces strong summertime upwelling resulting in rich fisheries that disappear in the winter. SA-II shows transition between the monsoonal system and the desert belt climate of SA-III. Its shallowness mean that the annual range of water temperature is the greatest for any water body freely connected to the world ocean. This restricts the ecosystems that can survive. It also enhances the effect of sea level rise on the tidal pattern. Because the SA-III region is the world`s major oil and gas extraction area, resulting land subsidence can produce an apparent sea level rise of the same order of magnitude as that postulated from expected climate change. Observed sea level rise could be twice the global rate. The shallowness of the area means that the change of tidal pattern resulting from the change of depth will be very dramatic. To help combat climate change it is recommended that: a high quality dense tide recording network be set up and connected to a land subsidence recording network; a regional central data collecting and data processing centre be identified in the region; an active participation in international relevant programs such as TOGA and GOOS by ROPME Member States be maintained; and environmental non-Governmental Organizationsshould be encouraged to publicise these issues.

An effective drift correction for dynamical downscaling of decadal global climate predictions

Science.gov (United States)

Paeth, Heiko; Li, Jingmin; Pollinger, Felix; Müller, Wolfgang A.; Pohlmann, Holger; Feldmann, Hendrik; Panitz, Hans-Jürgen

2018-04-01

Initialized decadal climate predictions with coupled climate models are often marked by substantial climate drifts that emanate from a mismatch between the climatology of the coupled model system and the data set used for initialization. While such drifts may be easily removed from the prediction system when analyzing individual variables, a major problem prevails for multivariate issues and, especially, when the output of the global prediction system shall be used for dynamical downscaling. In this study, we present a statistical approach to remove climate drifts in a multivariate context and demonstrate the effect of this drift correction on regional climate model simulations over the Euro-Atlantic sector. The statistical approach is based on an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis adapted to a very large data matrix. The climate drift emerges as a dramatic cooling trend in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and is captured by the leading EOF of the multivariate output from the global prediction system, accounting for 7.7% of total variability. The SST cooling pattern also imposes drifts in various atmospheric variables and levels. The removal of the first EOF effectuates the drift correction while retaining other components of intra-annual, inter-annual and decadal variability. In the regional climate model, the multivariate drift correction of the input data removes the cooling trends in most western European land regions and systematically reduces the discrepancy between the output of the regional climate model and observational data. In contrast, removing the drift only in the SST field from the global model has hardly any positive effect on the regional climate model.

Using non-systematic surveys to investigate effects of regional climate variability on Australasian gannets in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand

Science.gov (United States)

Srinivasan, Mridula; Dassis, Mariela; Benn, Emily; Stockin, Karen A.; Martinez, Emmanuelle; Machovsky-Capuska, Gabriel E.

2015-05-01

Few studies have investigated regional and natural climate variability on seabird populations using ocean reanalysis datasets (e.g. Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA)) that integrate atmospheric information to supplement ocean observations and provide improved estimates of ocean conditions. Herein we use a non-systematic dataset on Australasian gannets (Morus serrator) from 2001 to 2009 to identify potential connections between Gannet Sightings Per Unit Effort (GSPUE) and climate and oceanographic variability in a region of known importance for breeding seabirds, the Hauraki Gulf (HG), New Zealand. While no statistically significant relationships between GSPUE and global climate indices were determined, there was a significant correlation between GSPUE and regional SST anomaly for HG. Also, there appears to be a strong link between global climate indices and regional climate in the HG. Further, based on cross-correlation function coefficients and lagged multiple regression models, we identified potential leading and lagging climate variables, and climate variables but with limited predictive capacity in forecasting future GSPUE. Despite significant inter-annual variability and marginally cooler SSTs since 2001, gannet sightings appear to be increasing. We hypothesize that at present underlying physical changes in the marine ecosystem may be insufficient to affect supply of preferred gannet main prey (pilchard Sardinops spp.), which tolerate a wide thermal range. Our study showcases the potential scientific value of lengthy non-systematic data streams and when designed properly (i.e., contain abundance, flock size, and spatial data), can yield useful information in climate impact studies on seabirds and other marine fauna. Such information can be invaluable for enhancing conservation measures for protected species in fiscally constrained research environments.

Climate-model induced differences in the 21st century global and regional glacier contributions to sea-level rise

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Giesen, R.H.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/304831603; Oerlemans, J.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/06833656X

2013-01-01

The large uncertainty in future global glacier volume projections partly results from a substantial range in future climate conditions projected by global climate models. This study addresses the effect of global and regional differences in climate input data on the projected twenty-first century

Regional assessment of Climate change impacts in the Mediterranean: the CIRCE project

Science.gov (United States)

Iglesias, A.

2011-12-01

The CIRCE project has developed for the first time an assessment of the climate change impacts in the Mediterranean area. The objectives of the project are: to predict and to quantify physical impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean area; to evaluate the consequences of climate change for the society and the economy of the populations located in the Mediterranean area; to develop an integrated approach to understand combined effects of climate change; and to identify adaptation and mitigation strategies in collaboration with regional stakeholders. The CIRCE Project, coordinated by the Instituto Nazionale di Geofisca e Vulcanologia, started on 1st April 2007 and ended in a policy conference in Rome on June 2011. CIRCE involves 64 partners from Europe, Middle East and North Africa working together to evaluate the best strategies of adaptation to the climate change in the Mediterranean basin. CIRCE wants to understand and to explain how climate will change in the Mediterranean area bringing together the natural sciences community and social community in a new integrated and comprehensive way. The project has investigated how global and Mediterranean climates interact, how the radiative properties of the atmosphere and the radiative fluxes vary, the interaction between cloudiness and aerosol, the modifications in the water cycle. Recent observed modifications in the climate variables and detected trends will be compared. The economic and social consequences of climate change are evaluated by analysing direct impacts on migration, tourism and energy markets together with indirect impacts on the economic system. CIRCE has produced results about the consequences on agriculture, forests and ecosystems, human health and air quality. The variability of extreme events in the future scenario and their impacts is also assessed. A rigorous common framework, including a set of quantitative indicators developed specifically for the Mediterranean environment was be developed

Assessments of regional climate change and its impacts in Northern Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Omstedt, Anders; von Storch, Hans; Reckermann, Marcus; Quante, Markus

2015-04-01

Regional climate change assessments are urgently needed to complement the big picture with regional results and scenarios of higher resolution and with relevance for local decision makers and stakeholders. A new type of assessment report originated in the original BACC report of 2008 (BALTEX Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea region) which has served as role model for other assessments published or in preparation. It represents an approach to assessing and making available current knowledge on regional climate change and its regional impacts on the physical, biogeochemical and biological environment (ecosystems, socio-economic sphere). Reports of this type which are available or underway are the original BACC book (2008), the second BACC book (2015), the climate report for the greater Hamburg area (2011), and the NOSCCA report (North Sea Climate Change Assessment) which is expected to be published in 2016. The assessments are produced by teams of scientists from the region, led by lead authors who recruit experts from relevant topics to contribute. The process is not externally funded and completely based on published scientific evidence, and not biased by political or economic interest groups. The BACC-type reports aim to bring together consolidated knowledge that has broad consensus in the scientific community, but also acknowledging issues for which contradicting opinions are found in the literature, so that no consensus can be reached ("consensus on dissensus"). An international steering committee is responsible for overlooking the process, and all manuscripts are anonymously peer-reviewed by independent international experts. An outstanding outreach aspect of these reports is the close collaboration with regional stakeholders (for the BACC reports: HELCOM, the intergovernmental Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission and the major regional science-policy interface in the Baltic Sea region; for the Hamburg climate report: the Hamburg city

Vulnerability of breeding waterbirds to climate change in the Prairie Pothole Region, U.S.A.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valerie Steen

Full Text Available The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR of the north-central U.S. and south-central Canada contains millions of small prairie wetlands that provide critical habitat to many migrating and breeding waterbirds. Due to their small size and the relatively dry climate of the region, these wetlands are considered at high risk for negative climate change effects as temperatures increase. To estimate the potential impacts of climate change on breeding waterbirds, we predicted current and future distributions of species common in the PPR using species distribution models (SDMs. We created regional-scale SDMs for the U.S. PPR using Breeding Bird Survey occurrence records for 1971-2011 and wetland, upland, and climate variables. For each species, we predicted current distribution based on climate records for 1981-2000 and projected future distributions to climate scenarios for 2040-2049. Species were projected to, on average, lose almost half their current habitat (-46%. However, individual species projections varied widely, from +8% (Upland Sandpiper to -100% (Wilson's Snipe. Variable importance ranks indicated that land cover (wetland and upland variables were generally more important than climate variables in predicting species distributions. However, climate variables were relatively more important during a drought period. Projected distributions of species responses to climate change contracted within current areas of distribution rather than shifting. Given the large variation in species-level impacts, we suggest that climate change mitigation efforts focus on species projected to be the most vulnerable by enacting targeted wetland management, easement acquisition, and restoration efforts.

Climate effect on forest fire static risk assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Bodini, Antonella; Cossu, Antonello; Entrade, Erika; Fiorucci, Paolo; Gaetani, Francesco; Parodi, Ulderica

2010-05-01

The availability of a long data series of fire perimeters combined with a detailed knowledge of topography and land cover allow to understand which are the main features involved in forest fire occurrences and their behaviour. In addition, climate indexes obtained from the analysis of time series with more than 20 years of complete records allow to understand the role of climate on fire regime, both in terms of direct effects on fire behaviour and the effect on vegetation cover. In particular, indices of extreme events have been considered like CDD (maximum number of consecutive dry days) and HWDI (heat wave duration index: maximum period > 5 consecutive days with Tmax >5°C above the 1961-1990 daily Tmax normal), together with the usual indices describing rainfall and temperature regimes. As a matter of fact, based on this information it is possible to develop statistical methods for the objective classification of forest fire static risk at regional scale. Two different case studies are presented in this work: Regione Liguria and Regione Sardegna (Italy). Both regions are in the center of the Mediterranean and are characterized by a high number of fires and burned area. However, the two regions have very different fire regimes. Sardinia is affected by the fire phenomenon only in summer whilst Liguria is affected by fires also in winter, with higher number of fires and larger burned area. In addition, the two region are very different in vegetation cover. The presence of Mediterranean conifers, (Pinus Pinaster, Pinus Nigra, Pinus halepensis) is quite spread in Liguria and is almost absent in Sardinia. What is common in the two regions is the widespread presence of shrub species frequently spread by fire. The analysis in the two regions thus allows in a rather limited area to consider almost all the species and the climate conditions that characterize the Mediterranean region. More than 10000 fire perimeters that burnt about 800 km2 were considered in the analysis

Assessment of hi-resolution multi-ensemble statistical downscaling regional climate scenarios over Japan

Science.gov (United States)

Dairaku, K.

2017-12-01

The Asia-Pacific regions are increasingly threatened by large scale natural disasters. Growing concerns that loss and damages of natural disasters are projected to further exacerbate by climate change and socio-economic change. Climate information and services for risk assessments are of great concern. Fundamental regional climate information is indispensable for understanding changing climate and making decisions on when and how to act. To meet with the needs of stakeholders such as National/local governments, spatio-temporal comprehensive and consistent information is necessary and useful for decision making. Multi-model ensemble regional climate scenarios with 1km horizontal grid-spacing over Japan are developed by using CMIP5 37 GCMs (RCP8.5) and a statistical downscaling (Bias Corrected Spatial Disaggregation (BCSD)) to investigate uncertainty of projected change associated with structural differences of the GCMs for the periods of historical climate (1950-2005) and near future climate (2026-2050). Statistical downscaling regional climate scenarios show good performance for annual and seasonal averages for precipitation and temperature. The regional climate scenarios show systematic underestimate of extreme events such as hot days of over 35 Celsius and annual maximum daily precipitation because of the interpolation processes in the BCSD method. Each model projected different responses in near future climate because of structural differences. The most of CMIP5 37 models show qualitatively consistent increase of average and extreme temperature and precipitation. The added values of statistical/dynamical downscaling methods are also investigated for locally forced nonlinear phenomena, extreme events.

Regional analysis of ground and above-ground climate. Part I. Regional suitability of earth-tempering practices: summary and conclusions. Part II. Bioclimatic data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Labs, K.

The regional suitability of underground construction as a climate-control technique is discussed with reference to (1) a bioclimatic analysis of long-term weather data for 29 locations in the United States to determine appropriate above-ground climate-control techniques, (2) a data base of synthesized ground temperatures for the coterminous United States, and (3) monthly dewpoint ground temperature comparisons for identifying the relative likelihood of condensation, from one region to another. It is concluded that the suitability of earth tempering as a practice and of specific earth-sheltered design stereotypes varies geographically. While the subsurface almost always provides a thermal advantage on its own terms when compared to above-ground climatic data, it can, nonetheless, compromise the effectiveness of other, regionally more important climate-control techniques. Also contained in the report are reviews of above- and below-ground climate mapping schemes related to human comfort and architectural design, and a detailed description of a theoretical model of ground temperature, heat flow, and heat storage in the ground. Strategies of passive climate control are presented in a discussion of the building bioclimatic analysis procedure which has been applied in a computer analysis of 30 years of weather data for each of 29 locations in the United States. 3 references, 12 figures, 14 tables.

The WASCAL high-resolution regional climate simulation ensemble for West Africa: concept, dissemination and assessment

Science.gov (United States)

Heinzeller, Dominikus; Dieng, Diarra; Smiatek, Gerhard; Olusegun, Christiana; Klein, Cornelia; Hamann, Ilse; Salack, Seyni; Bliefernicht, Jan; Kunstmann, Harald

2018-04-01

Climate change and constant population growth pose severe challenges to 21st century rural Africa. Within the framework of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), an ensemble of high-resolution regional climate change scenarios for the greater West African region is provided to support the development of effective adaptation and mitigation measures. This contribution presents the overall concept of the WASCAL regional climate simulations, as well as detailed information on the experimental design, and provides information on the format and dissemination of the available data. All data are made available to the public at the CERA long-term archive of the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ) with a subset available at the PANGAEA Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science portal (https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.880512" target="_blank">https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.880512). A brief assessment of the data are presented to provide guidance for future users. Regional climate projections are generated at high (12 km) and intermediate (60 km) resolution using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The simulations cover the validation period 1980-2010 and the two future periods 2020-2050 and 2070-2100. A brief comparison to observations and two climate change scenarios from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) initiative is presented to provide guidance on the data set to future users and to assess their climate change signal. Under the RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5) scenario, the results suggest an increase in temperature by 1.5 °C at the coast of Guinea and by up to 3 °C in the northern Sahel by the end of the 21st century, in line with existing climate projections for the region. They also project an increase in precipitation by up to 300 mm per year along the coast of Guinea, by up to 150 mm per year in the Soudano region adjacent in the north and

Assessing Climate Vulnerabilities of Food Distribution Center Sites in Greater Boston and Their Regional Implications: Climate Adaptation Planning in Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Teferra, A.; Watson, C.; Douglas, E. M.

2016-12-01

The Metro Boston region, an area whose civic leaders have been at the forefront of climate resilience initiatives in recent years, is finalizing a flood vulnerability assessment of food distribution center sites located north of Boston, with the support of the University of Massachusetts Boston and the American Geophysical Union's Thriving Earth Exchange program. The community-scientist collaboration emerged because of the need for more local analyses of the area to inform climate resiliency policy and planning actions for the region. A significant amount of the metro region's food supply passes through two major distribution centers in the cities of Everett and Chelsea, just north of the Mystic River. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), on behalf of the Metro Boston Climate Preparedness Taskforce, is working with Chris Watson and Ellen Douglas of UMass Boston to build on existing analyses of the region's food system and climate vulnerabilities and to develop a report identifying flood risk exposure to the sites. The analysis brings in dynamic modeling techniques that incorporate storm surge and sea level rise projections under different climate scenarios, and aims to align methodologies with those of other regional analyses, such as Climate Ready Boston and the City of Cambridge's Vulnerability Assessment. The study is helping to inform MAPC's and the Metro Boston Climate Preparedness Taskforce's understanding of this critical food distribution infrastructure, illustrate the larger regional implications of climate impacts on food distribution in the Greater Boston area, and guide the development of site-specific strategies for addressing identified vulnerabilities.

Assessing the impact of climatic change in cold regions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parry, M L; Carter, T R [eds.

1984-01-01

The report describes the use of models to predict the consequences of global warming in particular (cold) regions. The workshop focused on two related issues: (a) the current sensitivity of ecosystems and farming systems to climatic variability, and (b) the range of impacts likely for certain changes of climate. This report addresses four broad themes: (1) the nature of the research problem; (2) methods of evaluating sensitivity to climatic variability; (3) methods of measuring the impact of climate change; and (4) how these methods might be refined. (ACR)

The regional impacts of climate change: an assessment of vulnerability

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Zinyowera, Marufu C; Moss, Richard H; Watson, R. T

1998-01-01

.... The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability reviews state-of-the-art information on potential impacts of climate change for ecological systems, water supply, food production, coastal infrastructure, human health...

Impact of climate change on food security in southwest coastal region of bangladesh

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Islam, S.; Rahman, A.

