Regional Climate Impacts of Irrigation in Northern Italy Using a High Resolution Model

Irrigation is crucial for sustaining agriculture in certain regions; however, there are effects on the local climate. Previous studies discussed that the irrigation signal might depend on the geographical region as well as the synoptic and climatic conditions. The work presented here aims to investigate the mechanisms behind changes in the irrigation impact on the local conditions depending on synoptic changes. Different to previous works, this employs convection-permitting simulations. Irrigation processes are parameterized in three different ways depending on the evaporative loss. The region of focus is in northern Italy (Po Valley), which is of interest for both the soil-atmosphere coupling strength and widely used irrigation. The simulation period is Summer 2015 (May–July), which includes a heatwave month (July) and an average month (June). The results show how irrigation prevented the drying out of the soil layers during the heatwave. This influences the surface flux partition differently, by increasing moisture flux and decreasing the sensible heat flux. In general, the irrigation impact magnitude, with respect to the control simulation, is more than double in July compared to June. This study discusses climate implications for the region, such as the impact of widespread irrigation on the vegetation health, the heatwave feedback mechanism, atmospheric pollution, and human heat discomfort.

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Variability of the water availability in a river lake system – A case study of Lake Symsar

Journal of Water and Land Development ◽

10.1515/jwld-2016-0039 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 87-96 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Angela B. Kuriata-Potasznik ◽

Sławomir Szymczyk

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Availability ◽

Water Retention ◽

Water Exchange ◽

Water Losses ◽

Local Conditions ◽

Local Climate ◽

Lake System ◽

Catchment Areas ◽

The Impact

AbstractIt is predicted that climate change will result in the diminution of water resources available both on global and regional scales. Local climate change is harder to observe and therefore, while counteracting its effects, it seems advisable to undertake studies on pertinent regional and local conditions. In this research, our aim was to assess the impact of a river and its catchment on fluctuations in the water availability in a natural lake which belongs to a post-glacial river and lake system. River and lake systems behave most often like a single interacting hydrological unit, and the intensity of water exchange in these systems is quite high, which may cause temporary water losses. This study showed that water in the analyzed river and lake system was exchanged approx. every 66 days, which resulted from the total (horizontal and vertical) water exchange. Also, the management of a catchment area seems to play a crucial role in the local water availability, as demonstrated by this research, where water retention was favoured by wooded and marshy areas. More intensive water retention was observed in a catchment dominated by forests, pastures and wetlands. Wasteland and large differences in the land elevation in the tested catchment are unfavourable to water retention because they intensify soil evaporation and accelerate the water run-off outside of the catchment. Among the actions which should be undertaken in order to counteract water deficiencies in catchment areas, rational use and management of the land resources in the catchment are most often mentioned.

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The impact of urban policy scenarios on local climate: a multi-model intercomparison

10.5194/dach2022-216 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Arianna Valmassoi ◽

Jan D. Keller ◽

Rita Glowienka-Hense

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Policy ◽

Western Europe ◽

Model Comparison ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Limited Area ◽

Urban Greening ◽

Local Climate ◽

The Impact ◽

Policy Scenarios

Understanding the impact of urban environments on the local climate has been a crucial topic in recent years. Changes in the cities structure are expected due to the ongoing urbanization trends and climate-aware mitigation planning. These policy implementations are expected to affect the local urban surface and its interaction with the climate system. Here, we are interested in investigating these impacts coupled to a heatwave condition, due to its adverse impact on human health.&#160; In the presented work, we investigate the multi-model response to different urbanization and urban greening scenarios. We employ two NWP models at the 2.1 km convection-permitting resolution: ICON-LAM (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic Model in Limited Area Mode) &#160;and WRF-ARW (Weather Research and Forecasting Model). Our one-month experiments comprise the 2019 ``record-breaking'' heatwave in Western Europe and they are all a downscaling of ICON-EU (6.5km resolution). The urban policy scenarios are built from the CORINE land use dataset and they include two urbanization and two urban greening settings, for each model. Urbanization is represented as a sprawl of the main urban areas within the domain towards the natural surrounding areas. To increase the urban green fraction within the main cities, we increase the number of green areas within each city. Our analysis shows the multi-model comparison of the effects of the mentioned urban policies on the urban heat island (UHI) under heatwave conditions. Further, we quantify the effects of urban greening as an efficient tool to mitigate expected climate impacts in terms of the Discomfort Index, and not just for the UHI. Further, we evaluate the similarities and dissimilarities between the two models in terms of multiple correlation decomposition accordingly to Glowienka-Hense et al. 2020.

