Summer Heatwaves in Present and Future Climate simulated with global models participating in CMIP6

Author(s):  
Yanfeng Zhao ◽  
Frederique Cheruy

<p>Heat waves lead to major impacts on human health, food production and ecosystems, and are projected to increase with climate change. This study evaluates global climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) for their performance in simulating the present climate characteristics of summer heat waves. The analysis exploits the available global datasets (reanalyses, satellite products, gridded in-situ observations) to assess the realism of variables impacting the energy and water balance at the surface during heatwave events.The role of the underlying processes affecting the occurrence and intensity of the heat waves characteristics in present and future climate is also investigated based on the multi-model analysis.  A sensitivity study performed with the coupled atmospheric and land-surface modules of the IPSL climate model helps to support the multi-model analysis. A robust impact of the soil moisture on the dispersion of the heat-wave characteristics is diagnosed.  For 2 models it is possible to analyse the moist heat waves whose intensity and frequency is dramatically increased with respect to the dry heat waves at the end of the 21th century.</p>

Author(s):  
Tomas Cejka ◽  
Elizabeth Isaac ◽  
Daniel Oliach ◽  
Fernando Martinez-Pena ◽  
Simon Egli ◽  
...  

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.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Sippel ◽  
Jakob Zscheischler ◽  
Miguel D. Mahecha ◽  
Rene Orth ◽  
Markus Reichstein ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Earth's land surface and the atmosphere are strongly interlinked through the exchange of energy and matter (e.g. water and carbon). This coupled behaviour causes various land–atmosphere feedbacks and an insufficient understanding of these feedbacks contributes to uncertain global climate model projections. For example, a crucial role of the land surface in exacerbating summer heat waves in mid-latitude regions has been identified empirically for high-impact heatwaves, but individual climate models differ widely in their respective representation of land-atmosphere coupling. Here, we combine an ensemble of observations-based and simulated temperature (T) and evapotranspiration (ET) datasets and investigate coincidences of T anomalies with ET anomalies as a proxy for land-atmosphere interactions during periods of anomalously warm temperatures. We demonstrate that a relatively large fraction of state-of-the-art climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) archive produces systematically too frequent coincidences of high T anomalies with negative ET anomalies in mid-latitude regions during the warm season and in several tropical regions year-round. Further, we show that these coincidences (high T, low ET), as diagnosed by the land-coupling coincidence metrics, are closely related to the variability and extremes of simulated temperatures across a multi-model ensemble. Thus, our approach offers a physically consistent, diagnostic-based avenue to evaluate these ensembles, and subsequently reduce model biases in simulated and predicted extreme temperatures. Following this idea, we derive a land-coupling constraint based on the spread of 54 combinations of T-ET benchmarking datasets and consequently retain only a subset of CMIP5 models that produce a land-coupling behaviour that is compatible with these observations-based benchmark estimates. The constrained multi-model projections exhibit lower temperature extremes in regions where models show substantial spread in T-ET coupling, and in addition, biases in the climate model ensemble are consistently reduced.


2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Snyder ◽  
Lisa C. Sloan

Abstract Regional climate models (RCMs) have improved our understanding of the effects of global climate change on specific regions. The need for realistic forcing has led to the use of fully coupled global climate models (GCMs) to produce boundary conditions for RCMs. The advantages of using fully coupled GCM output is that the global-scale interactions of all components of the climate system (ocean, sea ice, land surface, and atmosphere) are considered. This study uses an RCM, driven by a fully coupled GCM, to examine the climate of a region centered over California for the time periods 1980–99 and 2080–99. Statistically significant increases in mean monthly temperatures by up to 7°C are found for the entire state. Large changes in precipitation occur in northern California in February (increase of up to 4 mm day−1 or 30%) and March (decrease of up to 3 mm day−1 or 25%). However, in most months, precipitation changes between the cases were not statistically significant. Statistically significant decreases in snow accumulation of over 100 mm (50%) occur in some months. Temperature increases lead to decreases in snow accumulation that impact the hydrologic budget by shifting spring and summer runoff into the winter months, reinforcing results of other studies that used different models and driving conditions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-69
Author(s):  
Zane Martin ◽  
Clara Orbe ◽  
Shuguang Wang ◽  
Adam Sobel