2014-01-01

This paper examines the impact of climate change on food security of the population residing in the coastal area of Bangladesh. Based on multistage random sampling technique, a survey was conducted to collect socioeconomic and food datasets of the people affected by extreme climate events in the country. The study found that climate change caused food insecurity in the region; it led to greater dependence on pond and rain water for cooking food and water intake. Catastrophe due to extreme weather events adversely affected the livelihoods and level of income. The severe cyclonic storms, Sidr (November 2007) and Alia (May 2009) severely affected the vulnerable people of this region, especially the extremely poor. The study came out with several coping strategies to address adverse effects of climate change, including rehabilitation with income and employment generating activities and development training; alternative livelihood adaptation practices; access to subsidized inputs and credits; introduction of crop calendar; conservation of arable and fellow land; and innovation of saline-tolerant, heat-resistant, moderate water consuming and short-rotation crops for the coastal people. (author)

MIDWESTERN REGIONAL CENTER OF THE DOE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATIC CHANGE RESEARCH

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Burton, Andrew J. [Michigan Technological University

2014-02-28

The goal of NICCR (National Institute for Climatic Change Research) was to mobilize university researchers, from all regions of the country, in support of the climatic change research objectives of DOE/BER. The NICCR Midwestern Regional Center (MRC) supported work in the following states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. The MRC of NICCR was able to support nearly $8 million in climatic change research, including $6,671,303 for twenty projects solicited and selected by the MRC over five requests for proposals (RFPs) and $1,051,666 for the final year of ten projects from the discontinued DOE NIGEC (National Institute for Global Environmental Change) program. The projects selected and funded by the MRC resulted in 135 peer-reviewed publications and supported the training of 25 PhD students and 23 Masters students. Another 36 publications were generated by the final year of continuing NIGEC projects supported by the MRC. The projects funded by the MRC used a variety of approaches to answer questions relevant to the DOE’s climate change research program. These included experiments that manipulated temperature, moisture and other global change factors; studies that sought to understand how the distribution of species and ecosystems might change under future climates; studies that used measurements and modeling to examine current ecosystem fluxes of energy and mass and those that would exist under future conditions; and studies that synthesized existing data sets to improve our understanding of the effects of climatic change on terrestrial ecosystems. In all of these efforts, the MRC specifically sought to identify and quantify responses of terrestrial ecosystems that were not well understood or not well modeled by current efforts. The MRC also sought to better understand and model important feedbacks between terrestrial ecosystems, atmospheric chemistry, and regional

Climate change impacts utilizing regional models for agriculture, hydrology and natural ecosystems

Science.gov (United States)

Kafatos, M.; Asrar, G. R.; El-Askary, H. M.; Hatzopoulos, N.; Kim, J.; Kim, S.; Medvigy, D.; Prasad, A. K.; Smith, E.; Stack, D. H.; Tremback, C.; Walko, R. L.

2012-12-01

Climate change impacts the entire Earth but with crucial and often catastrophic impacts at local and regional levels. Extreme phenomena such as fires, dust storms, droughts and other natural hazards present immediate risks and challenges. Such phenomena will become more extreme as climate change and anthropogenic activities accelerate in the future. We describe a major project funded by NIFA (Grant # 2011-67004-30224), under the joint NSF-DOE-USDA Earth System Models (EaSM) program, to investigate the impacts of climate variability and change on the agricultural and natural (i.e. rangeland) ecosystems in the Southwest USA using a combination of historical and present observations together with climate, and ecosystem models, both in hind-cast and forecast modes. The applicability of the methodology to other regions is relevant (for similar geographic regions as well as other parts of the world with different agriculture and ecosystems) and should advance the state of knowledge for regional impacts of climate change. A combination of multi-model global climate projections from the decadal predictability simulations, to downscale dynamically these projections using three regional climate models, combined with remote sensing MODIS and other data, in order to obtain high-resolution climate data that can be used with hydrological and ecosystem models for impacts analysis, is described in this presentation. Such analysis is needed to assess the future risks and potential impacts of projected changes on these natural and managed ecosystems. The results from our analysis can be used by scientists to assist extended communities to determine agricultural coping strategies, and is, therefore, of interest to wide communities of stakeholders. In future work we will be including surface hydrologic modeling and water resources, extend modeling to higher resolutions and include significantly more crops and geographical regions with different weather and climate conditions

Aerosols: connection between regional climatic change and air quality (Iupac Technical Report)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Slanina, J.; Zhang, Y.H.

2004-01-01

yAerosols play an important role in all problems connected with air pollution, ranging from very local effects and human health problems to regional problems such as acid deposition and eutrophication up to continental and global questions such as stratospheric ozone loss and climatic change. In

Regional projection of climate impact indices over the Mediterranean region

Science.gov (United States)

Casanueva, Ana; Frías, M.; Dolores; Herrera, Sixto; Bedia, Joaquín; San Martín, Daniel; Gutiérrez, José Manuel; Zaninovic, Ksenija

2014-05-01

Climate Impact Indices (CIIs) are being increasingly used in different socioeconomic sectors to transfer information about climate change impacts and risks to stakeholders. CIIs are typically based on different weather variables such as temperature, wind speed, precipitation or humidity and comprise, in a single index, the relevant meteorological information for the particular impact sector (in this study wildfires and tourism). This dependence on several climate variables poses important limitations to the application of statistical downscaling techniques, since physical consistency among variables is required in most cases to obtain reliable local projections. The present study assesses the suitability of the "direct" downscaling approach, in which the downscaling method is directly applied to the CII. In particular, for illustrative purposes, we consider two popular indices used in the wildfire and tourism sectors, the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), respectively. As an example, two case studies are analysed over two representative Mediterranean regions of interest for the EU CLIM-RUN project: continental Spain for the FWI and Croatia for the PET. Results obtained with this "direct" downscaling approach are similar to those found from the application of the statistical downscaling to the individual meteorological drivers prior to the index calculation ("component" downscaling) thus, a wider range of statistical downscaling methods could be used. As an illustration, future changes in both indices are projected by applying two direct statistical downscaling methods, analogs and linear regression, to the ECHAM5 model. Larger differences were found between the two direct statistical downscaling approaches than between the direct and the component approaches with a single downscaling method. While these examples focus on particular indices and Mediterranean regions of interest for CLIM-RUN stakeholders, the same study

Regional air quality management aspects of climate change: impact of climate mitigation options on regional air emissions.

Science.gov (United States)

Rudokas, Jason; Miller, Paul J; Trail, Marcus A; Russell, Armistead G

2015-04-21

We investigate the projected impact of six climate mitigation scenarios on U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOX) associated with energy use in major sectors of the U.S. economy (commercial, residential, industrial, electricity generation, and transportation). We use the EPA U.S. 9-region national database with the MARKet Allocation energy system model to project emissions changes over the 2005 to 2050 time frame. The modeled scenarios are two carbon tax, two low carbon transportation, and two biomass fuel choice scenarios. In the lower carbon tax and both biomass fuel choice scenarios, SO2 and NOX achieve reductions largely through pre-existing rules and policies, with only relatively modest additional changes occurring from the climate mitigation measures. The higher carbon tax scenario projects greater declines in CO2 and SO2 relative to the 2050 reference case, but electricity sector NOX increases. This is a result of reduced investments in power plant NOX controls in earlier years in anticipation of accelerated coal power plant retirements, energy penalties associated with carbon capture systems, and shifting of NOX emissions in later years from power plants subject to a regional NOX cap to those in regions not subject to the cap.

Adaptation to Climate Change in Panchase Mountain Ecological Regions of Nepal

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shankar Adhikari

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Rural mountain communities in developing countries are considered particularly vulnerable to environmental change, including climate change. Forests and agriculture provide numerous ecosystem goods and services (EGS to local communities and can help people adapt to the impacts of climate change. There is however poor documentation on the role of EGS in people’s livelihood and adaptation practices. This study in the rural Panchase Mountain Ecological Region of Nepal identifies practices being used to adapt to a changing environment through key informant interviews and focus group discussions. At the household level, livelihood diversification, changes in cropping patterns and farming practices, use of multipurpose plant species and income-generation activities were identified as adaptation strategies. Among major strategies at the community level were community forestry-based climate adaptation plans of action for forest and water resource management. Landscape-level adaptation strategies were large-scale collaborative projects and programs, such as Ecosystem-based Adaptation and Chitwan Annapurna Landscape conservation; which had implications at both the local and landscape-level. A proper blending and integration of adaptation strategies from individual households through to the community and to the landscape level is needed for implementing effective adaptation in the region.

Influences of Regional Climate Change on Air Quality Across the Continental U.S. Projected from Downscaling IPCC AR5 Simulations. Chapter 2

Science.gov (United States)

Nolte, Christopher; Otte, Tanya; Pinder, Robert; Bowden, J.; Herwehe, J.; Faluvegi, Gregory; Shindell, Drew

2013-01-01

Projecting climate change scenarios to local scales is important for understanding, mitigating, and adapting to the effects of climate change on society and the environment. Many of the global climate models (GCMs) that are participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) do not fully resolve regional-scale processes and therefore cannot capture regional-scale changes in temperatures and precipitation. We use a regional climate model (RCM) to dynamically downscale the GCM's large-scale signal to investigate the changes in regional and local extremes of temperature and precipitation that may result from a changing climate. In this paper, we show preliminary results from downscaling the NASA/GISS ModelE IPCC AR5 Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 6.0 scenario. We use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model as the RCM to downscale decadal time slices (1995-2005 and 2025-2035) and illustrate potential changes in regional climate for the continental U.S. that are projected by ModelE and WRF under RCP6.0. The regional climate change scenario is further processed using the Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling system to explore influences of regional climate change on air quality.

The changing effects of Alaska’s boreal forests on the climate system

Science.gov (United States)

Euskirchen, E.S.; McGuire, A. David; Chapin, F.S.; Rupp, T.S.

2010-01-01

In the boreal forests of Alaska, recent changes in climate have influenced the exchange of trace gases, water, and energy between these forests and the atmosphere. These changes in the structure and function of boreal forests can then feed back to impact regional and global climates. In this manuscript, we examine the type and magnitude of the climate feedbacks from boreal forests in Alaska. Research generally suggests that the net effect of a warming climate is a positive regional feedback to warming. Currently, the primary positive climate feedbacks are likely related to decreases in surface albedo due to decreases in snow cover. Fewer negative feedbacks have been identified, and they may not be large enough to counterbalance the large positive feedbacks. These positive feedbacks are most pronounced at the regional scale and reduce the resilience of the boreal vegetation – climate system by amplifying the rate of regional warming. Given the recent warming in this region, the large variety of associated mechanisms that can alter terrestrial ecosystems and influence the climate system, and a reduction in the boreal forest resilience, there is a strong need to continue to quantify and evaluate the feedback pathways.

Quantitative Holocene climatic reconstructions for the lower Yangtze region of China

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jianyong; Dodson, John; Yan, Hong; Wang, Weiming; Innes, James B.; Zong, Yongqiang; Zhang, Xiaojian; Xu, Qinghai; Ni, Jian; Lu, Fengyan

2018-02-01

Quantitative proxy-based and high-resolution palaeoclimatic datasets are scarce for the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (LYR) basin. This region is in a transitional vegetation zone which is climatologically sensitive; and as a birthplace for prehistorical civilization in China, it is important to understand how palaeoclimatic dynamics played a role in affecting cultural development in the region. We present a pollen-based and regionally-averaged Holocene climatic twin-dataset for mean total annual precipitation (PANN) and mean annual temperature (TANN) covering the last 10,000 years for the LYR region. This is based on the technique of weighted averaging-partial least squares regression to establish robust calibration models for obtaining reliable climatic inferences. The pollen-based reconstructions generally show an early Holocene climatic optimum with both abundant monsoonal rainfall and warm thermal conditions, and a declining pattern of both PANN and TANN values in the middle to late Holocene. The main driving forces behind the Holocene climatic changes in the LYR area are likely summer solar insolation associated with tropical or subtropical macro-scale climatic circulations such as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH), and El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Regional multi-proxy comparisons indicate that the Holocene variations in precipitation and temperature for the LYR region display an in-phase relationship with other related proxy records from southern monsoonal China and the Indian monsoon-influenced regions, but are inconsistent with the Holocene moisture or temperature records from northern monsoonal China and the westerly-dominated region in northwestern China. Overall, our comprehensive palaeoclimatic dataset and models may be significant tools for understanding the Holocene Asian monsoonal evolution and for anticipating its future dynamics in eastern Asia.

Regional adaptation strategies to climate change: Guidelines for urban planning in Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maruna Marija

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The problems of climate change significantly alter the character of urban planning. While changes in the planning process are aimed at mechanisms for urgent action in the transformed circumstances in the sense of a deeper understanding of the causes of phenomena and prediction of future changes, modification of specific measures suppose to be related to the regulatory framework for new and existing construction that will lead to reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and the development of resistance to settlements' extreme impacts. The focus has shifted to land-use planning and the development and application of building regulations. It is considered that planning at the local level is an appropriate instrument for solving the problem of climate impacts in the community. In general, urban planning is an instrument of implementation of national strategies for mitigation and adaptation at the local level. Successful implementation of the strategy is based on a developed vertical and horizontal institutional and procedural coordination. In the circumstances of specific context of post-socialist urban restructuring, which is characterized by a lack of developed institutions and appropriate procedures, it is difficult to expect the entire application of prescribed procedures and harmonization of vertical and horizontal spatial development policies. Accordingly, it is recommended that policies be aimed at short-term improvements that are based on existing climate risk management and short-term projections of climate impacts. Among the main recommendations of the regional climate change adaptation strategies related to policy-makers in the field of urban development is to establish new and efficient use of existing legislation in the field of environment and planning. It is believed that most countries in the region have adequate legislation and efforts should be directed towards more effective implementation of existing planning and building

ADAPTIVE CAPACITIES OF FARMERS TO CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON RICE PRODUCTION IN THE NORTHERN REGION OF GHANA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Franklin Nantui Mabe

2012-11-01

Full Text Available This study estimated the adaptive capacities of farmers to climate change adaptation strategies and their effects on rice production in the Northern Region of Ghana. The adaptive capacities of rice farmers were estimated quantitatively and categorized into high, moderate and low adaptive capacities. Double logarithmic regression model of Cobb-Douglas production function was used to quantity the effects of adaptive capacities of farmers on rice production. On the average, the farmers interviewed are moderately adaptive to climate change. Also, high adaptive farmers obtain nine more bags of 50 kg bag of paddy rice than farmers with low adaptive capacities. Therefore, the more a farmer has the ability to adjust to climate change, the more the number of bags of rice he or she obtains. Rice farmers should be empowered through better extension services in order to attain high adaptive capacity status so as to help them obtain more rice output.

Assessing climate change over the Marche Region (central Italy) from 1951 to 2050: toward an integrated strategy for climate impacts reduction

Science.gov (United States)

Sangelantoni, Lorenzo; Russo, Aniello; Marincioni, Fausto; Appiotti, Federica

2013-04-01

both wet and dry extremes. Such changes could alter the Region's hydro-geologic processes leading to increased intensity and frequency of landslide and flood hazards. These trends, considering the geomorphologic, social and economic characteristics of the Marche Region, suggest severe physical impacts scenario over the mountains band with subsequent socio-economic effects on hilly and coastal areas. Greater dry conditions are expected all over the Region, causing soil degradation and reducing river solid transport. In turn, this will impact agriculture productivity and natural beach nourishment likely causing a decline in beach tourism. On the other hand increased flood frequency would impact the several urban and economic settlements located on floodplains. Once these scenarios will be better defined, the next step could be mapping the vulnerability conditions within the Marche Region, thus highlighting exposure and resilience of infrastructures and population. Better knowledge of climate hazards and risks would support decision makers and legislators to implement, in the short terms, policies for the long term reduction of climate impacts in the Marche Region.

Criteria for selecting a CO2/climate change region of study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cushman, R.; Easterling, W.; Rosenberg, N.; Malone, T.; Edmonds, J.; Scott, M.; Stoke, G.

1989-01-01

This effort has three near-term goals: (1) to develop robust methods of analysis including the analysis of uncertainty; (2) to develop information systems to support CO 2 /climate change analysis; and (3) to develop channels of communication among researchers and between researchers and parties potentially affected by CO 2 /climate change. Initially, the program will focus on a single region of the United States, employ a historical analog climate, and analyze the interactions of all of the resources resident within that region as they might evolve under current conditions and under evolving CO 2 /climate change over the next 50 years. Five elements of the program will address the issues of: Analysis, Information Systems, Uncertainty, Knowledge Transfer, and Coordination. This paper will give special attention to the analytical framework and in particular to the criteria for selecting a region for study. 19 refs., 2 figs

Modeling climate change impacts on overwintering of Spodoptera exigua Hübner in regions of China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xia-Lin Zheng

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Inferential models are usually used to evaluate the effect of winter warming on range expansion of insects. Generally, correlative approaches used to predict changes in the distributions of organisms are based on the assumption that climatic boundaries are fixed. Spodoptera exigua Htibner (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae overwinters as larvae or pupae in China regions. To understand the climate change impacts on overwintering of this species in regions of China, CLIMEX and Arc-GIS models were used to predict possible changes of distribution based on temperature. The climate change projection clearly indicated that the northern boundary of overwintering for S. exigua will shift northward from current distribution. Thus, the ongoing winter warming is likely to increase the frequency of S. exigua outbreaks.