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Continentality and Oceanity in the Mid and High Latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and Their Links to Atmospheric Circulation

Advances in Meteorology ◽

10.1155/2018/5746191 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2018 ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Edvinas Stonevicius ◽

Gintautas Stankunavicius ◽

Egidijus Rimkus

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Atmospheric Circulation ◽

Northern Hemisphere ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Change ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

High Latitudes ◽

Teleconnection Patterns ◽

The Pacific ◽

The Impact

The climate continentality or oceanity is one of the main characteristics of the local climatic conditions, which varies with global and regional climate change. This paper analyzes indexes of continentality and oceanity, as well as their variations in the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere in the period 1950–2015. Climatology and changes in continentality and oceanity are examined using Conrad’s Continentality Index (CCI) and Kerner’s Oceanity Index (KOI). The impact of Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns on continentality/oceanity conditions was also evaluated. According to CCI, continentality is more significant in Northeast Siberia and lower along the Pacific coast of North America as well as in coastal areas in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. However, according to KOI, areas of high continentality do not precisely correspond with those of low oceanity, appearing to the south and west of those identified by CCI. The spatial patterns of changes in continentality thus seem to be different. According to CCI, a statistically significant increase in continentality has only been found in Northeast Siberia. In contrast, in the western part of North America and the majority of Asia, continentality has weakened. According to KOI, the climate has become increasingly continental in Northern Europe and the majority of North America and East Asia. Oceanity has increased in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and in some parts of the Mediterranean region. Changes in continentality were primarily related to the increased temperature of the coldest month as a consequence of changes in atmospheric circulation: the positive phase of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and East Atlantic (EA) patterns has dominated in winter in recent decades. Trends in oceanity may be connected with the diminishing extent of seasonal sea ice and an associated increase in sea surface temperature.

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A New Framework to Evaluate Urban Design Using Urban Microclimatic Modelling in Future Climatic Conditions

10.20944/preprints201802.0109.v1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Dasaraden Mauree ◽

Silvia Coccolo ◽

Dasun Perera ◽

Vahid Nik ◽

Jean-Louis Scartezzini ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Energy Consumption ◽

Urban Design ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Energy System ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Local Climate ◽

Heating And Cooling ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

Building more energy efficient and sustainable urban areas that will both mitigate the effect of climate change and adapt for the future climate, requires the development new tools and methods that can help urban planners, architect and communities achieve this goal. In the current study, we designed a workflow that links different methodologies developed separately, to derive the energy consumption of a university school campus for the future. Three different scenarios for typical future years (2039, 2069, 2099) were run as well as a renovation scenario (Minergie-P). We analyse the impact of climate change on the heating and cooling demand of the buildings and determined the relevance of the accounting of the local climate in this particular context. The results from the simulations showed that in the future there will a constant decrease in the heating demand while for the cooling demand there will be a significant increase. It was further demonstrated that when the local climate was taken into account there was an even higher rise in the cooling demand but also that the proposed renovations were not sufficient to design resilient buildings. We then discuss the implication of this work on the simulation of building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale and the impact of future local climate on energy system design. We finally give a few perspective regarding improved urban design and possible pathways for the future urban areas.

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Mapping the Decay Hazard of Wooden Structures in Topographically Divergent Regions

Forests ◽

10.3390/f11050510 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 510

Author(s):

Christian Brischke ◽

Vanessa Selter

Keyword(s):

Climate Index ◽

Small Scale ◽

Fungal Decay ◽

Local Conditions ◽

Local Climate ◽

Exposure Models ◽

Average Annual Temperature ◽

Weather Stations ◽

The Impact ◽

Wooden Structures

The service life of exposed wooden structures depends on many endogenous and exogenous factors with moisture being key for fungal degradation. Climate parameters are therefore important input variables for modelling fungal decay in wood. In recent years, different approaches aimed at modelling climate-induced dosage on the material climate (i.e., exposure models) and the effect of the latter on fungal decay (i.e., decay models). Based on maps of Europe, North America or Australia, the decay hazard can be assigned to zones and used for estimating the relative decay potential of an arbitrary location. However, especially in topographically divergent regions, the climate-induced decay hazard can vary strongly within a small area. Within this study, decay hazards were quantified and mapped for a mountainous region where topography-induced differences in local climate and corresponding exposure dosage can be expected. The area under investigation was Switzerland. In addition to the Scheffer Climate Index (SCI), two exposure models were combined with two decay models and used to quantify the relative moisture- and temperature-induced exposure dose at 75 different weather stations in Switzerland and adjacent regions. The exposure was expressed as relative dosage with Uppsala (Sweden) as a reference location. Relative dose values were calculated for locations between weather stations using an ‘inverse distance weighted (IDW)’ interpolation and displayed in maps for the entire country. A more detailed analysis was undertaken for the Lötschental area, which is the largest valley on the northern side of the Rhône valley in the canton of Valais. The relative dose differed strongly within small areas and altitude was well correlated with the average annual temperature and the resulting relative dose. It became evident that small-scale mapping with high resolution is needed to fully reflect the impact of topography and other local conditions on the moisture- and temperature-induced decay risk in wooden components.

