scholarly journals Climate Change and Sustainability of Crop Yield in Dry Regions Food Insecurity

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 9890
Author(s):  
Samira Shayanmehr ◽  
Shida Rastegari Henneberry ◽  
Mahmood Sabouhi Sabouni ◽  
Naser Shahnoushi Foroushani

The main purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of climatic change on potato yield and yield variability in Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) of Iran during 2041–2070 (2050s). The Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM) was performed in this study to downscale the outputs of the General Circulation Model (GCM) and to obtain local climate projections under climate scenarios for a future period. The Just and Pope Production function was used to investigate the impacts of climatic change on potato yield. The results showed that the effects of future climatic change on potato yield and its variability would vary among the different AEZs. Potato yield would change in the range from −11% to 36% across different AEZs during the 2050s. Yield variability is expected to vary from −29% to 6%. Much more generally, the results indicated that the major potato producing zones would experience a decrease in mean potato yield in the presence of climate change. Our findings would help policymakers and planners in designing appropriate policies to allocate the lands under potato cultivation among different zones. These results also have important implications for adopting ecological zone-specific strategies to mitigate the reduction in potato yield and meet food security.

MAUSAM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-244
Author(s):  
K. RUPA KUMAR ◽  
R. G. ASHRIT

The regional climatic impacts associated with global climatic change and their assessment are very important since agriculture, water resources, ecology etc., are all vulnerable to climatic changes on regional scale. Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) simulations provide a range of scenarios, which can be used, for the assessment of impacts and development of adaptive or mitigative strategies. Validation of the models against the observations and establishing the sensitivity to climate change forcing are essential before the model projections are used for assessment of possible impacts. Moreover model simulated climate projections are often of coarse resolution while the models used for impact assessment, (e.g. crop simulation models, or river runoff models etc.) operate on a higher spatial resolution. This spatial mismatch can be overcome by adopting an appropriate strategy of downscaling the GCM output.   This study examines two AOGCM (ECHAM4/OPYC3 and HadCM2) climate change simulations for their performance in the simulation of monsoon climate over India and the sensitivity of the simulated monsoon climate to transient changes in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols. The results show that the two models simulate the gross features of climate over India reasonably well. However the inter-model differences in simulation of mean characteristics, sensitivity to forcing and in the simulation of climate change suggest need for caution. Further an empirical downscaling approach in used to assess the possibility of using GCM projections for preparation of regional climate change scenario for India.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Greene ◽  
Laurence S. Kalkstein ◽  
David M. Mills ◽  
Jason Samenow

Abstract This study examines the impact of a changing climate on heat-related mortality in 40 large cities in the United States. A synoptic climatological procedure, the spatial synoptic classification, is used to evaluate present climate–mortality relationships and project how potential climate changes might affect these values. Specifically, the synoptic classification is combined with downscaled future climate projections for the decadal periods of 2020–29, 2045–55, and 2090–99 from a coupled atmospheric–oceanic general circulation model. The results show an increase in excessive heat event (EHE) days and increased heat-attributable mortality across the study cities with the most pronounced increases projected to occur in the Southeast and Northeast. This increase becomes more dramatic toward the end of the twenty-first century as the anticipated impact of climate change intensifies. The health impact associated with different emissions scenarios is also examined. These results suggest that a “business as usual” approach to greenhouse gas emissions mitigation could result in twice as many heat-related deaths by the end of the century than a lower emissions scenario. Finally, a comparison of future estimates of heat-related mortality during EHEs is presented using algorithms developed during two different, although overlapping, time periods, one that includes some recent large-scale significant EHE intervention strategies (1975–2004), and one without (1975–95). The results suggest these public health responses can significantly decrease heat-related mortality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1067-1083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Sanusi Shiru ◽  
Shamsuddin Shahid ◽  
Suleiman Shiru ◽  
Eun Sung Chung ◽  
Noraliani Alias ◽  
...  

Abstract This study assesses the water resources and environmental challenges of Lagos mega city, Nigeria, in the context of climate change. Being a commercial hub, the Lagos population has grown rapidly causing an insurmountable water and environmental crisis. In this study, a combined field observation, sample analysis, and interviews were used to assess water challenges. Observed climate, general circulation model (GCM) projections and groundwater data were used to assess water challenges due to climate change. The study revealed that unavailability of sufficient water supply provision in Lagos has overwhelmingly compelled the population to depend on groundwater, which has eventually caused groundwater overdraft. Salt water intrusion and subsidence has occurred due to groundwater overexploitation. High concentrations of heavy metals were observed in wells around a landfill. Climate projections showed a decrease in rainfall of up to 140 mm and an increase in temperature of up to 8 °C. Groundwater storage is projected to decrease after the mid-century due to climate change. Sea level rise will continue until the end of the century. As the water and environmental challenges of Lagos are broad and the changing characteristics of the climate are expected to intensify these as projected, tackling these challenges requires a holistic approach from an integrated water resources management perspective.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saleem A. Salman ◽  
Mohamed Salem Nashwan ◽  
Tarmizi Ismail ◽  
Shamsuddin Shahid