Readying Health Services for Climate Change: A Policy Framework for Regional Development

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Climate change presents the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. However, many public health leaders feel ill equipped to face the challenges of climate change and have been unable to make climate change a priority in service development. I explore how to achieve a regionally responsive whole-of-systems approach to climate change in the key operational areas of a health service: service governance and culture, service delivery, workforce development, asset management, and financing. The relative neglect of implementation science means that policymakers need to be proactive about sourcing and developing models and processes to make health services ready for climate change. Health research funding agencies should urgently prioritize applied, regionally responsive health services research for a future of climate change. PMID:21421953

Readying health services for climate change: a policy framework for regional development.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, Erica

2011-05-01

Climate change presents the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century. However, many public health leaders feel ill equipped to face the challenges of climate change and have been unable to make climate change a priority in service development. I explore how to achieve a regionally responsive whole-of-systems approach to climate change in the key operational areas of a health service: service governance and culture, service delivery, workforce development, asset management, and financing. The relative neglect of implementation science means that policymakers need to be proactive about sourcing and developing models and processes to make health services ready for climate change. Health research funding agencies should urgently prioritize applied, regionally responsive health services research for a future of climate change.

Holocene climatic fluctuations and periodic changes in the Asian southwest monsoon region

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Wenxiang; Niu, Jie; Ming, Qingzhong; Shi, Zhengtao; Lei, Guoliang; Huang, Linpei; Long, Xian'e.; Chang, Fengqin

2018-05-01

Climatic changes in the Asian southwest monsoon (ASWM) during the Holocene have become a topic of recent studies. It is important to understand the patterns and causes of Holocene climatic changes and their relationship with global changes. Based on the climate proxies and wavelet analysis of Lugu Lake in the ASWM region, the climatic fluctuations and periodic changes in the ASWM region during the Holocene have been reconstructed with a high-precision chronology. The results indicate the intensification of ASWM began to increase with Northern Hemisphere low-latitude solar insolation (LSI) and solar activity during the early Holocene, and gradually decreased during the late Holocene, exhibiting an apparent synchrony with numerous records of ASWM region. Meanwhile, an apparent 1000-a quasi-periodic signal is present in the environment proxies, and it demonstrates that the environmental change in the ASWM region has been driven mainly by LSI and solar activity.

Hydro-climatic trends and water resource management implications based on multi-scale data for the Lake Victoria region, Kenya

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koutsouris, A J; Destouni, G; Jarsjoe, J; Lyon, S W

2010-01-01

Unreliable rainfall may be a main cause of poverty in rural areas, such as the Kisumu district by Lake Victoria in Kenya. Climate change may further increase the negative effects of rainfall uncertainty. These effects could be mitigated to some extent through improved and adaptive water resource management and planning, which relies on our interpretations and projections of the coupled hydro-climatic system behaviour and its development trends. In order to identify and quantify the main differences and consistencies among such hydro-climatic assessments, this study investigates trends and exemplifies their use for important water management decisions for the Lake Victoria drainage basin (LVDB), based on local scale data for the Orongo village in the Kisumu district, and regional scale data for the whole LVDB. Results show low correlation between locally and regionally observed hydro-climatic trends, and large differences, which in turn affects assessments of important water resource management parameters. However, both data scales converge in indicating that observed local and regional hydrological discharge trends are primarily driven by local and regional water use and land use changes.

A Systematic Exploration of the Local and Remote Climate Effects of Anthropogenic Aerosol Emissions from Key Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Voulgarakis, A.; Kasoar, M.; Shawki, D.; Lamarque, J. F.; Shindell, D. T.; Faluvegi, G.; Bellouin, N.; Collins, W.; Tsigaridis, K.

2016-12-01

The radiative forcing of short-lived pollutants such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone is highly inhomogeneous and can therefore affect regional temperature, circulation and precipitation in a much more complicated way than the forcing of well-mixed greenhouse gases. Such effects have only recently started to be examined thoroughly and systematically from a global point of view, to understand regional interactions. Here, after outlining some key past work in this area, results from recent simulations with the UK Met Office's HadGEM3 global composition-climate model will be presented in which anthropogenic emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and black carbon in key regions (East Asia, South Asia, Europe, the US, and the northern mid-latitudes as a whole) have been removed. The linkages between emissions, concentrations, radiative forcing, temperature and precipitation responses will be discussed. A particular emphasis will be placed on non-local effects, i.e. how emissions over a certain region can affect other areas remotely. Finally, we will contrast our results with those from similar experiments pursued using the NASA GISS-E2 and the NCAR CESM1 models for US and East Asian SO2 emissions, and will discuss the large differences in the models' behaviour.

The greenhouse effect and natural fluctuations of the climate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schoenwiese, C.D.

1993-01-01

There is a straight line connecting the first estimate in 1896 of worldwide climate changes due to the increasing use of fossil sources of energy with the Climate Convention of the United Nations at the 1992 Environmental Summit. Extensive model calculations exist of the 'greenhouse effect', in which the lower atmosphere is heated by manmade emissions of trace gases affecting the climate. However, the anticipated changes are not restricted to the temperature of the air; they affect the climate as a whole worldwide. As a consequence, the German Federal Government, in addition to its ban on CFCs, plans to reduce manmade carbon dioxide emissions by 25 or 30% by 2005. Natural fluctuations of the climate compete with the greenhouse effect: Volcanic and solar effects, but also random variations within the complicated interactions in the climatic system (atmosphere - oceans - ice regions - biosphere - land surface). Mathematical and statistical analyses of the superposition of such climatic mechanisms, which are based on data from observations, result in a risk analysis at a high level of probability. (orig.) [de

Influences of subtropical jet and Tibetan Plateau on precipitation pattern in Asia : Insights from regional climate modeling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sato, Tomonori

2009-01-01

Large topographic features, like the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and the Rocky Mountains, have significant impacts on Earth's climate. Numerical experiments were carried out using a regional climate model in order to study the sensitivity of rainfall distribution to the TP's thermal/dynamic effects and

Climate Change Impacts on Sediment Yield in Headwaters of a High-latitude Region in China

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Y.; Xu, Y. J.; Wang, J., , Dr; Weihua, X.; Huang, Y.

2017-12-01

Climate change is expected to have strongest effects in higher latitude regions. Despite intensive research on possible hydrological responses to global warming in these regions, our knowledge of climate change on surface erosion and sediment yield in high-latitude headwaters is limited. In this study, we used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to predict future runoff and sediment yield from the headwaters of a high-latitude river basin in China's far northeast. The SWAT model was first calibrated with historical discharge records and the model parameterization achieved satisfactory validation. The calibrated model was then applied to two greenhouse gas concentration trajectories, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, for the period from 2020 to 2050 to estimate future runoff. Sediment yields for this period were predicted using a discharge-sediment load rating curve developed from field measurements in the past nine years. Our preliminary results show an increasing trend of sediment yield under both climate change scenarios, and that the increase is more pronounced in the summer and autumn months. Changes in precipitation and temperature seem to exert variable impacts on runoff and sediment yield at interannual and seasonal scales in these headwaters. These findings imply that the current river basin management in the region needs to be reviewed and improved in order to be effective under a changing climate.

Ensemble of regional climate model projections for Ireland

Science.gov (United States)

Nolan, Paul; McGrath, Ray

2016-04-01

The method of Regional Climate Modelling (RCM) was employed to assess the impacts of a warming climate on the mid-21st-century climate of Ireland. The RCM simulations were run at high spatial resolution, up to 4 km, thus allowing a better evaluation of the local effects of climate change. Simulations were run for a reference period 1981-2000 and future period 2041-2060. Differences between the two periods provide a measure of climate change. To address the issue of uncertainty, a multi-model ensemble approach was employed. Specifically, the future climate of Ireland was simulated using three different RCMs, driven by four Global Climate Models (GCMs). To account for the uncertainty in future emissions, a number of SRES (B1, A1B, A2) and RCP (4.5, 8.5) emission scenarios were used to simulate the future climate. Through the ensemble approach, the uncertainty in the RCM projections can be partially quantified, thus providing a measure of confidence in the predictions. In addition, likelihood values can be assigned to the projections. The RCMs used in this work are the COnsortium for Small-scale MOdeling-Climate Limited-area Modelling (COSMO-CLM, versions 3 and 4) model and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The GCMs used are the Max Planck Institute's ECHAM5, the UK Met Office's HadGEM2-ES, the CGCM3.1 model from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and the EC-Earth consortium GCM. The projections for mid-century indicate an increase of 1-1.6°C in mean annual temperatures, with the largest increases seen in the east of the country. Warming is enhanced for the extremes (i.e. hot or cold days), with the warmest 5% of daily maximum summer temperatures projected to increase by 0.7-2.6°C. The coldest 5% of night-time temperatures in winter are projected to rise by 1.1-3.1°C. Averaged over the whole country, the number of frost days is projected to decrease by over 50%. The projections indicate an average increase in the length of the growing season

Regional and historical factors supplement current climate in shaping global forest canopy height

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Jian; Nielsen, Scott; Mao, Lingfeng

2016-01-01

on Light Detection and Ranging-derived maximum forest canopy height (Hmax) to test hypotheses relating Hmax to current climate (water availability, ambient energy and water–energy dynamics), regional evolutionary and biogeographic history, historical climate change, and human disturbance. We derived Hmax...... biogeographic regions, supporting the role of regional evolutionary and biogeographic history in structuring broad-scale patterns in canopy height. Furthermore, there were divergent relationships between climate and Hmax between the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, consistent with historical evolutionary...... contingencies modulating these relationships. Historical climate change was also related to Hmax, albeit not as strongly, with shorter canopy heights where late-Quaternary climate has been less stable. In contrast, human disturbance was only weakly related to Hmax at the scale (55 km) examined here. Synthesis...

Ocean climate indicators: A monitoring inventory and plan for tracking climate change in the north-central California coast and ocean region

Science.gov (United States)

Duncan, Benet; Higgason, Kelley; Suchanek, Tom; Largier, John; Stachowicz, Jay; Allen, Sarah; Bograd, Steven; Breen, R.; Gellerman, Holly; Hill, Tessa; Jahncke, Jaime; Johnson, Rebecca L.; Lonhart, Steve I.; Morgan, Steven; Wilkerson, Frances; Roletto, Jan

2013-01-01

The impacts of climate change, defined as increasing atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide and associated increases in average global temperature and oceanic acidity, have been observed both globally and on regional scales, such as in the North-central California coast and ocean, a region that extends from Point Arena to Point Año Nuevo and includes the Pacific coastline of the San Francisco Bay Area. Because of the high economic and ecological value of the region’s marine environment, the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary (GFNMS) and other agencies and organizations have recognized the need to evaluate and plan for climate change impacts. Climate change indicators can be developed on global, regional, and site-specific spatial scales, and they provide information about the presence and potential impacts of climate change. While indicators exist for the nation and for the state of California as a whole, no system of ocean climate indicators exist that specifically consider the unique characteristics of the California coast and ocean region. To that end, GFNMS collaborated with over 50 regional, federal, and state natural resource managers, research scientists, and other partners to develop a set of 2 ocean climate indicators specific to this region. A smaller working group of 13 regional partners developed monitoring goals, objectives, strategies, and activities for the indicators and recommended selected species for biological indicators, resulting in the Ocean Climate Indicators Monitoring Inventory and Plan. The working group considered current knowledge of ongoing monitoring, feasibility of monitoring, costs, and logistics in selecting monitoring activities and selected species.

Expanded spatial extent of the Medieval Climate Anomaly revealed in lake-sediment records across the boreal region in northwest Ontario.

Science.gov (United States)

Laird, Kathleen R; Haig, Heather A; Ma, Susan; Kingsbury, Melanie V; Brown, Thomas A; Lewis, C F Michael; Oglesby, Robert J; Cumming, Brian F

2012-09-01

Multi-decadal to centennial-scale shifts in effective moisture over the past two millennia are inferred from sedimentary records from six lakes spanning a ~250 km region in northwest Ontario. This is the first regional application of a technique developed to reconstruct drought from drainage lakes (open lakes with surface outlets). This regional network of proxy drought records is based on individual within-lake calibration models developed using diatom assemblages collected from surface sediments across a water-depth gradient. Analysis of diatom assemblages from sediment cores collected close to the near-shore ecological boundary between benthic and planktonic diatom taxa indicated this boundary shifted over time in all lakes. These shifts are largely dependent on climate-driven influences, and can provide a sensitive record of past drought. Our lake-sediment records indicate two periods of synchronous signals, suggesting a common large-scale climate forcing. The first is a period of prolonged aridity during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, c. 900-1400 CE). Documentation of aridity across this region expands the known spatial extent of the MCA megadrought into a region that historically has not experienced extreme droughts such as those in central and western north America. The second synchronous period is the recent signal of the past ~100 years, which indicates a change to higher effective moisture that may be related to anthropogenic forcing on climate. This approach has the potential to fill regional gaps, where many previous paleo-lake depth methods (based on deeper centrally located cores) were relatively insensitive. By filling regional gaps, a better understanding of past spatial patterns in drought can be used to assess the sensitivity and realism of climate model projections of future climate change. This type of data is especially important for validating high spatial resolution, regional climate models. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A synthesis of regional climate change simulations - A Scandinavian perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, J. H.; Räinsänen, J.; Iversen, T.

2001-01-01

Four downscaling experiments of regional climate change for the Nordic countries have been conducted with three different regional climate models (RCMs). A short synthesis of the outcome of the suite of experiments is presented as an ensemble, reflecting the different driving atmosphere-ocean...... general circulation model (AOGCM) conditions, RCM model resolution and domain size, and choice of emission scenarios. This allows the sources of uncertainties in the projections to be assessed. At the same time analysis of the climate change signal for temperature and precipitation over the period 1990......-2050 reveals strong similarities. In particular, all experiments in the suite simulate changes in the precipitation distribution towards a higher frequency of heavy precipitation....

Climatic Cycles and Gradients of the El Niño Core Region in North Peru

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rütger Rollenbeck

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Climatic processes in northern Peru are evaluated on surface observation independent of modelling studies. The region is characterized by regular oscillations, but episodic El Niño-events introduce strong disturbances. Conceptual models based on observations, remote sensing data, and output of regional climate models are compared with data from a new station network. The results show regular oscillations of all climate variables on the annual and daily time scale. The daily cycle is probably associated with thermotidal forcings, causing gravity waves to emanate from the Andes Cordillera. Main factors are the interaction of large scale pressure systems like the Southeast Pacific High and the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ. Also, there are regional factors: an extended sea-breeze system, the barrier-effect of the Andes, additional energy input by elevated radiation absorption at the mountain slopes, local wind systems, and the variations of the sea surface temperature. At the coast, a low-level jet works as a thermodynamic energy sink, suppressing deep convection and supporting the aridity. Those patterns are found in most of the station data and the processes of this climate can generally be confirmed. The overturning of this stable system with the onset of El Niño-conditions is possibly caused by disruptions of the regional circulation.

The regionalization of climate scenarios: towards impact studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cariolle, D.

1999-01-01

This article describes the different types of climate numerical models and their use to obtain scenarios for climate change due to the greenhouse gas increase. Results from global or meso-scale models are given. They illustrate the existing ways of representing climatic conditions at global and regional scales. Combined with statistical approaches based for example on the techniques of analogues, their use gives a coherent strategy going from global scale numerical simulations to the study of impacts at a local scale. In the future the increase of computer power should allow a better description of the small processes and a wider range of impact studies on natural ecosystems and various economic sectors. The results of these studies will be very useful to define a coherent policy in response to observed or predicted climate changes. (author)

Spatial patterns and recent trends in the climate of tropical rainforest regions.

Science.gov (United States)

Malhi, Yadvinder; Wright, James

2004-03-29

We present an analysis of the mean climate and climatic trends of tropical rainforest regions over the period 1960-1998, with the aid of explicit maps of forest cover and climatological databases. Until the mid-1970s most regions showed little trend in temperature, and the western Amazon experienced a net cooling probably associated with an interdecadal oscillation. Since the mid-1970s, all tropical rainforest regions have experienced a strong warming at a mean rate of 0.26 +/- 0.05 degrees C per decade, in synchrony with a global rise in temperature that has been attributed to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. Over the study period, precipitation appears to have declined in tropical rainforest regions at a rate of 1.0 +/- 0.8% per decade (p Africa (at 3-4% per decade), declining marginally in tropical Asia and showing no significant trend in Amazonia. There is no evidence so far of a decline in precipitation in eastern Amazonia, a region thought vulnerable to climate-change-induced drying. The strong drying trend in Africa suggests that this should be a priority study region for understanding the impact of drought on tropical rainforests. We develop and use a dry-season index to study variations in the length and intensity of the dry season. Only African and Indian tropical rainforests appear to have seen a significant increase in dry-season intensity. In terms of interannual variability, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the primary driver of temperature variations across the tropics and of precipitation fluctuations for large areas of the Americas and southeast Asia. The relation between ENSO and tropical African precipitation appears less direct.

Timeslice experiments for understanding regional climate projections: applications to the tropical hydrological cycle and European winter circulation

Science.gov (United States)

Chadwick, Robin; Douville, Hervé; Skinner, Christopher B.

