Reconciling global projections of precipitation with CMIP6 and CMIP5 multi-model trends

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Trancoso ◽  
Jozef Syktus
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Seasonal Precipitation ◽  
Precipitation Patterns ◽  
Seasonal Time Series ◽  
The World ◽  
Projected Changes ◽  
Precipitation Trends

<p>Changing precipitation patterns due to climate change is a critical concern affecting society and the environment. Projected changes in global seasonal precipitation are largely heterogeneous in space, time, magnitude and direction. Therefore, reconciling projected future precipitation is pivotal for climate change science and adaptation and mitigation schemes.</p><p>This research contributes to disentangle future precipitation uncertainty globally by exploring long-term trends in projected seasonal precipitation of 33 CMIP5 and 16 CMIP6 models for the period 1980-2100. We first estimate trend slopes and significance in long-term future seasonal precipitation using the Sen-Slope and Mann-Kendall tests and constrain trends with at least 10% of cumulative changes over the 120-year period. Then, we assess convergence in the direction of trends across seasons. We highlight the world’s jurisdictions with consistent drying and wetting patterns as well as the seasonal dominance of precipitation trends.</p><p>A consistent drying pattern – where at least 78% of GCMs have decreasing precipitation trends – was observed in Central America, South and North Africa, South Europe, Southern USA and Southern South America. Unlike, a strong convergence in projected long-term wetness – where at least 78% of GCMs have increasing precipitation trends – was observed across most of Asia, Central Africa, Northern Europe, Canada, Northern US and South Brazil and surrounds.</p><p>Results show convergence in direction of seasonal precipitation trends revealing the world’s jurisdictions more likely to experience changes in future precipitation patterns. The approach is promisor to summarize trends in seasonal time-series from multiple GCMs and better constrain wetting and drying precipitation patterns. This study provides meaningful insights to inform water resource management and climate change adaptation globally.</p>

Climate Change, Humanitarian Risks, and Social-Political (In)stability Along the Gulf of Aden: Expert Elicitation for the Case of Somalia and Yemen

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Lambert ◽  
Mahmood Almehdhar ◽  
Mustafa Haji
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Expert Elicitation ◽  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Gulf Of Aden ◽  
The World ◽  
Environmental Events

<p><strong>Abstract</strong>: Changes in the global oceanic system have already negatively affected the world’s marine life and the livelihoods of many coastal communities across the world, including in the Middle East' and Eastern Africa's Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Coastal communities in Somalia and Yemen for instance, have been particularly affected by extreme environmental events (EEEs), with an increase in the frequency of tropical cyclones over the past 20 years. Using expert elicitation as a method to generate data to assess and quantify a specific issue in the absence of sufficient and/or reliable data, the authors interviewed selected specialists in or from Somalia and Yemen, from diverse fields of expertise related to climate change, extreme environmental events, disaster risk reduction, and humanitarian affairs. Ten experts followed the elicitation protocol and answered a specific series of questions in order to better quantify the expectable mid-to-long-term climatic and humanitarian levels of risks, impacts, and consequences that climate change and related issues (e.g., sea-level rise, tropical cyclones, and sea surge) may generate in coastal areas along the Gulf of Aden's coastal cities of Aden and Bossaso, in Yemen and Somalia, respectively.</p><p>The findings indicate that there is cause for significant concern as climate change is assessed by all interviewees - irrespective of their background -, as very likely to hold a negative to a devastating impact on (fresh) water security, food security, public health, social conflicts, population displacement, and eventually political stability; and to strongly worsen the humanitarian situations in Somalia and Yemen, both in the medium-term (i.e., 2020-2050) and the long-term (i.e., 2020-2100). The authors call on the scientific community to further research the issue of climate change in the understudied coastal areas of the Gulf of Aden, and on the international community to pro-actively and urgently help the local populations and relevant authorities to rapidly and strongly build up their adaptation capacities, especially in the niche of coastal EEEs.</p>

scholarly journals Uncertainty in water resources availability in the Okavango River Basin as a result of climate change

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 5737-5768 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Hughes ◽  
D. G. Kingston ◽  
M. C. Todd
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Okavango River ◽  
Projected Changes ◽  
Change In Mean

Abstract. This paper assesses the hydrological response to scenarios of climate change in the Okavango River catchment in Southern Africa. Climate scenarios are constructed representing different changes in global mean temperature from an ensemble of 7 climate models assessed in the IPCC AR4. The results show a substantial change in mean flow associated with a global warming of 2 °C. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the sign and magnitude of the projected changes between different climate models, implying that the ensemble mean is not an appropriate generalised indicator of impact. The uncertainty in response between different climate model patterns is considerably greater than the range due to uncertainty in hydrological model parameterisation. There is also a clear need to evaluate the physical mechanisms associated with the model projected changes in this region. The implications for water resource management policy are considered.

