scholarly journals Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1794) ◽  
pp. 20190104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yadvinder Malhi ◽  
Janet Franklin ◽  
Nathalie Seddon ◽  
Martin Solan ◽  
Monica G. Turner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
First Century ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Management Interventions ◽  
Twenty First Century

The rapid anthropogenic climate change that is being experienced in the early twenty-first century is intimately entwined with the health and functioning of the biosphere. Climate change is impacting ecosystems through changes in mean conditions and in climate variability, coupled with other associated changes such as increased ocean acidification and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. It also interacts with other pressures on ecosystems, including degradation, defaunation and fragmentation. There is a need to understand the ecological dynamics of these climate impacts, to identify hotspots of vulnerability and resilience and to identify management interventions that may assist biosphere resilience to climate change. At the same time, ecosystems can also assist in the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change. The mechanisms, potential and limits of such nature-based solutions to climate change need to be explored and quantified. This paper introduces a thematic issue dedicated to the interaction between climate change and the biosphere. It explores novel perspectives on how ecosystems respond to climate change, how ecosystem resilience can be enhanced and how ecosystems can assist in addressing the challenge of a changing climate. It draws on a Royal Society-National Academy of Sciences Forum held in Washington DC in November 2018, where these themes and issues were discussed. We conclude by identifying some priorities for academic research and practical implementation, in order to maximize the potential for maintaining a diverse, resilient and well-functioning biosphere under the challenging conditions of the twenty-first century. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions’.

TOOLS FOR FINANCING ECOSYSTEM-BASED ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Viktoriia Yashkina
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Carbon Taxes ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Adaptation Measures

The article aims to determine the "portfolio" of financing ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change based on the analysis of traditional market instruments used to preserve, maintain and restore ecosystem services and biodiversity. The definition of ecosystem-based adaptation, its qualification criteria and elements of their application in contrast to traditional economic measures for biodiversity and nature conservation are revealed. The relevance of using ecosystem and nature-based approaches to adapt to climate change and reduce the risk of natural disasters given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events associated with climate change – severe droughts, floods, heatwaves, storms and other hazards are explored. Accordingly, the urgency of adaptation to climate-related risks and hazards in different economic sectors, e.g. agriculture, land use, fisheries, and natural components with a focus on the climate impacts prognosis for the European region, using effective and affordable measures with additional long term social and environmental benefits are explained. Trends and specific gaps in the international experience in financing climate adaptation measures are considered. The most common instruments for financing nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change, which are already used in world practice or have the potential of their practical implementation in various sectors, including environmental and carbon taxes, subsidies, tradable environmental permits, risk insurance, obligations, debt and equity instruments, as well as innovative forms of green loans, green bonds, and climate-related insurance types are systematized and represented. The specifics of financing such measures through international funds, development banks and European Union funds are considered. Possibilities of integrating financing of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change to the current processes of climate change adaptation policy development of Ukraine, particularly in the context of performance of obligations under the Paris climate agreement, are considered.

scholarly journals Climate Change Projection in the Twenty-First Century Simulated by NIMS-KMA CMIP6 Model Based on New GHGs Concentration Pathways

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun Min Sung ◽  
Jisun Kim ◽  
Sungbo Shim ◽  
Jeong-byn Seo ◽  
Sang-Hoon Kwon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
First Century ◽  
System Model ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Future Projections ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractThe National Institute of Meteorological Sciences-Korea Meteorological Administration (NIMS-KMA) has participated in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) and provided long-term simulations using the coupled climate model. The NIMS-KMA produces new future projections using the ensemble mean of KMA Advanced Community Earth system model (K-ACE) and UK Earth System Model version1 (UKESM1) simulations to provide scientific information of future climate changes. In this study, we analyze four experiments those conducted following the new shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) based scenarios to examine projected climate change in the twenty-first century. Present day (PD) simulations show high performance skill in both climate mean and variability, which provide a reliability of the climate models and reduces the uncertainty in response to future forcing. In future projections, global temperature increases from 1.92 °C to 5.20 °C relative to the PD level (1995–2014). Global mean precipitation increases from 5.1% to 10.1% and sea ice extent decreases from 19% to 62% in the Arctic and from 18% to 54% in the Antarctic. In addition, climate changes are accelerating toward the late twenty-first century. Our CMIP6 simulations are released to the public through the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) international data sharing portal and are used to support the establishment of the national adaptation plan for climate change in South Korea.

scholarly journals An Assessment of Recent and Future Temperature Change over the Sichuan Basin, China, Using CMIP5 Climate Models

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (17) ◽  
pp. 6701-6722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bannister ◽  
Michael Herzog ◽  
Hans-F. Graf ◽  
J. Scott Hosking ◽  
C. Alan Short
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sichuan Basin ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Distribution Functions ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
First Century ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
The Sichuan Basin ◽  
Twenty First Century

