How do community-level climate change vulnerability assessments treat future vulnerability and integrate diverse datasets? A review of the literature

Community-level vulnerability assessments (VAs) are important for understanding how populations experience vulnerabilities to climate change in different ways given local socioeconomic and environmental factors. Despite recent expansion in the literature that evaluates vulnerability at the local level, approaches to understanding future scenarios and to integrating climatic and nonclimatic factors are inconsistent and often lack clear methodological information. This study utilized systematic review methods to characterize and compare future scenarios and the integration of climatic and nonclimatic stimuli in community-focused VAs published over the last five years. Five common methods for assessing future dimensions of vulnerability were characterized. Key challenges regarding sources and scales of information were highlighted alongside methods to integrate data spanning climatic and nonclimatic information at scales ranging from local to global. The majority of VAs considered current and past vulnerability; few VAs incorporated future scenarios and these studies focused on future climatic conditions while largely overlooking changes in nonclimatic drivers of vulnerability. Approaches to evaluate future dimensions of vulnerability included climate model projections, socioeconomic model projections, temporal analogue approaches, longitudinal approaches, and local perceptions. These methods often failed to capture the dynamic interactions between variables through time, as future impacts are unlikely to follow previous patterns of change. To combine datasets of different scales, VAs created vulnerability indices, overlaid spatial datasets, or used expert judgement. These approaches tended to aggregate local characteristics to the regional level at the expense of community specificity. There is a need for methodological advances to assess future scenarios and to combine datasets in the field of community-level climate change VAs to make these studies more responsive to local realities and relevant to the development of climate change adaptation strategies.

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Aspects Concerning the Impact of Climate Aridization on Forest Ecosystems (Case Study)

Present Environment and Sustainable Development ◽

10.1515/pesd-2017-0025 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 63-75

Author(s):

Nedealcov Maria ◽

Donica Ala ◽

Brașoveanu Valeriu ◽

Grigoraș Nicolae ◽

Deomidova Cristina

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Ecosystems ◽

Temporal Dynamics ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Local Level ◽

Aridity Index ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Study Region ◽

Climate Aridization ◽

The Impact

Abstract Assessment activity and surveillance of the forests health, held at the global, regional and local level, has continuously developed, culminating in the current period with interdisciplinary and extensive scientific researches, that evaluate the effects of the main factors on forest ecosystems state, in particular, air pollution and climate change. Scientific researches have shown that among trees ecophysiological processes, forest life processes and meteorological parameters there are direct dependences, particularly in the case of trees supply with water during the growing period (May-July), with major influences for critical months (July and August), which have a decisive impact on growth, vitality and production of organic matter in forests. Dry years, from the beginning of the third millennium can lead to a decrease of mesophilic forests area (beech, sessile oak and penduculate oak), which will tend to retreat towards the center of the area (central Europe) in favor of thermophilic forests with pubescent oak. It was determined that a most significant negative impact of climate aridization will feel the forest ecosystems from Southern and central regions of country (conditioned by the mean air temperature (July-August), monthly rainfall (May-August), evapotranspiration and geographic latitude), and less - the Northern part of the country (Forestry Aridity Index calculated for 3 experimental stations revealed variations of this index between 7.8 - 8.3 - in the Central part of country, and 8.4 - 8.6 - for Southern part of country). At the same time the impact of climate change will determine the spatial and temporal dynamics of pests and pathogenic species. The phenomenon of climate aridization was expressed also through the impact of the Microsphaera alphitoides disease, intensity of “mildew” attack being based on the climatic conditions of the study region. Obtained data, for confirmation, were correlated with indications of bioindicators, present in the study region.

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Climate Change Impacts on Jordan River Flow: Downscaling Application from a Regional Climate Model

Journal of Hydrometeorology ◽

10.1175/2010jhm1177.1 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 860-879 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

Author(s):

Rana Samuels ◽

Alon Rimmer ◽

Andreas Hartmann ◽

Simon Krichak ◽

Pinhas Alpert

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Regional Climate Model ◽

Climate Model ◽

Local Level ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Resource Planning ◽

Annual Rainfall ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Jordan River ◽

Response Models

Abstract The integration of climate change projections into hydrological and other response models used for water resource planning and management is challenging given the varying spatial resolutions of the different models. In general, climate models are generated at spatial ranges of hundreds of kilometers, while hydrological models are generally watershed specific and based on input at the station or local level. This paper focuses on techniques applied to downscale large-scale climate model simulations to the spatial scale required by local response models (hydrological, agricultural, soil). Specifically, results were extracted from a regional climate model (RegCM) simulation focused on the Middle East, which was downscaled to a scale appropriate for input into a local watershed model [the Hydrological Model for Karst Environment (HYMKE)] calibrated for the upper Jordan River catchment. With this application, the authors evaluated the effect of future climate change on the amount and form of precipitation (rain or snow) and its effect on streamflow in the Jordan River and its tributaries—the major water resources in the region. They found that the expected changes in the form of precipitation are nearly insignificant in terms of changing the timing of streamflow. Additionally, the results suggest a future increase in evaporation and decrease in average annual rainfall, supporting expected changes based on global models in this region.

