Climate change impacts on a large-scale erosion coast of Hai Hau district, Vietnam and the adaptation

We examine the evidence for climate-change impacts on groundwater levels provided by studies of the historical observational record, and future climate-change impact modelling. To date no evidence has been found for systematic changes in groundwater drought frequency or intensity in the UK, but some evidence of multi-annual to decadal coherence of groundwater levels and large-scale climate indices has been found, which should be considered when trying to identify any trends. We analyse trends in long groundwater level time-series monitored in seven observation boreholes in the Chalk aquifer, and identify statistically significant declines at four of these sites, but do not attempt to attribute these to a change in a stimulus. The evidence for the impacts of future climate change on UK groundwater recharge and levels is limited. The number of studies that have been undertaken is small and different approaches have been adopted to quantify impacts. Furthermore, these studies have generally focused on relatively small regions and reported local findings. Consequently, it has been difficult to compare them between locations. We undertake some additional analysis of the probabilistic outputs of the one recent impact study that has produced coherent multi-site projections of changes in groundwater levels. These results suggest reductions in annual and average summer levels, and increases in average winter levels, by the 2050s under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, at most of the sites modelled, when expressed by the median of the ensemble of simulations. It is concluded, however, that local hydrogeological conditions can be an important control on the simulated response to a future climate projection.

Download Full-text

Chaos in Estimates of Climate Change Impacts

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-21065 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Emanuele Massetti ◽

Emanuele Di Lorenzo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Large Scale ◽

Initial Conditions ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Internal Variability ◽

Future Climate ◽

Climate System ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Exogenous Forcing

<p>Estimates of physical, social and economic impacts of climate change are less accurate than usually thought because the impacts literature has largely neglected the internal variability of the climate system. Climate change scenarios are highly sensitive to the initial conditions of the climate system due the chaotic dynamics of weather. As the initial conditions of the climate system are unknown with a sufficiently high level of precision, each future climate scenario &#8211; for any given model parameterization and level of exogenous forcing &#8211; is only one of the many possible future realizations of climate. The impacts literature usually relies on only one realization randomly taken out of the full distribution of future climates. Here we use one of the few available large scale ensembles produced to study internal variability and an econometric model of climate change impacts on United States (US) agricultural productivity to show that the range of impacts is much larger than previously thought. Different ensemble members lead to significantly different impacts. Significant sign reversals are frequent. Relying only on one ensemble member leads to incorrect conclusions on the effect of climate change on agriculture in most of the US counties. Impacts studies should start using large scale ensembles of future climate change to predict damages. Climatologists should ramp-up efforts to run large ensembles for all GCMs, for at least the most frequently used scenarios of exogenous forcing.</p>

Download Full-text

Climate change impacts on drought-prone forests in western Canada

The Forestry Chronicle ◽

10.5558/tfc81675-5 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 81 (5) ◽

pp. 675-682 ◽

Cited By ~ 65

Author(s):

E.H. (Ted) Hogg ◽

Pierre Y Bernier

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Carbon Dioxide ◽

Forest Management ◽

Early Detection ◽

Large Scale ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Forest Productivity ◽

Critical Issue ◽

Western Canada ◽

Key Words Climate Change

From a climate change perspective, much of the recent international focus on forests has been on their role in taking up carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The question of climate change impacts on forest productivity is also emerging as a critical issue, especially in drought-prone regions such as the western Canadian interior. Because of the complexity of interacting factors, there is uncertainty even in predicting the direction of change in the productivity of Canada's forests as a whole over the next century. In the most climatically vulnerable regions, however, successful adaptation may require more innovative approaches to forest management, coupled with an enhanced capacity for early detection of large-scale changes in forest productivity, dieback and regeneration. Key words: climate change, boreal forest, productivity, drought, impacts, adaptation

Download Full-text

Lawyer Up

Building a Resilient Tomorrow ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190909345.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 37-55

Author(s):

