Future compound climate extremes and exposed population in Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Weber ◽  
Paul Bowyer ◽  
Diana Rechid ◽  
Susanne Pfeifer ◽  
Francesca Raffaele ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Emission Scenario ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
High Emission ◽  
High Emission Scenario ◽  
Regional Climate Projections

<p><span>The African population is already exposed to climate extremes such as droughts, heat waves and extreme precipitation, which cause damage to agriculture and infrastructure, and affect people's well-being. However, the simultaneous or sequential occurrence of two single climate extremes (compound event) has a more severe impact on the population and economy than single climate extremes. This circumstance is exacerbated by the increase in the African population, which is expected to double by the middle of this century according to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Currently, little is known about the potential future change in the occurrence of compound climate extremes and population exposed to these events in Africa. This knowledge is however needed by stakeholder and decision makers to develop measures for adaptation.</span></p><p><span>This research analyzes the occurrence of compound climate extremes such as droughts, heat waves and extreme precipitation in Africa under two different emission scenarios for the end of the century. For the analysis, we applied regional climate projections from the newly performed Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluations (CORE) embedded in the WCRP Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) Framework for Africa at a grid spacing of 25 km, and spatial maps of population projections derived from two different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). In order to take into account a low and a high emission scenario, the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 were </span>used in the regional climate projections.</p><p><span>We will show that compound climate extremes are projected to be more frequent in Africa under the high emission scenario at the end of the century, and an increase in total exposure is primarily expected for West Africa, Central-East Africa and South-East Africa. Furthermore, combined impacts of population growth and increase in frequencies of compound extremes play an important role in the change of total exposure.</span></p>

Future circulation changes over the EURO-CORDEX domain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tugba Ozturk ◽  
Dominic Matte ◽  
Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Regional Climate ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Lower Troposphere ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Cmip5 Models ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Summer Circulation ◽  
Regional Climate Projections ◽  
Circulation Changes

<p><span lang="EN-US">The occurrence of extreme weather events and climate extremes over Europe and the Mediterranean region are believed to be associated with changes and variability in the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation. CMIP5 models exhibits a substantial decrease in mid-latitude mean storm track activity for summer under climate change for a variety of scenarios. In this work, we aim to investigate future change in summer circulation and its implication for summer temperature and precipitation extremes over Europe particularly focusing on the Southeastern Mediterranean. EURO-CORDEX regional climate projections at 0.11° grid-mesh are used to analyze future climate projections addressing climate warming targets of 1°C, 2°C and 3°C, respectively. Simple scaling with the global mean temperature change is applied to the regional climate projections for the variables in concern in order to provide robust signals not to be dependent on climate sensitivity. Our focus in this study is on monthly mean geopotential height, winds at mid- and lower-troposphere as indicators of the simulated circulation changes.</span></p>

scholarly journals Regional climate projections for impact assessment studies in East Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 044031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solomon H Gebrechorkos ◽  
Stephan Hülsmann ◽  
Christian Bernhofer
Keyword(s):  
Impact Assessment ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Regional Climate Projections

scholarly journals The gathering firestorm in southern Amazonia

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. eaay1632 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. M. Brando ◽  
B. Soares-Filho ◽  
L. Rodrigues ◽  
A. Assunção ◽  
D. Morton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Indigenous Lands ◽  
High Emission ◽  
Southern Amazonia ◽  
Regional Climate Projections

Wildfires, exacerbated by extreme weather events and land use, threaten to change the Amazon from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source. Here, we develop and apply a coupled ecosystem-fire model to quantify how greenhouse gas–driven drying and warming would affect wildfires and associated CO2 emissions in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Regional climate projections suggest that Amazon fire regimes will intensify under both low- and high-emission scenarios. Our results indicate that projected climatic changes will double the area burned by wildfires, affecting up to 16% of the region’s forests by 2050. Although these fires could emit as much as 17.0 Pg of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere, avoiding new deforestation could cut total net fire emissions in half and help prevent fires from escaping into protected areas and indigenous lands. Aggressive efforts to eliminate ignition sources and suppress wildfires will be critical to conserve southern Amazon forests.

scholarly journals Near-term regional climate change over Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeon-Woo Choi ◽  
Deborah J. Campbell ◽  
John C. Aldridge ◽  
Elfatih A. B. Eltahir
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Extreme Heat ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Adaptation Capacity ◽  
Near Term