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Speleothems as recorders of local climate variability and its implications for Maya cultural evolution from a unique cave site on the northern Yucatán Peninsula

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15846 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nils Schorndorf ◽

Norbert Frank ◽

Sophie Warken ◽

Julius Förstel ◽

Andrea Schröder-Ritzrau ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cultural Evolution ◽

Growth Rates ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Volcanic Eruptions ◽

Local Climate ◽

Terminal Classic ◽

First Results ◽

Historical Times ◽

Decadal Climate ◽

The Impact

The unsteady cultural evolution and final collapse of Maya civilization in Mesoamerica are heavily debated issues and discussion includes the impact of both natural (e.g., droughts, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions) and social disasters (e.g., warfare and unsustainable economy). An increasing number of records point to recurrent multi-year droughts coinciding with hiatuses in construction, periods of temporary urban abandonment and population collapse. Previous reconstructions indicate that environmental conditions and precipitation on the Yucat&#225;n Peninsula were distributed very heterogeneously in space and time and the duration and chronology of events remains uncertain. High resolution environmental reconstructions are, however, mainly based on archives from sites on the southern Yucat&#225;n Peninsula.We have now recovered several stalagmites from Estrella Cave, northern Yucat&#225;n Peninsula, spanning the entire Maya era and reaching even to historical times (&#8722;1100 to 1780 AD). The high precision 230Th/U ages obtained so far from these stalagmites indicate growth rates of up to 160 &#181;m per year, thus offering the potential for annual to decadal climate proxy reconstruction. Here we present 230Th/U based preliminary age models for some of these stalagmites. Based on growth rates, petrographic observations, and trace element to calcium ratios we draw first conclusions on the timing of (recurrent) dry periods around key episodes of Maya cultural evolution, such as the Terminal Classic Period (~800&#8211;1000 AD). Furthermore, these first results show that the incorporation of certain trace elements (Mg, Sr, Ba, P, &#8230;) in these speleothems is strongly related to recharge and hence precipitation above the cave. Moreover, the site also contains unique remains of the Mayan culture, such as paintings, pottery, constructions and even buried skeletons, thus highlighting its significance not only for regional climate reconstruction but also for local archaeology.

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Storyline approach to the construction of regional climate change information

Proceedings of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspa.2019.0013 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 475 (2225) ◽

pp. 20190013 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Theodore G. Shepherd

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Atmospheric Circulation ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Regional Climate Change ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Ethical Implications ◽

Climate Change Information ◽

The Impact

Climate science seeks to make statements of confidence about what has happened, and what will happen (conditional on scenario). The approach is effective for the global, thermodynamic aspects of climate change, but is ineffective when it comes to aspects of climate change related to atmospheric circulation, which are highly uncertain. Yet, atmospheric circulation strongly mediates climate impacts at the regional scale. In this way, the confidence framework, which focuses on avoiding type 1 errors (false alarms), raises the prospect of committing type 2 errors (missed warnings). This has ethical implications. At the regional scale, however, where information on climate change has to be combined with many other factors affecting vulnerability and exposure—most of which are highly uncertain—the societally relevant question is not ‘What will happen?’ but rather ‘What is the impact of particular actions under an uncertain regional climate change?’ This reframing of the question can cut the Gordian knot of regional climate change information, provided one distinguishes between epistemic and aleatoric uncertainties—something that is generally not done in climate projections. It is argued that the storyline approach to climate change—the identification of physically self-consistent, plausible pathways—has the potential to accomplish precisely this.

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Beyond one-way determinism: San Frediano’s miracle and climate change in Central and Northern Italy in late antiquity

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-021-03043-x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 165 (1-2) ◽

Author(s):

Giovanni Zanchetta ◽

Monica Bini ◽

Kevin Bloomfield ◽

Adam Izdebski ◽

Nicola Vivoli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Roman Empire ◽

Late Antiquity ◽

Central Italy ◽

Extreme Rainfall ◽

Northern Italy ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Historical Records ◽