2017-11-01

A set of atmosphere-only timeslice experiments are described, designed to examine the processes that cause regional climate change and inter-model uncertainty in coupled climate model responses to CO_2 forcing. The timeslice experiments are able to reproduce the pattern of regional climate change in the coupled models, and are applied here to two cases where inter-model uncertainty in future projections is large: the tropical hydrological cycle, and European winter circulation. In tropical forest regions, the plant physiological effect is the largest cause of hydrological cycle change in the two models that represent this process. This suggests that the CMIP5 ensemble mean may be underestimating the magnitude of water cycle change in these regions, due to the inclusion of models without the plant effect. SST pattern change is the dominant cause of precipitation and circulation change over the tropical oceans, and also appears to contribute to inter-model uncertainty in precipitation change over tropical land regions. Over Europe and the North Atlantic, uniform SST increases drive a poleward shift of the storm-track. However this does not consistently translate into an overall polewards storm-track shift, due to large circulation responses to SST pattern change, which varies across the models. Coupled model SST biases influence regional rainfall projections in regions such as the Maritime Continent, and so projections in these regions should be treated with caution.

The WASCAL high-resolution regional climate simulation ensemble for West Africa: concept, dissemination and assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. Heinzeller

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Climate change and constant population growth pose severe challenges to 21st century rural Africa. Within the framework of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL, an ensemble of high-resolution regional climate change scenarios for the greater West African region is provided to support the development of effective adaptation and mitigation measures. This contribution presents the overall concept of the WASCAL regional climate simulations, as well as detailed information on the experimental design, and provides information on the format and dissemination of the available data. All data are made available to the public at the CERA long-term archive of the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ with a subset available at the PANGAEA Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science portal (https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.880512. A brief assessment of the data are presented to provide guidance for future users. Regional climate projections are generated at high (12 km and intermediate (60 km resolution using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF. The simulations cover the validation period 1980–2010 and the two future periods 2020–2050 and 2070–2100. A brief comparison to observations and two climate change scenarios from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX initiative is presented to provide guidance on the data set to future users and to assess their climate change signal. Under the RCP4.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 scenario, the results suggest an increase in temperature by 1.5 °C at the coast of Guinea and by up to 3 °C in the northern Sahel by the end of the 21st century, in line with existing climate projections for the region. They also project an increase in precipitation by up to 300 mm per year along the coast of Guinea, by up to 150 mm per year in the Soudano region adjacent in the north and almost no change in

Effects of climatic factors, drought risk and irrigation requirement on maize yield in the Northeast Farming Region of China

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yin, Xiaogang; Jabloun, Mohamed; Olesen, Jørgen Eivind

2016-01-01

Drought risk is considered to be among the main limiting factors for maize (Zea mays L.) production in the Northeast Farming Region of China (NFR). Maize yield data from 44 stations over the period 1961–2010 were combined with data from weather stations to evaluate the effects of climatic factors...... drought and intense rainfall illustrate the importance of further development of irrigation and drainage systems for ensuring the stability of maize production in NFR....

Southeast Regional Assessment Project for the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Dalton, Melinda S.; Jones, Sonya A.

2010-01-01

Project "Climate Change in the Southeastern U.S. and its Impacts on Bird Distributions and Habitats," (4) a sea-level rise impacts study envisioned jointly with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and (5) two USGS sea-level rise impact assessment projects that address inundation hazards and provide probabilistic forecasts of coastal geomorphic change. The SERAP will expand on these existing projects and include the following tasks, which were initiated in summer 2009: * Regionally downscaled probabilistic climate-change projections * Integrated coastal assessment * Integrated terrestrial assessment * Multi-resolution assessment of potential climate change effects on biological resources: aquatic and hydrologic dynamics * Optimal conservation strategies to cope with climate change The SERAP seeks to formally integrate these tasks to aid conservation planning and design so that ecosystem management decisions can be optimized for providing desirable outcomes across a range of species and environments. The following chapters detail SERAP's efforts in providing a suite of regional climate, watershed, and landscape-change analyses and develop the interdisciplinary framework required for the biological planning phases of adaptive management and strategic conservation. The planning phase will include the identification of conservation alternatives, development of predictive models and decision support tools, and development of a template to address similar challenges and goals in other regions. The project teams will explore and develop ways to link the various ecological models arising from each component. The SERAP project team also will work closely with members of the LCCs and other partnerships throughout the life of the project to ensure that the objectives of the project meet resources mangers needs in the Southeast.

Variability of effects of spatial climate data aggregation on regional yield simulation by crop models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoffmann, H.; Zhao, G.; Bussel, van L.G.J.

2015-01-01

Field-scale crop models are often applied at spatial resolutions coarser than that of the arable field. However, little is known about the response of the models to spatially aggregated climate input data and why these responses can differ across models. Depending on the model, regional yield

Regional climate change scenarios for México

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Conde, C.; Estrada, F.; Martínez-Salvador, Begoña; Sánchez, O.; Gay, C.

In this paper we present the regional climate change scenarios that were used for the assessment of the potential impacts in México on agriculture, livestock, forestry, hydrological resources as well as on human settlements and biodiversity. Those studies were developed for the Fourth Communication

Application of remote sensing for analyzing climatic variation in the boreal and subarctic regions of Canada and for validating the Canadian Regional Climate Model; Application de la teledetection a l'analyse de la variabilite climatique des regions boreales et subarctiques du Canada et a la validation du modele regional canadien du climat

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fillol, E.J.

2003-07-01

This study examined climate variations over the past few decades as well as the tools used to model future climate. The study included an interpretation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR) time series data at the continental spatial scale. Data collected over a period of two decades was used to study and monitor Canada's boreal ecosystem activity and to observe recent climatic change. The study involved the use of classical parameters associated with remote sensing in the visible and thermal infrared spectra for vegetation activity and land-surface temperatures. Problems associated with instrumental drift and inter-satellite adjustment were minimized by choosing indicators for the length of the growing season, annual growing degree-days and ecotone displacement. Climate variations over the past twenty years were compared with daily meteorological data of temperature, precipitation and snow cover. Rapid cycle climatic phenomena such as the El Nino and La Nina appear to have influenced the central region of Canada. The North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation also influenced the climate regime of Canada and annual growing degree-days. Indicators for vegetation activity and land-surface temperature suggest that a North-South disparity exists over Canada. A warming trend with an increased growing season was observed for the region north of the 55 parallel, while southern regions appear to be cooling. This study also used remote sensing to validate the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) through a comparison of ground temperature values modelled by the CRCM with composite satellite temperatures. The results indicate a small under-estimation of the CRCM ground temperature during the summer due to an overestimation of the precipitation rate. It was concluded that climate models such as the CRCM are useful in making reliable predictions of future climate trends.

The regional aerosol-climate model REMO-HAM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J.-P. Pietikäinen

2012-11-01

Full Text Available REMO-HAM is a new regional aerosol-climate model. It is based on the REMO regional climate model and includes most of the major aerosol processes. The structure for aerosol is similar to the global aerosol-climate model ECHAM5-HAM, for example the aerosol module HAM is coupled with a two-moment stratiform cloud scheme. On the other hand, REMO-HAM does not include an online coupled aerosol-radiation nor a secondary organic aerosol module. In this work, we evaluate the model and compare the results against ECHAM5-HAM and measurements. Four different measurement sites were chosen for the comparison of total number concentrations, size distributions and gas phase sulfur dioxide concentrations: Hyytiälä in Finland, Melpitz in Germany, Mace Head in Ireland and Jungfraujoch in Switzerland. REMO-HAM is run with two different resolutions: 50 × 50 km² and 10 × 10 km². Based on our simulations, REMO-HAM is in reasonable agreement with the measured values. The differences in the total number concentrations between REMO-HAM and ECHAM5-HAM can be mainly explained by the difference in the nucleation mode. Since we did not use activation nor kinetic nucleation for the boundary layer, the total number concentrations are somewhat underestimated. From the meteorological point of view, REMO-HAM represents the precipitation fields and 2 m temperature profile very well compared to measurement. Overall, we show that REMO-HAM is a functional aerosol-climate model, which will be used in further studies.

Southwest Regional Climate Hub and California Subsidiary Hub assessment of climate change vulnerability and adaptation and mitigation strategies

Science.gov (United States)

Emile Elias; Caiti Steele; Kris Havstad; Kerri Steenwerth; Jeanne Chambers; Helena Deswood; Amber Kerr; Albert Rango; Mark Schwartz; Peter Stine; Rachel Steele

2015-01-01

This report is a joint effort of the Southwest Regional Climate Hub and the California Subsidiary Hub (Sub Hub). The Southwest Regional Climate Hub covers Arizona, California, Hawai‘i and the U.S. affiliated Pacific Islands, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah and contains vast areas of western rangeland, forests, and high-value specialty crops (Figure 1). The California Sub...

Improved Regional Climate Model Simulation of Precipitation by a Dynamical Coupling to a Hydrology Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Morten Andreas Dahl; Drews, Martin; Hesselbjerg Christensen, Jens

convective precipitation systems. As a result climate model simulations let alone future projections of precipitation often exhibit substantial biases. Here we show that the dynamical coupling of a regional climate model to a detailed fully distributed hydrological model - including groundwater-, overland...... of local precipitation dynamics are seen for time scales of app. Seasonal duration and longer. We show that these results can be attributed to a more complete treatment of land surface feedbacks. The local scale effect on the atmosphere suggests that coupled high-resolution climate-hydrology models...... including a detailed 3D redistribution of sub- and land surface water have a significant potential for improving climate projections even diminishing the need for bias correction in climate-hydrology studies....

Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment: Building a Framework to Track Physical and Social Indicators of Climate Change Across Pacific Islands

Science.gov (United States)

Grecni, Z. N.; Keener, V. W.

2016-12-01

Assessments inform regional and local climate change governance and provide the critical scientific basis for U.S. climate policy. Despite the centrality of scientific information to public discourse and decision making, comprehensive assessments of climate change drivers, impacts, and the vulnerability of human and ecological systems at regional or local scales are often conducted on an ad hoc basis. Methods for sustained assessment and communication of scientific information are diverse and nascent. The Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) is a collaborative effort to assess climate change indicators, impacts, and adaptive capacity of the Hawaiian archipelago and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI). In 2012, PIRCA released the first comprehensive report summarizing the state of scientific knowledge about climate change in the region as a technical input to the U.S. National Climate Assessment. A multi-method evaluation of PIRCA outputs and delivery revealed that the vast majority of key stakeholders view the report as extremely credible and use it as a resource. The current study will present PIRCA's approach to establishing physical and social indicators to track on an ongoing basis, starting with the Republic of the Marshall Islands as an initial location of focus for providing a cross-sectoral indicators framework. Identifying and tracking useful indicators is aimed at sustaining the process of knowledge coproduction with decision makers who seek to better understand the climate variability and change and its impacts on Pacific Island communities.

Rain-season trends in precipitation and their effect in different climate regions of China during 1961-2008

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Song Yanling; Achberger, Christine; Linderholm, Hans W

2011-01-01

Using high-quality precipitation data from 524 stations, the trends of a set of precipitation variables during the main rain season (May-September) from 1961 to 2008 for different climate regions in China were analysed. However, different characteristics were displayed in different regions of China. In most temperate monsoon regions (north-eastern China), total rain-season precipitation and precipitation days showed decreasing trends; positive tendencies in precipitation intensity were, however, noted for most stations in this region. It is suggested that the decrease in rain-season precipitation is mainly related to there being fewer rain days and a change towards drier conditions in north-eastern China, and as a result, the available water resources have been negatively affected in the temperate monsoon regions. In most subtropical and tropical monsoon climate regions (south-eastern China), the rain-season precipitation and precipitation days (11-50, with > 50 mm) showed slightly positive trends. However, precipitation days with ≤ 10 mm decreased in these regions. Changes towards wetter conditions in this area, together with more frequent heavy rainfall events causing floods, have a severe impact on peoples' lives and socio-economic development. In general, the rain-season precipitation, precipitation days and rain-season precipitation intensity had all increased in the temperate continental and plateau/mountain regions of western China. This increase in rain-season precipitation has been favourable to pasture growth.

Is It Possible to Distinguish Global and Regional Climate Change from Urban Land Cover Induced Signals? A Mid-Latitude City Example

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah Wiesner

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The local climate in cities differs from the one in rural areas, most prominently characterized by increased surface and air temperatures, known as the “(surface urban heat island”. As climate has changed and continues to change in all areas of the world, the question arises whether the effects that are noticeable in urban areas are “homemade”, or whether some of them originate from global and regional scale climate changes. Identifying the locally induced changes of urban meteorological parameters is especially relevant for the development of adaptation and mitigation measures. This study aims to distinguish global and regional climate change signals from those induced by urban land cover. Therefore, it provides a compilation of observed and projected climate changes, as well as urban influences on important meteorological parameters. It is concluded that evidence for climate change signals is found predominantly in air temperature. The effect of urban land cover on local climate can be detected for several meteorological parameters, which are air and surface temperature, humidity, and wind. The meteorology of urban areas is a mixture of signals in which the influencing parameters cannot be isolated, but can be assessed qualitatively. Blending interactions between local effects and regional changes are likely to occur.

Climate Change in Alpine Regions - Regional Characteristics of a Global Phenomenon by the Example of Air Temperature

Science.gov (United States)

Lang, Erich; Stary, Ulrike

2017-04-01

For nearly 50 years the Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW) has been engaged in research in the Alpine region recording measuring data at extreme sites. Data series of this duration provide already a good insight into the evolution of climate parameters. Extrapolations derived from it are suitable for comparison with results from climate change models or supplement them with regard to their informative value. This is useful because climate change models describe a simplified picture of reality based on the size of the data grid they use. Analysis of time series of two air temperature measuring stations in different torrent catchment areas indicate that 1) predictions of temperature rise for the Alpine region in Austria will have to be revised upwards, and 2) only looking at the data of seasons (or shorter time periods), reveals the real dramatic effect of climate change. Considering e.g. the annual average data of air temperature of the years 1969-2016 at the climate station "Fleissner" (altitude 1210m a.s.l; Upper Mölltal, Carinthia) a significant upward trend is visible. Using a linear smoothing function an increase of the average annual air temperature of about 2.2°C within 50 years emerges. The calculated temperature rise thus confirms the general fear of an increase of more than 2.0°C till the middle of the 21st century. Looking at the seasonal change of air temperature, significant positive trends are shown in all four seasons. But the level of the respective temperature increase varies considerably and indicates the highest increase in spring (+3.3°C), and the lowest one in autumn (+1.3°C, extrapolated for a time period of 50 years). The maximum increase of air temperature at the measuring station "Pumpenhaus" (altitude 980m a.s.l), which is situated in the "Karnische Alpen" in the south of Austria, is even stronger. From a time series of 28 years (with data recording starting in 1989) the maximum rise of temperature was 5.4°C detected for the

Climate change impacts on water availability: developing regional scenarios for agriculture of the Former Soviet Union countries of Central Asia

Science.gov (United States)

Kirilenko, A.; Dronin, N.

2010-12-01

Water is the major factor, limiting agriculture of the five Former Soviet Union (FSU) of Central Asia. Elevated topography prevents moist and warm air from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans from entering the region.With exception of Kazakhstan, agriculture is generally restricted to oases and irrigated lands along the major rivers and canals. Availability of water for irrigation is the major factor constraining agriculture in the region, and conflicts over water are not infrequent. The current water crisis in the region is largely due to human activity; however the region is also strongly impacted by the climate. In multiple locations, planned and autonomous adaptations to climate change have already resulted in changes in agriculture, such as a dramatic increase in irrigation, or shift in crops towards the ones better suited for warmer and dryer climate; however, it is hard to differentiate between the effects of overall management improvement and the avoidance of climate-related losses. Climate change will contribute to water problems, escalating irrigation demand during the drought period, and increasing water loss with evaporation. The future of the countries of the Aral Sea basin then depends on both the regional scenario of water management policy and a global scenario of climate change, and is integrated with global socioeconomic scenarios. We formulate a set of regional policy scenarios (“Business as Usual”, “Falling Behind” and “Closing the Gap”) and demonstrate how each of them corresponds to IPCC SRES scenarios, the latter used as an input to the General Circulation Models (GCMs). Then we discuss the relative effectiveness of the introduced scenarios for mitigating water problems in the region, taking into account the adaptation through changing water demand for agriculture. Finally, we introduce the results of multimodel analysis of GCM climate projections, especially in relation to the change in precipitation and frequency of droughts, and

Regional effects of vegetation restoration on water yield across the Loess Plateau, China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

X. M. Feng

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The general relationships between vegetation and water yield under different climatic regimes are well established at a small watershed scale in the past century. However, applications of these basic theories to evaluate the regional effects of land cover change on water resources remain challenging due to the complex interactions of vegetation and climatic variability and hydrologic processes at the large scale. The objective of this study was to explore ways to examine the spatial and temporal effects of a large ecological restoration project on water yield across the Loess Plateau region in northern China. We estimated annual water yield as the difference between precipitation input and modelled actual evapotranspiration (ET output. We constructed a monthly ET model using published ET data derived from eddy flux measurements and watershed streamflow data. We validated the ET models at a watershed and regional levels. The model was then applied to examine regional water yield under land cover change and climatic variability during the implementation of the Grain-for-Green (GFG project during 1999–2007. We found that water yield in 38% of the Loess Plateau area might have decreased (1–48 mm per year as a result of land cover change alone. However, combined with climatic variability, 37% of the study area might have seen a decrease in water yield with a range of 1–54 mm per year, and 35% of the study area might have seen an increase with a range of 1–10 mm per year. Across the study region, climate variability masked or strengthened the water yield response to vegetation restoration. The absolute annual water yield change due to vegetation restoration varied with precipitation regimes with the highest in wet years, but the relative water yield changes were most pronounced in dry years. We concluded that the effects of land cover change associated with ecological restoration varied greatly over time and space and were strongly influenced

Climatic change in the Great Plains region of Canada

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rizzo, B.

