Are there pre-Quaternary geological analogues for a future greenhouse warming?

2011 ◽  
Vol 369 (1938) ◽  
pp. 933-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan M. Haywood ◽  
Andy Ridgwell ◽  
Daniel J. Lunt ◽  
Daniel J. Hill ◽  
Matthew J. Pound ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Anthropogenic Emissions ◽  
Earth System ◽  
System Sensitivity ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Scientific Papers

Given the inherent uncertainties in predicting how climate and environments will respond to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, it would be beneficial to society if science could identify geological analogues to the human race’s current grand climate experiment . This has been a focus of the geological and palaeoclimate communities over the last 30 years, with many scientific papers claiming that intervals in Earth history can be used as an analogue for future climate change. Using a coupled ocean–atmosphere modelling approach, we test this assertion for the most probable pre-Quaternary candidates of the last 100 million years: the Mid- and Late Cretaceous, the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the Early Eocene, as well as warm intervals within the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. These intervals fail as true direct analogues since they either represent equilibrium climate states to a long-term CO 2 forcing—whereas anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases provide a progressive (transient) forcing on climate—or the sensitivity of the climate system itself to CO 2 was different. While no close geological analogue exists, past warm intervals in Earth history provide a unique opportunity to investigate processes that operated during warm (high CO 2 ) climate states. Palaeoclimate and environmental reconstruction/modelling are facilitating the assessment and calculation of the response of global temperatures to increasing CO 2 concentrations in the longer term (multiple centuries); this is now referred to as the Earth System Sensitivity, which is critical in identifying CO 2 thresholds in the atmosphere that must not be crossed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change in the long term. Palaeoclimatology also provides a unique and independent way to evaluate the qualities of climate and Earth system models used to predict future climate.

scholarly journals Past temperature reconstructions from deep ice cores: relevance for future climate change

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Masson-Delmotte ◽  
G. Dreyfus ◽  
P. Braconnot ◽  
S. Johnsen ◽  
J. Jouzel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Temperature Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Interglacial Period ◽  
Temperature Reconstructions

Abstract. Ice cores provide unique archives of past climate and environmental changes based only on physical processes. Quantitative temperature reconstructions are essential for the comparison between ice core records and climate models. We give an overview of the methods that have been developed to reconstruct past local temperatures from deep ice cores and highlight several points that are relevant for future climate change. We first analyse the long term fluctuations of temperature as depicted in the long Antarctic record from EPICA Dome C. The long term imprint of obliquity changes in the EPICA Dome C record is highlighted and compared to simulations conducted with the ECBILT-CLIO intermediate complexity climate model. We discuss the comparison between the current interglacial period and the long interglacial corresponding to marine isotopic stage 11, ~400 kyr BP. Previous studies had focused on the role of precession and the thresholds required to induce glacial inceptions. We suggest that, due to the low eccentricity configuration of MIS 11 and the Holocene, the effect of precession on the incoming solar radiation is damped and that changes in obliquity must be taken into account. The EPICA Dome C alignment of terminations I and VI published in 2004 corresponds to a phasing of the obliquity signals. A conjunction of low obliquity and minimum northern hemisphere summer insolation is not found in the next tens of thousand years, supporting the idea of an unusually long interglacial ahead. As a second point relevant for future climate change, we discuss the magnitude and rate of change of past temperatures reconstructed from Greenland (NorthGRIP) and Antarctic (Dome C) ice cores. Past episodes of temperatures above the present-day values by up to 5°C are recorded at both locations during the penultimate interglacial period. The rate of polar warming simulated by coupled climate models forced by a CO2 increase of 1% per year is compared to ice-core-based temperature reconstructions. In Antarctica, the CO2-induced warming lies clearly beyond the natural rhythm of temperature fluctuations. In Greenland, the CO2-induced warming is as fast or faster than the most rapid temperature shifts of the last ice age. The magnitude of polar temperature change in response to a quadrupling of atmospheric CO2 is comparable to the magnitude of the polar temperature change from the Last Glacial Maximum to present-day. When forced by prescribed changes in ice sheet reconstructions and CO2 changes, climate models systematically underestimate the glacial-interglacial polar temperature change.

scholarly journals The Impact of Possible Decadal-Scale Cold Waves on Viticulture over Europe in a Context of Global Warming

Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Sgubin ◽  
Didier Swingedouw ◽  
Iñaki García de Cortázar-Atauri ◽  
Nathalie Ollat ◽  
Cornelis van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Cold Waves ◽  
Decadal Scale ◽  
Ensemble Mean ◽  
The Impact

