Regional Climate Change Impact Research Articles

A Regional, Multi-sectoral And Integrated Assessment Of The Impacts Of Climate And Socio-economic Change In The Uk

The ‘Regional Climate Change Impact and Response Studies in East Anglia and North West England’ (RegIS) integrated assessment (IA) investigated climate and socio-economic impacts and adaptation options, and cross-sectoral interactions between four major sectors driving landscape change (agriculture, biodiversity, coastal zones and water resources). The baseline and two contrasting climate change scenarios (with and without regional socio-economic change scenarios) were investigated. RegIS showed that climate change, without policy adaptation, could lead to severe flood impacts in East Anglia, and significant agricultural abandonment. Despite yield changes, cropping is generally insensitive to climate, but very sensitive to socio-economic change. There is increased seasonality to river flows, compounded by increased urbanisation and irrigation demand. The responses of biodiversity to climate change are regional, habitat and species-specific, but much of the future of biodiversity in these regions will depend on planned adaptation in the other sectors. Numerous examples of public engagement with the global change sphere represent the real outward value of RegIS, due to the significant uncertainties and limitations to knowledge in this first regional IA which prevented results of the detail, specificity and confidence that decision-makers required. However, with further investment and refinement, regional IA’s will increasingly provide such output.

A Regional, Multi-Sectoral And Integrated Assessment Of The Impacts Of Climate And Socio-Economic Change In The Uk

Policy makers and stakeholders are increasingly demanding impact assessments which produce policy-relevant guidance on the local impacts of global climate change. The ‘Regional Climate Change Impact and Response Studies in East Anglia and North West England’ (RegIS) study developed a methodology for stakeholder-led, regional climate change impact assessment that explicitly evaluated local and regional (sub-national) scale impacts and adaptation options, and cross-sectoral interactions between four major sectors driving landscape change (agriculture, biodiversity, coasts and floodplains and water resources). The ‘Drivers-Pressure-State-Impact-Response’ (DPSIR) approach provided a structure for linking the modelling and scenario techniques. A 5 × 5 km grid was chosen for numerical modelling input (climate and socio-economic scenarios) and output, as a compromise between the climate scenario resolution (10 × 10 km) and the detailed spatial resolution output desired by stakeholders. Fundamental methodological issues have been raised by RegIS which reflect the difficulty of multi-sectoral modelling studies at local scales. In particular, the role of scenarios, error propagation in linked models, model validity, transparency and transportability as well as the use of integrated assessment to evaluate adaptation options to climate change are examined. Integrated assessments will provide new insights which will compliment those derived by more detailed sectoral assessments.

Sri Lankan snail diversity: faunal origins and future prospects

– Sri Lankan snails have a complex history that might be linked to events ranging from Mesozoic plate tectonics and climate change on a global scale to more recent regional climate change and human impact.

Impact of climate change on surface ozone and deposition of sulphur and nitrogen in Europe

Abstract The potential impact of regional climate change on the distribution and deposition of air pollutants in Europe has been studied using a regional chemistry/transport/deposition model, MATCH. MATCH was set up using meteorological output from two 10-year climate change experiments made with the Rossby Centre regional Atmospheric climate model version 1 (RCA1). RCA1 was forced by boundary conditions from two different global climate models using the IPCC IS92a (business as usual) emission scenario. The global mean warming in both the GCMs was 2.6 K and was reached in the period 2050–2070. Simulations with MATCH indicate substantial potential impact of regional climate change on both deposition of oxidised nitrogen and concentrations of surface ozone. The simulations show a strong increase in surface ozone expressed as AOT40 and mean of daily maximum over southern and central Europe and a decrease in northern Europe. The simulated changes in April–September AOT40 are significant in relation to inter-annual variability over extended areas. Changes in deposition of oxidised nitrogen are much smaller and also less coherent due to the strong inter-annual variability in precipitation in the RCA1 simulations and differences in the regional climate change simulated with RCA1 in the two regional scenarios. Changes in simulated annual deposition are significant in relation to inter-annual variability only over small areas. This indicates that longer simulation periods are necessary to establish changes in deposition.