1991-01-01

Implications of global warming to Canada's Great Plains region are discussed, with reference to the climate predictions of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) general circulation model under a two times atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration scenario. Two sets of climate variables for a geographic area located in the Great Plains are tabulated, for the current (1951-1980) climate normals and under the doubled carbon dioxide scenario. Simple univariate statistics were calculated for the two areas, for the variables of mean annual temperature, mean summer temperature, mean winter temperature, mean July temperature, mean growing season temperature, total annual precipitation, total summer precipitation, total winter precipitation, and total growing season precipitation. Under the GISS scenario, temperature values are on average 4 degree C higher than 1951-1980 normals, while precipitation remains about the same. Locations of ecoclimatic regions are graphed for the whole of Canada. 1 fig., 1 tab

Forcing of a photochemical air quality model with atmospheric fields simulated by a regional climate model

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Naidoo, M

2010-10-01

Full Text Available to the enhanced greenhouse effect (e.g. Engelbrecht et al, 2009). Such changes are likely to influence the future transport and chemistry of air pollutants over the region. The complexity in which climate change may affect regional air quality is evident...

Adapting crop rotations to climate change in regional impact modelling assessments.

Science.gov (United States)

Teixeira, Edmar I; de Ruiter, John; Ausseil, Anne-Gaelle; Daigneault, Adam; Johnstone, Paul; Holmes, Allister; Tait, Andrew; Ewert, Frank

2018-03-01

The environmental and economic sustainability of future cropping systems depends on adaptation to climate change. Adaptation studies commonly rely on agricultural systems models to integrate multiple components of production systems such as crops, weather, soil and farmers' management decisions. Previous adaptation studies have mostly focused on isolated monocultures. However, in many agricultural regions worldwide, multi-crop rotations better represent local production systems. It is unclear how adaptation interventions influence crops grown in sequences. We develop a catchment-scale assessment to investigate the effects of tactical adaptations (choice of genotype and sowing date) on yield and underlying crop-soil factors of rotations. Based on locally surveyed data, a silage-maize followed by catch-crop-wheat rotation was simulated with the APSIM model for the RCP 8.5 emission scenario, two time periods (1985-2004 and 2080-2100) and six climate models across the Kaituna catchment in New Zealand. Results showed that direction and magnitude of climate change impacts, and the response to adaptation, varied spatially and were affected by rotation carryover effects due to agronomical (e.g. timing of sowing and harvesting) and soil (e.g. residual nitrogen, N) aspects. For example, by adapting maize to early-sowing dates under a warmer climate, there was an advance in catch crop establishment which enhanced residual soil N uptake. This dynamics, however, differed with local environment and choice of short- or long-cycle maize genotypes. Adaptation was insufficient to neutralize rotation yield losses in lowlands but consistently enhanced yield gains in highlands, where other constraints limited arable cropping. The positive responses to adaptation were mainly due to increases in solar radiation interception across the entire growth season. These results provide deeper insights on the dynamics of climate change impacts for crop rotation systems. Such knowledge can be used

Initializing decadal climate predictions over the North Atlantic region

Science.gov (United States)

Matei, Daniela Mihaela; Pohlmann, Holger; Jungclaus, Johann; Müller, Wolfgang; Haak, Helmuth; Marotzke, Jochem

2010-05-01

Decadal climate prediction aims to predict the internally-generated decadal climate variability in addition to externally-forced climate change signal. In order to achieve this it is necessary to start the predictions from the current climate state. In this study we investigate the forecast skill of the North Atlantic decadal climate predictions using two different ocean initialization strategies. First we apply an assimilation of ocean synthesis data provided by the GECCO project (Köhl and Stammer, 2008) as initial conditions for the coupled model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. Hindcast experiments are then performed over the period 1952-2001. An alternative approach is one in which the subsurface ocean temperature and salinity are diagnosed from an ensemble of ocean model runs forced by the NCEP-NCAR atmospheric reanalyzes for the period 1948-2007, then nudge into the coupled model to produce initial conditions for the hindcast experiments. An anomaly coupling scheme is used in both approaches to avoid the hindcast drift and the associated initial shock. Differences between the two assimilation approaches are discussed by comparing them with the observational data in key regions and processes. We asses the skill of the initialized decadal hindcast experiments against the prediction skill of the non-initialized hindcasts simulation. We obtain an overview of the regions with the highest predictability from the regional distribution of the anomaly correlation coefficients and RMSE for the SAT. For the first year the hindcast skill is increased over almost all ocean regions in the NCEP-forced approach. This increase in the hindcast skill for the 1 year lead time is somewhat reduced in the GECCO approach. At lead time 5yr and 10yr, the skill enhancement is still found over the North Atlantic and North Pacific regions. We also consider the potential predictability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and Nordic Seas Overflow by comparing the predicted values to

A Regional Observatory for Producers' Climate Change Adaptation ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

2016-04-22

Apr 22, 2016 ... A Regional Observatory for Producers' Climate Change Adaptation in Thies, Senegal ... The Adaptation Insights series is a joint publication of the International Development Research Centre and the Centre for ... Innovation.

Assessment of Climate Air Energy Regional Schemes in Burgundy and in Franche-Comte - Intermediate review on June 27, 2017. Burgundy Climate Air Energy Regional Scheme. Project, Scheme, Appendix to the SRCAE - Wind regional scheme of Burgundy, synthesis, opinion of the Burgundy CESER. Territorial Climate Energy Plan - Program of actions, Plenary session of the November 25, 2013. Climate Air Energy Regional Scheme - Franche-Comte SRCAE

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2011-09-01

A first report proposes an assessment of the various aspects addressed by the Climate Air Energy Regional Schemes (SRCAE) of Burgundy and Franche-Comte: global aspects, and aspects related to adaptation to climate change, to air quality, to land planning, to the building sector, to mobility, to good transports, to agriculture, to forest, to industry and craft, to renewable energies, and to ecological responsibility. A synthetic presentation of the Burgundy scheme is proposed, and then an extended version which contains a description of the situation, an analysis of the regional potential, and a definition of orientations for the same above-mentioned aspects. A document more particularly addresses wind energy: role of wind energy in the energy mix of the region, role of small installations, wind energy potential, challenges and constraints (heritage and landscapes, natural environment, technical constraints), identification of areas of interest for wind energy projects, qualitative objectives. Documents published by the regional economic, social and environmental Council (CESER) of Burgundy are then proposed: a contribution to the Climate Air Energy Regional Scheme, a discussion and a presentation of a program of actions for the Climate Energy Territorial Plan (a large number of sheets of presentation of actions is proposed). The last document presents the Franche-Comte regional scheme: overview of regional knowledge on climate, air quality and environmental issues, challenges and potential per activity sector (transports and development, building, agriculture, industry, renewable energy production), definition of orientations and objectives for axes of action

Uncertainties in Future Regional Sea Level Trends: How to Deal with the Internal Climate Variability?

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, M.; Karpytchev, M.; Hu, A.; Deser, C.; Lennartz-Sassinek, S.

2017-12-01

Today, the Climate models (CM) are the main tools for forecasting sea level rise (SLR) at global and regional scales. The CM forecasts are accompanied by inherent uncertainties. Understanding and reducing these uncertainties is becoming a matter of increasing urgency in order to provide robust estimates of SLR impact on coastal societies, which need sustainable choices of climate adaptation strategy. These CM uncertainties are linked to structural model formulation, initial conditions, emission scenario and internal variability. The internal variability is due to complex non-linear interactions within the Earth Climate System and can induce diverse quasi-periodic oscillatory modes and long-term persistences. To quantify the effects of internal variability, most studies used multi-model ensembles or sea level projections from a single model ran with perturbed initial conditions. However, large ensembles are not generally available, or too small, and computationally expensive. In this study, we use a power-law scaling of sea level fluctuations, as observed in many other geophysical signals and natural systems, which can be used to characterize the internal climate variability. From this specific statistical framework, we (1) use the pre-industrial control run of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate System Model (NCAR-CCSM) to test the robustness of the power-law scaling hypothesis; (2) employ the power-law statistics as a tool for assessing the spread of regional sea level projections due to the internal climate variability for the 21st century NCAR-CCSM; (3) compare the uncertainties in predicted sea level changes obtained from a NCAR-CCSM multi-member ensemble simulations with estimates derived for power-law processes, and (4) explore the sensitivity of spatial patterns of the internal variability and its effects on regional sea level projections.

Climate change, energy and sustainability: lessons from the Toronto-Niagara region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chiotti, Q.

2001-01-01

It is widely recognized in the discourse on global environmental change that anthropogenic activities, and particularly the combustion of fossil fuels, are having a discernible impact on the earth's climate. Concern over a looming environmental crisis has led to an international response, initially with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, followed by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Much of the national debate on climate change has focused predominantly on the technological options to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and more directly on the costs associated with taking mitigation actions. However this focus has come at the expense of not fully considering other dimensions of climate change, specifically the costs associated with climate change impacts and effects, the costs of adaptation actions, and the co-benefits for environment and health that could result from GHG plus related emission reductions. This is perhaps most apparent in the discourse on climate change and energy, especially in regards to electricity generation, where there is greater attention directed at the implications of climate change policies rather than the actual impacts and effects arising from climate change. In this paper it is argued that the issue of climate change and energy needs to be examined within a broader conceptual framework. Situating climate change and electricity generation within this broader context is essential in developing a sustainable energy system. The paper is organized into four sections. In section one, the conceptual framework is described, highlighting the importance of considering all dimensions of climate change (vulnerability, co-benefits and costs) in developing a sustainable energy system. Section two focuses more directly upon the relationship between climate change impacts and the energy sector, specifically in terms of generation (nuclear, hydro, fossil fuel, and alternatives), distribution and transmission

Effects of future climate change, CO2 enrichment, and vegetation structure variation on hydrological processes in China

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Qiuan; Jiang, Hong; Peng, Changhui; Liu, Jinxun; Fang, Xiuqin; Wei, Xiaohua; Liu, Shirong; Zhou, Guomo

2012-01-01

Investigating the relationship between factors (climate change, atmospheric CO2 concentrations enrichment, and vegetation structure) and hydrological processes is important for understanding and predicting the interaction between the hydrosphere and biosphere. The Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) was used to evaluate the effects of climate change, rising CO2, and vegetation structure on hydrological processes in China at the end of the 21st century. Seven simulations were implemented using the assemblage of the IPCC climate and CO2 concentration scenarios, SRES A2 and SRES B1. Analysis results suggest that (1) climate change will have increasing effects on runoff, evapotranspiration (ET), transpiration (T), and transpiration ratio (transpiration/evapotranspiration, T/E) in most hydrological regions of China except in the southernmost regions; (2) elevated CO2 concentrations will have increasing effects on runoff at the national scale, but at the hydrological region scale, the physiology effects induced by elevated CO2 concentration will depend on the vegetation types, climate conditions, and geographical background information with noticeable decreasing effects shown in the arid Inland region of China; (3) leaf area index (LAI) compensation effect and stomatal closure effect are the dominant factors on runoff in the arid Inland region and southern moist hydrological regions, respectively; (4) the magnitudes of climate change (especially the changing precipitation pattern) effects on the water cycle are much larger than those of the elevated CO2 concentration effects; however, increasing CO2 concentration will be one of the most important modifiers to the water cycle; (5) the water resource condition will be improved in northern China but depressed in southernmost China under the IPCC climate change scenarios, SRES A2 and SRES B1.

America's Climate Choices: Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Liverman, D. M.; McConnell, M. C.; Raven, P.

2010-12-01

At the request of Congress, the National Academy of Sciences convened a series of coordinated activities to provide advice on actions and strategies that the nation can take to respond to climate change. As part of this suite of activities, this study examines information needs and recommends ways the federal government can better inform responses by enhancing climate change and greenhouse gas information and reporting systems and by improving climate communication and education. Demand for better information to support climate-related decisions has grown rapidly as people, organizations, and governments have moved ahead with plans and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. To meet this demand, good information systems and services are needed. Without such systems, decision makers cannot evaluate whether particular policies and actions are achieving their goals or should be modified. Although the many non-federal efforts to reduce emissions and/or adapt to future climate changes carry considerable potential to reduce risks related to climate change, there is currently no comprehensive way to assess the effectiveness of those efforts. In addition, the diverse climate change responses to date have resulted in a patchwork of regional, state, and local policies that has prompted many state and business leaders to call for the development of a more predictable and coherent policy environment at the federal level. This report demonstrates that the nation lacks comprehensive, robust, and credible information and reporting systems to inform climate choices and evaluate their effectiveness. This report also argues that decision makers can benefit from a systematic and iterative framework for responding to climate change, in which decisions and policies can be revised in light of new information and experience and that improved information and reporting systems allow for ongoing evaluation of responses to climate risks. The

Global and regional climate change: new evidences between two IPCC reports

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mika, J. [Eszterhazy Karoly College, Budapest (Hungary). Dept. of Geography

2011-07-01

The climate of our planet has never been constant, but the recent changes are by two orders of magnitude faster than the natural changes since the appearance of anthropogenic effects. The discernable global warming started in the 19th century and after speeding up in the 20th century, it has reached about 0.8 K. This fact and the realization of the likely reasons for the changes, plus rapid development of computer technology have resulted in systematic investigations of climate science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finalized its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. The present paper suveys some recent moments of global and regional climate change issued after the Report. Even the economic crisis was not strong enough to deflect the anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing for more than one year. It tends to develop at the upper edge of the IPCC (2007) projection band of uncertainties. The part of the emitted carbon dioxide remaining in the atmosphere is increasing due to weakening of both the biospheric- and the oceanic sinks of this greenhouse gas. The new radiation balance estimations must admit the imbalance between the atmosphere and the oceans indicating the fact that the greenhouse warming definitely takes place. The year 2010 became most likely the warmest one on the global temperature record. The sea-level rise also follows the most rapid track among the foreseen scenarios. In the meantime modelling effort to better estimate regional features of the changes also develop in their full strength. The ENSEMBLES Project ended in December 2009 and published a lot of maps with 25 km model resolution. These results, however, do not show convergence in the estimations for many regions, including Central Europe.

Impact of Climate Change Effects on Contamination of Cereal Grains with Deoxynivalenol

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

van der Fels-Klerx, H J; van Asselt, E D; Madsen, M S

2013-01-01

Climate change is expected to aggravate feed and food safety problems of crops; however, quantitative estimates are scarce. This study aimed to estimate impacts of climate change effects on deoxynivalenol contamination of wheat and maize grown in the Netherlands by 2040. Quantitative modelling...... the impacts of climate change effects on food safety, and of considering both direct and indirect effects when assessing climate change impacts on crops and related food safety hazards....... two different global and regional climate model combinations were used. A weather generator was applied for downscaling climate data to local conditions. Crop phenology models and prediction models for DON contamination used, each for winter wheat and grain maize. Results showed that flowering...

Near-surface wind pattern in regional climate projections over the broader Adriatic region

Science.gov (United States)

Belušić, Andreina; Telišman Prtenjak, Maja; Güttler, Ivan; Ban, Nikolina; Leutwyler, David; Schär, Christoph

2017-04-01

The Adriatic region is characterized by the complex coastline, strong topographic gradients and specific wind regimes. This represents excellent test area for the latest generation of the regional climate models (RCMs) applied over the European domain. The most famous wind along the Adriatic coast is bora, which due to its strength, has a strong impact on all types of human activities in the Adriatic region. The typical bora wind is a severe gusty downslope flow perpendicular to the mountains. Besides bora, in the Adriatic region, typical winds are sirocco (mostly during the wintertime) and sea/land breezes (dominantly in the warm part of the year) as a part of the regional Mediterranean wind system. Thus, it is substantial to determine future changes in the wind filed characteristics (e.g., changes in strength and frequencies). The first step was the evaluation of a suite of ten EURO- and MED-CORDEX models (at 50 km and 12.5 km resolution), and two additional high resolution models from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ, at 12.5 km and 2.2. km resolution) in the present climate. These results provided a basis for the next step where wind field features, in an ensemble of RCMs forced by global climate models (GCMs) in historical and future runs are examined. Our aim is to determine the influence of the particular combination of RCMs and GCMs, horizontal resolution and emission scenario on the future changes in the near-surface wind field. The analysis reveals strong sensitivity of the simulated wind flow and its statistics to both season and location analyzed, to the horizontal resolution of the RCM and on the choice of the particular GCM that provides boundary conditions.

