New Insights in Regional Climate Change: Coupled Land Albedo Change Estimation in Greenland from 1981 to 2017

Land albedo is an essential variable in land surface energy balance and climate change. Within regional land, albedo has been altered in Greenland as ice melts and runoff increases in response to global warming against the period of the pre-industrial revolution. The assessment of spatiotemporal variation in albedo is a prerequisite for accurate prediction of ice sheet loss and future climate change, as well as crucial prior knowledge for improving current climate models. In our study, we employed the satellite data product from the global land surface satellite (GLASS) project to obtain the spatiotemporal variation of albedo from 1981 to 2017 using the non-parameter-based M-K (Mann-Kendall) method. It was found that the albedo generally showed a decreasing trend in the past 37 years (−0.013 ± 0.001 decade−1, p < 0.01); in particular, the albedo showed a significant increasing trend in the middle part of the study area but a decreasing trend in the coastal area. The interannual and seasonal variations of albedo showed strong spatial-temporal heterogeneity. Additionally, based on natural and anthropogenic factors, in order to further reveal the potential effects of spatiotemporal variation of albedo on the regional climate, we coupled climate model data with observed data documented by satellite and adopted a conceptual experiment for detections and attributions analysis. Our results showed that both the greenhouse gas forcing and aerosol forcing induced by anthropogenic activities in the past 37 decades were likely to be the main contributors (46.1%) to the decrease of albedo in Greenland. Here, we indicated that overall, Greenland might exhibit a local warming effect based on our study. Albedo–ice melting feedback is strongly associated with local temperature changes in Greenland. Therefore, this study provides a potential pathway to understanding climate change on a regional scale based on the coupled dataset.

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Soil Control on Runoff Response to Climate Change in Regional Climate Model Simulations

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli3471.1 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 18 (17) ◽

pp. 3536-3551 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Bart van den Hurk ◽

Martin Hirschi ◽

Christoph Schär ◽

Geert Lenderink ◽

Erik van Meijgaard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Annual Cycle ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Water Storage ◽

Climate Simulation ◽

Discharge Data ◽

And Storage

Abstract Simulations with seven regional climate models driven by a common control climate simulation of a GCM carried out for Europe in the context of the (European Union) EU-funded Prediction of Regional scenarios and Uncertainties for Defining European Climate change risks and Effects (PRUDENCE) project were analyzed with respect to land surface hydrology in the Rhine basin. In particular, the annual cycle of the terrestrial water storage was compared to analyses based on the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) atmospheric convergence and observed Rhine discharge data. In addition, an analysis was made of the partitioning of convergence anomalies over anomalies in runoff and storage. This analysis revealed that most models underestimate the size of the water storage and consequently overestimated the response of runoff to anomalies in net convergence. The partitioning of these anomalies over runoff and storage was indicative for the response of the simulated runoff to a projected climate change consistent with the greenhouse gas A2 Synthesis Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). In particular, the annual cycle of runoff is affected largely by the terrestrial storage reservoir. Larger storage capacity leads to smaller changes in both wintertime and summertime monthly mean runoff. The sustained summertime evaporation resulting from larger storage reservoirs may have a noticeable impact on the summertime surface temperature projections.

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An update of IPCC climate reference regions for subcontinental analysis of climate model data: Definition and aggregated datasets

10.5194/essd-2019-258 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Maialen Iturbide ◽

José Manuel Gutiérrez ◽

Lincoln Muniz Alves ◽

Joaquín Bedia ◽

Ezequiel Cimadevilla ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Temperature And Precipitation ◽