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Climate Data to Undertake Hygrothermal and Whole Building Simulations Under Projected Climate Change Influences for 11 Canadian Cities

Data ◽

10.3390/data4020072 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 72 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Abhishek Gaur ◽

Michael Lacasse ◽

Marianne Armstrong

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Snow Cover ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Internal Variability ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Climate Data ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Future

Buildings and homes in Canada will be exposed to unprecedented climatic conditions in the future as a consequence of global climate change. To improve the climate resiliency of existing and new buildings, it is important to evaluate their performance over current and projected future climates. Hygrothermal and whole building simulation models, which are important tools for assessing performance, require continuous climate records at high temporal frequencies of a wide range of climate variables for input into the kinds of models that relate to solar radiation, cloud-cover, wind, humidity, rainfall, temperature, and snow-cover. In this study, climate data that can be used to assess the performance of building envelopes under current and projected future climates, concurrent with 2 °C and 3.5 °C increases in global temperatures, are generated for 11 major Canadian cities. The datasets capture the internal variability of the climate as they are comprised of 15 realizations of the future climate generated by dynamically downscaling future projections from the CanESM2 global climate model and thereafter bias-corrected with reference to observations. An assessment of the bias-corrected projections suggests, as a consequence of global warming, future increases in the temperatures and precipitation, and decreases in the snow-cover and wind-speed for all cities.

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Relative impacts of climate change and anthropogenic forcing on karst spring discharge forecasting of a Mediterranean catchment

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4150 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Vianney Sivelle ◽

Hervé Jourde ◽

Daniel Bittner ◽

Naomi Mazzilli ◽

Yves Tramblay

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Model ◽

Major Effect ◽

Spring Discharge ◽

Future Scenarios ◽

Karst Spring ◽

Groundwater Abstraction ◽

Anthropogenic Forcing ◽

Future Evolution ◽

Climate Model Simulations

The Mediterranean region is identified as a climate change hotspot, where future scenarios indicate an increase of temperature associated with a decrease of precipitation. Providing future scenarios of water resource availability considering both climate and anthropogenic changes on karst catchments remains a major challenge for hydrological sciences. The study concerns the Oeillal spring, which is one outlet of the karst catchment associated with the Fonfroide-Monredon massif (southern France), mainly composed by Jurassic limestones. We assess the relative effects of climate changes and anthropogenic forcing on the karst spring discharge by coupling 12 climate model simulations (GCM/RCM) under two emission scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) with 3 hydrological models and considering 4 scenarios of groundwater abstraction for drinking water supply (no abstraction, present-day abstraction, +50 % abstraction and +100 % abstraction at horizon 2100). &#160;We find that climate change has a major effect on the future evolution of the Oeillal spring&#8217;s discharge and that groundwater abstraction constitutes a secondary but non-negligible factor, which increases the occurrence of dry up of the Oeillal spring.

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Pedoclimatic comparison of three viticultural areas of Italy devoted to high-quality Aglianico and Cabernet Sauvignon production

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7384 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Eugenia Monaco ◽

Roberto De Mascellis ◽

Giuliana Barbato ◽

Paola Mercogliano ◽

Maurizio Buonanno ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Mediterranean Area ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Cabernet Sauvignon ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Italian Regions ◽