Abstract Reduction of uncertainty in climate change projections is a major challenge in impact assessment and adaptation planning. General circulation models (GCMs) along with projection scenarios are the major sources of uncertainty in climate change projections. Therefore, the selection of appropriate GCMs for a region can significantly reduce uncertainty in climate projections. In this study, 20 GCMs were statistically evaluated in replicating the spatial pattern of monsoon propagation towards Peninsular Malaysia at annual and seasonal time frames against the 20th Century Reanalysis dataset. The performance evaluation metrics of the GCMs for different time frames were compromised using a state-of-art multi-criteria decision-making approach, compromise programming, for the selection of GCMs. Finally, the selected GCMs were interpolated to 0.25° × 0.25° spatial resolution and bias-corrected using the Asian Precipitation – Highly-Resolved Observational Integration Towards Evaluation (APHRODITE) rainfall as reference data. The results revealed the better performance of BCC-CSM1-1 and HadGEM2-ES in replicating the historical rainfall in Peninsular Malaysia. The bias-corrected projections of selected GCMs revealed a large variation of the mean, standard deviation and 95% percentile of daily rainfall in the study area for two futures, 2020–2059 and 2060–2099 compared to base climate.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (19) ◽  
pp. 6567-6584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei P. Sokolov ◽  
Erwan Monier

Abstract Conducting probabilistic climate projections with a particular climate model requires the ability to vary the model’s characteristics, such as its climate sensitivity. In this study, the authors implement and validate a method to change the climate sensitivity of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere Model, version 3 (CAM3), through cloud radiative adjustment. Results show that the cloud radiative adjustment method does not lead to physically unrealistic changes in the model’s response to an external forcing, such as doubling CO2 concentrations or increasing sulfate aerosol concentrations. Furthermore, this method has some advantages compared to the traditional perturbed physics approach. In particular, the cloud radiative adjustment method can produce any value of climate sensitivity within the wide range of uncertainty based on the observed twentieth century climate change. As a consequence, this method allows Monte Carlo–type probabilistic climate forecasts to be conducted where values of uncertain parameters not only cover the whole uncertainty range, but cover it homogeneously. Unlike the perturbed physics approach that can produce several versions of a model with the same climate sensitivity but with very different regional patterns of change, the cloud radiative adjustment method can only produce one version of the model with a specific climate sensitivity. As such, a limitation of this method is that it cannot cover the full uncertainty in regional patterns of climate change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (14) ◽  
pp. 5667-5680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Osborn ◽  
Craig J. Wallace ◽  
Jason A. Lowe ◽  
Dan Bernie

Pattern scaling is widely used to create climate change projections to investigate future impacts. We consider the performance of pattern scaling for emulating the HadGEM2-ES general circulation model (GCM) paying particular attention to “high end” warming scenarios and to different choices of GCM simulations used to diagnose the climate change patterns. We demonstrate that evaluating pattern-scaling projections by comparing them with GCM simulations containing unforced variability gives a significantly less favorable view of the actual performance of pattern scaling. Using a four-member initial-condition ensemble of HadGEM2-ES simulations, we infer that the root-mean-square errors of pattern-scaled monthly temperature changes over land are less than 0.25°C for global warming up to approximately 3.5°C. Some regional errors are larger than this and, for this GCM, there is a tendency for pattern scaling to underestimate warming over land. For warming above 3.5°C, the pattern-scaled projection errors grow but remain small relative to the climate change signal. We investigate whether patterns diagnosed by pooling GCM experiments from several scenarios are suitable for emulating the GCM under a high-end warming scenario. For global warming up to 3.5°C, pattern scaling using this pooled pattern closely emulates GCM simulations. For warming beyond 3.5°C, pattern-scaling performance is notably improved by using patterns diagnosed only from the high-forcing representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario. Assessments of climate change impacts under high-end warming using pattern-scaling projections could be improved by using change patterns diagnosed from pooled scenarios for projections up to 3.5°C above preindustrial levels and patterns diagnosed from only strong forcing simulations for projecting beyond that. Similar findings are obtained for five other GCMs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 676-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mou Leong Tan ◽  
Darren L. Ficklin ◽  
Ab Latif Ibrahim ◽  
Zulkifli Yusop

The impact of climate change and uncertainty of climate projections from general circulation models (GCMs) from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) on streamflow in the Johor River Basin, Malaysia was assessed. Eighteen GCMs were evaluated, and the six that adequately simulated historical climate were selected for an ensemble of GCMs under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs; 2.6 (low emissions), 4.5 (moderate emissions) and 8.5 (high emissions)) for three future time periods (2020s, 2050s and 2080s) as inputs into the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model. We also quantified the uncertainties associated with GCM structure, greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5), and prescribed increases of global temperature (1–6 °C) through streamflow changes. The SWAT model simulated historical monthly streamflow well, with a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient of 0.66 for calibration and 0.62 for validation. Under RCPs 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5, the results indicate that annual precipitation changes of 1.01 to 8.88% and annual temperature of 0.60–3.21 °C will lead to a projected annual streamflow ranging from 0.91 to 12.95% compared to the historical period. The study indicates multiple climate change scenarios are important for a robust hydrological impact assessment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Ito ◽  
Tosiyuki Nakaegawa ◽  
Izuru Takayabu