The Sichuan basin is one of the most densely populated regions of China, making the area particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts associated with future climate change. As such, climate models are important for understanding regional and local impacts of climate change and variability, like heat stress and drought. In this study, climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are validated over the Sichuan basin by evaluating how well each model can capture the phase, amplitude, and variability of the regionally observed mean, maximum, and minimum temperature between 1979 and 2005. The results reveal that the majority of the models do not capture the basic spatial pattern and observed means, trends, and probability distribution functions. In particular, mean and minimum temperatures are underestimated, especially during the winter, resulting in biases exceeding −3°C. Models that reasonably represent the complex basin topography are found to generally have lower biases overall. The five most skillful climate models with respect to the regional climate of the Sichuan basin are selected to explore twenty-first-century temperature projections for the region. Under the CMIP5 high-emission future climate change scenario, representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5), the temperatures are projected to increase by approximately 4°C (with an average warming rate of +0.72°C decade−1), with the greatest warming located over the central plains of the Sichuan basin, by 2100. Moreover, the frequency of extreme months (where mean temperature exceeds 28°C) is shown to increase in the twenty-first century at a faster rate compared to the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Projections of Twenty-First-Century Climate Extremes for Alaska via Dynamical Downscaling and Quantile Mapping

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (9) ◽  
pp. 2393-2409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rick Lader ◽  
John E. Walsh ◽  
Uma S. Bhatt ◽  
Peter A. Bieniek
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Dynamical Downscaling ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Daily Maximum Temperature ◽  
Quantile Mapping ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractClimate change is expected to alter the frequencies and intensities of at least some types of extreme events. Although Alaska is already experiencing an amplified response to climate change, studies of extreme event occurrences have lagged those for other regions. Forced migration due to coastal erosion, failing infrastructure on thawing permafrost, more severe wildfire seasons, altered ocean chemistry, and an ever-shrinking season for snow and ice are among the most devastating effects, many of which are related to extreme climate events. This study uses regional dynamical downscaling with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to investigate projected twenty-first-century changes of daily maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation over Alaska. The forcing data used for the downscaling simulations include the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim; 1981–2010), Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Climate Model, version 3 (GFDL CM3), historical (1976–2005), and GFDL CM3 representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5; 2006–2100). Observed trends of temperature and sea ice coverage in the Arctic are large, and the present trajectory of global emissions makes a continuation of these trends plausible. The future scenario is bias adjusted using a quantile-mapping procedure. Results indicate an asymmetric warming of climate extremes; namely, cold extremes rise fastest, and the greatest changes occur in winter. Maximum 1- and 5-day precipitation amounts are projected to increase by 53% and 50%, which is larger than the corresponding increases for the contiguous United States. When compared with the historical period, the shifts in temperature and precipitation indicate unprecedented heat and rainfall across Alaska during this century.

scholarly journals A Comparison of Tropical Cyclone Projections in a High-resolution Global Climate Model and from Downscaling by Statistical and Statistical-deterministic Methods

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-48
Author(s):  
Renzhi Jing ◽  
Ning Lin ◽  
Kerry Emanuel ◽  
Gabriel Vecchi ◽  
Thomas R. Knutson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Tropical Cyclone ◽  
Deterministic Model ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
First Century ◽  
Return Level ◽  
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ◽  
Moderate Increase ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractIn this study, we investigate the response of tropical cyclones (TCs) to climate change by using the Princeton environment-dependent probabilistic tropical cyclone (PepC) model and a statistical-deterministic method to downscale TCs using environmental conditions obtained from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) High-resolution Forecast-oriented Low Ocean Resolution (HiFLOR) model, under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP4.5) emissions scenario for the North Atlantic basin. The downscaled TCs for the historical climate (1986-2005) are compared with those in the mid- (2016-35) and late-twenty-first century (2081-2100). The downscaled TCs are also compared with TCs explicitly simulated in HiFLOR. We show that while significantly more storms are detected in HiFLOR towards the end of the twenty-first century, the statistical-deterministic model projects a moderate increase in TC frequency, and PepC projects almost no increase in TC frequency. The changes in storm frequency in all three datasets are not significant in the mid-twenty-first century. All three project that storms will become more intense and the fraction of major hurricanes and Category 5 storms will significantly increase in the future climates. However, HiFLOR projects the largest increase in intensity while PepC projects the least. The results indicate that HiFLOR’s TC projection is more sensitive to climate change effects and statistical models are less sensitive. Nevertheless, in all three datasets, storm intensification and frequency increase lead to relatively small changes in TC threat as measured by the return level of landfall intensity.

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