scholarly journals Projection of Agricultural Water Stress for Climate Change Scenarios: A Regional Case Study of Iraq

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1288
Author(s):  
Saleem A. Salman ◽  
Shamsuddin Shahid ◽  
Ahmad Sharafati ◽  
Golam Saleh Ahmed Salem ◽  
Amyrhul Abu Bakar ◽  
...  

Assessment of possible changes in crops water stress due to climate alteration is essential for agricultural planning, particularly in arid regions where water supply is the major challenge for agricultural development. This study aims to project climatic water availability (CWA) and crop water demand (CWD) to outline the possible future agricultural water stress of Iraq for different radiative concentration pathways (RCPs). The ensemble means of downscaled precipitation and temperature projections of the selected global climate models (GCMs) were used in a simple water balance model for this purpose. The modified Mann–Kendall (mMK) trend test was employed to estimate the tendency in CWA and the Wilcoxon rank test to evaluate CWD alteration in three future time horizons compared to the base period (1971–2000). The results revealed a decrease in CWA at a rate of up to −34/year during 2010–2099 for RCP8.5. The largest declination would be in summer (−29/year) and an insignificant decrease in winter (−1.3/year). The study also showed an increase in CWD of all major crops for all scenarios. The highest increase in CWD would be for summer crops, approximately 320 mm, and the lowest for winter crops, nearly 32 mm for RCP8.5 in the far future (2070–2099). The decrease in CWA and increase in CWD would cause a sharp rise in crop water stress in Iraq. This study indicates that the increase in temperature is the main reason for a large increase in CWD and increased agricultural water stress in Iraq.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Yang ◽  
Maigeng Zhou ◽  
Zhoupeng Ren ◽  
Mengmeng Li ◽  
Boguang Wang ◽  
...  

AbstractRecent studies have reported a variety of health consequences of climate change. However, the vulnerability of individuals and cities to climate change remains to be evaluated. We project the excess cause-, age-, region-, and education-specific mortality attributable to future high temperatures in 161 Chinese districts/counties using 28 global climate models (GCMs) under two representative concentration pathways (RCPs). To assess the influence of population ageing on the projection of future heat-related mortality, we further project the age-specific effect estimates under five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). Heat-related excess mortality is projected to increase from 1.9% (95% eCI: 0.2–3.3%) in the 2010s to 2.4% (0.4–4.1%) in the 2030 s and 5.5% (0.5–9.9%) in the 2090 s under RCP8.5, with corresponding relative changes of 0.5% (0.0–1.2%) and 3.6% (−0.5–7.5%). The projected slopes are steeper in southern, eastern, central and northern China. People with cardiorespiratory diseases, females, the elderly and those with low educational attainment could be more affected. Population ageing amplifies future heat-related excess deaths 2.3- to 5.8-fold under different SSPs, particularly for the northeast region. Our findings can help guide public health responses to ameliorate the risk of climate change.


1995 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 144-148
Author(s):  
Garth W. Paltridge ◽  
Christopher M. Zweck

A simple steady-state energy and mass-balance model of the Antarctic ice sheet is developed. Basically it is a set of two equations with two unknowns of steady-state height h and potential basal temperature Tb. Tb determines whether, and to what extent, there is liquid water at the base of the ice which in turn affects the values of h and Tb. Simultaneous changes of sea-level temperature and precipitation (changes related to each other as might be expected from global climate models) indicate a maximum in the field of possible steady-state ice volumes which may not be far from the presently observed conditions. The possibility of cyclical variation in ground heat flux associated with convection of water and heat in the continental crust is discussed. The mechanism might be capable of generating cycles of ice-sheet volume with relatively short periods similar to those of Milankovitch forcing.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3299
Author(s):  
Christina M. Botai ◽  
Joel O. Botai ◽  
Nosipho N. Zwane ◽  
Patrick Hayombe ◽  
Eric K. Wamiti ◽  
...  

This research study evaluated the projected future climate and anticipated impacts on water-linked sectors on the transboundary Limpopo River Basin (LRB) with a focus on South Africa. Streamflow was simulated from two CORDEX-Africa regional climate models (RCMs) forced by the 5th phase of the Coupled Model Inter-Comparison Project (CMIP5) Global Climate Models (GCMs), namely, the CanESM2m and IPSL-CM5A-MR climate models. Three climate projection time intervals were considered spanning from 2006 to 2099 and delineated as follows: current climatology (2006–2035), near future (2036–2065) and end of century future projection (2070–2099). Statistical metrics derived from the projected streamflow were used to assess the impacts of the changing climate on water-linked sectors. These metrics included streamflow trends, low and high flow quantile probabilities, the Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI) trends and the proportion (%) of dry and wet years, as well as drought monitoring indicators. Based on the Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test, the LRB is projected to experience reduced streamflow in both the near and the distant future. The basin is projected to experience frequent dry and wet conditions that can translate to drought and flash floods, respectively. In particular, a high proportion of dry and a few incidences of wet years are expected in the basin in the future. In general, the findings of this research study will inform and enhance climate change adaptation and mitigation policy decisions and implementation thereof, to sustain the livelihoods of vulnerable communities.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Murphy

