Sustainable water management and climate change: the North Sea Skills Integration and New Technologies (SKINT) project

Abstract. The fate and cycling of two selected legacy persistent organic pollutants (POPs), PCB 153 and γ-HCH, in the North Sea in the 21st century have been modelled with combined hydrodynamic and fate and transport ocean models. To investigate the impact of climate variability on POPs in the North Sea in the 21st century, future scenario model runs for three 10 yr periods to the year 2100 using plausible levels of both in situ concentrations and atmospheric, river and open boundary inputs are performed. Since estimates of future concentration levels of POPs in the atmosphere, oceans and rivers are not available, our approach was to reutilise 2005 values in the atmosphere, rivers and at the open ocean boundaries for every year of the simulations. In this way, we attribute differences between the three 10 yr simulations to climate change only. For the HAMSOM and atmospheric forcing, results of the IPCC A1B (SRES) 21st century scenario are utilised, where surface forcing is provided by the REMO downscaling of the ECHAM5 global atmospheric model, and open boundary conditions are provided by the MPIOM global ocean model. Dry gas deposition and volatilisation of γ-HCH increase in the future relative to the present. In the water column, total mass of γ-HCH and PCB 153 remain fairly steady in all three runs. In sediment, γ-HCH increases in the future runs, relative to the present, while PCB 153 in sediment decreases exponentially in all three runs, but even faster in the future, both of which are the result of climate change. Annual net sinks exceed sources at the ends of all periods.

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Surface Heat Budget over the North Sea in Climate Change Simulations

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos10050272 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 272 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Christian Dieterich ◽

Shiyu Wang ◽

Semjon Schimanke ◽

Matthias Gröger ◽

Birgit Klein ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Heat Flux ◽

North Sea ◽

Heat Budget ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Surface Heat ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea ◽

Rcp 8.5 ◽

Surface Heat Budget

An ensemble of regional climate change scenarios for the North Sea is validated and analyzed. Five Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) General Circulation Models (GCMs) using three different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) have been downscaled with the coupled atmosphere–ice–ocean model RCA4-NEMO. Validation of sea surface temperature (SST) against different datasets suggests that the model results are well within the spread of observational datasets. The ensemble mean SST with a bias of less than 1 ∘ C is the solution that fits the observations best and underlines the importance of ensemble modeling. The exchange of momentum, heat, and freshwater between atmosphere and ocean in the regional, coupled model compares well with available datasets. The climatological seasonal cycles of these fluxes are within the 95% confidence limits of the datasets. Towards the end of the 21st century the projected North Sea SST increases by 1.5 ∘ C (RCP 2.6), 2 ∘ C (RCP 4.5), and 4 ∘ C (RCP 8.5), respectively. Under this change the North Sea develops a specific pattern of the climate change signal for the air–sea temperature difference and latent heat flux in the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. In the RCP 8.5 scenario the amplitude of the spatial heat flux anomaly increases to 5 W/m 2 at the end of the century. Different hypotheses are discussed that could contribute to the spatially non-uniform change in air–sea interaction. The most likely cause for an increased latent heat loss in the central western North Sea is a drier atmosphere towards the end of the century. Drier air in the lee of the British Isles affects the balance of the surface heat budget of the North Sea. This effect is an example of how regional characteristics modulate global climate change. For climate change projections on regional scales it is important to resolve processes and feedbacks at regional scales.

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Rapid increase of observed DIC and pCO2 in the surface waters of the North Sea in the 2001-2011 decade ascribed to climate change superimposed by biological processes

Marine Chemistry ◽

10.1016/j.marchem.2015.08.010 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 177 ◽

pp. 566-581 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Nicola M. Clargo ◽

Lesley A. Salt ◽

Helmuth Thomas ◽

Hein J.W. de Baar

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

North Sea ◽

Surface Waters ◽

Biological Processes ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea

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Wind extremes in the North Sea Basin under climate change: An ensemble study of 12 CMIP5 GCMs