Berry Quality ◽

Rcp 8.5

In the Mediterranean area, the expected increase in temperature coupled with the decrease in rainfall, as well as the increase in the frequency of extreme events (heatwaves and drought, IPCC, 2019), will severely affect the survival of current vineyard areas. Cultivar thermal requirement and soil water availability could be not satisfied, leading to a limitation in yield and berry quality also due to constraints in the achievement of optimal grape maturity.In this context, the understanding of how the spatial viticultural suitability will change under climate change is of primary interest in order to identify the best adaptation strategies to guarantee the resilience of current viticultural areas. Moreover, the improvement of knowledge of climate, soil, and their interaction for each specific cultivar will be fundamental because the terroir system is based on this interaction able to influence the plant status (e.g., water).In this study, different pedo-climatic conditions (past, present, and future) in three Italian sites at different latitudes (from center to southern), were compared for two red varieties of grapevine: Aglianico (indigenous cv) and Cabernet Sauvignon (international cv).Grapevine adaptation to future climate in each experimental farm in Campania, Molise, and Sicily Italian regions has been realized through the use of bioclimatic indexes (e.g., Amerine & Winkler for Aglianico 2110 GDD). The climatic evaluation was performed using Regional Climate Model COSMO-CLM at high-resolution (8km x 8km) climate projections RCP4.5 and RCP 8.5 (2010-2100) and Reference Climate (RC, 1971-2005).Results have shown how climate change will affect the cultivation of Aglianico and Cabernet Sauvignon, considering both the climate and bioclimatic needs of cultivars themselves in the current viticultural areas.Finally, coupled with the climatic evaluation, a pedological survey to characterize the soils, and the analysis of satellite images (Sentinel2 ) coupled with stemwood anatomical analysis has been performed to reconstruct the past eco-physiological behavior.

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Variations in the Simulation of Climate Change Impact Indices due to Different Land Surface Schemes over the Mediterranean, Middle East and Northern Africa

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos10010026 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 26 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Katiana Constantinidou ◽

George Zittis ◽

Panos Hadjinicolaou

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Middle East ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Change Impact ◽

Climate Model ◽

Eastern Mediterranean ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Relative Dispersion ◽

Change Impact

The Eastern Mediterranean (EM) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are projected to be exposed to extreme climatic conditions in the 21st century, which will likely induce adverse impacts in various sectors. Relevant climate change impact assessments utilise data from climate model projections and process-based impact models or simpler, index-based approaches. In this study, we explore the implied uncertainty from variations of climate change impact-related indices as induced by the modelled climate (WRF regional climate model) from different land surface schemes (Noah, NoahMP, CLM and RUC). The three climate change impact-related indicators examined here are the Radiative Index of Dryness (RID), the Fuel Dryness Index (Fd) and the Water-limited Yield (Yw). Our findings indicate that Noah simulates the highest values for both RID and Fd, while CLM gives the highest estimations for winter wheat Yw. The relative dispersion in the three indices derived by the different land schemes is not negligible, amounting, for the overall geographical domain of 25% for RID and Fd, and 10% for Yw. The dispersion is even larger for specific sub-regions.

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Will climate change impact polar NOx produced by energetic particle precipitation?

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-5120 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ville Maliniemi ◽

Daniel R. Marsh ◽

Hilde Nesse Tyssøy ◽

Christine Smith-Johnsen

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Model ◽

Energetic Electron ◽

Atmospheric Effects ◽

Future Scenarios ◽

Future Scenario ◽

The Future ◽

Mean Meridional Circulation ◽

Change Impact

Energetic electron precipitation (EEP) is an important source of polar nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the upper atmosphere. During winter, mesospheric NOx has a long chemical lifetime and is transported to the stratosphere by the mean meridional circulation. Climate change is expected to accelerate this circulation and therefore increase polar mesospheric descent rates. We investigate the southern hemispheric polar NOx distribution during the 21st century under a variety of future scenarios using simulations of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). Each future scenario has the same moderate variable solar activity scenario, where EEP activity is lower than during the 20th century. We simulate stronger polar mesospheric descent in all future scenarios that increase the atmospheric radiative forcing. By the end of 21st century polar NOx in the upper stratosphere is significantly enhanced in two future scenarios with the largest increase in radiative forcing. This indicates that the ozone depleting NOx cycle will become more important in the future, especially if stratospheric chlorine species decline. Thus, EEP-related atmospheric effects may become more prominent in the future.

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Future storylines of the 2012 soybean failure event

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-3146 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Henrique Moreno Dumont Goulart ◽

Bart van den Hurk ◽

Karin van der Wiel

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Random Forest ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Soybean Production ◽

Weather Events ◽

Failure Event

Weather events are a common cause for crop failures all over the world. Whilst extreme weather conditions may cause extreme impacts, the most common type of failure-inducing weather events are compounded. For these cases, explaining which conditions triggered a failure event is a complex task, as the links connecting climate and crop yield can be multiple and non-linear. On top of that, the climate change is likely to perturb the interface between climate and agriculture, possibly altering the occurrences or the drivers of crop failures, or generating new types of extreme impacts. In this context, the goal of this study is to demonstrate how global warming can affect the climate-crop connection. For that, we use a storyline approach and focus on an observed failure event, the extreme low soybean production during the 2012 season in hotspots regions, such as the Midwest US, Brazil and Argentina. The scale of this event drove the global soybean prices to the highest values ever recorded. We set out to quantify the change in occurrence of similar events in a warmer scenario. The storylines allow for event attribution, where a given impact can be examined and its causes disentangled. Here, four hotspots of soybean production are examined to contemplate the local consequences of climate change. The study is divided in two parts. We first link climatic features with soybean yields. For each hotspot region, a random forest classifier model is used to establish which meteorological variables are most important and how they are correlated with low soybean yields. With the model trained, we identify the climatic conditions that lead to the 2012 event. Second, we explore the influence of global warming on crop failures. Three large ensembles of simulated weather are obtained from the EC-Earth global climate model, one relating to the present-day period (including the 2012 event) and two relating to future periods with different levels of future warming . We apply the random forest model to these data, and obtain failure statistics for both present and future conditions, isolating the influence of climate change on the soybean failure. &#160;