Data Definition ◽

Definition Of ◽

Projected Changes

Abstract. Several sets of reference regions have been proposed in the literature for the regional synthesis of observed and model-projected climate change information. A popular example is the set of reference regions introduced in the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Adaptation (SREX) based on a prior coarser selection and then slightly modified for the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC. This set was developed for reporting sub-continental observed and projected changes over a reduced number (33) of climatologically consistent regions encompassing a representative number of grid boxes (the typical resolution of the 5th Climate Model Intercomparison Projection, CMIP5, climate models was around 2º). These regions have been used as the basis for several popular spatially aggregated datasets, such as the seasonal mean temperature and precipitation in IPCC regions for CMIP5. Here we present an updated version of the reference regions for the analysis of new observed and simulated datasets (including CMIP6) which offer an opportunity for refinement due to the higher model resolution (around 1º for CMIP6). As a result, the number of regions increased to 43 land plus 12 open ocean, better representing consistent regional climate features. The paper describes the rationale followed for the definition of the new regions and analyses their homogeneity. The regions are defined as polygons and are provided as coordinates and shapefile together with companion R and Python notebooks to illustrate their use in practical problems (trimming data, etc.). We also describe the generation of a new dataset with monthly temperature and precipitation spatially aggregated in the new regions, currently for CMIP5 (for backwards consistency) and CMIP6, to be extended to other datasets in the future (including observations). The use of these reference regions, dataset and code is illustrated through a worked example using scatter diagrams to offer guidance on the likely range of future climate change at the scale of reference regions. The regions, datasets and code (R and Python notebooks) are freely available at the ATLAS GitHub repository; https://github.com/SantanderMetGroup/ATLAS, doi:10.5281/zenodo.3688072 (Iturbide et al., 2020).

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Uncertainty in regional climate modelling: A review

Progress in Physical Geography Earth and Environment ◽

10.1177/0309133310375654 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 34 (5) ◽

pp. 647-670 ◽

Cited By ~ 126

Author(s):

A.M. Foley

Keyword(s):

Environmental Planning ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Regional Climate Models ◽

Human Action ◽

Global Model ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Modelling

For geographers engaged in activities such as environmental planning and natural resource management, regional climate models are becoming increasingly important as a source of information about the possible impacts of future climate change. However, in order to make informed adaptation decisions, the uncertainties associated with their output must be recognized and taken into account. In this paper, the cascade of uncertainty from emissions scenario to global model to regional climate model is explored. The initial part of the discussion focuses on uncertainties associated with human action, such as emissions of greenhouse gases, and the climate system’s response to increased greenhouse gas forcing, which includes climate sensitivity and feedbacks. In the second part of the discussion, uncertainties associated with climate modelling are explored with emphasis on the implications for regional scale analysis. Such uncertainties include parameterizations and resolutions, initial and boundary conditions inherited from the driving global model, intermodel variability and issues surrounding the validation or verification of models. The paper concludes with a critique of approaches employed to quantify or cater for uncertainties highlighting the strengths and limitations of such approaches.

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weather@home 2: validation of an improved global–regional climate modelling system

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-10-1849-2017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 1849-1872 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Benoit P. Guillod ◽

Richard G. Jones ◽

Andy Bowery ◽

Karsten Haustein ◽

Neil R. Massey ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Extreme Events ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Climate Modelling ◽

Modelling System

Abstract. Extreme weather events can have large impacts on society and, in many regions, are expected to change in frequency and intensity with climate change. Owing to the relatively short observational record, climate models are useful tools as they allow for generation of a larger sample of extreme events, to attribute recent events to anthropogenic climate change, and to project changes in such events into the future. The modelling system known as weather@home, consisting of a global climate model (GCM) with a nested regional climate model (RCM) and driven by sea surface temperatures, allows one to generate a very large ensemble with the help of volunteer distributed computing. This is a key tool to understanding many aspects of extreme events. Here, a new version of the weather@home system (weather@home 2) with a higher-resolution RCM over Europe is documented and a broad validation of the climate is performed. The new model includes a more recent land-surface scheme in both GCM and RCM, where subgrid-scale land-surface heterogeneity is newly represented using tiles, and an increase in RCM resolution from 50 to 25 km. The GCM performs similarly to the previous version, with some improvements in the representation of mean climate. The European RCM temperature biases are overall reduced, in particular the warm bias over eastern Europe, but large biases remain. Precipitation is improved over the Alps in summer, with mixed changes in other regions and seasons. The model is shown to represent the main classes of regional extreme events reasonably well and shows a good sensitivity to its drivers. In particular, given the improvements in this version of the weather@home system, it is likely that more reliable statements can be made with regards to impact statements, especially at more localized scales.