Effects of city expansion on heat stress under climate change conditions.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Argüeso

Full Text Available We examine the joint contribution of urban expansion and climate change on heat stress over the Sydney region. A Regional Climate Model was used to downscale present (1990-2009 and future (2040-2059 simulations from a Global Climate Model. The effects of urban surfaces on local temperature and vapor pressure were included. The role of urban expansion in modulating the climate change signal at local scales was investigated using a human heat-stress index combining temperature and vapor pressure. Urban expansion and climate change leads to increased risk of heat-stress conditions in the Sydney region, with substantially more frequent adverse conditions in urban areas. Impacts are particularly obvious in extreme values; daytime heat-stress impacts are more noticeable in the higher percentiles than in the mean values and the impact at night is more obvious in the lower percentiles than in the mean. Urban expansion enhances heat-stress increases due to climate change at night, but partly compensates its effects during the day. These differences are due to a stronger contribution from vapor pressure deficit during the day and from temperature increases during the night induced by urban surfaces. Our results highlight the inappropriateness of assessing human comfort determined using temperature changes alone and point to the likelihood that impacts of climate change assessed using models that lack urban surfaces probably underestimate future changes in terms of human comfort.

Climate variations and the greenhouse effect

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Michaels, P.J.; Knappenberger, P.C.; Gay, D.A.

1994-01-01

A number of recent publications have established the scientific paradigm that anthropogenerated sulfate aerosols are a sufficient explanation for the lack of observed greenhouse warming that has been predicted by transient general circulation climate models. This paper tests that hypothesis by examining the observed and modeled behavior of eigenvectors of the observed temperature field at three levels: hemispheric, polar, and over the regions where sulfate aerosol is most concentrated. Without sulfates in the transient model, there is no significant difference in explanatory power between the three test regions. In all three cases, the model creates much more spurious climatic change than it is able to capture. Most damaging to the sulfate hypothesis is that the GCM most accurately represents the behavior of the first eigenvector in summer in the high sulfate regions. This is where the difference between the model and observed temperatures is supposed to be greatest. Thus while the addition of sulfate aerosol to a transient general circulation model may improve its performance over some regions, this effect is insufficient to explain the overall lack of observed warming. This failure of the aerosol hypothesis is particularly evident in polar regions that are relatively aerosol-free, but also devoid of any significant warming

Climate change effects in El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean region

Science.gov (United States)

Lisa Nicole Jennings; Jamison Douglas; Emrys Treasure; Grizelle González

2014-01-01

Understanding the current and expected future conditions of natural resources under a changing climate is essential to making informed management decisions. However, the ever increasing volume of useful scientific information about climate change makes it difficult for managers and planners to effectively sort through and apply the emerging science. This report...

Implications of expected climate change in the Mediterranean Region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jeftic, L. [United Nations Environment Programme, Athens (Greece). Mediterranean Coordinating Unit

1993-09-01

A Task Team was established in 1987 with the objective of preparing a Mediterranean regional overview of the implications of climate change for coastal, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as well as for socio-economic structures and activities. The paper presents a summary of the results of the first phase (1987-1989) of the work of the Task Team. Assuming a temperature rise of 1.5{degree}C by the year 2025, land degradation would increase, water resources decline, agricultural production would decline, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could be damaged. Impacts of climatic change when combined with the greater impacts of non-climatic factors (e.g. population increases, development plans) would increase the probability of catastrophic events and hasten their occurrence. Case studies on six sites are to be finalised by the end of 1992. Despite the high quality of the Task Team`s study the impact of its work on national authorities and international bodies was below expectation. A specific regional scenario on climate change in the Mediterranean Basin due to global warming was developed following the Task Team`s recommendation. A summary of the approach and results is presented. 25 refs., 2 figs.

A Numerical Simulation Study of Impacts of Historical Land-Use Changes on the Regional Climate in China Since 1700

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LI Qiaoping; DING Yihui; DONG Wenjie

2007-01-01

By using the improved regional climate model (BCC_RegCM1.0), a series of modeling experiments are undertaken to investigate the impacts of historical land-use changes (LUCs) on the regional climate in China.Simulations are conducted for 2 years using estimated land-use for 1700, 1800, 1900, 1950, and 1990. The conversion of land cover in these periods was extensive over China, where large areas were altered from forests to either grass or crops, or from grasslands to crops. Results show that, since 1700, historical LUCs have significant effects on regional climate change, with rainfall increasing in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, Northwest China, and Northeast China, but decreasing by different degrees in other regions. The air temperature shows significant warming over large areas in recent hundred years,especially from 1950 to 1990, which is consistent with the warming caused by increasing greenhouse gases.On the other hand, historical LUCs have obvious effects on mean circulation, with the East Asian winter and summer monsoonal flows becoming more intensive, which is mainly attributed to the amplified temperature difference between ocean and land due to vegetation change. Thus, it would be given more attention to the impacts of LUCs on regional climate change.

Regional feedbacks under changing climate and land-use conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Batlle Bayer, L.; van den Hurk, B. J. J. M.; Strengers, B. J.; van Minnen, J. G.

2012-04-01

Ecosystem responses to a changing climate and human-induced climate forcings (e.g. deforestation) might amplify (positive feedback) or dampen (negative feedback) the initial climate response. Feedbacks may include the biogeochemical (e.g. carbon cycle) and biogeophysical feedbacks (e.g. albedo and hydrological cycle). Here, we first review the most important feedbacks and put them into the context of a conceptual framework, including the major processes and interactions between terrestrial ecosystems and climate. We explore potential regional feedbacks in four hot spots with pronounced potential changes in land-use/management and local climate: sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Europe, the Amazon Basin and South and Southeast Asia. For each region, the relevant human-induced climate forcings and feedbacks were identified based on published literature. When evapotranspiration is limited by a soil water deficit, heat waves in Europe are amplified (positive soil moisture-temperature feedback). Drought events in the Amazon lead to further rainfall reduction when water recycling processes are affected (positive soil moisture-precipitation feedback). In SSA, the adoption of irrigation in the commonly rainfed systems can modulate the negative soil moisture-temperature feedback. In contrast, future water shortage in South and Southeast Asia can turn the negative soil moisture-temperature feedback into a positive one. Further research including advanced modeling strategies is needed to isolate the dominant processes affecting the strength and sign of the feedbacks. In addition, the socio-economic dimension needs to be considered in the ecosystems-climate system to include the essential role of human decisions on land-use and land-cover change (LULCC). In this context, enhanced integration between Earth System (ES) and Integrated Assessment (IA) modeling communities is strongly recommended.

Application of regional climate models to the Indian winter monsoon over the western Himalayas.

Science.gov (United States)

Dimri, A P; Yasunari, T; Wiltshire, A; Kumar, P; Mathison, C; Ridley, J; Jacob, D

2013-12-01

The Himalayan region is characterized by pronounced topographic heterogeneity and land use variability from west to east, with a large variation in regional climate patterns. Over the western part of the region, almost one-third of the annual precipitation is received in winter during cyclonic storms embedded in westerlies, known locally as the western disturbance. In the present paper, the regional winter climate over the western Himalayas is analyzed from simulations produced by two regional climate models (RCMs) forced with large-scale fields from ERA-Interim. The analysis was conducted by the composition of contrasting (wet and dry) winter precipitation years. The findings showed that RCMs could simulate the regional climate of the western Himalayas and represent the atmospheric circulation during extreme precipitation years in accordance with observations. The results suggest the important role of topography in moisture fluxes, transport and vertical flows. Dynamical downscaling with RCMs represented regional climates at the mountain or even event scale. However, uncertainties of precipitation scale and liquid-solid precipitation ratios within RCMs are still large for the purposes of hydrological and glaciological studies. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Joint Applications Pilot of the National Climate Predictions and Projections Platform and the North Central Climate Science Center: Delivering climate projections on regional scales to support adaptation planning

Science.gov (United States)

Ray, A. J.; Ojima, D. S.; Morisette, J. T.

2012-12-01

The DOI North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) and the NOAA/NCAR National Climate Predictions and Projections (NCPP) Platform and have initiated a joint pilot study to collaboratively explore the "best available climate information" to support key land management questions and how to provide this information. NCPP's mission is to support state of the art approaches to develop and deliver comprehensive regional climate information and facilitate its use in decision making and adaptation planning. This presentation will describe the evolving joint pilot as a tangible, real-world demonstration of linkages between climate science, ecosystem science and resource management. Our joint pilot is developing a deliberate, ongoing interaction to prototype how NCPP will work with CSCs to develop and deliver needed climate information products, including translational information to support climate data understanding and use. This pilot also will build capacity in the North Central CSC by working with NCPP to use climate information used as input to ecological modeling. We will discuss lessons to date on developing and delivering needed climate information products based on this strategic partnership. Four projects have been funded to collaborate to incorporate climate information as part of an ecological modeling project, which in turn will address key DOI stakeholder priorities in the region: Riparian Corridors: Projecting climate change effects on cottonwood and willow seed dispersal phenology, flood timing, and seedling recruitment in western riparian forests. Sage Grouse & Habitats: Integrating climate and biological data into land management decision models to assess species and habitat vulnerability Grasslands & Forests: Projecting future effects of land management, natural disturbance, and CO2 on woody encroachment in the Northern Great Plains The value of climate information: Supporting management decisions in the Plains and Prairie Potholes LCC. NCCSC's role in

Climate Impacts of Deforestation/Land-Use Changes in Central South America in the PRECIS Regional Climate Model: Mean Precipitation and Temperature Response to Present and Future Deforestation Scenarios

OpenAIRE

Pablo O. Canziani; Gerardo Carbajal Benitez

2012-01-01

Deforestation/land-use changes are major drivers of regional climate change in central South America, impacting upon Amazonia and Gran Chaco ecoregions. Most experimental and modeling studies have focused on the resulting perturbations within Amazonia. Using the Regional Climate Model PRECIS, driven by ERA-40 reanalysis and ECHAM4 Baseline model for the period 1961–2000 (40-year runs), potential effects of deforestation/land-use changes in these and other neighboring ecoregions are evaluated....

Modifications in climate suitability for wine production of Romanian wine regions as a result of climate change

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irimia Liviu Mihai

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to reveal the shifts in climate suitability for wine production affecting Romanian wine growing regions. For this, we analyzed the spatial distribution over Romanian territory of the oenoclimate aptitude index (IAOe for the 1961 to 1990 and 1991 to 2013 time periods. The IAOe has been calculated based on gridded data at 10 × 10 km resolution of average daily temperature, precipitation and sunshine duration between 1961–2013, originating from about 150 weather stations across Romanian territory and recorded in the ROCADA database. The study reveals: northward shifts and to higher altitudes of suitability for wine production; the appearance of new areas suitable for wine production; the expansion or the shrinkage of the current areas suitable for wine production; shifts in classes of suitability for wine production in the current wine regions and appearance of premises of replacing their specific varieties and traditional wine type production; the tendency to level climate suitability at regional scale by diminishing suitability for white wines and replacing it with climate suitability for red wines. The study provides a solid support for developing strategies to adapt Romanian viticulture to climate change.

An intercomparison of regional climate simulations for Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Déqué, M.; Rowell, D. P.; Lüthi, D.

2007-01-01

Ten regional climate models (RCM) have been integrated with the standard forcings of the PRUDENCE experiment: IPCC-SRES A2 radiative forcing and Hadley Centre boundary conditions. The response over Europe, calculated as the difference between the 2071-2100 and the 1961-1990 means can be viewed...... as an average over a finite number of years (30). Model uncertainty is due to the fact that the models use different techniques to discretize the equations and to represent sub-grid effects. Radiative uncertainty is due to the fact that IPCC-SRES A2 is merely one hypothesis. Some RCMs have been run with another...... scenario of greenhouse gas concentration (IPCC-SRES B2). Boundary uncertainty is due to the fact that the regional models have been run under the constraint of the same global model. Some RCMs have been run with other boundary forcings. The contribution of the different sources varies according...

Twitter Analytics: Are the U.S. Coastal Regions Prepared for Climate Change in 2017?

Science.gov (United States)

Singleton, S. L.; Kumar, S.

2017-12-01

According to the U.S. National Climate Assessment, the Southeast Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States are particularly susceptible to sea level rise, heat waves, hurricanes and less accessibility to clean water due to climate change. This is because of the extreme variation of topography in these two regions. Preparation for climate change consequences can only occur with conversation, which is a method of bringing awareness to the issue. Over the past decade, social media has taken over the spectrum of information exchange in the United States. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a field that is emerging with the growth in popularity of social media. SNA is the practice of analyzing trends in volume and opinion of a population of social media users. Twitter, one popular social media platform, is one of the largest microblogging sites in the world, and it provides an abundance of data related to the trending topics such as climate change. Twitter analytics is a type of SNA performed on data from the tweets of Twitter users. In this work, Twitter analytics is performed on the data generated from the Twitter users in the United States, who were talking about climate change, global warming and/or CO2, over the course of one year (July 2016 - June 2017). Specifically, a regional comparative analysis on the coastal U.S. regions was conducted to recognize which region(s) is/are falling behind on the conversation about climate change. Sentiment analysis was also performed to understand the trends in opinion about climate change that vary over time. Experimental results determined that the southeast coast of the United States is deficient in their discussion about climate change compared to the other coastal regions. Igniting the conversation about this issue in these regions will mitigate the disasters due to climate change by increasing awareness in the people of these regions so they can properly prepare.

Climate impacts of deforestation/land-use changes in Central South America in the PRECIS regional climate model: mean precipitation and temperature response to present and future deforestation scenarios.

Science.gov (United States)

Canziani, Pablo O; Carbajal Benitez, Gerardo

2012-01-01

Deforestation/land-use changes are major drivers of regional climate change in central South America, impacting upon Amazonia and Gran Chaco ecoregions. Most experimental and modeling studies have focused on the resulting perturbations within Amazonia. Using the Regional Climate Model PRECIS, driven by ERA-40 reanalysis and ECHAM4 Baseline model for the period 1961-2000 (40-year runs), potential effects of deforestation/land-use changes in these and other neighboring ecoregions are evaluated. Current 2002 and estimated 2030 land-use scenarios are used to assess PRECIS's response during 1960-2000. ERA-40 and ECHAM4 Baseline driven runs yield similar results. Precipitation changes for 2002 and 2030 land-use scenarios, while significant within deforested areas, do not result in significant regional changes. For temperature significant changes are found within deforested areas and beyond, with major temperature enhancements during winter and spring. Given the current climate, primary effects of deforestation/land-use changes remain mostly confined to the tropical latitudes of Gran Chaco, and Amazonia.

Sensitivity of simulated regional Arctic climate to the choice of coupled model domain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dmitry V. Sein

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The climate over the Arctic has undergone changes in recent decades. In order to evaluate the coupled response of the Arctic system to external and internal forcing, our study focuses on the estimation of regional climate variability and its dependence on large-scale atmospheric and regional ocean circulations. A global ocean–sea ice model with regionally high horizontal resolution is coupled to an atmospheric regional model and global terrestrial hydrology model. This way of coupling divides the global ocean model setup into two different domains: one coupled, where the ocean and the atmosphere are interacting, and one uncoupled, where the ocean model is driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing and runs in a so-called stand-alone mode. Therefore, selecting a specific area for the regional atmosphere implies that the ocean–atmosphere system can develop ‘freely’ in that area, whereas for the rest of the global ocean, the circulation is driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing without any feedbacks. Five different coupled setups are chosen for ensemble simulations. The choice of the coupled domains was done to estimate the influences of the Subtropical Atlantic, Eurasian and North Pacific regions on northern North Atlantic and Arctic climate. Our simulations show that the regional coupled ocean–atmosphere model is sensitive to the choice of the modelled area. The different model configurations reproduce differently both the mean climate and its variability. Only two out of five model setups were able to reproduce the Arctic climate as observed under recent climate conditions (ERA-40 Reanalysis. Evidence is found that the main source of uncertainty for Arctic climate variability and its predictability is the North Pacific. The prescription of North Pacific conditions in the regional model leads to significant correlation with observations, even if the whole North Atlantic is within the coupled model domain. However, the inclusion of the

Parliamentary role and relationship in effectively addressing climate change issues - Swaziland

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown, R

2011-01-15

Climate change is defined as any long-term and significant change in the expected patterns of a specific region's average weather for an appropriately significant period of time. It is the result of several factors, including Earth?s dynamic processes, external forces, and more recently, human activity. External factors that shape climate include such processes as variations in solar radiation, deviations in Earth's orbit, and variations in the level of greenhouse gas concentrations. Evidence of climatic change taken from a variety of sources can, in turn, be used to reconstruct past climates. Most climate evidence is inferred from changes in key climate indicators, including vegetation, ice cores, dendrochronology, sea-level change, and glacial geology. Climate change represents one of the greatest environmental, social, and economic threats facing the planet today. In developing countries, Swaziland included, climate change will likely have a significant impact on the livelihoods and living conditions of the poor. It is a particular threat to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and progress in sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing temperatures and shifting rain patterns across Africa reduce access to food and create effects that impact regions, farming systems, households, and individuals in varying ways. Additional global changes, including changed trade patterns and energy policies, have the potential to exacerbate the negative effects of climate change on some of these systems and groups.

Regional climate projections for Northeast India: an appraisal from CORDEX South Asia experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, D.; Dimri, A. P.

