Different approaches of finding European climate analogue regions for the Steigerwald forest (Germany) in the future

Author(s):  
Katrin Ziegler ◽  
Felix Pohl ◽  
Felix Pollinger ◽  
Heiko Paeth

<p>Adapting the impacts of climate change is a great challenge. To facilitate forest adaptation long-term and forward-looking decisions must be made today since they have to be valid for several decades. Therefore, fundamental knowledge of the future climate and of tree species which are more resilient to the future climate than trees growing in the forests today is necessary.</p><p>To give local foresters a basis for their decisions, we use the so-called analogue region method. With this method we aim to find regions in Europe which currently have the same climate as it is projected in a specific reference region for different future scenarios. For the projections, the model runs of the regional climate model REMO are used. As an example of finding analogue regions, we selected the forest region Steigerwald in North Bavaria. We use different climatic and forest specific indices and data preparation methods to test the influence of varying indices and methods on the resulting regions. After identifying the respective analogue regions, we analyze which tree species are growing currently in these regions by using the EU-Forest data set.</p>

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.


Climate ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnidé Emmanuel Lawin ◽  
Marc Niyongendako ◽  
Célestin Manirakiza

This paper assessed the variability and projected trends of solar irradiance and temperature in the East of Burundi. Observed temperature from meteorological stations and the MERRA-2 data set provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center are used over the historical period 1976–2005. In addition, solar irradiance data provided by SoDa database were considered. Furthermore, projection data from eight Regional Climate Models were used over the periods 2026–2045 and 2066–2085. The variability analysis was performed using a standardized index. Projected trends and changes in the future climate were respectively detected through Mann-Kendall and t-tests. The findings over the historical period revealed increase temperature and decrease in solar irradiance over the last decades of the 20th century. At a monthly scale, the variability analysis showed that excesses in solar irradiance coincide with the dry season, which led to the conclusion that it may be a period of high production for solar energy. In the future climate, upward trends in temperature are expected over the two future periods, while no significant trends are forecasted in solar irradiance over the entire studied region. However, slight decreases and significant changes in solar irradiance have been detected over all regions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Woo Lee ◽  
Suryun Ham ◽  
Song-You Hong ◽  
Kei Yoshimura ◽  
Minsu Joh

This study assesses future change of surface runoff due to climate change over Korea using a regional climate model (RCM), namely, the Global/Regional Integrated Model System (GRIMs), Regional Model Program (RMP). The RMP is forced by future climate scenario, namely, A1B of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). The RMP satisfactorily reproduces the observed seasonal mean and variation of surface runoff for the current climate simulation. The distribution of monsoonal precipitation-related runoff is adequately captured by the RMP. In the future (2040–2070) simulation, it is shown that the increasing trend of temperature has significant impacts on the intra-annual runoff variation. The variability of runoff is increased in summer; moreover, the strengthened possibility of extreme occurrence is detected in the future climate. This study indicates that future climate projection, including surface runoff and its variability over Korea, can be adequately addressed on the RMP testbed. Furthermore, this study reflects that global warming affects local hydrological cycle by changing major water budget components. This study adduces that the importance of runoff should not be overlooked in regional climate studies, and more elaborate presentation of fresh-water cycle is needed to close hydrological circulation in RCMs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1297-1333 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kotlarski ◽  
K. Keuler ◽  
O. B. Christensen ◽  
A. Colette ◽  
M. Déqué ◽  
...  

Abstract. EURO-CORDEX is an international climate downscaling initiative that aims to provide high-resolution climate scenarios for Europe. Here an evaluation of the ERA-Interim-driven EURO-CORDEX regional climate model (RCM) ensemble is presented. The study documents the performance of the individual models in representing the basic spatiotemporal patterns of the European climate for the period 1989–2008. Model evaluation focuses on near-surface air temperature and precipitation, and uses the E-OBS data set as observational reference. The ensemble consists of 17 simulations carried out by seven different models at grid resolutions of 12 km (nine experiments) and 50 km (eight experiments). Several performance metrics computed from monthly and seasonal mean values are used to assess model performance over eight subdomains of the European continent. Results are compared to those for the ERA40-driven ENSEMBLES simulations. The analysis confirms the ability of RCMs to capture the basic features of the European climate, including its variability in space and time. But it also identifies nonnegligible deficiencies of the simulations for selected metrics, regions and seasons. Seasonally and regionally averaged temperature biases are mostly smaller than 1.5 °C, while precipitation biases are typically located in the ±40% range. Some bias characteristics, such as a predominant cold and wet bias in most seasons and over most parts of Europe and a warm and dry summer bias over southern and southeastern Europe reflect common model biases. For seasonal mean quantities averaged over large European subdomains, no clear benefit of an increased spatial resolution (12 vs. 50 km) can be identified. The bias ranges of the EURO-CORDEX ensemble mostly correspond to those of the ENSEMBLES simulations, but some improvements in model performance can be identified (e.g., a less pronounced southern European warm summer bias). The temperature bias spread across different configurations of one individual model can be of a similar magnitude as the spread across different models, demonstrating a strong influence of the specific choices in physical parameterizations and experimental setup on model performance. Based on a number of simply reproducible metrics, the present study quantifies the currently achievable accuracy of RCMs used for regional climate simulations over Europe and provides a quality standard for future model developments.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 1091-1116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Rasmussen ◽  
Kyoko Ikeda ◽  
Changhai Liu ◽  
David Gochis ◽  
Martyn Clark ◽  
...  