AbstractObservational studies show a strong connection between the intraseasonal Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) and the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO): the boreal winter MJO is stronger, more predictable, and has different teleconnections when the QBO in the lower stratosphere is easterly versus westerly. Despite the strength of the observed connection, global climate models do not produce an MJO-QBO link. Here the authors use a current-generation ocean-atmosphere coupled NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies global climate model (Model E2.1) to examine the MJO-QBO link. To represent the QBO with minimal bias, the model zonal mean stratospheric zonal and meridional winds are relaxed to reanalysis fields from 1980-2017. The model troposphere, including the MJO, is allowed to freely evolve. The model with stratospheric nudging captures QBO signals well, including QBO temperature anomalies. However, an ensemble of nudged simulations still lacks an MJO-QBO connection.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Wozniak ◽  
Allison Steiner

Abstract. We develop a prognostic model of Pollen Emissions for Climate Models (PECM) for use within regional and global climate models to simulate pollen counts over the seasonal cycle based on geography, vegetation type and meteorological parameters. Using modern surface pollen count data, empirical relationships between prior-year annual average temperature and pollen season start dates and end dates are developed for deciduous broadleaf trees (Acer, Alnus, Betula, Fraxinus, Morus, Platanus, Populus, Quercus, Ulmus), evergreen needleleaf trees (Cupressaceae, Pinaceae), grasses (Poaceae; C3, C4), and ragweed (Ambrosia). This regression model explains as much as 57 % of the variance in pollen phenological dates, and it is used to create a climate-flexible phenology that can be used to study the response of wind-driven pollen emissions to climate change. The emissions model is evaluated in a regional climate model (RegCM4) over the continental United States by prescribing an emission potential from PECM and transporting pollen as aerosol tracers. We evaluate two different pollen emissions scenarios in the model: (1) using a taxa-specific land cover database, phenology and emission potential, and (2) a PFT-based land cover, phenology and emission potential. The resulting surface concentrations for both simulations are evaluated against observed surface pollen counts in five climatic subregions. Given prescribed pollen emissions, the RegCM4 simulates observed concentrations within an order of magnitude, although the performance of the simulations in any subregion is strongly related to the land cover representation and the number of observation sites used to create the empirical phenological relationship. The taxa-based model provides a better representation of the phenology of tree-based pollen counts than the PFT-based model, however we note that the PFT-based version provides a useful and climate-flexible emissions model for the general representation of the pollen phenology over the United States.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1665-1684
Author(s):  
Leonore Jungandreas ◽  
Cathy Hohenegger ◽  
Martin Claussen

Abstract. Global climate models experience difficulties in simulating the northward extension of the monsoonal precipitation over north Africa during the mid-Holocene as revealed by proxy data. A common feature of these models is that they usually operate on grids that are too coarse to explicitly resolve convection, but convection is the most essential mechanism leading to precipitation in the West African Monsoon region. Here, we investigate how the representation of tropical deep convection in the ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic (ICON) climate model affects the meridional distribution of monsoonal precipitation during the mid-Holocene by comparing regional simulations of the summer monsoon season (July to September; JAS) with parameterized and explicitly resolved convection. In the explicitly resolved convection simulation, the more localized nature of precipitation and the absence of permanent light precipitation as compared to the parameterized convection simulation is closer to expectations. However, in the JAS mean, the parameterized convection simulation produces more precipitation and extends further north than the explicitly resolved convection simulation, especially between 12 and 17∘ N. The higher precipitation rates in the parameterized convection simulation are consistent with a stronger monsoonal circulation over land. Furthermore, the atmosphere in the parameterized convection simulation is less stably stratified and notably moister. The differences in atmospheric water vapor are the result of substantial differences in the probability distribution function of precipitation and its resulting interactions with the land surface. The parametrization of convection produces light and large-scale precipitation, keeping the soils moist and supporting the development of convection. In contrast, less frequent but locally intense precipitation events lead to high amounts of runoff in the explicitly resolved convection simulations. The stronger runoff inhibits the moistening of the soil during the monsoon season and limits the amount of water available to evaporation in the explicitly resolved convection simulation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 155 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. SILVA ◽  
L. KUMAR ◽  
F. SHABANI ◽  
M. C. PICANÇO

SUMMARYTomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops globally and an important agricultural sector for generating employment. Open field cultivation of tomatoes exposes the crop to climatic conditions, whereas greenhouse production is protected. Hence, global warming will have a greater impact on open field cultivation of tomatoes rather than the controlled greenhouse environment. Although the scale of potential impacts is uncertain, there are techniques that can be implemented to predict these impacts. Global climate models (GCMs) are useful tools for the analysis of possible impacts on a species. The current study aims to determine the impacts of climate change and the major factors of abiotic stress that limit the open field cultivation of tomatoes in both the present and future, based on predicted global climate change using CLIMatic indEX and the A2 emissions scenario, together with the GCM Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)-Mk3·0 (CS), for the years 2050 and 2100. The results indicate that large areas that currently have an optimum climate will become climatically marginal or unsuitable for open field cultivation of tomatoes due to progressively increasing heat and dry stress in the future. Conversely, large areas now marginal and unsuitable for open field cultivation of tomatoes will become suitable or optimal due to a decrease in cold stress. The current model may be useful for plant geneticists and horticulturalists who could develop new regional stress-resilient tomato cultivars based on needs related to these modelling projections.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thedini Asali Peiris ◽  
Petra Döll

<p>Unlike global climate models, hydrological models cannot simulate the feedbacks among atmospheric processes, vegetation, water, and energy exchange at the land surface. This severely limits their ability to quantify the impact of climate change and the concurrent increase of atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations on evapotranspiration and thus runoff. Hydrological models generally calculate actual evapotranspiration as a fraction of potential evapotranspiration (PET), which is computed as a function of temperature and net radiation and sometimes of humidity and wind speed. Almost no hydrological model takes into account that PET changes because the vegetation responds to changing CO<sub>2</sub> and climate. This active vegetation response consists of three components. With higher CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations, 1) plant stomata close, reducing transpiration (physiological effect) and 2) plants may grow better, with more leaves, increasing transpiration (structural effect), while 3) climatic changes lead to changes in plants growth and even biome shifts, changing evapotranspiration. Global climate models, which include dynamic vegetation models, simulate all these processes, albeit with a high uncertainty, and take into account the feedbacks to the atmosphere.</p><p>Milly and Dunne (2016) (MD) found that in the case of RCP8.5 the change of PET (computed using the Penman-Monteith equation) between 1981- 2000 and 2081-2100 is much higher than the change of non-water-stressed evapotranspiration (NWSET) computed by an ensemble of global climate models. This overestimation is partially due to the neglect of active vegetation response and partially due to the neglected feedbacks between the atmosphere and the land surface.</p><p>The objective of this paper is to present a simple approach for hydrological models that enables them to mimic the effect of active vegetation on potential evapotranspiration under climate change, thus improving computation of freshwater-related climate change hazards by hydrological models. MD proposed an alternative approach to estimate changes in PET for impact studies that is only a function of the changes in energy and not of temperature and achieves a good fit to the ensemble mean change of evapotranspiration computed by the ensemble of global climate models in months and grid cells without water stress. We developed an implementation of the MD idea for hydrological models using the Priestley-Taylor equation (PET-PT) to estimate PET as a function of net radiation and temperature. With PET-PT, an increasing temperature trend leads to strong increases in PET. Our proposed methodology (PET-MD) helps to remove this effect, retaining the impact of temperature on PET but not on long-term PET change.</p><p>We implemented the PET-MD approach in the global hydrological model WaterGAP2.2d. and computed daily time series of PET between 1981 and 2099 using bias-adjusted climate data of four global climate models for RCP 8.5. We evaluated, computed PET-PT and PET-MD at the grid cell level and globally, comparing also to the results of the Milly-Dunne study. The global analysis suggests that the application of PET-MD reduces the PET change until the end of this century from 3.341 mm/day according to PET-PT to 3.087 mm/day (ensemble mean over the four global climate models).</p><p>Milly, P.C.D., Dunne K.A. (2016). DOI:10.1038/nclimate3046.</p>


Geosciences ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Bracegirdle ◽  
Florence Colleoni ◽  
Nerilie J. Abram ◽  
Nancy A. N. Bertler ◽  
Daniel A. Dixon ◽  
...  

Quantitative estimates of future Antarctic climate change are derived from numerical global climate models. Evaluation of the reliability of climate model projections involves many lines of evidence on past performance combined with knowledge of the processes that need to be represented. Routine model evaluation is mainly based on the modern observational period, which started with the establishment of a network of Antarctic weather stations in 1957/58. This period is too short to evaluate many fundamental aspects of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean climate system, such as decadal-to-century time-scale climate variability and trends. To help address this gap, we present a new evaluation of potential ways in which long-term observational and paleo-proxy reconstructions may be used, with a particular focus on improving projections. A wide range of data sources and time periods is included, ranging from ship observations of the early 20th century to ice core records spanning hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years to sediment records dating back 34 million years. We conclude that paleo-proxy records and long-term observational datasets are an underused resource in terms of strategies for improving Antarctic climate projections for the 21st century and beyond. We identify priorities and suggest next steps to addressing this.


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