2017-11-01

An appraisal of the recent changes in the present climate (1970-2005) followed by the possible future (2006-2100) changes in the climate has been carried out in the current study using the observations and regional climate model (REMO) over the Northeast Indian region. The regional climate model simulation has been used from the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX) South Asia framework. A consistent warming for the winter (December, January, and February (DJF)) and post-monsoon (October and November (ON)) has been observed for the present climate especially in the northern and eastern parts of the region. The changes in the near future (2020-2049) and far future (2070-2099) temperature climatology suggest a rise in temperature by 3-8 °C across different representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The rate of long-term (1970-2099) increase in temperature has been found ranging between 0.01 and 0.07 °C/year across the region in the least emission (RCP2.6) to strongest emission (RCP8.5) scenarios. The daily mean precipitation statistics suggests an overall increasing trends of precipitation during the pre-monsoon (March, April, and May (MAM)) for the present across the region with a mixed trend in other seasons. A change in daily mean precipitation ranging from - 60% (during winter) to + 40% during post-monsoon has been projected by the model across different RCPs. RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 show a strong deficit in precipitation in the warmer climate across the region as compared to RCP2.6. This fact is also confirmed from the long-term trend of precipitation where a consistent decreasing trend dominates in the RCP4.5- and RCP8.5-simulated precipitations by the end of the twenty-first century. A large model bias in temperature and precipitation along with high amount of uncertainty is associated with the model simulations; thus, in order to use the projections, a more careful approach to improve the utility of downscaled product should be adopted.

Quantifying climate change impacts emphasises the importance of managing regional threats in the endangered Yellow-eyed penguin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Mattern

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Climate change is a global issue with effects that are difficult to manage at a regional scale. Yet more often than not climate factors are just some of multiple stressors affecting species on a population level. Non-climatic factors—especially those of anthropogenic origins—may play equally important roles with regard to impacts on species and are often more feasible to address. Here we assess the influence of climate change on population trends of the endangered Yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes over the last 30 years, using a Bayesian model. Sea surface temperature (SST proved to be the dominating factor influencing survival of both adult birds and fledglings. Increasing SST since the mid-1990s was accompanied by a reduction in survival rates and population decline. The population model showed that 33% of the variation in population numbers could be explained by SST alone, significantly increasing pressure on the penguin population. Consequently, the population becomes less resilient to non-climate related impacts, such as fisheries interactions, habitat degradation and human disturbance. However, the extent of the contribution of these factors to declining population trends is extremely difficult to assess principally due to the absence of quantifiable data, creating a discussion bias towards climate variables, and effectively distracting from non-climate factors that can be managed on a regional scale to ensure the viability of the population.

Applying Multimodel Ensemble from Regional Climate Models for Improving Runoff Projections on Semiarid Regions of Spain

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia Galiano, S. G.; Olmos, P.; Giraldo Osorio, J. D.

2015-12-01

In the Mediterranean area, significant changes on temperature and precipitation are expected throughout the century. These trends could exacerbate the existing conditions in regions already vulnerable to climatic variability, reducing the water availability. Improving knowledge about plausible impacts of climate change on water cycle processes at basin scale, is an important step for building adaptive capacity to the impacts in this region, where severe water shortages are expected for the next decades. RCMs ensemble in combination with distributed hydrological models with few parameters, constitutes a valid and robust methodology to increase the reliability of climate and hydrological projections. For reaching this objective, a novel methodology for building Regional Climate Models (RCMs) ensembles of meteorological variables (rainfall an temperatures), was applied. RCMs ensembles are justified for increasing the reliability of climate and hydrological projections. The evaluation of RCMs goodness-of-fit to build the ensemble is based on empirical probability density functions (PDF) extracted from both RCMs dataset and a highly resolution gridded observational dataset, for the time period 1961-1990. The applied method is considering the seasonal and annual variability of the rainfall and temperatures. The RCMs ensembles constitute the input to a distributed hydrological model at basin scale, for assessing the runoff projections. The selected hydrological model is presenting few parameters in order to reduce the uncertainties involved. The study basin corresponds to a head basin of Segura River Basin, located in the South East of Spain. The impacts on runoff and its trend from observational dataset and climate projections, were assessed. Considering the control period 1961-1990, plausible significant decreases in runoff for the time period 2021-2050, were identified.

Climate Impacts of Ozone and Sulfate Air Pollution from Specific Emissions Sectors and Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Unger, N.; Koch, D. M.; Shindell, D. T.; Streets, D. G.

2006-12-01

The secondary air pollutants ozone (O3) and sulfate aerosol are generated by human activities and affect the Earth's climate system. The global mean radiative forcings of these short-lived species depend on the location of the precursor gas emissions, which has so far prevented their incorporation into climate-motivated policy agreements. O3 and sulfate aerosol are strongly coupled through tropospheric photochemistry and yet air quality control efforts consider each species separately. Previous modeling work to assess climate impacts of O3 has focused on individual precursors, such as nitrogen oxides, even though policy action would target a particular sector. We use the G-PUCCINI atmospheric composition-climate model to isolate the O3 and sulfate direct radiative forcing impacts of 6 specific emissions sectors (industry, transport, power, domestic biofuel, domestic fossil fuel and biomass burning) from 7 geographic regions (North America, Europe, South Asia, East Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, Central and South Africa and South America) for the near future 2030 atmosphere. The goal of the study is to identify specific source sectors and regions that present the most effective opportunities to mitigate global warming. At 2030, the industry and power sectors dominate the sulfate forcing across all regions, with East Asia, South Asia and North Africa and Middle East contributing the largest sulfate forcings (-100 to 120 mWm-2). The transport sector represents an important O3 forcing from all regions ranging from 5 mWm-2 (Europe) to 12 mWm-2 (East Asia). Domestic biofuel O3 forcing is important for the East Asia (13 mWm-2), South Asia (7 mWm-2) and Central and South Africa (10 mWm-2) regions. Biomass burning contributes large O3 forcings for the Central and South Africa (15 mWm-2) and South America (11 mWm-2) regions. In addition, the power sector O3 forcings from East Asia (14 mWm-2) and South Asia (8 mWm-2) are also substantial. Considering the sum of the O

Mixed precipitation occurrences over southern Québec, Canada, under warmer climate conditions using a regional climate model

Science.gov (United States)

Matte, Dominic; Thériault, Julie M.; Laprise, René

2018-05-01

Winter weather events with temperatures near 0°C are often associated with freezing rain. They can have major impacts on the society by causing power outages and disruptions to the transportation networks. Despite the catastrophic consequences of freezing rain, very few studies have investigated how their occurrences could evolve under climate change. This study aims to investigate the change of freezing rain and ice pellets over southern Québec using regional climate modeling at high resolution. The fifth-generation Canadian Regional Climate Model with climate scenario RCP 8.5 at 0.11° grid mesh was used. The precipitation types such as freezing rain, ice pellets or their combination are diagnosed using five methods (Cantin and Bachand, Bourgouin, Ramer, Czys and, Baldwin). The occurrences of the diagnosed precipitation types for the recent past (1980-2009) are found to be comparable to observations. The projections for the future scenario (2070-2099) suggested a general decrease in the occurrences of mixed precipitation over southern Québec from October to April. This is mainly due to a decrease in long-duration events (≥6 h ). Overall, this study contributes to better understand how the distribution of freezing rain and ice pellets might change in the future using high-resolution regional climate model.

Regional Climate Models as a Tool for Assessing Changes in the Laurentian Great Lakes Net Basin Supply

Science.gov (United States)

Music, B.; Mailhot, E.; Nadeau, D.; Irambona, C.; Frigon, A.

2017-12-01

Over the last decades, there has been growing concern about the effects of climate change on the Great Lakes water supply. Most of the modelling studies focusing on the Laurentian Great Lakes do not allow two-way exchanges of water and energy between the atmosphere and the underlying surface, and therefore do not account for important feedback mechanisms. Moreover, energy budget constraint at the land surface is not usually taken into account. To address this issue, several recent climate change studies used high resolution Regional Climate Models (RCMs) for evaluating changes in the hydrological regime of the Great Lakes. As RCMs operate on the concept of water and energy conservation, an internal consistency of the simulated energy and water budget components is assured. In this study we explore several recently generated Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations to investigate the Great Lakes' Net Basin Supply (NBS) in a changing climate. These include simulations of the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) supplemented by simulations from several others RCMs participating to the North American CORDEX project (CORDEX-NA). The analysis focuses on the NBS extreme values under nonstationary conditions. The results are expected to provide useful information to the industries in the Great Lakes that all need to include accurate climate change information in their long-term strategy plans to better anticipate impacts of low and/or high water levels.

Effects of climate change on US agriculture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guillet, L.

2007-08-01

The USA are a major producer of food and fiber products in the world. The US agriculture represents more than 25% of the world trades of wheat, corn, soy and cotton. The cultivated surfaces and the pasture lands represent 210 million Ha (17% of the US territory) and 300 million Ha (26% of the US territory), respectively. The agricultural production represents less than 2% of the US GDP, put the agriculture products make about 5% of the US exports. The climate change may have some impacts on the overall agriculture industry, from the plant growth to the conditions of competition on international markets. In 2001, the US global change research program, published an evaluation report about the potential consequences of the climate change on the US agriculture. The conclusions of the panel of experts, based on climate, cultivation and economical models, was that the CO 2 levels and climate changes of the 21. century would have no negative impact on the US agriculture. The average effects, on the contrary, would be rather positive, depending on the type of culture and on the region considered. Today, the experts have entertained lot of doubts about the 2001 forecasts: the fertilizing effect of CO 2 is more and more criticized and an efficient supply of water appears as seriously compromised for many regions. Experts stress also on the lack of consideration for extreme climatic events, and for crop vermin and diseases. This document reanalyzes the conclusions of the 2001 report in the light of the works carried out more recently at the Agriculture Research Service (ARS). The proceedings of expert's interviews are attached in appendixes. (J.S.)

Interactive Development of Regional Climate Web Pages for the Western United States

Science.gov (United States)

Oakley, N.; Redmond, K. T.

2013-12-01

Weather and climate have a pervasive and significant influence on the western United States, driving a demand for information that is ongoing and constantly increasing. In communications with stakeholders, policy makers, researchers, educators, and the public through formal and informal encounters, three standout challenges face users of weather and climate information in the West. First, the needed information is scattered about the web making it difficult or tedious to access. Second, information is too complex or requires too much background knowledge to be immediately applicable. Third, due to complex terrain, there is high spatial variability in weather, climate, and their associated impacts in the West, warranting information outlets with a region-specific focus. Two web sites, TahoeClim and the Great Basin Weather and Climate Dashboard were developed to overcome these challenges to meeting regional weather and climate information needs. TahoeClim focuses on the Lake Tahoe Basin, a region of critical environmental concern spanning the border of Nevada and California. TahoeClim arose out of the need for researchers, policy makers, and environmental organizations to have access to all available weather and climate information in one place. Additionally, TahoeClim developed tools to both interpret and visualize data for the Tahoe Basin with supporting instructional material. The Great Basin Weather and Climate Dashboard arose from discussions at an informal meeting about Nevada drought organized by the USDA Farm Service Agency. Stakeholders at this meeting expressed a need to take a 'quick glance' at various climate indicators to support their decision making process. Both sites were designed to provide 'one-stop shopping' for weather and climate information in their respective regions and to be intuitive and usable by a diverse audience. An interactive, 'co-development' approach was taken with sites to ensure needs of potential users were met. The sites were

Effects of Simulated Forest Cover Change on Projected Climate Change – a Case Study of Hungary

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

GÁLOS, Borbála

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Climatic effects of forest cover change have been investigated for Hungary applying theregional climate model REMO. For the end of the 21st century (2071–2100 case studies have beenanalyzed assuming maximal afforestation (forests covering all vegetated area and completedeforestation (forests replaced by grasslands of the country. For 2021–2025, the climatic influence ofthe potential afforestation based on a detailed national survey has been assessed. The simulationresults indicate that maximal afforestation may reduce the projected climate change through coolerand moister conditions for the entire summer period. The magnitude of the simulated climate changemitigating effect of the forest cover increase differs among regions. The smallest climatic benefit wascalculated in the southwestern region, in the area with the potentially strongest climate change. Thestrongest effects of maximal afforestation are expected in the northeastern part of the country. Here,half of the projected precipitation decrease could be relieved and the probability of summer droughtscould be reduced. The potential afforestation has a very slight feedback on the regional climatecompared to the maximal afforestation scenario.

Involving regional expertise in nationwide modeling for adequate prediction of climate change effects on different demands for fresh water

Science.gov (United States)

de Lange, W. J.

2014-05-01

Wim J. de Lange, Geert F. Prinsen, Jacco H. Hoogewoud, Ab A Veldhuizen, Joachim Hunink, Erik F.W. Ruijgh, Timo Kroon Nationwide modeling aims to produce a balanced distribution of climate change effects (e.g. harm on crops) and possible compensation (e.g. volume fresh water) based on consistent calculation. The present work is based on the Netherlands Hydrological Instrument (NHI, www.nhi.nu), which is a national, integrated, hydrological model that simulates distribution, flow and storage of all water in the surface water and groundwater systems. The instrument is developed to assess the impact on water use on land-surface (sprinkling crops, drinking water) and in surface water (navigation, cooling). The regional expertise involved in the development of NHI come from all parties involved in the use, production and management of water, such as waterboards, drinking water supply companies, provinces, ngo's, and so on. Adequate prediction implies that the model computes changes in the order of magnitude that is relevant to the effects. In scenarios related to drought, adequate prediction applies to the water demand and the hydrological effects during average, dry, very dry and extremely dry periods. The NHI acts as a part of the so-called Deltamodel (www.deltamodel.nl), which aims to predict effects and compensating measures of climate change both on safety against flooding and on water shortage during drought. To assess the effects, a limited number of well-defined scenarios is used within the Deltamodel. The effects on demand of fresh water consist of an increase of the demand e.g. for surface water level control to prevent dike burst, for flushing salt in ditches, for sprinkling of crops, for preserving wet nature and so on. Many of the effects are dealt with by regional and local parties. Therefore, these parties have large interest in the outcome of the scenario analyses. They are participating in the assessment of the NHI previous to the start of the analyses

A Reusable Framework for Regional Climate Model Evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Hart, A. F.; Goodale, C. E.; Mattmann, C. A.; Lean, P.; Kim, J.; Zimdars, P.; Waliser, D. E.; Crichton, D. J.

2011-12-01

Climate observations are currently obtained through a diverse network of sensors and platforms that include space-based observatories, airborne and seaborne platforms, and distributed, networked, ground-based instruments. These global observational measurements are critical inputs to the efforts of the climate modeling community and can provide a corpus of data for use in analysis and validation of climate models. The Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES) is an effort currently being undertaken to address the challenges of integrating this vast array of observational climate data into a coherent resource suitable for performing model analysis at the regional level. Developed through a collaboration between the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the UCLA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE), the RCMES uses existing open source technologies (MySQL, Apache Hadoop, and Apache OODT), to construct a scalable, parametric, geospatial data store that incorporates decades of observational data from a variety of NASA Earth science missions, as well as other sources into a consistently annotated, highly available scientific resource. By eliminating arbitrary partitions in the data (individual file boundaries, differing file formats, etc), and instead treating each individual observational measurement as a unique, geospatially referenced data point, the RCMES is capable of transforming large, heterogeneous collections of disparate observational data into a unified resource suitable for comparison to climate model output. This facility is further enhanced by the availability of a model evaluation toolkit which consists of a set of Python libraries, a RESTful web service layer, and a browser-based graphical user interface that allows for orchestration of model-to-data comparisons by composing them visually through web forms. This combination of tools and interfaces dramatically simplifies the process of interacting with and

Regional Impacts of Climate Change on the Amazon Rainforest: 2080-2100

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, K. H.; Vizy, E. K.

2006-12-01

A regional climate model with resolution of 60 km is coupled with a potential vegetation model to simulate future climate over South America. The following steps are taken to effectively communicate the results across disciplines and to make them useful to the policy and impacts communities: the simulation is aimed at a particular time period (2081-2100), the climate change results are translated into changes in vegetation distribution, and the results are reported on regional space scales relative to political boundaries. In addition, the model validation in clearly presented to provide perspective on uncertainty for the prognosis. The model reproduces today's climate and vegetation over tropical and subtropical South America accurately. In simulations of the future, the model is forced by the IPCC's A2 scenario of future emissions, which assumes that CO2 emissions continue to grow at essentially today's rate throughout the 21st century, reaching 757 ppmv averaged over 2081-2100. The model is constrained on its lateral boundaries by atmospheric conditions simulated by a global climate model, applied as anomalies to present day conditions, and predicted changes in sea surface temperatures. The extent of the Amazon rainforest is reduced by about 70 per cent in the simulation, and the shrubland (caatinga) vegetation of Brazil's Nordeste region spreads westward and southward well into the continental interior. Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina lose all of their rainforest vegetation, and Brazil and Peru lose most of it. The surviving rain forest is concentrated near the equator. Columbia's rainforest survives largely intact and, along the northern coast, Venezuela and French Guiana suffer relatively small reductions. The loss in Guyana and Surinam is 30-50 per cent. Much of the rainforest in the central Amazon north of about 15S is replaced by savanna vegetation, but in southern Bolivia, northern Paraguay, and southern Brazil, grasslands take the place of the

Using Climate Regionalization to Understand Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) Precipitation Performance for the Conterminous United States (CONUS)

Science.gov (United States)

Regonda, Satish K.; Zaitchik, Benjamin F.; Badr, Hamada S.; Rodell, Matthew

2016-01-01

Dynamically based seasonal forecasts are prone to systematic spatial biases due to imperfections in the underlying global climate model (GCM). This can result in low-forecast skill when the GCM misplaces teleconnections or fails to resolve geographic barriers, even if the prediction of large-scale dynamics is accurate. To characterize and address this issue, this study applies objective climate regionalization to identify discrepancies between the Climate Forecast SystemVersion 2 (CFSv2) and precipitation observations across the Contiguous United States (CONUS). Regionalization shows that CFSv2 1 month forecasts capture the general spatial character of warm season precipitation variability but that forecast regions systematically differ from observation in some transition zones. CFSv2 predictive skill for these misclassified areas is systematically reduced relative to correctly regionalized areas and CONUS as a whole. In these incorrectly regionalized areas, higher skill can be obtained by using a regional-scale forecast in place of the local grid cell prediction.

