scholarly journals Temporal variation of extreme precipitation events in Lithuania**The study was supported by the Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation and by the BSR Interreg IVB Project ‘Climate Change: Impacts, Costs and Adaptation in the Baltic Sea Region (BaltCICA)’.

Oceanologia ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 259-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Egidijus Rimkus ◽  
Justas Kažys ◽  
Arūnas Bukantis ◽  
Aleksandras Krotovas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Temporal Variation ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Project Climate Change ◽  
Precipitation Events

scholarly journals Evaluation of uncertainties in mean and extreme precipitation under climate change for northwestern Mediterranean watersheds from high-resolution Med and Euro-CORDEX ensembles

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 673-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Colmet-Daage ◽  
Emilia Sanchez-Gomez ◽  
Sophie Ricci ◽  
Cécile Llovel ◽  
Valérie Borrell Estupina ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
Precipitation Events

Abstract. The climate change impact on mean and extreme precipitation events in the northern Mediterranean region is assessed using high-resolution EuroCORDEX and MedCORDEX simulations. The focus is made on three regions, Lez and Aude located in France, and Muga located in northeastern Spain, and eight pairs of global and regional climate models are analyzed with respect to the SAFRAN product. First the model skills are evaluated in terms of bias for the precipitation annual cycle over historical period. Then future changes in extreme precipitation, under two emission scenarios, are estimated through the computation of past/future change coefficients of quantile-ranked model precipitation outputs. Over the 1981–2010 period, the cumulative precipitation is overestimated for most models over the mountainous regions and underestimated over the coastal regions in autumn and higher-order quantile. The ensemble mean and the spread for future period remain unchanged under RCP4.5 scenario and decrease under RCP8.5 scenario. Extreme precipitation events are intensified over the three catchments with a smaller ensemble spread under RCP8.5 revealing more evident changes, especially in the later part of the 21st century.

The effect of climate change on urban drainage: an evaluation based on regional climate model simulations

2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 9-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Grum ◽  
A.T. Jørgensen ◽  
R.M. Johansen ◽  
J.J. Linde
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Extreme Precipitation ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Rain Gauge ◽  
Urban Drainage ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
Rainfall Extremes ◽  
The Future ◽  
Precipitation Events

That we are in a period of extraordinary rates of climate change is today evident. These climate changes are likely to impact local weather conditions with direct impacts on precipitation patterns and urban drainage. In recent years several studies have focused on revealing the nature, extent and consequences of climate change on urban drainage and urban runoff pollution issues. This study uses predictions from a regional climate model to look at the effects of climate change on extreme precipitation events. Results are presented in terms of point rainfall extremes. The analysis involves three steps: Firstly, hourly rainfall intensities from 16 point rain gauges are averaged to create a rain gauge equivalent intensity for a 25 × 25 km square corresponding to one grid cell in the climate model. Secondly, the differences between present and future in the climate model is used to project the hourly extreme statistics of the rain gauge surface into the future. Thirdly, the future extremes of the square surface area are downscaled to give point rainfall extremes of the future. The results and conclusions rely heavily on the regional model's suitability in describing extremes at time-scales relevant to urban drainage. However, in spite of these uncertainties, and others raised in the discussion, the tendency is clear: extreme precipitation events effecting urban drainage and causing flooding will become more frequent as a result of climate change.

scholarly journals Coupled regional Earth system modelling in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gröger ◽  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Jari Haapala ◽  
Ha Thi Minh Ho-Hagemann ◽  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Coupled Models ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
Ocean Models ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Non-linear responses to externally forced climate change are known to dampen or amplify the local climate impact due to complex cross compartmental feedback loops in the earth system. These feedbacks are less well represented in traditional standalone atmosphere and ocean models on which many of today's regional climate assessments rely on (e.g. EuroCordex, NOSCCA, BACC II). This promotes the development of regional climate models for the Baltic Sea region by coupling different compartments of the earth system into more comprehensive models. Coupled models more realistically represent feedback loops than the information imposed into the region by using prescribed boundary conditions, and thus, permit a higher degree of freedom. In the past, several coupled model systems have been developed for Europe and the Baltic Sea region. This article reviews recent progress of model systems that allow two way communication between atmosphere and ocean models, models for the land surface including the terrestrial biosphere, as well as wave models at the air sea interface and hydrology models for water cycle closure. However, several processes that have so far mostly been realized by one way coupling such as marine biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling and atmospheric chemistry (e.g. aerosols) are not considered here.Compared to uncoupled standalone models, coupled earth system models models can modify mean near surface air temperatures locally up to several degrees compared to their standalone atmospheric counterparts using prescribed surface boundary conditions. Over open ocean areas, the representation of small scale oceanic processes such as vertical mixing, and sea ice dynamics appear essential to accurately resolve the air sea heat exchange in the Baltic Sea region and can only be provided by online coupled high resolution ocean models. In addition, the coupling of wave models at the ocean-atmosphere interface allows a more explicit formulation of small-scale to microphysical processes with local feedbacks to water temperature and large scale processes such as oceanic upwelling. Over land, important climate feedbacks arise from dynamical terrestrial vegetation changes as well as the implementation of land use scenarios and afforestation/deforestation that further alter surface albedo, roughness length and evapotranspiration. Furthermore, a good representation of surface temperatures and roughness length over open sea and land areas is critical for the representation of climatic extremes like e.g. heavy precipitation, storms, or tropical nights, and appear to be sensitive to coupling.For the present-day climate, many coupled atmosphere-ocean and atmosphere-land surface models demonstrate added value with respect to single climate variables in particular when low quality boundary data were used in the respective standalone model. This makes coupled models a prospective tool for downscaling climate change scenarios from global climate models because these models often have large biases on the regional scale. However, the coupling of hydrology models for closing the water cycle remains problematic as the accuracy of precipitation provided by the atmosphere models is in most cases insufficient to realistically simulate the runoff to the Baltic Sea without bias adjustments.Many regional standalone ocean and atmosphere models are tuned to well represent present day climatologies rather than accurately simulate climate change. More research is necessary about how the regional climate sensitivity (e.g. the models’ response to a given change in global mean temperature) is affected by coupling and how the spread is altered in multi-model and multi-scenario ensembles of coupled models compared to uncoupled ones.