A comprehensive analysis of all the possible impacts of future climate change is crucial for strategic plans of adaptation for viticulture. Assessments of future climate are generally based on the ensemble mean of state-of-the-art climate model projections, which prefigures a gradual warming over Europe for the 21st century. However, a few models project single or multiple O(10) year temperature drops over the North Atlantic due to a collapsing subpolar gyre (SPG) oceanic convection. The occurrence of these decadal-scale “cold waves” may have strong repercussions over the continent, yet their actual impact is ruled out in a multi-model ensemble mean analysis. Here, we investigate these potential implications for viticulture over Europe by coupling dynamical downscaled EUR-CORDEX temperature projections for the representative concentration pathways (RCP)4.5 scenario from seven different climate models—including CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 exhibiting a SPG convection collapse—with three different phenological models simulating the main developmental stages of the grapevine. The 21st century temperature increase projected by all the models leads to an anticipation of all the developmental stages of the grapevine, shifting the optimal region for a given grapevine variety northward, and making climatic conditions suitable for high-quality wine production in some European regions that are currently not. However, in the CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 model, this long-term warming trend is suddenly interrupted by decadal-scale cold waves, abruptly pushing the suitability pattern back to conditions that are very similar to the present. These findings are crucial for winemakers in the evaluation of proper strategies to face climate change, and, overall, provide additional information for long-term plans of adaptation, which, so far, are mainly oriented towards the possibility of continuous warming conditions.

scholarly journals Evaluating Nature-Based Solution for Flood Reduction in Spercheios River Basin under Current and Future Climate Conditions

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3885
Author(s):  
Christos Spyrou ◽  
Michael Loupis ◽  
Νikos Charizopoulos ◽  
Ilektra Apostolidou ◽  
Angeliki Mentzafou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Maximum Velocity ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The Impact

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are being deployed around the world in order to address hydrometeorological hazards, including flooding, droughts, landslides and many others. The term refers to techniques inspired, supported and copied from nature, avoiding large constructions and other harmful interventions. In this work the development and evaluation of an NBS applied to the Spercheios river basin in Central Greece is presented. The river is susceptible to heavy rainfall and bank overflow, therefore the intervention selected is a natural water retention measure that aims to moderate the impact of flooding and drought in the area. After the deployment of the NBS, we examine the benefits under current and future climate conditions, using various climate change scenarios. Even though the NBS deployed is small compared to the rest of the river, its presence leads to a decrease in the maximum depth of flooding, maximum velocity and smaller flooded areas. Regarding the subsurface/groundwater storage under current and future climate change and weather conditions, the NBS construction seems to favor long-term groundwater recharge.

scholarly journals An evaluation of vegetation health and the socioeconomic dimension of the vulnerability of Jharkhand state of India in climate change scenarios and their likely impact: a geospatial approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Firoz Ahmad ◽  
Md Meraj Uddin ◽  
Laxmi Goparaju
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Forest Fire ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Tribal Population ◽  
Agricultural Vulnerability

AbstractGeospatial evaluation of various datasets is extremely important because it gives a better comprehension of the past, present and future and can therefore be significantly utilized in effective decision making strategies. This study examined the relationships, using geospatial tools, between various diversified datasets such as land use/land cover (LULC), long term Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based changes, long term forest fire points, poverty percentage, tribal percentage, forest fire hotspots, climate change vulnerability, agricultural vulnerability and future (2030) climate change anomalies (RCP-6) of Jharkhand state, India, for a better understanding and knowledge of its vegetation health, LULC, poverty, tribal population and future climate change impact. The long term NDVI (1982-2006) evaluation revealed negative change trends in seven northwest districts of Jharkhand state, these were: Hazaribag, Ramgarh, Palamu, Lohardaga, Chatra, Garhwa and Latehar. The forests as well as the agriculture of these districts have lost their greenness during this period. The forest fire frequency events were found to be more pronounced in the land use/land cover of “tropical lowland forests, broadleaved, evergreen, <1000 m” category, and were roughly twice the intensity of the “tropical mixed deciduous and dry deciduous forests” category. In the nine districts of Jharkhand it was found that 40 % of the population was living below the poverty line which is around twice the national average. The highest poverty districts, in percentage, were: Garwah (53.93), Palamu (49.24), Latehar (47.99) and Chatra (46.2). The southwest and south of Jharkhand state shows a tribal population density of more than 40%. The climate change vulnerability was found to be highest in the district of Saraikela followed by Pashchim Singhbhum, whereas agricultural vulnerability was found to be highest in the district of Pashchim Singhbhum followed by Saraikela, Garhwa, Simdega, Latehar, Palamu and Lohardaga. The temperature anomalies prediction for the year 2030 shows an increasing trend in temperature with values of 0.8°C to 1°C in the state of Jharkhand. The highest increases were observed in the districts of Pashchim Singhbhum, Simdega and Saraikela. Based on these evaluations we can conclude that a few of the districts of Jharkhand, such as Pashchim Singhbhum, Garhwa, Palamu and Latehar need to be prioritized for development on an urgent basis. The outcomes of this study would certainly guide the policymakers to prepare more robust plans when keeping in mind the future climate change impacts for the prioritization of various districts of Jharkhand which suffer from extreme poverty, diminished livelihood and insignificant agricultural productivity for the betterment of the people of Jharkhand based on their adaptive capacity.

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