TO THE ISSUE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LEGAL COOPERATION OF STATES IN THE FIELD OF THE RATIONAL USE AND PROTECTION OF RESOURCES OF THE WORLD OCEAN

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-161
Author(s):  
Михаил Елизаров
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Rational Use ◽  
Global Consensus ◽  
The World ◽  
Acute Challenge

Over the decades, attempts were made to elaborate a legally binding single document on ocean resource management that would be acceptable to all countries. The culmination of this process was the adoption of the 1982 UN Convention on the law of sea. Since its entry into force, the Convention has become an important legal basis for ensuring the rational use of the world's ocean resources and their long-term conservation on behalf of future generations. At the same time, there remains the very acute challenge associated with finding a balance between reaching a global consensus on issues that are common to all and identifying topics that can be addressed and resolved by leaders at the global level. As humankind continues to postpone the adoption of urgent measures to prevent the effects of climate change, the environment deteriorates, while measures to mitigate these effects get more expensive and complex.

Non-linear, long-term evolution of sea surface temperature across the World Ocean

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Martinez-Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Sea Surface Temperature ◽  
World Ocean ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Second Derivative ◽  
Term Evolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Non Linear

<p>Sea surface temperature (SST) is the only oceanic parameter on which depend heat fluxes between ocean and atmosphere and, therefore, SST is one of the key factors that influence climate and its variability. Over the twentieth century, SSTs have significantly increased around the global ocean, warming that has been attributed to anthropogenic climate change, although it is not yet clear how much of it is related to natural causes and how much is due to human activities. A considerable part of available literature regarding climate change has been built based on the global or hemispheric analysis of surface temperature trends. There are, however, some key open questions that need to be answered and for this task estimates of long-term SST trend patterns represent a source of valuable information. Unfortunately, long-term SST trend patterns have large uncertainties and although SST constitutes one of the most-measured ocean variables of our historic records, their poor spatial and temporal sampling, as well as inhomogeneous measurements technics, hinder an accurate determination of long-term SST trends, which increases their uncertainty and, therefore, limit their physical interpretation as well as their use in the verification of climate simulations.<br>Most of the long-term SST trend patterns have been built using linear techniques, which are very usefull when they are used to extract information of measurements satisfying two key assumptions: linearity and stationarity. The global warming resulting of our economic activities, however, affect the state of the World Ocean and the atmosphere inducing changes in the climate that may result in oscillatory modes of variability of different frequencies, which may undergo non-stationary and non-linear evolutions. In this work, we construct long-term SST trend patterns by using non-linear techniques to extract non-linear, long-term trends in each grid-point of two available global SST datasets: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Extended Reconstructed SST (ERSST) and from the Hadley Centre sea ice and SST (HadISST). The used non-linear technique makes a good job even if the SST data are non-linear and non-stationary. Additionally, the nonlinearity of the extracted trends allows the use of the first and second derivative to get more information about the global, long-term evolution of the SST fields, favoring thus a deeper understanding and interpretation of the observed changes in SST. Particularly, our results clearly show, in both ERSST and HadISST datasets, the non-uniform warming observed in the tropical Pacific, which seems to be related to the enhanced vertical heat flux in the eastern equatorial Pacific and the strengthening of the warm pool in the western Pacific. By using the second derivative of the nonlinear SST trends, emerges an interesting pattern delimiting several zones in the Pacific Ocean which have been responded in a different way to the impose warming of the last century.</p>

Angola and Congo yellow fever outbreak to be contained

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Yellow Fever ◽  
Vaccination Campaign ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Inadequate Response ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Care Infrastructure ◽  
Limited Health

Significance A rapid and effective vaccination campaign is vital to halting the proliferation of yellow fever in central Africa. Health authorities are particularly concerned about stopping the outbreak at the source to prevent new cycles of transmission in other regions of the world. Impacts Limited health care infrastructure in Angola and DRC will hinder long-term solutions to yellow fever outbreaks. Entry into affected countries could face stricter checks for vaccination records. An inadequate response in Kinshasa could alienate voters ahead of elections scheduled for November. Should the yellow fever outbreak spread, international bodies may advise against travel and trade with affected areas.

Threats to the running water ecosystems of the world

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Malmqvist ◽  
Simon Rundle
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Running Waters ◽  
Running Water ◽  
Lotic Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Water Ecosystems

