scholarly journals Effect of Climate Change on a Monolithic Desulphurized Tailings Cover

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 2645
Author(s):  
Rashid Bashir ◽  
Fiaz Ahmad ◽  
Ryley Beddoe

A soil cover system can be viewed as a thin interface placed between the atmosphere and the underlying waste. Climate is a primary design variable in soil cover design; therefore, climate change poses a number of challenges to design, operation and long-term performance of covers. In this research climate change effects on the hydraulic behavior of soil covers at a Northern Ontario, Canada site were assessed. Covers were analyzed using historical and future climate datasets. Historical climate data were compiled from an Environment Canada weather station near the site. The future climate datasets were sourced for different Global Circulation Models (GCM) for various representative concentration pathways (RCP). The covers at the site were constructed with a single layer of desulphurized tailings. Soil covers were meant to limit oxygen ingress to the underlying reactive tailings by maintaining high water saturation in the covers. Oxygen flux through soil covers for current and future climates were predicted using variably saturated water flow and oxygen transport modeling using the finite element method. The results of this research indicate that the effect of climate change on soil cover depends on the hydraulic properties of the soil cover materials and that of the underlying tailings. The results of this study suggest that the effect of climate change on the coarse tailing covers could be marginal resulting in a maximum increase of 5% in oxygen flux at the cover surface for the future climates in comparison to the base climate. However, in the case of fine tailings covers, increases of up to 65% can be expected.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10495
Author(s):  
Zoia Arshad Awan ◽  
Tasneem Khaliq ◽  
Muhammad Masood Akhtar ◽  
Asad Imran ◽  
Muhammad Irfan ◽  
...  

Cotton production is highly vulnerable to climate change, and heat stress is a major constraint in the cotton zone of Punjab, Pakistan. Adaptation is perceived as a critical step to deal with forecasted and unexpected climatic conditions. The objective of this study was to standardize and authenticate a cotton crop model based on climate and crop husbandry data in order to develop an adaptation package for cotton crop production in the wake of climate change. For the study, the data were collected from the cotton-growing areas of Punjab, viz. Bahawalpur and Khanewal. After the calibration and validation against field data, the Cropping System Model CSM–CROPGRO–Cotton in the shell of the decision support system for agro-technology transfer (DSSAT) was run with a future climate generated under two representative concentrations pathways (RCPs), viz. RCPs 4.5 and 8.5 with five global circulation models (GCMs). The whole study showed that a model is an artistic tool for examining the temporal variation in cotton and determining the potential impact of planting dates on crop growth, phenology, and yield. The results showed that the future climate would have drastic effects on cotton production in the project area. Reduction in seed cotton yield (SCY) was 25.7% and 32.2% under RCPs 4.5 and 8.5, respectively. The comparison of five GCMs showed that a hot/wet climate would be more damaging than other scenarios. The simulations with different production options showed that a 10% and 5% increase in nitrogen and plant population, respectively, compared to the present would be the best strategy in the future. The model further suggested that planting conducted 15 days earlier, combined with the use of water and nitrogen (fertigation), would help to improve yield with 10% less water under the future climate. Overall, the proposed adaptation package would help to recover 33% and 37% of damages in SCY due to the climate change scenarios of RCP 4.5 and 8.5, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed package would also help the farmers increase crop yield by 7.5% over baseline (current) yield.


Author(s):  
D. J. Lunt ◽  
H. Elderfield ◽  
R. Pancost ◽  
A. Ridgwell ◽  
G. L. Foster ◽  
...  