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Regional climate change projections from NA-CORDEX and their relation to climate sensitivity

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-020-02835-x ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 162 (2) ◽

pp. 645-665

Author(s):

Melissa S. Bukovsky ◽

Linda O. Mearns

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Sensitivity ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Full Range ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Global Climate Models ◽

Continental Scale

Abstract The climate sensitivity of global climate models (GCMs) strongly influences projected climate change due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Reasonably, the climate sensitivity of a GCM may be expected to affect dynamically downscaled projections. However, there has been little examination of the effect of the climate sensitivity of GCMs on regional climate model (RCM) ensembles. Therefore, we present projections of temperature and precipitation from the ensemble of projections produced as a part of the North American branch of the international Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (NA-CORDEX) in the context of their relationship to the climate sensitivity of their parent GCMs. NA-CORDEX simulations were produced at 50-km and 25-km resolutions with multiple RCMs which downscaled multiple GCMs that spanned nearly the full range of climate sensitivity available in the CMIP5 archive. We show that climate sensitivity is a very important source of spread in the NA-CORDEX ensemble, particularly for temperature. Temperature projections correlate with driving GCM climate sensitivity annually and seasonally across North America not only at a continental scale but also at a local-to-regional scale. Importantly, the spread in temperature projections would be reduced if only low, mid, or high climate sensitivity simulations were considered, or if only the ensemble mean were considered. Precipitation projections correlate with climate sensitivity, but only at a continental scale during the cold season, due to the increasing influence of other processes at finer scales. Additionally, it is shown that the RCMs do alter the projection space sampled by their driving GCMs.

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Risk and reward of the global truffle sector under predicted climate change

Environmental Research Letters ◽

10.1088/1748-9326/ac47c4 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Tomas Cejka ◽

Elizabeth Isaac ◽

Daniel Oliach ◽

Fernando Martinez-Pena ◽

Simon Egli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Heat Waves ◽

Global Climate Models ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Production Rates ◽

Price Levels ◽

The Impact

Abstract Climate change has been described as the main threat for the cultivation and growth of truffles, but hydroclimate variability and model uncertainty challenge regional projections and adaptation strategies of the emerging sector. Here, we conduct a literature review to define the main Périgord truffle growing regions around the world and use 20 global climate models to assess the impact of future trends and extremes in temperature, precipitation and soil moisture on truffle production rates and price levels in all cultivation regions in the Americas, Europe, South Africa, and Australasia. Climate model simulations project 2.3 million km2 of suitable land for truffle growth will experience 50% faster aridification than the rests of the global land surface, with significantly more heat waves between 2070 and 2099 CE. Overall, truffle production rates will decrease by ~15%, while associated price levels will increase by ~36%. At the same time, a predicted increase in summer precipitation and less intense warming over Australasia will likely alleviate water scarcity and support higher yields of more affordable truffles. Our findings are relevant for truffle farmers and businesses to adapt their irrigation systems and management strategies to future climate change.

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weather@home 2: validation of an improved global-regional climate modelling system

10.5194/gmd-2016-239 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Benoit P. Guillod ◽

Andy Bowery ◽

Karsten Haustein ◽

Richard G. Jones ◽

Neil R. Massey ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Extreme Events ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Climate Modelling ◽

Modelling System

Abstract. Extreme weather events can have large impacts on society and, in many regions, are expected to change in frequency and intensity with climate change. Owing to the relatively short observational record, climate models are useful tools as they allow for generation of a larger sample of extreme events, to attribute recent events to anthropogenic climate change, and to project changes of such events into the future. The modelling system known as weather@home, consisting of a global climate model (GCM) with a nested regional climate model (RCM) and driven by sea surface temperatures, allows to generate very large ensemble with the help of volunteer distributed computing. This is a key tool to understanding many aspects of extreme events. Here, a new version of weather@home system (weather@home 2) with a higher resolution RCM over Europe is documented and a broad validation of the climate is performed. The new model includes a more recent land-surface scheme in both GCM and RCM, where subgrid scale land surface heterogeneity is newly represented using tiles, and an increase in RCM resolution from 50 km to 25 km. The GCM performs similarly to the previous version, with some improvements in the representation of mean climate. The European RCM biases are overall reduced, in particular the warm and dry bias over eastern Europe, but large biases remain. The model is shown to represent main classes of regional extreme events reasonably well and shows a good sensitivity to its drivers. In particular, given the improvements in this version of the weather@home system, it is likely that more reliable statements can be made with regards to impact statements, especially at more localized scales.