Vegetation history, human impact and climate change during the last 700 years recorded in annually laminated sediments of Lac Pavin, France

This paper presents a 1.80-m-long varved sediment record documenting the vegetation history by pollen and diatom analysis recovered from Lake Pavin, a volcanic crater lake in the Auvergne (French Massif Central). High-resolution sampling and a varve-based age model allowed the reconstruction of ecosystem responses to both regional climate change and human impact. According to the present varve chronology, the Lake Pavin sequence covers the last 700 years, thus representing the late Subatlantic period (i.e. from the Late Medieval onwards). The pollen record largely reflects intensive human influence (clearing, cultivation and grazing) on the lake surrounding area. The arboreal pollen spectrum of the entire sequence is co-dominated by Fagus and Quercus, except during the 20th century. However, whilst the Quercus record is relative stable, several major fluctuations are discernable in the Fagus curve. An increase in Pinus and Picea shortly before of the turn the 20th Century, indicates afforestation by conifers. The varve counting indicates that the most prominent signal in the Fagus curve occurs during the period between about 1540 and 1670 AD. During this interval, the initial drop in the Fagus curve is estimated to have taken 5–10 years, with the subsequent recovery occurring over a similar period. Since there is no clear evidence of tree population replacement, such rapid signals imply that the fluctuations in the Fagus curve reflect variations in pollen production, being influenced by the cooler temperatures experienced during a cold spell of the Little Ice Age.

Quantity and Quality Integrated Catchment Modeling under Climate Change with use of Soil and Water Assessment Tool Model

This paper focuses on the regional impact of climate change on several critical water quantity and quality issues. The study area is the Ali Efenti Basin in central Greece. The soil and water assessment tool daily step conceptual model has been applied to simulate the water cycle and the nitrogen transport within the catchment. The outputs of six general circulation models have been used to perturb the time series of precipitation and temperature. For all of the scenarios a decrease in streamflow is observed and there is an increase in the magnitude of floods for certain return periods. Changes in surface water runoff influence nitrogen losses, resulting in an annual reduction of the nitrogen flux to the water body.

Water resource impacts of climate change in southwestern Bulgaria

This study assesses the regional impact of climate change on runoff in a mountainous region of southwestern Bulgaria. A GIS-based distributed hydrologic model and two climate change scenarios – HadCM2 and CCC – were employed for years around 2025 and 2085. Results from both scenarios demonstrate the basin's sensitivity of runoff to climate change, which produce significant spatial and temporal changes in the basin's water yield with maximum runoff shift into early spring and further decreases in summer runoff. There could be no reduction in mean annual runoff, except under the Hadley scenario by 2085. Changes in the magnitude of mean monthly and peak flow are associated with early snowmelt and a reduction in snow cover in spring. Increases in spatial variability of runoff reflect the basin's complex physiographic characteristics. The increase of spatial and temporal variability in runoff points to different strategies for future water resource management.

Oceans and climate

Climate change is arguably the most important environmental issue of the century. Many people connect climate change with a warming of the atmosphere, but other elements of the climate system also play an important role. The oceans are particularly significant, since they affect both the timing and regional impact of climate change.

Stochastic weather type simulation for regional climate change impact assessment

A stochastic model is developed for the synthesis of daily precipitation by weather type analysis. Daily rainfall at two sites in southern England is related to the Lamb weather types by using conditional probabilities. Time series of circulation patterns and hence rainfall are then generated using a Markov representation of matrices of transition probabilities between weather types. The model reproduces key aspects of the historic rainfall regime at daily, monthly, and annual temporal resolutions. The general validity of the methodology as a means of disaggregating general circulation model predictions into finer spatial scales for water resource studies is discussed. Several limitations are identified of which the subjectivity introduced by the weather type classification system and the nonstationarity of the precipitation characteristics are the most serious.

Identifying regional goals and policy concerns associated with global climate change

This paper presents a systematic approach, assisted by analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and goal programming (GP), to build a bridge between science and policy in a regional climate change impact study. The approach is being applied in the Mackenzie Basin of Canada. The study focuses on the identification and specification of regional policy concerns relating to climate change. The approach attempts to ensure that the outputs of the climate change impact study reflect some major concerns of various regional ‘stake holders’.

Satellite Monitoring of Optically-Active Components of Inland Waters: An Essential Input to Regional Climate Change Impact Studies

Consistent with the climate change objectives of the IGBP is the need to remotely monitor and map both global and regional biological productivity over lands, oceans, and inland waters. Models and algorithms are currently being developed to infer aquatic primary production from near-surface chlorophyll concentration values determined from satellite sensors. Data from Lake Ladoga are utilized to illustrate that the algorithms currently being used to monitor near-surface chlorophyll concentrations in oceanic waters are inadequate when applied to water masses optically complicated by their proximity to land masses. Methodologies originally developed for retrieving simultaneous concentrations of chlorophyll, suspended minerals, and dissolved organic carbon from volume reflectance measurements of Lake Ontario are shown to display success in Lake Ladoga that could not be duplicated by six different oceanic chlorophyll retrieval algorithms. The principal requirements for water quality satellite monitoring are the cross sections of the optically-active components of the water body being remotely monitored. It is argued that, despite the spatial and temporal variability of such cross sections, their determination for principal water bodies should comprise both global and regional climate change studies.