This Discussion Meeting Issue of the Philosophical Transactions A had its genesis in a Discussion Meeting of the Royal Society which took place on 10–11 October 2011. The Discussion Meeting, entitled ‘Warm climates of the past: a lesson for the future?’, brought together 16 eminent international speakers from the field of palaeoclimate, and was attended by over 280 scientists and members of the public. Many of the speakers have contributed to the papers compiled in this Discussion Meeting Issue. The papers summarize the talks at the meeting, and present further or related work. This Discussion Meeting Issue asks to what extent information gleaned from the study of past climates can aid our understanding of future climate change. Climate change is currently an issue at the forefront of environmental science, and also has important sociological and political implications. Most future predictions are carried out by complex numerical models; however, these models cannot be rigorously tested for scenarios outside of the modern, without making use of past climate data. Furthermore, past climate data can inform our understanding of how the Earth system operates, and can provide important contextual information related to environmental change. All past time periods can be useful in this context; here, we focus on past climates that were warmer than the modern climate, as these are likely to be the most similar to the future. This introductory paper is not meant as a comprehensive overview of all work in this field. Instead, it gives an introduction to the important issues therein, using the papers in this Discussion Meeting Issue, and other works from all the Discussion Meeting speakers, as exemplars of the various ways in which past climates can inform projections of future climate. Furthermore, we present new work that uses a palaeo constraint to quantitatively inform projections of future equilibrium ice sheet change.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Dubos ◽  
Stephane Augros ◽  
Gregory Deso ◽  
Jean-Michel Probst ◽  
Jean-Cyrille Notter ◽  
...  

The effect of future climate change is poorly documented in the tropics, especially in mountainous areas. Yet, species living in these environments are predicted to be strongly affected. Newly available high-resolution environmental data and statistical methods enable the development of forecasting models. Nevertheless, the uncertainty related to climate models can be strong, which can lead to ineffective conservation actions. Predicted studies aimed at providing conservation guidelines often account for a range of future climate predictions (climate scenarios and global circulation models). However, very few studies considered potential differences related to baseline climate data and/or did not account for spatial information (overlap) in uncertainty assessments. We modelled the environmental suitability for Phelsuma borbonica, an endangered reptile native to Reunion Island. Using two metrics of species range change (difference in overall suitability and spatial overlap), we quantified the uncertainty related to the modelling technique (n = 10), sample bias correction, climate change scenario, global circulation models (GCM) and baseline climate (CHELSA versus Worldclim). Uncertainty was mainly driven by GCMs when considering overall suitability, while for spatial overlap the uncertainty related to baseline climate became more important than that of GCMs. The uncertainty driven by sample bias correction and variable selection was much higher when assessed based on spatial overlap. The modelling technique was a strong driver of uncertainty in both cases. We eventually provide a consensus ensemble prediction map of the environmental suitability of P. borbonica to identify the areas predicted to be the most suitable in the future with the highest certainty. Predictive studies aimed at identifying priority areas for conservation in the face of climate change need to account for a wide panel of modelling techniques, GCMs and baseline climate data. We recommend the use of multiple approaches, including spatial overlap, when assessing uncertainty in species distribution models.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Wehrli ◽  
Stefanie Gubler ◽  
Andreas M. Fischer ◽  
Sven Kotlarski

<p>By mid-Century the Swiss Climate Scenarios CH2018 project an additional warming of 2-3 degree Celsius in Switzerland if greenhouse emissions continue unabatedly. In consequence, heatwaves become longer, more intense and more frequent, whereas coldwaves will be less common. Changes in the outdoor climate also affect the indoor climate in buildings where people spend a substantial part of their day to work, study, and live. Buildings are designed to last for several decades with limited possibility to update heating and cooling systems. Hence, the climate a building will face during its lifetime has to be considered in the planning process. In general, it can be expected that the heating demand will decrease whereas the cooling demand will increase in the near future. However, a holistic and quantitative assessment of the effect of climate change on the energy demand in buildings is still missing. For the use in building simulations, climate data at hourly resolution with physical consistency for a number of key variables such as temperature, humidity and radiation are required. To ensure that the use of the data is feasible in practice, the climate of the future needs to be condensed into a single year, representing typical mean conditions as well as typical deviations from the mean. In addition to the typical year, the assessment of an extreme year can provide information on the level of comfort during a once in a lifetime event and the performance at maximum capacity of the installations. Users of this data are practitioners in the building sector as well as officials from federal offices.</p><p>Our project aims to provide future climate data for the building sector at station level. For this, we make use of observations as well as climate change information from the Swiss climate scenarios CH2018.  Together with the users, we define criteria that shall be represented by the future typical and extreme years. We design different methods to create this years based on observations and scenarios and under consideration of existing standards and regulations. The methods are compared in a climatological assessment and sensitivities to emission scenario and time horizon are explored using building simulations. The results of this project support decision-making to optimize national and international norms and regulations and to design adaptation measures. The climate data will be made available to practitioners who can use them to plan the buildings of the future.</p>