Abstract A high-resolution climate model (4-km horizontal grid spacing) is used to examine the following question: How will long-term changes in climate impact the partitioning of annual precipitation between evapotranspiration and runoff in the Colorado Headwaters? This question is examined using a climate sensitivity approach in which eight years of current climate is compared to a future climate created by modifying the current climate signal with perturbation from the NCAR Community Climate System Model, version 3 (CCSM3), model forced by the A1B scenario for greenhouse gases out to 2050. The current climate period is shown to agree well with Snowpack Telemetry (SNOTEL) surface observations of precipitation (P) and snowpack, as well as streamflow and AmeriFlux evapotranspiration (ET) observations. The results show that the annual evaporative fraction (ET/P) for the Colorado Headwaters is 0.81 for the current climate and 0.83 for the future climate, indicating increasing aridity in the future despite a positive increase of precipitation. Runoff decreased by an average of 6%, reflecting the increased aridity. Precipitation increased in the future winter by 12%, but decreased in the summer as a result of increased low-level inhibition to convection. The fraction of precipitation that fell as snow decreased from 0.83 in the current climate to 0.74 in the future. Future snowpack did not change significantly until January. From January to March the snowpack increased above ~3000 m MSL and decreased below that level. Snowpack decreased at all elevations in the future from April to July. The peak snowpack and runoff over the headwaters occurred 2–3 weeks earlier in the future simulation, in agreement with previous studies.


Author(s):  
Masaya Toyoda ◽  
Jun Yoshino ◽  
Tomonao Kobayashi

The recent progress of the global warming raise concerns the future changes of tropical cyclones (i.e. hurricane, typhoon, and cyclone) and their associated coastal disasters. It is thought that the increases of both the sea surface temperature and ocean heat contents by the global warming could increase the intensity of future tropical cyclones. As a method of quantitative assessment for the impact of global warming on tropical cyclones and their storm surges, “pseudo-global warming downscaling” is generally adopted using a regional climate model and a storm surge model (Takayabu et al., 2015). Estimating the differences of experiments between present and future climate, we can quantify the future changes of typhoon intensity and storm surge by the global warming. Using the high-resolution typhoon model, we carry out a present climate experiment and pseudo-global warming experiments on typhoon intensity and its storm surge of Typhoon Sanba (2012) in this study. Sanba went northward on the west coast of Kyushu Island and caused a storm surge in Ariake Sea, Japan. Sanba had a minimum central pressure of 900 hPa and a maximum wind speed of 55 m/s. The observed maximum sea level anomaly was 104 cm at Oura, Saga Prefecture. To evaluate the impacts of global warming differences (GWDs) on typhoon intensity and storm surge, sensitivity experiments on different months (August, September, and October) in future typhoon season are also made.


2014 ◽  
Vol 955-959 ◽  
pp. 3887-3892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huang He Gu ◽  
Zhong Bo Yu ◽  
Ji Gan Wang

This study projects the future extreme climate changes over Huang-Huai-Hai (3H) region in China using a regional climate model (RegCM4). The RegCM4 performs well in “current” climate (1970-1999) simulations by compared with the available surface station data, focusing on near-surface air temperature and precipitation. Future climate changes are evaluated based on experiments driven by European-Hamburg general climate model (ECHAM5) in A1B future scenario (2070-2099). The results show that the annual temperature increase about 3.4 °C-4.2 °C and the annual precipitation increase about 5-15% in most of 3H region at the end of 21st century. The model predicts a generally less frost days, longer growing season, more hot days, no obvious change in heat wave duration index, larger maximum five-day rainfall, more heavy rain days, and larger daily rainfall intensity. The results indicate a higher risk of floods in the future warmer climate. In addition, the consecutive dry days in Huai River Basin will increase, indicating more serve drought and floods conditions in this region.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Polanski ◽  
Annette Rinke ◽  
Klaus Dethloff

The regional climate model HIRHAM has been applied over the Asian continent to simulate the Indian monsoon circulation under present-day conditions. The model is driven at the lateral and lower boundaries by European reanalysis (ERA40) data for the period from 1958 to 2001. Simulations with a horizontal resolution of 50 km are carried out to analyze the regional monsoon patterns. The focus in this paper is on the validation of the long-term summer monsoon climatology and its variability concerning circulation, temperature, and precipitation. Additionally, the monsoonal behavior in simulations for wet and dry years has been investigated and compared against several observational data sets. The results successfully reproduce the observations due to a realistic reproduction of topographic features. The simulated precipitation shows a better agreement with a high-resolution gridded precipitation data set over the central land areas of India and in the higher elevated Tibetan and Himalayan regions than ERA40.


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