<p>The challenge of combining initialised and uninitialised decadal projections</p><p>James Murphy, Robin Clark, Nick Dunstone, Glen Harris, Leon Hermanson and Doug Smith</p><p>During the past 10 years or so, exploratory work in initialised decadal climate prediction, using global climate models started from recent analyses of observations, has grown into a coordinated international programme that contributes to IPCC assessments. At the same time, countries have continued to develop and update their national climate change scenarios.  These typically cover the full 21<sup>st</sup> century, including the initial decade that overlaps with the latest initialised forecasts. To date, however, national scenarios continue to be based exclusively on long-term (uninitialised) climate change simulations, with initialised information regarded as a separate stream of information.</p><p>We will use early results from the latest UK national scenarios (UKCP), and the latest CMIP6 initialised predictions, to illustrate the potential and challenges associated with the notion of combining both streams of information. This involves assessing the effects of initialisation on predictability and uncertainty (as indicated, for example, by the skill of ensemble-mean forecasts and the spread amongst constituent ensemble members). Here, a particular challenge involves interpretation of the “signal-to-noise” problem, in which ensemble-mean skill can sometimes be found which is larger than would be expected on the basis of the ensemble spread. In addition to initialisation, we will also emphasise the importance of understanding how the assessment of climate risks depends on other features of prediction system design, including the sampling of model uncertainties and the simulation of internal climate variability.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 361
Author(s):  
Rafaela Lisboa Costa ◽  
Heliofábio Barros Gomes ◽  
Fabrício Daniel Dos Santos Silva ◽  
Rodrigo Lins Da Rocha Júnior

The objective of this work was to analyze and compare results from two generations of global climate models (GCMs) simulations for the city of Recife-PE: CMIP3 and CMIP5. Differences and similarities in historical and future climate simulations are presented for four GCMs using CMIP3 scenarios A1B and A2 and for seven CMIP5 scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The scale reduction technique applied to GCMs scenarios is statistical downscaling, employing the same set of large-scale atmospheric variables as predictors for both sets of scenarios, differing only in the type of reanalysis data used to characterize surface variables precipitation, maximum and minimum temperatures. For CMIP3 scenarios the simulated historical climate is 1961-1990 and CMIP5 is 1979-2000, and the validation period is ten years, 1991-2000 for CMIP3 and 2001-2010 for CMIP5. However, for both the future period analyzed is 2021-2050 and 2051-2080. Validation metrics indicated superior results from the historical simulations of CMIP5 over those of CMIP3 for precipitation and minimum and similar temperatures for maximum temperatures. For the future, both CMIP3 and CMIP5 scenarios indicate reduced precipitation and increased temperatures. The potencial evapotranspiration was calculated, projected to increase in scenarios A1B and A2 of CMIP3 and with behavior similar to that observed historically in scenarios RCP4.5 and 8.5.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1803
Author(s):  
Inmaculada C. Jiménez-Navarro ◽  
Patricia Jimeno-Sáez ◽  
Adrián López-Ballesteros ◽  
Julio Pérez-Sánchez ◽  
Javier Senent-Aparicio

Precipitation and temperature around the world are expected to be altered by climate change. This will cause regional alterations to the hydrological cycle. For proper water management, anticipating these changes is necessary. In this study, the basin of Lake Erken (Sweden) was simulated with the recently released software SWAT+ to study such alterations in a short (2026–2050), medium (2051–2075) and long (2076–2100) period, under two different climate change scenarios (SSP2-45 and SSP5-85). Seven global climate models from the latest projections of future climates that are available (CIMP 6) were compared and ensembled. A bias-correction of the models’ data was performed with five different methods to select the most appropriate one. Results showed that the temperature is expected to increase in the future from 2 to 4 °C, and precipitation from 6% to 20%, depending on the scenario. As a result, water discharge would also increase by about 18% in the best-case scenario and by 50% in the worst-case scenario, and the surface runoff would increase between 5% and 30%. The floods and torrential precipitations would also increase in the basin. This trend could lead to soil impoverishment and reduced water availability in the basin, which could damage the watershed’s forests. In addition, rising temperatures would result in a 65% reduction in the snow water equivalent at best and 92% at worst.