Atmospheric Conditions ◽

Extreme Rainfall Events ◽

The Impact

AbstractIntegrating palaeoclimatological proxies and historical records, which is necessary to achieve a more complete understanding of climate impacts on past societies, is a challenging task, often leading to unsatisfactory and even contradictory conclusions. This has until recently been the case for Italy, the heart of the Roman Empire, during the transition between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In this paper, we present new high-resolution speleothem data from the Apuan Alps (Central Italy). The data document a period of very wet conditions in the sixth c. AD, probably related to synoptic atmospheric conditions similar to a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. For this century, there also exist a significant number of historical records of extreme hydroclimatic events, previously discarded as anecdotal. We show that this varied evidence reflects the increased frequency of floods and extreme rainfall events in Central and Northern Italy at the time. Moreover, we also show that these unusual hydroclimatic conditions overlapped with the increased presence of “water miracles” in Italian hagiographical accounts and social imagination. The miracles, performed by local Church leaders, strengthened the already growing authority of holy bishops and monks in Italian society during the crucial centuries that followed the “Fall of the Roman Empire”. Thus, the combination of natural and historical data allows us to show the degree to which the impact of climate variability on historical societies is determined not by the nature of the climatic phenomena per se, but by the culture and the structure of the society that experienced it.

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The impact of climate change on the water requirement of grasslands in Serbia

Journal of Agricultural Sciences Belgrade ◽

10.2298/jas2103291s ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 66 (3) ◽

pp. 291-307

Author(s):

Ruzica Stricevic ◽

Aleksandar Simic ◽

Mirjam Vujadinovic-Mandic ◽

Dejan Sokolovic

Keyword(s):

Climate Models ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Water Shortage ◽

Ensemble Member ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Water Requirement ◽

Natural Grasslands ◽

The Impact ◽

Near Future

Due to the air temperature increase, longer growing seasons and erratic rainfalls in the last two decades, natural grasslands like meadows or pastures grow in unfavourable climatic conditions that disable the regeneration. The aim of this work is to assess the impact of climate changes on the water requirement of grasslands in Serbia. The results of ensembles of nine regional climate models from the EURO-CORDEX database were used to analyse future climatic conditions. As the most probable value, the median of scores obtained for each ensemble member was considered. The period of 1986-2005 was used as the reference. The time slices in future periods are: 2016-2035 (the near future), 2046-2065 (the mid-century) and 2081-2100 (the end of the century). Analyses were conducted for two scenarios of GHG emissions: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Permanent grasslands will be more prone to drought risks in the future. Water shortage could be expected at the end of May when the water stored in the soil will be depleted by the duration of drought until September heavy rains. According to both scenarios, an increment of water requirement of 7% could be expected in the near future. The RCP4.5 scenario projects an increase in the water requirement in the range of 10.7-24.2% from the mid to the end of the century. The less favourable but more realistic RCP8.5 scenario projects a water need increment in the range from 4% to 14 % in the mid-century and 28.4-41.9% toward the end of the century. Recent research indicates that drought resistance will be developed through natural diversity and the spread of species resistant to high temperatures and water scarcity.

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Impact of bushfire and climate variability on streamflow from forested catchments in southeast Australia

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-10-4397-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 4397-4437 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Y. Zhou ◽

Y. Zhang ◽

J. Vaze ◽

P. Lane ◽

S. Xu

Keyword(s):

Climate Variability ◽

Forest Disturbance ◽

Natural Disturbance ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Water Yield ◽

Hydrological Models ◽

Forested Catchments ◽

Southeast Australia ◽

The Impact

Abstract. Most of the surface water for natural environmental and human water uses in southeast Australia is sourced from forested catchments located in the higher rainfall areas. Water yield of these catchments is mainly affected by climatic conditions, but it is also greatly affected by vegetation cover change. Bushfires are a major natural disturbance in forested catchments and potentially modify the water yield of the catchments through changes to evapotranspiration (ET), interception and soil moisture storage. This paper quantifies the impacts of bushfire and climate variability on streamflow from three southeast Australian catchments where Ash Wednesday bushfires occurred in February 1983. The hydrological models used here include AWRA-L, Xinanjiang and GR4J. The three models are first calibrated against streamflow data from the pre-bushfire period and they are used to simulate runoff for the post-bushfire period with the calibrated parameters. The difference between the observed and model simulated runoff for the post-bushfire period provides an estimate of the impact of bushfire on streamflow. The hydrological modelling results for the three catchments indicate that there is a substantial increase in streamflow in the first 15 yr after the 1983 bushfires. The increase in streamflow is attributed to initial decreases in ET and interception resulting from the fires, followed by logging activity. After 15 yr, streamflow dynamics are more heavily influenced by climate effects, although some impact from fire and logging regeneration may still occur. It is shown that hydrological models provide reasonable consistent estimates of forest disturbance and climate impacts on streamflow for the three catchments. The results might be used by forest managers to understand the relationship between forest disturbance and climate variability impacts on water yield in the context of climate change.

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