scholarly journals Human impacts and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Reckermann ◽  
Anders Omstedt ◽  
Tarmo Soomere ◽  
Juris Aigars ◽  
Naveed Akhtar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Indigenous Species ◽  
General Description ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Coastal environments, in particular heavily populated semi-enclosed marginal seas and coasts like the Baltic Sea region, are stongly affected by human activities. A multitude of human impacts, including climate change, affects the different compartments of the environment, and these effects interact with each other. As part of the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports (BEAR), we present an inventory and discussion of different human-induced factors and processes affecting the environment of the Baltic Sea region, and their interrelations. Some are naturally occurring and modified by human activities (i.e. climate change, coastal processes, hypoxia, acidification, submarine groundwater discharges, marine ecosystems, non-indigenous species, land use and land cover), some are completely human-induced (i.e. agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, river regulations, offshore wind farms, shipping, chemical contamination, dumped warfare agents, marine litter and microplastics, tourism, coastal management), and they are all interrelated to different degrees. We present a general description and analysis of the state of knowledge on these interrelations. Our main insight is that climate change has an overarching, integrating impact on all of the other factors and can be interpreted as a background effect, which has different implications for the other factors. Impacts on the environment and the human sphere can be roughly allocated to anthropogenic drivers such as food production, energy production, transport, industry and economy. We conclude that a sound management and regulation of human activities must be implemented in order to use and keep the environments and ecosystems of the Baltic Sea region sustainably in a good shape. This must balance the human needs, which exert tremendous pressures on the systems, as humans are the overwhelming driving force for almost all changes we see. The findings from this inventory of available information and analysis of the different factors and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region can largely be transferred to other comparable marginal and coastal seas in the world.

scholarly journals Coupled regional Earth system modeling in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 939-973
Author(s):  
Matthias Gröger ◽  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Jari Haapala ◽  
Ha Thi Minh Ho-Hagemann ◽  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Coupled Models ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
Ocean Models ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Nonlinear responses to externally forced climate change are known to dampen or amplify the local climate impact due to complex cross-compartmental feedback loops in the Earth system. These feedbacks are less well represented in the traditional stand-alone atmosphere and ocean models on which many of today's regional climate assessments rely (e.g., EURO-CORDEX, NOSCCA and BACC II). This has promoted the development of regional climate models for the Baltic Sea region by coupling different compartments of the Earth system into more comprehensive models. Coupled models more realistically represent feedback loops than the information imposed on the region by prescribed boundary conditions and, thus, permit more degrees of freedom. In the past, several coupled model systems have been developed for Europe and the Baltic Sea region. This article reviews recent progress on model systems that allow two-way communication between atmosphere and ocean models; models for the land surface, including the terrestrial biosphere; and wave models at the air–sea interface and hydrology models for water cycle closure. However, several processes that have mostly been realized by one-way coupling to date, such as marine biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling and atmospheric chemistry (e.g., aerosols), are not considered here. In contrast to uncoupled stand-alone models, coupled Earth system models can modify mean near-surface air temperatures locally by up to several degrees compared with their stand-alone atmospheric counterparts using prescribed surface boundary conditions. The representation of small-scale oceanic processes, such as vertical mixing and sea-ice dynamics, appears essential to accurately resolve the air–sea heat exchange over the Baltic Sea, and these parameters can only be provided by online coupled high-resolution ocean models. In addition, the coupling of wave models at the ocean–atmosphere interface allows for a more explicit formulation of small-scale to microphysical processes with local feedbacks to water temperature and large-scale processes such as oceanic upwelling. Over land, important climate feedbacks arise from dynamical terrestrial vegetation changes as well as the implementation of land-use scenarios and afforestation/deforestation that further alter surface albedo, roughness length and evapotranspiration. Furthermore, a good representation of surface temperatures and roughness length over open sea and land areas is critical for the representation of climatic extremes such as heavy precipitation, storms, or tropical nights (defined as nights where the daily minimum temperature does not fall below 20 ∘C), and these parameters appear to be sensitive to coupling. For the present-day climate, many coupled atmosphere–ocean and atmosphere–land surface models have demonstrated the added value of single climate variables, in particular when low-quality boundary data were used in the respective stand-alone model. This makes coupled models a prospective tool for downscaling climate change scenarios from global climate models because these models often have large biases on the regional scale. However, the coupling of hydrology models to close the water cycle remains problematic, as the accuracy of precipitation provided by atmosphere models is, in most cases, insufficient to realistically simulate the runoff to the Baltic Sea without bias adjustments. Many regional stand-alone ocean and atmosphere models are tuned to suitably represent present-day climatologies rather than to accurately simulate climate change. Therefore, more research is required into how the regional climate sensitivity (e.g., the models' response to a given change in global mean temperature) is affected by coupling and how the spread is altered in multi-model and multi-scenario ensembles of coupled models compared with uncoupled ones.

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