Author(s):  
Jayne F. Knott ◽  
Jo E. Sias ◽  
Eshan V. Dave ◽  
Jennifer M. Jacobs

Pavements are vulnerable to reduced life with climate-change-induced temperature rise. Greenhouse gas emissions have caused an increase in global temperatures since the mid-20th century and the warming is projected to accelerate. Many studies have characterized this risk with a top-down approach in which climate-change scenarios are chosen and applied to predict pavement-life reduction. This approach is useful in identifying possible pavement futures but may miss short-term or seasonal pavement-response trends that are essential for adaptation planning. A bottom-up approach focuses on a pavement’s response to incremental temperature change resulting in a more complete understanding of temperature-induced pavement damage. In this study, a hybrid bottom-up/top-down approach was used to quantify the impact of changing pavement seasons and temperatures on pavement life with incremental temperature rise from 0 to 5°C at a site in coastal New Hampshire. Changes in season length, seasonal average temperatures, and temperature-dependent resilient modulus were used in layered-elastic analysis to simulate the pavement’s response to temperature rise. Projected temperature rise from downscaled global climate models was then superimposed on the results to determine the timing of the effects. The winter pavement season is projected to end by mid-century, replaced by a lengthening fall season. Seasonal pavement damage, currently dominated by the late spring and summer seasons, is projected to be distributed more evenly throughout the year as temperatures rise. A 7% to 32% increase in the asphalt-layer thickness is recommended to protect the base and subgrade with rising temperatures from early century to late-mid-century.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusuke Satoh ◽  
Hideo Shiogama ◽  
Naota Hanasaki ◽  
Yadu Pokhrel ◽  
Julien Boulange ◽  
...  

<p>Droughts are anticipated to intensify or become more frequent in many parts of the world due to climate change. However, the issue of drought definition, namely the diversity of drought definition, makes it difficult to compare drought projections and hampers overviewing future changes in drought. This issue is widely known and underscored in recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the relative importance of the issue and its spatial distribution have never been quantitatively evaluated compared to other sources of uncertainty.</p><p>Here, using a multi-scenario and multi-model dataset with combinations of three climate change scenarios, four global climate models and seven global water models, we evaluated changes in the frequency of three categories of drought (meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts) by a consistent standardized approach with four different temporal scales of accumulation periods to show how differences among the drought definitions could result in critical uncertainties. For simplicity, this study focuses on one drought index per drought category. Firstly we investigated the disagreement in the sign of changes between definitions, and then we decomposed the overall uncertainty to estimate the relative importance of each source of uncertainty. By a multifactorial ANOVA, uncertainty was decomposed into four main factors, namely drought definitions, climate change scenarios, global climate models and global water impact models, and their interactions.</p><p>Our results highlight specific regions where the sign of change disagrees between drought definitions. Importantly, changes in drought frequency in such regions tended to be statistically insignificant with low ensemble member agreement. Drought definition attributed to18% of the main factor uncertainty at the global scale, and the definition was the dominant uncertainty source over 11% of the global land area. The contribution of difference in the drought category showed a higher contribution to overall uncertainty than the difference in scales. The contribution of scenario uncertainty was the least among the main factors in general, though it is a dominant factor in the far-future in a couple of hotspot regions such as the Mediterranean region. Overall, model uncertainties were the primary source of uncertainty, and the definition issue was less important over large areas. However, definition uncertainty was the primal uncertainty source with significant changes in particular regions, such as parts of high-latitude areas in the northern hemisphere. One needs to pay attention to these regions in overviewing future drought change. Nonetheless, what this study quantified is the relative importance of uncertainty stemming from drought definition that should be avoidable or reducible if one treats drought specifically. Our results indicate that we can reduce uncertainty in drought projections to some extent and get a clearer picture by clarifying hydrological processes or sectors of interest.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 403-417
Author(s):  
Amit Dubey ◽  
Deepak Swami ◽  
Nitin Joshi

ncrease in the water scarcity and the related rise in demand of water coupled with the threating events of climate change, ultimately witnessed drought in the recent years to occur frequently. Therefore, Drought hydrology is drawing most of the attention. Drought which is a natural hazard can be best characterized by various hydrological and climatological parameters. In order to model drought, researchers have applied various concepts starting from simplistic model to the complex ones. The suitability of different modelling approaches and their negative and positive traits are very essential to comprehend. This paper is an attempt to review various methodologies utilized in modelling of drought such as forecasting of drought, drought modelling based on probability, Global Climate Models (GCM) under climate change scenarios. It is obtained from the present study that the past three decades have witnessed a very significant improvement in the drought modelling studies. For the larger time window of drought forecasting, hybrid models which incorporates large scale climate indices are promisingly suitable. Drought characterization based on copula models for multivariate drought characterization seems to have an edge over the others. At the end some conclusive remarks are made as far as the future drought modelling and research is concerned.


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