Search results for "climate change"

Observations of atmospheric chemical deposition to high Arctic snow

2017

Abstract. Rapidly rising temperatures and loss of snow and ice cover have demonstrated the unique vulnerability of the high Arctic to climate change. There are major uncertainties in modelling the chemical depositional and scavenging processes of Arctic snow. To that end, fresh snow samples collected on average every 4 days at Alert, Nunavut, from September 2014 to June 2015 were analyzed for black carbon, major ions, and metals, and their concentrations and fluxes were reported. Comparison with simultaneous measurements of atmospheric aerosol mass loadings yields effective deposition velocities that encompass all processes by which the atmospheric species are transferred to the snow. It is…

Temperature-related mortality impacts under and beyond Paris Agreement climate change scenarios.

2018

The Paris Agreement binds all nations to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change, with the commitment to hold warming well below 2 degrees C in global mean temperature (GMT), relative to pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. The 1.5 degrees C limit constitutes an ambitious goal for which greater evidence on its benefits for health would help guide policy and potentially increase the motivation for action. Here we contribute to this gap with an assessment on the potential health benefits, in terms of reductions in temperature-related mortality, derived from the compliance to the agreed temperature targets, compared to more extreme warmin…

2015

Abstract. The Amazon Basin plays key roles in the carbon and water cycles, climate change, atmospheric chemistry, and biodiversity. It has already been changed significantly by human activities, and more pervasive change is expected to occur in the coming decades. It is therefore essential to establish long-term measurement sites that provide a baseline record of present-day climatic, biogeochemical, and atmospheric conditions and that will be operated over coming decades to monitor change in the Amazon region, as human perturbations increase in the future. The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) has been set up in a pristine rain forest region in the central Amazon Basin, about 150 km nor…

Isolating the climate change impacts on air-pollution-related-pathologies over central and southern Europe – a modelling approach on cases and costs

2019

Air pollution has important implications for human health and associated external costs to society and is closely related to climate change. This contribution tries to assess the impacts of present (1996-2015) and future (2071-2100 under RCP8.5) air pollution on several cardiovascular and respiratory pathologies and estimate the difference in the costs associated with these health impacts on the European population. For this, air quality data from the regional chemistry-climate modelling system of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) are used, together with some epidemiological information from the European Commission. The methodology considered…

Spatial distribution of temperature trends in Sicily

2013

Climate change resulting from the enhanced greenhouse effect is expected to have great impacts on hydrological cycle and consequently on ecosystems. The effects of climate variability have direct implications on water management, as water availability is related to changes in temperature and precipitation regimes. At the same time, this kind of alterations drives ecological impacts on flora and fauna. For these reasons, many studies have been carried out to investigate the existence of some tendency in temperature and/or precipitation series in different geographic domains. In order to verify the hypothesis of temperature increase in Sicily (Italy), temperature data from about 80 spatially …

Mid-century effects of Climate Change on African monsoon dynamics using the A1B emission scenario

2012

Future climate changes in African regions are model-dependent and there is no consensus regarding Sahelian rainfall by the end of this century. Using 12 atmosphere-ocean global climate models of the third Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) we propose a multi-model (MM) analysis contrasting the 1960–1999 period (20c3m integration) and the 2031–2070 period (A1B emission scenario). The analyses are based on MM response but also on the ‘one model-one vote’ concept to give the same weight to each model. The results show robust signals in the rainfall response, i.e., increasing (decreasing) amounts in central (western) Sahel associated with specific changes in atmospheric dynamics. The…

Expected future changes in the African monsoon between 2030 and 2070 using some CMIP3 and CMIP5 models under a medium-low RCP scenario

2012

[1] The accuracy of African Monsoon (AM) simulations together with expected future changes are presented using eight available CMIP5/AR5 AOGCMs under the RCP4.5 emission scenario and eight CMIP3/AR4 AOGCMs under the A1b scenario, with a multimodel approach and the “one model one vote” concept. The results refer to the ‘present’ period (1960–1999) and to a ‘future horizon’ (2031–2070), and are discussed in terms of monsoon dynamics and climate change. Overall the new simulations seem more realistic. They exhibit more accurate rainfall patterns, although some biases reported in CMIP3 models remain. The future changes show an inverse tendency regarding rainfall amounts with less (more) rainfal…

Spatiotemporal modeling and prediction of solar radiation

2003

[1] The radiation budget in the Earth-atmosphere system is what drives Earth's climate, and thus measurements of this balance are needed to improve our knowledge of Earth's climate and climate change. In the present paper we focus on the analysis of the surface shortwave radiation budget (SSRB), which is the amount of energy in the solar region of the electromagnetic spectrum (0.2–4.0 μm) absorbed at the surface. The SSRB has to be modeled from the surface to the top of the atmosphere, jointly with information about the state of the atmosphere and the surface. These data come from satellites orbiting the Earth and are often missing or disturbed. Its interest is not only at global scales; ra…

Impact of global warming on snow in ski areas: A case study using a regional climate simulation over the interior western United States

2021

AbstractA high-resolution (4 km) regional climate simulation conducted with the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model is used to investigate potential impacts of global warming on skiing conditions in the interior western United States (IWUS). Recent past and near-future climate conditions are compared. The past climate period is from November 1981 to October 2011. The future climate applies to a 30-year period centered on 2050. A pseudo global warming approach is used, with the driver re-analysis dataset perturbed by the CMIP5 ensemble mean model guidance. Using the 30-year retrospective simulation, a vertical adjustment technique is used to determine meteorological parameters in the c…

Adapting rail and road networks to weather extremes: Case studies for southern Germany and Austria

2013

Published version of an article in the journal: Natural Hazards. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0969-3 The assessment of the current impacts of extreme weather conditions on transport systems reveals high costs in specific locations. Prominent examples for Europe are the economic consequences of the harsh winter periods 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 and the floods in Austria, Eastern Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom in 2005 and 2007. Departing from the EC-funded project WEATHER, this paper delves into the subject of adaptation strategies by revisiting the project’s general findings on adaptation strategies and by adding two specific cases: (1) adv…