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Modeling irrigation effects on the regional climate in the "Greater Alpine Region" using a newly developed parameterization

10.5194/ems2021-176 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christina Asmus ◽

Peter Hoffmann ◽

Joni-Pekka Pietikäinen ◽

Jürgen Böhner ◽

Diana Rechid

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Change ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Alpine Region ◽

Mitigation Potential ◽

Po Valley ◽

Irrigation Effects

Irrigation is a common land use practice to adapt agriculture to unsuitable climatic conditions. It is highly relevant to ensure food production. Due to the growing population and its food demand in the future, as well as due to climate change, the irrigated areas are expected to increase globally. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of irrigation on the climate system. Irrigation of cropland alters the biogeophysical properties of the land surface and the soil. Due to the land-atmosphere interactions, these alterations have the potential to affect the atmosphere directly or through feedback processes. Various studies point out that the effects of irrigation, like temperature reduction, are particularly pronounced on local to regional scales where they bear a mitigation potential to regional climate change. This study aims to investigate the effects of irrigation on the regional climate. To model these effects, we developed and implemented a new flexible irrigation parameterization into the regional climate model REMO. In our setup, REMO is interactively coupled to the mosaic-based vegetation module iMOVE, enabling the calculation of irrigation effects and feedbacks on land, vegetation, and atmosphere. Multiple simulations for specific climatic conditions with and without the new irrigation parameterization are conducted on 0.11&#176; resolution for the &#8221;Greater Alpine Region&#8220;, which includes some of Europe&#8216;s most intensively irrigated areas like the Po valley in Northern Italy. The differences between these simulations are analyzed to identify and quantify irrigation effects on atmospheric processes. The new irrigation parameterization will be introduced and the analysis of the irrigation effects on the regional climate in the &#8220;Greater Alpine Region&#8221; will be presented.

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Do National Policies Translate into Local Actions? Analyzing Coherence between Climate Change Adaptation Policies and Implications for Local Adaptation in Nepal

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132313115 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (23) ◽

pp. 13115

Author(s):

Kumar Bahadur Darjee ◽

Ramesh Kumar Sunam ◽

Michael Köhl ◽

Prem Raj Neupane

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Food Security ◽

Field Study ◽

Local Adaptation ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Local Level ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Community Level ◽

Adaptation Measures ◽

Change Policy

National climate change policy and strategies set out a framework for planning and undertaking climate change adaptation as well as mitigation activities at the national and local levels. In this article, we examine the coherence and contradictions between national policies and plans, and its impacts on the implementation of adaptation measures at the local level. We undertook a content review of key climate change policy documents (n = 4) of Nepal. In addition, we conducted a field study in the Rajdevi Community Forest User Group (CFUG) located in the mid-hills of Nepal, which has developed and implemented a community level adaptation plan of action (CAPA). The field study involved household interviews, focus group discussions, and an in-depth analysis of CAPA implementation. The paper found that while policies are coherent for targeting highly affected areas and communities, they deviate from discerning an appropriate planning and implanting unit. The local adaptation plan of action (LAPA) considers the local government as an implementing unit, while the national adaptation program of action (NAPA) puts an emphasis on the local community groups. It suggests that the existing LAPA implementation breaches the provision of community-level institutions for the implementation conceived in the central framework. Despite little attention to promoting food security in climate change policy, through the CAPA, local communities have planned and implemented adaptation measures envisioned in the thematic areas identified in the climate change policy of Nepal: agriculture and food security; forests and biodiversity; water resources and energy; climate-induced disasters; public health; and urban settlements and infrastructure. Nevertheless, the CAPA is not institutionalized under government policies and the institutional framework as a local level implementing unit. So, the consensus for a local implementing unit in the policies has remained a key issue. We suggest identifying a suitable and acceptable unit for implementing climate change adaptation at the community level. Only if an appropriate implementing unit is identified can the policies be successful with a broader acceptance and desirable outcomes enshrined in the climate change policy.

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