Strong sensitivity of late 21st century climate to projected changes in short-lived air pollutants

Author(s):  
Hiram Levy ◽  
M. Daniel Schwarzkopf ◽  
Larry Horowitz ◽  
V. Ramaswamy ◽  
K. L. Findell
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 3701-3713
Author(s):  
Chenghai Wang ◽  
Danyang Cui ◽  
Jerasorn Santisirisomboon

PLoS Biology ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. e1001682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilo Mora ◽  
Chih-Lin Wei ◽  
Audrey Rollo ◽  
Teresa Amaro ◽  
Amy R. Baco ◽  
...  

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1494
Author(s):  
Bernardo Teufel ◽  
Laxmi Sushama

Fluvial flooding in Canada is often snowmelt-driven, thus occurs mostly in spring, and has caused billions of dollars in damage in the past decade alone. In a warmer climate, increasing rainfall and changing snowmelt rates could lead to significant shifts in flood-generating mechanisms. Here, projected changes to flood-generating mechanisms in terms of the relative contribution of snowmelt and rainfall are assessed across Canada, based on an ensemble of transient climate change simulations performed using a state-of-the-art regional climate model. Changes to flood-generating mechanisms are assessed for both a late 21st century, high warming (i.e., Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5) scenario, and in a 2 °C global warming context. Under 2 °C of global warming, the relative contribution of snowmelt and rainfall to streamflow peaks is projected to remain close to that of the current climate, despite slightly increased rainfall contribution. In contrast, a high warming scenario leads to widespread increases in rainfall contribution and the emergence of hotspots of change in currently snowmelt-dominated regions across Canada. In addition, several regions in southern Canada would be projected to become rainfall dominated. These contrasting projections highlight the importance of climate change mitigation, as remaining below the 2 °C global warming threshold can avoid large changes over most regions, implying a low likelihood that expensive flood adaptation measures would be necessary.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahiro Oyama ◽  
Jun'ya Takakura ◽  
Minoru Fujii ◽  
Kenichi Nakajima ◽  
Yasuaki Hijioka

Abstract There are concerns about the impact of climate change on Olympic Games, especially endurance events, such as marathons. In recent competitions, many marathon runners dropped out of their races due to extreme heat, and it is expected that more areas will be unable to host the Olympic Games due to climate change. Here, we show the feasibility of the Olympic marathon considering the variations in climate factors, socioeconomic conditions, and adaptation measures. The number of current possible host cities will decline by up to 24% worldwide by the late 21st century. Dozens of emerging cities, especially in Asia, will not be capable of hosting the marathon under the highest emission scenario. Moving the marathon from August to October and holding the games in multiple cities in the country are effective measures, and they should be considered if we are to maintain the regional diversity of the games.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Zanowski ◽  
Alexandra Jahn ◽  
Marika Holland

<p>Recently, the Arctic has undergone substantial changes in sea ice cover and the hydrologic cycle, both of which strongly impact the freshwater storage in, and export from, the Arctic Ocean. Here we analyze Arctic freshwater storage and fluxes in 7 climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) and assess their agreement over the historical period (1980-2000) and in two future emissions scenarios, SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5. In the historical simulation, few models agree closely with observations over 1980-2000. In both future scenarios the models show an increase in liquid (ocean) freshwater storage in conjunction with a reduction in solid storage and fluxes through the major Arctic gateways (Bering Strait, Fram Strait, Davis Strait, and the Barents Sea Opening) that is typically larger for SSP5-8.5 than SSP1-2.6. The liquid fluxes through the gateways exhibit a more complex pattern, with models exhibiting a change in sign of the freshwater flux through the Barents Sea Opening and little change in the flux through the Bering Strait in addition to increased export from the remaining straits by the end of the 21st century. A decomposition of the liquid fluxes into their salinity and volume contributions shows that the Barents Sea flux changes are driven by salinity changes, while the Bering Strait flux changes are driven by compensating salinity and volume changes. In the straits west of Greenland (Nares, Barrow, and Davis straits), the models disagree on whether there will be a decrease, increase, or steady liquid freshwater export in the early to mid 21st century, although they mostly show increased liquid freshwater export in the late 21st century. The underlying cause of this is a difference in the magnitude and timing of a simulated decrease in the volume flux through these straits. Although the models broadly agree on the sign of late 21st century storage and flux changes, substantial differences exist between the magnitude of these changes and the models’ Arctic mean states, which shows no fundamental improvement in the models compared to CMIP5.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Cos ◽  
Francisco J Doblas-Reyes ◽  
Martin Jury