Hill and

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Large Scale ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Force Action ◽

Gas Emissions ◽

Media Attention ◽

Directors And Officers

Media attention has focused most intently on lawsuits seeking to force action to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and to hold fossil-fuel companies to account. Even if the courts fail to resolve the essential challenge of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, they will surely find themselves enmeshed in litigation for years over who pays for the damage. In courtroom after courtroom, judges will reach decisions that can contribute to or hinder resilience. This chapter explores how litigation over the harm caused by climate change impacts could offer greater clarity on who should pay for the damages and thereby spur decisions to invest in resilience on a large scale. As the severity and frequency of climate change-related damages grow, corporate directors and officers, architects, engineers, manufacturers, and others who have a duty to consider foreseeable harm and to manage the risk, will likely find themselves on the receiving end of litigation alongside fossil fuel companies and governments.

Download Full-text

Some Pitfalls in Statistical Downscaling of Future Climate

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ◽

10.1175/bams-d-17-0046.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 99 (4) ◽

pp. 791-803 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

John R. Lanzante ◽

Keith W. Dixon ◽

Mary Jo Nath ◽

Carolyn E. Whitlock ◽

Dennis Adams-Smith

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Statistical Downscaling ◽

Large Scale ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Future Climate ◽

Added Value ◽

Historical Period ◽

Perfect Model

AbstractStatistical downscaling (SD) is commonly used to provide information for the assessment of climate change impacts. Using as input the output from large-scale dynamical climate models and observation-based data products, SD aims to provide a finer grain of detail and to mitigate systematic biases. It is generally recognized as providing added value. However, one of the key assumptions of SD is that the relationships used to train the method during a historical period are unchanged in the future, in the face of climate change. The validity of this assumption is typically quite difficult to assess in the normal course of analysis, as observations of future climate are lacking. We approach this problem using a “perfect model” experimental design in which high-resolution dynamical climate model output is used as a surrogate for both past and future observations.We find that while SD in general adds considerable value, in certain well-defined circumstances it can produce highly erroneous results. Furthermore, the breakdown of SD in these contexts could not be foreshadowed during the typical course of evaluation based on only available historical data. We diagnose and explain the reasons for these failures in terms of physical, statistical, and methodological causes. These findings highlight the need for caution in the use of statistically downscaled products and the need for further research to consider other hitherto unknown pitfalls, perhaps utilizing more advanced perfect model designs than the one we have employed.

Download Full-text

The impact of Hurricane Michael on longleaf pine habitats in Florida

10.1101/736629 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Nicole E. Zampieri ◽

Stephanie Pau ◽

Daniel K. Okamoto

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Large Scale ◽

Tree Mortality ◽

Size Structure ◽

Longleaf Pine ◽

Pinus Palustris ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

The North ◽

Integral Role ◽

The Impact

AbstractThe longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem of the North American Coastal Plain (NACP) is a global biodiversity hotspot. Disturbances such as tropical storms play an integral role in ecosystem maintenance in these systems. However, altered disturbance regimes as a result of climate change may be outside the historical threshold of tolerance. Hurricane Michael impacted the Florida panhandle as a Category 5 storm on October 10th, 2018. In this study, we estimate the extent of Florida longleaf habitat that was directly impacted by Hurricane Michael. We then quantify the impact of Hurricane Michael on tree density and size structure using a Before-After study design at four sites (two wet flatwood and two upland pine communities). Finally, we identify the most common type of tree damage at each site and community type. We found that 39% of the total remaining extent of longleaf pine habitat was affected by the storm in Florida alone. Tree mortality ranged from 1.3% at the site furthest from the storm center to 88.7% at the site closest. Most of this mortality was in mature sized trees (92% mortality), upon which much of the biodiversity in this habitat depends. As the frequency and intensity of extreme events increases, management plans that mitigate for climate change impacts need to account for large-scale stochastic mortality events in order to effectively preserve critical habitats.

Download Full-text