AbstractEnsembles of climate change projections created by general circulation models (GCMs) with high resolution are increasingly needed to develop adaptation strategies for regional climate change. The Meteorological Research Institute atmospheric GCM version 3.2 (MRI-AGCM3.2), which is listed in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5), has been typically run with resolutions of 60 km and 20 km. Ensembles of MRI-AGCM3.2 consist of members with multiple cumulus convection schemes and different patterns of future sea surface temperature, and are utilized together with their downscaled data; however, the limited size of the high-resolution ensemble may lead to undesirable biases and uncertainty in future climate projections that will limit its appropriateness and effectiveness for studies on climate change and impact assessments. In this study, to develop a comprehensive understanding of the regional precipitation simulated with MRI-AGCM3.2, we investigate how well MRI-AGCM3.2 simulates the present-day regional precipitation around the globe and compare the uncertainty in future precipitation changes and the change projection itself between MRI-AGCM3.2 and the CMIP5 multiple atmosphere–ocean coupled GCM (AOGCM) ensemble. MRI-AGCM3.2 reduces the bias of the regional mean precipitation obtained with the high-performing CMIP5 models, with a reduction of approximately 20% in the bias over the Tibetan Plateau through East Asia and Australia. When 26 global land regions are considered, MRI-AGCM3.2 simulates the spatial pattern and the regional mean realistically in more regions than the individual CMIP5 models. As for the future projections, in 20 of the 26 regions, the sign of annual precipitation change is identical between the 50th percentiles of the MRI-AGCM3.2 ensemble and the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble. In the other six regions around the tropical South Pacific, the differences in modeling with and without atmosphere–ocean coupling may affect the projections. The uncertainty in future changes in annual precipitation from MRI-AGCM3.2 partially overlaps the maximum–minimum uncertainty range from the full ensemble of the CMIP5 models in all regions. Moreover, on average over individual regions, the projections from MRI-AGCM3.2 spread over roughly 0.8 of the uncertainty range from the high-performing CMIP5 models compared to 0.4 of the range of the full ensemble.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (24) ◽  
pp. 9125-9139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeline Bichet ◽  
Paul J. Kushner ◽  
Lawrence Mudryk

Abstract Better constraining the continental climate response to anthropogenic forcing is essential to improve climate projections. In this study, pattern scaling is used to extract, from observations, the patterned response of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration (SICE) to anthropogenically dominated long-term global warming. The SST response pattern includes a warming of the tropical Indian Ocean, the high northern latitudes, and the western boundary currents. The SICE pattern shows seasonal variations of the main locations of sea ice loss. These SST–SICE response patterns are used to drive an ensemble of an atmospheric general circulation model, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), over the period 1980–2010 along with a standard AMIP ensemble using observed SST—SICE. The simulations enable attribution of a variety of observed trends of continental climate to global warming. On the one hand, the warming trends observed in all seasons across the entire Northern Hemisphere extratropics result from global warming, as does the snow loss observed over the northern midlatitudes and northwestern Eurasia. On the other hand, 1980–2010 precipitation trends observed in winter over North America and in summer over Africa result from the recent decreasing phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation and the recent increasing phase of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, respectively, which are not part of the global warming signal. The method holds promise for near-term decadal climate prediction but as currently framed cannot distinguish regional signals associated with oceanic internal variability from aerosol forcing and other sources of short-term forcing.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 2639-2658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Branstator ◽  
Frank Selten

Abstract A 62-member ensemble of coupled general circulation model (GCM) simulations of the years 1940–2080, including the effects of projected greenhouse gas increases, is examined. The focus is on the interplay between the trend in the Northern Hemisphere December–February (DJF) mean state and the intrinsic modes of variability of the model atmosphere as given by the upper-tropospheric meridional wind. The structure of the leading modes and the trend are similar. Two commonly proposed explanations for this similarity are considered. Several results suggest that this similarity in most respects is consistent with an explanation involving patterns that result from the model dynamics being well approximated by a linear system. Specifically, the leading intrinsic modes are similar to the leading modes of a stochastic model linearized about the mean state of the GCM atmosphere, trends in GCM tropical precipitation appear to excite the leading linear pattern, and the probability density functions (PDFs) of prominent circulation patterns are quasi-Gaussian. There are, on the other hand, some subtle indications that an explanation for the similarity involving preferred states (which necessarily result from nonlinear influences) has some relevance. For example, though unimodal, PDFs of prominent patterns have departures from Gaussianity that are suggestive of a mixture of two Gaussian components. And there is some evidence of a shift in probability between the two components as the climate changes. Interestingly, contrary to the most prominent theory of the influence of nonlinearly produced preferred states on climate change, the centroids of the components also change as the climate changes. This modification of the system’s preferred states corresponds to a change in the structure of its dominant patterns. The change in pattern structure is reproduced by the linear stochastic model when its basic state is modified to correspond to the trend in the general circulation model’s mean atmospheric state. Thus, there is a two-way interaction between the trend and the modes of variability.


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