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Regional Climate Model Inter-Comparison for Antarctica within a Data Science Framework

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4892 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jeremy Carter ◽

Amber Leeson ◽

Andrew Orr ◽

Christoph Kittel ◽

Melchior van Wessem

Keyword(s):

Regional Climate Model ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Models ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Near Surface ◽

Virtual Lab ◽

Model Variability ◽

The Antarctic

<p>Understanding the surface climatology of the Antarctic ice sheet is essential if we are to adequately predict its response to future climate change. This includes both primary impacts such as increased ice melting and secondary impacts such as ice shelf collapse events. Given its size, and inhospitable environment, weather stations on Antarctica are sparse. Thus, we rely on regional climate models to 1) develop our understanding of how the climate of Antarctica varies in both time and space and 2) provide data to use as context for remote sensing studies and forcing for dynamical process models. Given that there are a number of different regional climate models available that explicitly simulate Antarctic climate, understanding inter- and intra model variability is important.</p><p>Here, inter- and intra-model variability in Antarctic-wide regional climate model output is assessed for: snowfall; rainfall; snowmelt and near-surface air temperature within a cloud-based virtual lab framework. State-of-the-art regional climate model runs from the Antarctic-CORDEX project using the RACMO, MAR and MetUM models are used, together with the ERA5 and ERA-Interim reanalyses products. Multiple simulations using the same model and domain boundary but run at either different spatial resolutions or with different driving data are used. Traditional analysis techniques are exploited and the question of potential added value from more modern and involved methods such as the use of Gaussian Processes is investigated. The advantages of using a virtual lab in a cloud based environment for increasing transparency and reproducibility, are demonstrated, with a view to ultimately make the code and methods used widely available for other research groups.</p>

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Projecting malaria hazard from climate change in eastern Africa using large ensembles to estimate uncertainty

Geospatial health ◽

10.4081/gh.2016.393 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (1s) ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Joseph Leedale ◽

Adrian M. Tompkins ◽

Cyril Caminade ◽

Anne E. Jones ◽

Grigory Nikulin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Malaria Transmission ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Model Ensemble ◽

East African Community ◽

Recent Climate

The effect of climate change on the spatiotemporal dynamics of malaria transmission is studied using an unprecedented ensemble of climate projections, employing three diverse bias correction and downscaling techniques, in order to partially account for uncertainty in climate- driven malaria projections. These large climate ensembles drive two dynamical and spatially explicit epidemiological malaria models to provide future hazard projections for the focus region of eastern Africa. While the two malaria models produce very distinct transmission patterns for the recent climate, their response to future climate change is similar in terms of sign and spatial distribution, with malaria transmission moving to higher altitudes in the East African Community (EAC) region, while transmission reduces in lowland, marginal transmission zones such as South Sudan. The climate model ensemble generally projects warmer and wetter conditions over EAC. The simulated malaria response appears to be driven by temperature rather than precipitation effects. This reduces the uncertainty due to the climate models, as precipitation trends in tropical regions are very diverse, projecting both drier and wetter conditions with the current state-of-the-art climate model ensemble. The magnitude of the projected changes differed considerably between the two dynamical malaria models, with one much more sensitive to climate change, highlighting that uncertainty in the malaria projections is also associated with the disease modelling approach.

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Effects of Forest Changes on Summer Surface Temperature in Changbai Mountain, China

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12111551 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (11) ◽

pp. 1551

Author(s):

Jiaqi Zhang ◽

Xiangjin Shen ◽

Yanji Wang ◽

Ming Jiang ◽

Xianguo Lu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface ◽

Climate Models ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Changbai Mountain ◽

Vegetation Coverage ◽

Area Index ◽

Forest Coverage ◽

Cooling Effects

The area and vegetation coverage of forests in Changbai Mountain of China have changed significantly during the past decades. Understanding the effects of forests and forest coverage change on regional climate is important for predicting climate change in Changbai Mountain. Based on the satellite-derived land surface temperature (LST), albedo, evapotranspiration, leaf area index, and land-use data, this study analyzed the influences of forests and forest coverage changes on summer LST in Changbai Mountain. Results showed that the area and vegetation coverage of forests increased in Changbai Mountain from 2003 to 2017. Compared with open land, forests could decrease the summer daytime LST (LSTD) and nighttime LST (LSTN) by 1.10 °C and 0.07 °C, respectively. The increase in forest coverage could decrease the summer LSTD and LSTN by 0.66 °C and 0.04 °C, respectively. The forests and increasing forest coverage had cooling effects on summer temperature, mainly by decreasing daytime temperature in Changbai Mountain. The daytime cooling effect is mainly related to the increased latent heat flux caused by increasing evapotranspiration. Our results suggest that the effects of forest coverage change on climate should be considered in climate models for accurately simulating regional climate change in Changbai Mountain of China.

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