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1548
Author(s):  
Suresh Marahatta ◽  
Deepak Aryal ◽  
Laxmi Prasad Devkota ◽  
Utsav Bhattarai ◽  
Dibesh Shrestha

This study aims at analysing the impact of climate change (CC) on the river hydrology of a complex mountainous river basin—the Budhigandaki River Basin (BRB)—using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model that was calibrated and validated in Part I of this research. A relatively new approach of selecting global climate models (GCMs) for each of the two selected RCPs, 4.5 (stabilization scenario) and 8.5 (high emission scenario), representing four extreme cases (warm-wet, cold-wet, warm-dry, and cold-dry conditions), was applied. Future climate data was bias corrected using a quantile mapping method. The bias-corrected GCM data were forced into the SWAT model one at a time to simulate the future flows of BRB for three 30-year time windows: Immediate Future (2021–2050), Mid Future (2046–2075), and Far Future (2070–2099). The projected flows were compared with the corresponding monthly, seasonal, annual, and fractional differences of extreme flows of the simulated baseline period (1983–2012). The results showed that future long-term average annual flows are expected to increase in all climatic conditions for both RCPs compared to the baseline. The range of predicted changes in future monthly, seasonal, and annual flows shows high uncertainty. The comparative frequency analysis of the annual one-day-maximum and -minimum flows shows increased high flows and decreased low flows in the future. These results imply the necessity for design modifications in hydraulic structures as well as the preference of storage over run-of-river water resources development projects in the study basin from the perspective of climate resilience.


Author(s):  
J. Macholdt ◽  
J. Glerup Gyldengren ◽  
E. Diamantopoulos ◽  
M. E. Styczen

Abstract One of the major challenges in agriculture is how climate change influences crop production, for different environmental (soil type, topography, groundwater depth, etc.) and agronomic management conditions. Through systems modelling, this study aims to quantify the impact of future climate on yield risk of winter wheat for two common soil types of Eastern Denmark. The agro-ecosystem model DAISY was used to simulate arable, conventional cropping systems (CSs) and the study focused on the three main management factors: cropping sequence, usage of catch crops and cereal straw management. For the case region of Eastern Denmark, the future yield risk of wheat does not necessarily increase under climate change mainly due to lower water stress in the projections; rather, it depends on appropriate management and each CS design. Major management factors affecting the yield risk of wheat were N supply and the amount of organic material added during rotations. If a CS is characterized by straw removal and no catch crop within the rotation, an increased wheat yield risk must be expected in the future. In contrast, more favourable CSs, including catch crops and straw incorporation, maintain their capacity and result in a decreasing yield risk over time. Higher soil organic matter content, higher net nitrogen mineralization rate and higher soil organic nitrogen content were the main underlying causes for these positive effects. Furthermore, the simulation results showed better N recycling and reduced nitrate leaching for the more favourable CSs, which provide benefits for environment-friendly and sustainable crop production.


2017 ◽  
Vol 113 (7/8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abiodun A. Ogundeji ◽  
Henry Jordaan

Climate change and its impact on already scarce water resources are of global importance, but even more so for water scarce countries. Apart from the effect of climate change on water supply, the chill unit requirement of deciduous fruit crops is also expected to be affected. Although research on crop water use has been undertaken, researchers have not taken the future climate into consideration. They also have focused on increasing temperatures but failed to relate temperature to chill unit accumulation, especially in South Africa. With a view of helping farmers to adapt to climate change, in this study we provide information that will assist farmers in their decision-making process for adaptation and in the selection of appropriate cultivars of deciduous fruits. Crop water use and chill unit requirements are modelled for the present and future climate. Results show that, irrespective of the irrigation system employed, climate change has led to increases in crop water use. Water use with the drip irrigation system was lower than with sprinkler irrigation as a result of efficiency differences in the irrigation technologies. It was also confirmed that the accumulated chill units will decrease in the future as a consequence of climate change. In order to remain in production, farmers need to adapt to climate change stress by putting in place water resources and crop management plans. Thus, producers must be furnished with a variety of adaptation or management strategies to overcome the impact of climate change.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 1944-1961 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bariş Önol ◽  
Fredrick H. M. Semazzi