Running waters are perhaps the most impacted ecosystem on the planet as they have been the focus for human settlement and are heavily exploited for water supplies, irrigation, electricity generation, and waste disposal. Lotic systems also have an intimate contact with their catchments and so land-use alterations affect them directly. Here long-term trends in the factors that currently impact running waters are reviewed with the aim of predicting what the main threats to rivers will be in the year 2025. The main ultimate factors forcing change in running waters (ecosystem destruction, physical habitat and water chemistry alteration, and the direct addition or removal of species) stem from proximate influences from urbanization, industry, land-use change and water-course alterations. Any one river is likely to be subjected to several types of impact, and the management of impacts on lotic systems is complicated by numerous links between different forms of anthropogenic effect. Long-term trends for different impacts vary. Concentrations of chemical pollutants such as toxins and nutrients have increased in rivers in developed countries over the past century, with recent reductions for some pollutants (e.g. metals, organic toxicants, acidification), and continued increases in others (e.g. nutrients); there are no long-term chemical data for developing countries. Dam construction increased rapidly during the twentieth century, peaking in the 1970s, and the number of reservoirs has stabilized since this time, whereas the transfer of exotic species between lotic systems continues to increase. Hence, there have been some success stories in the attempts to reduce the impacts from anthropogenic impacts in developed nations. Improvements in the pH status of running waters should continue with lower sulphurous emissions, although emissions of nitrous oxides are set to continue under current legislation and will continue to contribute to acidification and nutrient loadings. Climate change also will impact running waters through alterations in hydrology and thermal regimes, although precise predictions are problematic; effects are likely to vary between regions and to operate alongside rather than override those from other impacts. Effects from climate change may be more extreme over longer time scales (>50 years). The overriding pressure on running water ecosystems up to 2025 will stem from the predicted increase in the human population, with concomitant increases in urban development, industry, agricultural activities and water abstraction, diversion and damming. Future degradation could be substantial and rapid (c. 10 years) and will be concentrated in those areas of the world where resources for conservation are most limited and knowledge of lotic ecosystems most incomplete; damage will centre on lowland rivers, which are also relatively poorly studied. Changes in management practices and public awareness do appear to be benefiting running water ecosystems in developed countries, and could underpin conservation strategies in developing countries if they were implemented in a relevant way.

scholarly journals China and Climate Change Governance: A Golden Opportunity

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Barry Buzan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Climate Governance ◽  
Policy Adjustment ◽  
The World ◽  
Golden Opportunity ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Climate Crisis

Climate change is a threat to all of humankind, yet there is still a leadership vacuum on climate governance. At the same time, the deepening climate crisis also presents a golden opportunity for Beijing to assume the role of a global leader. China has the capacity to do it in a way that the United States, Russia, India, and the European Union do not. Taking swift climate action is in Beijing’s interest. Greater contributions to climate governance will certainly help advance China’s long-term political interest in both raising its political status and demonstrating the claimed superiority of its system of government. Positive rhetoric and robust action by China are likely to have a disproportionate effect on the rest of the world. Policy adjustment and implementation by Beijing will bring benefits to the rest of the world. Climate policy options that Beijing may take in the future are not mutually exclusive. The policy shift on climate change could also be attached more firmly to the idea of sustainable development as a defining factor of China’s approach to tackling the climate change threat.

scholarly journals Climate Change Impacts on Groundwater Recharge in Cold and Humid Climates: Controlling Processes and Thresholds

Climate ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Dubois ◽  
Marie Larocque ◽  
Sylvain Gagné ◽  
Marco Braun
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Long Term Changes ◽  
Precipitation And Temperature

Long-term changes in precipitation and temperature indirectly impact aquifers through groundwater recharge (GWR). Although estimates of future GWR are needed for water resource management, they are uncertain in cold and humid climates due to the wide range in possible future climatic conditions. This work aims to (1) simulate the impacts of climate change on regional GWR for a cold and humid climate and (2) identify precipitation and temperature changes leading to significant long-term changes in GWR. Spatially distributed GWR is simulated in a case study for the southern Province of Quebec (Canada, 36,000 km2) using a water budget model. Climate scenarios from global climate models indicate warming temperatures and wetter conditions (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5; 1951–2100). The results show that annual precipitation increases of >+150 mm/yr or winter precipitation increases of >+25 mm will lead to significantly higher GWR. GWR is expected to decrease if the precipitation changes are lower than these thresholds. Significant GWR changes are produced only when the temperature change exceeds +2 °C. Temperature changes of >+4.5 °C limit the GWR increase to +30 mm/yr. This work provides useful insights into the regional assessment of future GWR in cold and humid climates, thus helping in planning decisions as climate change unfolds. The results are expected to be comparable to those in other regions with similar climates in post-glacial geological environments and future climate change conditions.

Water Resources and Climate Change

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gleick
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Hydrologic Cycle ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Precipitation Patterns ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Snow And Ice

Natural and human-caused climate changes are strongly linked to the hydrologic cycle and freshwater resources. The hydrological cycle is a core part of climate dynamics involving all three common forms of water—ice, liquid, vapor—and the movement of water around the world. Changes in climate affect all aspects of the hydrologic cycle itself through alterations in temperature, precipitation patterns, storm frequency and intensity, snow and ice dynamics, the stocks and flows of water on land, and connections between sea levels and coastal wetlands and ecosystems. In addition, many of the social, economic, and political impacts of climate change are expected to be felt through changes in natural water resources and developed water systems and infrastructure. Extensive research extending back a century or more has been conducted around the world on all the subsection categories presented below. Despite many remaining uncertainties, major advances in basic scientific understanding of the complex processes surrounding freshwater and climate have been made in the past decadet. New ground- and space-based sensors collect far more water- and climate-related data in the 21st century than in the past. Improvements in both regional and global hydrological and climatological modeling have permitted far greater understanding of water and climate links and risks. And more water management institutions and managers are beginning to integrate information about past and future climatic variability into water system planning, design, and construction. Recent observational evidence indicates that the impacts of human-caused climatic changes can now be observed in some regions for a wide range of water resources, including changing evaporative demand associated with rising temperatures, dramatic changes in snow and ice, alterations in precipitation patterns and storm, rising sea levels, and effects on aquatic ecosystems.

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