NOAA/NCEI/Regional Climate Services: Working with Partners and Stakeholders across a Wide Network

Science.gov (United States)

Mecray, E. L.

2015-12-01

Federal agencies all require plans to be prepared at the state level that outline the implementation of funding to address wildlife habitat, human health, transportation infrastructure, coastal zone management, environmental management, emergency management, and others. These plans are now requiring the consideration of changing climate conditions. So where does a state turn to discuss lessons learned, obtain tools and information to assess climate conditions, and to work with other states in their region? Regional networks and collaboratives are working to deliver this sector by sector. How do these networks work? Do they fit together in any way? What similarities and differences exist? Is anyone talking across these lines to find common climate information requirements? A sketch is forming that links these efforts, not by blending the sectors, but by finding the areas where coordination is critical, where information needs are common, and where delivery mechanisms can be streamlined. NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Information's Regional Climate Services Directors have been working at the interface of stakeholder-driven information delivery since 2010. This talk will outline the regional climate services delivery framework for the Eastern Region, with examples of regional products and information.

Regional Energy Demand Responses To Climate Change. Methodology And Application To The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amato, A.D.; Ruth, M.; Kirshen, P.; Horwitz, J.

2005-01-01

Climate is a major determinant of energy demand. Changes in climate may alter energy demand as well as energy demand patterns. This study investigates the implications of climate change for energy demand under the hypothesis that impacts are scale dependent due to region-specific climatic variables, infrastructure, socioeconomic, and energy use profiles. In this analysis we explore regional energy demand responses to climate change by assessing temperature-sensitive energy demand in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The study employs a two-step estimation and modeling procedure. The first step evaluates the historic temperature sensitivity of residential and commercial demand for electricity and heating fuels, using a degree-day methodology. We find that when controlling for socioeconomic factors, degree-day variables have significant explanatory power in describing historic changes in residential and commercial energy demands. In the second step, we assess potential future energy demand responses to scenarios of climate change. Model results are based on alternative climate scenarios that were specifically derived for the region on the basis of local climatological data, coupled with regional information from available global climate models. We find notable changes with respect to overall energy consumption by, and energy mix of the residential and commercial sectors in the region. On the basis of our findings, we identify several methodological issues relevant to the development of climate change impact assessments of energy demand

Regional Energy Demand Responses To Climate Change. Methodology And Application To The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Amato, A.D.; Ruth, M. [Environmental Policy Program, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, 3139 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD (United States); Kirshen, P. [Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Anderson Hall, Medford, MA (United States); Horwitz, J. [Climatological Database Consultant, Binary Systems Software, Newton, MA (United States)

2005-07-01

Climate is a major determinant of energy demand. Changes in climate may alter energy demand as well as energy demand patterns. This study investigates the implications of climate change for energy demand under the hypothesis that impacts are scale dependent due to region-specific climatic variables, infrastructure, socioeconomic, and energy use profiles. In this analysis we explore regional energy demand responses to climate change by assessing temperature-sensitive energy demand in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The study employs a two-step estimation and modeling procedure. The first step evaluates the historic temperature sensitivity of residential and commercial demand for electricity and heating fuels, using a degree-day methodology. We find that when controlling for socioeconomic factors, degree-day variables have significant explanatory power in describing historic changes in residential and commercial energy demands. In the second step, we assess potential future energy demand responses to scenarios of climate change. Model results are based on alternative climate scenarios that were specifically derived for the region on the basis of local climatological data, coupled with regional information from available global climate models. We find notable changes with respect to overall energy consumption by, and energy mix of the residential and commercial sectors in the region. On the basis of our findings, we identify several methodological issues relevant to the development of climate change impact assessments of energy demand.

Premonsoon Aerosol Characterization and Radiative Effects Over the Indo-Gangetic Plains: Implications for Regional Climate Warming

Science.gov (United States)

Gautam, Ritesh; Hsu, N. Christina; Lau, K.-M.

2010-01-01

The Himalayas have a profound effect on the South Asian climate and the regional hydrological cycle, as it forms a barrier for the strong monsoon winds and serves as an elevated heat source, thus controlling the onset and distribution of precipitation during the Indian summer monsoon. Recent studies have suggested that radiative heating by absorbing aerosols, such as dust and black carbon over the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) and slopes of the Himalayas, may significantly accelerate the seasonal warming of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas-Tibetan Plateau (HKHT) and influence the subsequent evolution of the summer monsoon. This paper presents a detailed characterization of aerosols over the IGP and their radiative effects during the premonsoon season (April-May-June) when dust transport constitutes the bulk of the regional aerosol loading, using ground radiometric and spaceborne observations. During the dust-laden period, there is a strong response of surface shortwave flux to aerosol absorption indicated by the diurnally averaged forcing efficiency of -70 W/sq m per unit optical depth. The simulated aerosol single-scattering albedo, constrained by surface flux and aerosol measurements, is estimated to be 0.89+/- 0.01 (at approx.550 nm) with diurnal mean surface and top-of-atmosphere forcing values ranging from -11 to -79.8 W/sq m and +1.4 to +12 W/sq m, respectively, for the premonsoon period. The model-simulated solar heating rate profile peaks in the lower troposphere with enhanced heating penetrating into the middle troposphere (5-6 km), caused by vertically extended aerosols over the IGP with peak altitude of approx.5 km as indicated by spaceborne Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization observations. On a long-term climate scale, our analysis, on the basis of microwave satellite measurements of tropospheric temperatures from 1979 to 2007, indicates accelerated annual mean warming rates found over the Himalayan-Hindu Kush region (0.21 C/decade+/-0.08 C

Landscape-and regional-scale shifts in forest composition under climate change in the Central Hardwood Region of the United States

Science.gov (United States)

Wen J. Wang; Hong S. He; Frank R. Thompson; Jacob S. Fraser; William D. Dijak

2016-01-01

Tree species distribution and abundance are affected by forces operating at multiple scales. Niche and biophysical process models have been commonly used to predict climate change effects at regional scales, however, these models have limited capability to include site-scale population dynamics and landscape- scale disturbance and dispersal. We applied a landscape...

Quantifying the effects of climate and post-fire landscape change on hydrologic processes

Science.gov (United States)

Steimke, A.; Han, B.; Brandt, J.; Som Castellano, R.; Leonard, A.; Flores, A. N.

2016-12-01

Seasonally snow-dominated, forested mountain watersheds supply water to many human populations globally. However, the timing and magnitude of water delivery from these watersheds has already and will continue to change as the climate warms. Changes in vegetation also affect the runoff response of watersheds. The largest driver of vegetation change in many mountainous regions is wildfire, whose occurrence is affected by both climate and land management decisions. Here, we quantify how direct (i.e. changes in precipitation and temperature) and indirect (i.e. changing fire regimes) effects of climate change influence hydrologic parameters such as dates of peak streamflow, annual discharge, and snowpack levels. We used the Boise River Basin, ID as a model laboratory to calculate the relative magnitude of change stemming from direct and indirect effects of climate change. This basin is relevant to study as it is well-instrumented and major drainages have experienced burning at different spatial and temporal intervals, aiding in model calibration. We built a hydrology-based integrated model of the region using a multiagent simulation framework, Envision. We used a modified HBV (Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning) rainfall-runoff model and calibrated it to historic streamflow and snowpack observations. We combined a diverse set of climate projections with wildfire scenarios (low vs. high) representing two distinct intervals in the regional historic fire record. In fire simulations, we altered land cover coefficients to reflect a burned state post-fire, which decreased overall evapotranspiration rates and increased water yields. However, direct climate effects had a larger signal on annual variations of hydrologic parameters. By comparing and analyzing scenario outputs, we identified links and sensitivities between land cover and regional hydrology in the context of a changing climate, with potential implications for local land and water managers. In future

Regional impact of climate on Japanese encephalitis in areas located near the three gorges dam.

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Yuntao Bai

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: In this study, we aim to identify key climatic factors that are associated with the transmission of Japanese encephalitis virus in areas located near the Three Gorges Dam, between 1997 and 2008. METHODS: We identified three geographical regions of Chongqing, based on their distance from the Three Gorges Dam. Collectively, the three regions consisted of 12 districts from which study information was collected. Zero-Inflated Poisson Regression models were run to identify key climatic factors of the transmission of Japanese encephalitis virus for both the whole study area and for each individual region; linear regression models were conducted to examine the fluctuation of climatic variables over time during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. RESULTS: Between 1997 and 2008, the incidence of Japanese encephalitis decreased throughout the entire city of Chongqing, with noticeable variations taking place in 2000, 2001 and 2006. The eastern region, which is closest to the Three Gorges Dam, suffered the highest incidence of Japanese encephalitis, while the western region experienced the lowest incidence. Linear regression models revealed that there were seasonal fluctuations of climatic variables during this period. Zero-Inflated Poisson Regression models indicated a significant positive association between temperature (with a lag of 1 and 3 months and Japanese encephalitis incidence, and a significant negative association between rainfall (with a lag of 0 and 4 months and Japanese encephalitis incidence. CONCLUSION: The spatial and temporal trends of Japanese encephalitis incidence that occurred in the City of Chongqing were associated with temperature and rainfall. Seasonal fluctuations of climatic variables during this period were also observed. Additional studies that focus on long-term data collection are needed to validate the findings of this study and to further explore the effects of the Three Gorges Dam on Japanese

Impacts on Water Management and Crop Production of Regional Cropping System Adaptation to Climate Change

Science.gov (United States)

Zhong, H.; Sun, L.; Tian, Z.; Liang, Z.; Fischer, G.

2014-12-01

China is one of the most populous and fast developing countries, also faces a great pressure on grain production and food security. Multi-cropping system is widely applied in China to fully utilize agro-climatic resources and increase land productivity. As the heat resource keep improving under climate warming, multi-cropping system will also shifting northward, and benefit crop production. But water shortage in North China Plain will constrain the adoption of new multi-cropping system. Effectiveness of multi-cropping system adaptation to climate change will greatly depend on future hydrological change and agriculture water management. So it is necessary to quantitatively express the water demand of different multi-cropping systems under climate change. In this paper, we proposed an integrated climate-cropping system-crops adaptation framework, and specifically focused on: 1) precipitation and hydrological change under future climate change in China; 2) the best multi-cropping system and correspondent crop rotation sequence, and water demand under future agro-climatic resources; 3) attainable crop production with water constraint; and 4) future water management. In order to obtain climate projection and precipitation distribution, global climate change scenario from HADCAM3 is downscaled with regional climate model (PRECIS), historical climate data (1960-1990) was interpolated from more than 700 meteorological observation stations. The regional Agro-ecological Zone (AEZ) model is applied to simulate the best multi-cropping system and crop rotation sequence under projected climate change scenario. Finally, we use the site process-based DSSAT model to estimate attainable crop production and the water deficiency. Our findings indicate that annual land productivity may increase and China can gain benefit from climate change if multi-cropping system would be adopted. This study provides a macro-scale view of agriculture adaptation, and gives suggestions to national

Plastic-covered agriculture forces the regional climate to change

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, D.; Chen, J.; Chen, X.; Cao, X.

2016-12-01

The practice of plastic-covered agriculture as a solution to moderate the dilemma of global food shortage, meanwhile, brings great pressure to the local environment. This research was conducted to reveal the impacts of plastic-covered agritulture on regional climate change by experimenting in a plastic greenhouse (PG) dominated area - Weifang district, Shandong province, China. Based on a new plastic greenhouse index (PGI) proposed in this study, we reconstructed the spatial distribution of PG across 1995-2015 in the study area. With that, land surface temperature (LST) dataset combined with surface evapotranspiration, surface reflectance and precipitation data, was applied to the probe of PG's climatic impacts. Results showed that PG, in the study area, has experienced a striking spatial expansion during the past 20 years, and more important, the expansion correlated strongly to the local climate change. It showed that the annual precipitation, in the study area, decreased during these years, which constrasts to a slightly increasing trend of the adjacent districts without PG construction. In addition, resulting from the greenhouse effect, PG area presented a harsher increase of surface temperature compared to the non-PG areas. Our study also telled that the evapotranspiration of PG area has been largely cutted down ascribing to the gas tightness of plastic materials, showing a decline around 40%. This indicates a way that the development of plastic-covered agriculture may contribute to the change of the local climate.

Climate Change and Regulation in International and Regional Level, Especially the Built Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Putnoki Zsuzsanna

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The article starts with a brief insight into the history of climate change, with a scope on the international and legal aspects of ever-changing regulations. The regional level is in the article is The European Union, as the only regional economic integration organization under the Kyoto Protocol. It deals with the United Nation’s international agreements like UNFCCC its Kyoto’s Protocol and the Post-Kyoto era. It also analyses the EU’s system in the climate change law with correspondence the international rules. Comparison between international and regional legislation in the climate change is used as a tool of analysis. Finally an insight is given into a special field in the climate change, the build environment, reflecting on the related United Nation’s recommendation and the EU’s regulation.

Regional climate projections for the MENA-CORDEX domain: analysis of projected temperature and precipitation changes

Science.gov (United States)

Hänsler, Andreas; Weber, Torsten; Eggert, Bastian; Saeed, Fahad; Jacob, Daniela

2014-05-01

Within the CORDEX initiative a multi-model suite of regionalized climate change information will be made available for several regions of the world. The German Climate Service Center (CSC) is taking part in this initiative by applying the regional climate model REMO to downscale global climate projections of different coupled general circulation models (GCMs) for several CORDEX domains. Also for the MENA-CORDEX domain, a set of regional climate change projections has been established at the CSC by downscaling CMIP5 projections of the Max-Planck-Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) for the scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 with the regional model REMO for the time period from 1950 to 2100 to a horizontal resolution of 0.44 degree. In this study we investigate projected changes in future climate conditions over the domain towards the end of the 21st century. Focus in the analysis is given to projected changes in the temperature and rainfall characteristics and their differences for the two scenarios will be highlighted.

Local climate change capacity : comparing four municipalities in the Dutch Twente region

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Vegt, Arjen; Hoppe, Thomas; Stegmaier, Peter

2015-01-01

Climate change is seen as a key societal challenge to cities and regions. City governments design and implement policies to cope with climate change: on the one hand by mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and spurring low carbon transition; on the other hand by adapting to climate change, hence

Internal and external variability in regional simulations of the Iberian Peninsula climate over the last millennium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. J. Gómez-Navarro

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In this study we analyse the role of internal variability in regional climate simulations through a comparison of two regional paleoclimate simulations for the last millennium. They share the same external forcings and model configuration, differing only in the initial condition used to run the driving global model simulation. A comparison of these simulations allows us to study the role of internal variability in climate models at regional scales, and how it affects the long-term evolution of climate variables such as temperature and precipitation. The results indicate that, although temperature is homogeneously sensitive to the effect of external forcings, the evolution of precipitation is more strongly governed by random unpredictable internal dynamics. There are, however, some areas where the role of internal variability is lower than expected, allowing precipitation to respond to the external forcings. In this respect, we explore the underlying physical mechanisms responsible for it. This study identifies areas, depending on the season, in which a direct comparison between model simulations of precipitation and climate reconstructions would be meaningful, but also other areas where good agreement between them should not be expected even if both are perfect.

Socio-economic vulnerability to climate change in the central mountainous region of eastern Mexico.

Science.gov (United States)

Esperón-Rodríguez, Manuel; Bonifacio-Bautista, Martín; Barradas, Víctor L

2016-03-01

Climate change effects are expected to be more severe for some segments of society than others. In Mexico, climate variability associated with climate change has important socio-economic and environmental impacts. From the central mountainous region of eastern Veracruz, Mexico, we analyzed data of total annual precipitation and mean annual temperature from 26 meteorological stations (1922-2008) and from General Circulation Models. We developed climate change scenarios based on the observed trends with projections to 2025, 2050, 2075, and 2100, finding considerable local climate changes with reductions in precipitation of over 700 mm and increases in temperature of ~9°C for the year 2100. Deforested areas located at windward were considered more vulnerable, representing potential risk for natural environments, local communities, and the main crops cultivated (sugarcane, coffee, and corn). Socio-economic vulnerability is exacerbated in areas where temperature increases and precipitation decreases.

Regional Water System Vulnerabilities and Strengths for Unavoidable Climate Adaptation

Science.gov (United States)

Gleick, P. H.; Palaniappan, M.; Christian-Smith, J.; Cooley, H.