<p>The Mediterranean has been identified as a climate change hot-spot due to increased warming trends and precipitation decline. Recently, CMIP6 was found to show a higher climate sensitivity than its predecessor CMIP5, potentially further exacerbating related impacts on the Mediterranean region.</p><p>To estimate the impacts of the ongoing climate change on the region, we compare projections of various CMIP5 and CMIP6 experiments and scenarios. In particular, we focus on summer and winter changes in temperature and precipitation for the 21st century under RCP2.6/SSP1-2.6, RCP4.5/SSP2-4.5 and RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 as well as the high resolution HighResMIP experiments. Additionally, to give robust estimates of projected changes we apply a novel model weighting scheme, accounting for historical performance and inter-independence of the multi-member multi-model ensembles, using ERA5, JRA55 and WFDE5 as observational reference. </p><p>Our results indicate a significant and robust warming over the Mediterranean during the 21st century irrespective of the used ensemble and experiments. Nevertheless, the often attested amplified Mediterranean warming is only found for summer. The projected changes vary between the CMIP5 and CMIP6, with the latter projecting a stronger warming. For the high emission scenarios and without weighting, CMIP5 indicates a warming between 4 and 7.7ºC in summer and 2.7 and 5ºC in winter, while CMIP6 projects temperature increases between 5.6 and 9.2ºC in summer and 3.2 to 6.8ºC in winter until 2081-2100 in respect to 1985-2005. In contrast to temperature, precipitation changes show a higher level of uncertainty and spatial heterogeneity. However, for the high emission scenario, a robust decline in precipitation is projected for large parts of the Mediterranean during summer. First results applying the model weighting scheme indicate reductions in CMIP6 and increases in CMIP5 warming trends, thereby reducing differences between the two ensembles.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martín Senande-Rivera ◽  
Gonzalo Miguez-Macho

<p>Extreme wildfire events associated with strong pyroconvection have gained the attention of the scientific community and the society in recent years. Strong convection in the fire plume can influence fire behaviour, as downdrafts can cause abrupt variations in surface wind direction and speed that can result in bursts of unexpected fire propagation. Climate change is expected to increase the length of the fire season and the extreme wildfire potential, so the risk of pyroconvection occurence might be also altered. Here, we analyse atmospheric stability and near-surface fire weather conditions in the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 21st century to assess the projected changes in pyroconvective risk during favourable weather conditions for wildfire spread.  </p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 666-675
Author(s):  
O. N. Nasonova ◽  
Ye. M. Gusev ◽  
E. E. Kovalev ◽  
G. V. Ayzel ◽  
M. K. Chebanova

Beskydy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Aleš Farda ◽  
Petr Štěpánek ◽  
Pavel Zahradníček ◽  
Petr Skalák ◽  
Jan Meitner

We have investigated the future changes of climate conditions during the winter season in the Beskids Mountains. During the 21st century mean winter temperature will increase by 2.0–6.3 °C and winter precipitation will increase by 12.5 – to 17.5 % - depending on the scenario. Higher winter temperatures will be reflected in the reduced number of frost days, the number of which may drop by 40 % according to the RCP8.5 scenario. Whilst our study expects general increase in precipitation, higher temperatures will lead to an increased evapotranspiration and also change in the form of precipitation from solid (snow, rime) to liquid (rain, drizzling). Such trends could further propel the unfavorable changes in the water balance budget.


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