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres ◽

10.1002/jgrd.50147 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 118 (4) ◽

pp. 1601-1612 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

R. C. de Winter ◽

A. Sterl ◽

B. G. Ruessink

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

North Sea ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea ◽

Wind Extremes ◽

Cmip5 Gcms

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Shifts in spawning phenology of cod linked to rising sea temperatures

ICES Journal of Marine Science ◽

10.1093/icesjms/fsx025 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 74 (6) ◽

pp. 1561-1573 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Kate McQueen ◽

C. Tara Marshall

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

North Sea ◽

Gadus Morhua ◽

Atlantic Cod ◽

Size Structure ◽

Gonadal Development ◽

Trophic Levels ◽

Irish Sea ◽

The North ◽

The North Sea

AbstractWarming temperatures caused by climate change have the potential to impact spawning phenology of temperate marine fish as some species have temperature-dependent gonadal development. Inter-annual variation in the timing of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) spawning in the northern North Sea, central North Sea and Irish Sea was estimated by calculating an annual peak roe month (PRM) from records of roe landings spanning the last three decades. A trend towards earlier PRM was found in all three regions, with estimates of shifts in PRM ranging from 0.9 to 2.4 weeks per decade. Temperatures experienced by cod during early vitellogenesis correlated negatively with PRM, suggesting that rising sea temperatures have contributed to a shift in spawning phenology. A concurrent reduction in the mean size of spawning females excluded the possibility that earlier spawning was due to a shift in size structure towards larger individuals, as large cod spawn earlier than smaller-sized individuals in the North Sea. Further research into the effects of climate change on the phenology of different trophic levels within the North Sea ecosystem should be undertaken to determine whether climate change-induced shifts in spawning phenology will result in a temporal mismatch between cod larvae and their planktonic prey.

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Anthropogenic climate change shown by local wave conditions in the North Sea

Climate Research ◽

10.3354/cr019015 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 19 ◽

pp. 15-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

A Pfizenmayer ◽

H von Storch

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

North Sea ◽

Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽

The North ◽

Local Wave ◽

The North Sea ◽

Wave Conditions

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Impact of Climate Change on the North Sea Offshore Energy Sector

Volume 7B: Ocean Engineering ◽

10.1115/omae2018-77989 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Nicolas Fournier ◽

Galina Guentchev ◽

Justin Krijnen ◽

Andy Saulter ◽

Caroline Acton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sea Level ◽

North Sea ◽

Wave Climate ◽

Energy Industry ◽

Strong Impact ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The North ◽

Climate Indicators ◽

The North Sea

The complex nature of the energy industry across extraction, transportation, processing, delivery and decommissioning creates significant challenges to how the sector responds, adapts and mitigates against risks posed by the changing future climate. Any disruption in this interconnected system will affect both industry and society. For example, in the summer of 2005 Hurricane Katrina and a month later Hurricane Rita had wide reaching impacts on the US offshore Oil and Gas industry which resulted in an increase in global oil prices due to loss of production and refinery shutdowns in the Gulf of Mexico. Preparing, mitigating and adapting to these climate changes is dependent upon identifying appropriate climate indicators as well as the associated critical operational thresholds and design criteria of the identified vulnerable assets. The characterization and understanding of the likely changes in these climate indicators will form the basis for adaptation plans and mitigating actions. The Met Office in collaboration with energy industry partners, under the Copernicus Clim4energy European project, has developed a Climate Change Risk Assessment tool, which allows the visualization and extraction of the most recent sea level and wave climate information to evaluate their future changes. This study illustrates the application of this tool for evaluation of the potential vulnerability of an offshore infrastructure in the North Sea. The analysis shows that for this asset there is a small increase in sea level of 0.20–0.30 m at the location of interest by 2050. However, there is a small decrease or no consistent changes projected in the future wave climate. This wave signal is small compared to the uncertainty of the wave projections and the associated inter-annual variability. Therefore, for the 2050s time horizon, at the location of interest, there is no strong impact of climate change at the annual scale on the significant wave height, the sea level and thus the associated climate change driven extreme water level. However, further analysis are required at the seasonal and monthly scales.

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