AbstractBangladesh stands out as a climate change hot spot due to its unique geography, climate, high population density, and limited adaptation capacity. Mounting evidence suggests that the country is already suffering from the effects of climate change which may get worse without aggressive action. Here, we use an ensemble of high-resolution (10 km) regional climate model simulations to project near-term change in climate extremes, mainly heat waves and intense rainfall, for the period (2021–2050). Near-term climate projections represent a valuable input for designing sound adaptation policies. Our climate projections suggest that heatwaves will become more frequent and severe in Bangladesh under the business-as-usual scenario (RCP8.5). In particular, extremes of wet-bulb temperature (a temperature and humidity metric important in evaluating humid heat stress) in the western part of Bangladesh including Bogra, Ishurdi, and Jessore are likely to exceed the extreme danger threshold (according to U.S. National Weather Service criterion), which has rarely been observed in the current climate. The return periods of extreme heat waves are also significantly shortened across the country. In addition, country-averaged rainfall is projected to increase by about 6% during the summer months, with the largest increases (above 10%) in the eastern mountainous areas, such as Sylhet and Chittagong. Meanwhile, insignificant changes in extreme rainfall are simulated. Our results suggest that Bangladesh is particularly susceptible to climate extremes in the near future, in the form of extreme heat waves over the western part of the country.

Regional Climate Scenarios for use in Nordic Water Resources Studies

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 399-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Rummukainen ◽  
J. Räisänen ◽  
D. Bjørge ◽  
J.H. Christensen ◽  
O.B. Christensen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Soil Frost ◽  
Nordic Region ◽  
Regional Climate Projections

According to global climate projections, a substantial global climate change will occur during the next decades, under the assumption of continuous anthropogenic climate forcing. Global models, although fundamental in simulating the response of the climate system to anthropogenic forcing are typically geographically too coarse to well represent many regional or local features. In the Nordic region, climate studies are conducted in each of the Nordic countries to prepare regional climate projections with more detail than in global ones. Results so far indicate larger temperature changes in the Nordic region than in the global mean, regional increases and decreases in net precipitation, longer growing season, shorter snow season etc. These in turn affect runoff, snowpack, groundwater, soil frost and moisture, and thus hydropower production potential, flooding risks etc. Regional climate models do not yet fully incorporate hydrology. Water resources studies are carried out off-line using hydrological models. This requires archived meteorological output from climate models. This paper discusses Nordic regional climate scenarios for use in regional water resources studies. Potential end-users of water resources scenarios are the hydropower industry, dam safety instances and planners of other lasting infrastructure exposed to precipitation, river flows and flooding.

scholarly journals Toward enhanced understanding and projections of climate extremes using physics-guided data mining techniques

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. Ganguly ◽  
E. A. Kodra ◽  
A. Banerjee ◽  
S. Boriah ◽  
S. Chatterjee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Computer Models ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Small Data ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Statistics Of Extremes ◽  
Data Mining Techniques ◽  
Grand Challenges

Abstract. Extreme events such as heat waves, cold spells, floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, and tornadoes have potentially devastating impacts on natural and engineered systems, and human communities, worldwide. Stakeholder decisions about critical infrastructures, natural resources, emergency preparedness and humanitarian aid typically need to be made at local to regional scales over seasonal to decadal planning horizons. However, credible climate change attribution and reliable projections at more localized and shorter time scales remain grand challenges. Long-standing gaps include inadequate understanding of processes such as cloud physics and ocean-land-atmosphere interactions, limitations of physics-based computer models, and the importance of intrinsic climate system variability at decadal horizons. Meanwhile, the growing size and complexity of climate data from model simulations and remote sensors increases opportunities to address these scientific gaps. This perspectives article explores the possibility that physically cognizant mining of massive climate data may lead to significant advances in generating credible predictive insights about climate extremes and in turn translating them to actionable metrics and information for adaptation and policy. Specifically, we propose that data mining techniques geared towards extremes can help tackle the grand challenges in the development of interpretable climate projections, predictability, and uncertainty assessments. To be successful, scalable methods will need to handle what has been called "Big Data" to tease out elusive but robust statistics of extremes and change from what is ultimately small data. Physically-based relationships (where available) and conceptual understanding (where appropriate) are needed to guide methods development and interpretation of results. Such approaches may be especially relevant in situations where computer models may not be able to fully encapsulate current process understanding, yet the wealth of data may offer additional insights. Large-scale interdisciplinary team efforts, involving domain experts and individual researchers who span disciplines, will be necessary to address the challenge.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document