Abstract In this study, the potential role of global warming in modulating the future climate over the eastern Mediterranean (EM) region has been investigated. The primary vehicle of this investigation is the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Regional Climate Model version 3 (ICTP-RegCM3), which was used to downscale the present and future climate scenario simulations generated by the NASA’s finite-volume GCM (fvGCM). The present-day (1961–90; RF) simulations and the future climate change projections (2071–2100; A2) are based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. During the Northern Hemispheric winter season, the general increase in precipitation over the northern sector of the EM region is present both in the fvGCM and RegCM3 model simulations. The regional model simulations reveal a significant increase (10%–50%) in winter precipitation over the Carpathian Mountains and along the east coast of the Black Sea, over the Kackar Mountains, and over the Caucasus Mountains. The large decrease in precipitation over the southeastern Turkey region that recharges the Euphrates and Tigris River basins could become a major source of concern for the countries downstream of this region. The model results also indicate that the autumn rains, which are primarily confined over Turkey for the current climate, will expand into Syria and Iraq in the future, which is consistent with the corresponding changes in the circulation pattern. The climate change over EM tends to manifest itself in terms of the modulation of North Atlantic Oscillation. During summer, temperature increase is as large as 7°C over the Balkan countries while changes for the rest of the region are in the range of 3°–4°C. Overall the temperature increase in summer is much greater than the corresponding changes during winter. Presentation of the climate change projections in terms of individual country averages is highly advantageous for the practical interpretation of the results. The consistence of the country averages for the RF RegCM3 projections with the corresponding averaged station data is compelling evidence of the added value of regional climate model downscaling.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. e56026
Author(s):  
Gabriela Leite Neves ◽  
Jorim Sousa das Virgens Filho ◽  
Maysa de Lima Leite ◽  
Frederico Fabio Mauad

Water is an essential natural resource that is being impacted by climate change. Thus, knowledge of future water availability conditions around the globe becomes necessary. Based on that, this study aimed to simulate future climate scenarios and evaluate the impact on water balance in southern Brazil. Daily data of rainfall and air temperature (maximum and minimum) were used. The meteorological data were collected in 28 locations over 30 years (1980-2009). For the data simulation, we used the climate data stochastic generator PGECLIMA_R. It was considered two scenarios of the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a scenario with the historical data trend. The water balance estimates were performed for the current data and the simulated data, through the methodology of Thornthwaite and Mather (1955). The moisture indexes were spatialized by the kriging method. These indexes were chosen as the parameters to represent the water conditions in different situations. The region assessed presented a high variability in water availability among locations; however, it did not present high water deficiency values, even with climate change. Overall, it was observed a reduction of moisture index in most sites and in all scenarios assessed, especially in the northern region when compared to the other regions. The second scenario of the IPCC (the worst situation) promoting higher reductions and dry conditions for the 2099 year. The impacts of climate change on water availability, identified in this study, can affect the general society, therefore, they must be considered in the planning and management of water resources, especially in the regional context


Author(s):  
Guillaume Rohat ◽  
Stéphane Goyette ◽  
Johannes Flacke

Purpose Climate analogues have been extensively used in ecological studies to assess the shift of ecoregions due to climate change and the associated impacts on species survival and displacement, but they have hardly been applied to urban areas and their climate shift. This paper aims to use climate analogues to characterize the climate shift of cities and to explore its implications as well as potential applications of this approach. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose a methodology to match the current climate of cities with the future climate of other locations and to characterize cities’ climate shift velocity. Employing a sample of 90 European cities, the authors demonstrate the applicability of this method and characterize their climate shift from 1951 to 2100. Findings Results show that cities’ climate shift follows rather strictly north-to-south transects over the European continent and that the average southward velocity is expected to double throughout the twenty-first century. These rapid shifts will have direct implications for urban infrastructure, risk management and public health services. Originality/value These findings appear to be potentially useful for raising awareness of stakeholders and urban dwellers about the pace, magnitude and dynamics of climate change, supporting identification of the future climate impacts and vulnerabilities and implementation of readily available adaptation options, and strengthening cities’ cooperation within climate-related networks.


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