Global exposure of population and land‐use to meteorological droughts under different warming levels and SSPs: a CORDEX‐based study

Global warming is likely to cause a progressive drought increase in some regions, but how population and natural resources will be affected is still underexplored. This study focuses on global population, forests, croplands and pastures exposure to meteorological drought hazard in the 21st century, expressed as frequency and severity of drought events. As input, we use a large ensemble of climate simulations from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX), population projections from the NASA-SEDAC dataset and land-use projections from the Land-Use Harmonization 2 project for 1981–2100. The exposure to drought hazard is presented for five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-SSP5) at four Global Warming Levels (GWLs: 1.5°C to 4°C). Results show that considering only Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI; based on precipitation), the SSP3 at GWL4 projects the largest fraction of the global population (14%) to experience an increase in drought frequency and severity (versus 1981–2010), with this value increasing to 60% if temperature is considered (indirectly included in the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI). With SPEI, considering the highest GWL for each SSP, 8 (for SSP2, SSP4, SSP5) and 11 (SSP3) billion people, that is, more than 90%, will be affected by at least one unprecedented drought. For SSP5 at GWL4, approximately 2 × 10$^{6}$ km$^{2}$ of forests and croplands (respectively, 6% and 11%) and 1.5 × 10$^{6}$ km$^{2}$ of pastures (19%) will be exposed to increased drought frequency and severity according to SPI, but for SPEI this extent will rise to 17 × 10$^{6}$ km$^{2}$ of forests (49%), 6 × 10$^{6}$ km$^{2}$ of pastures (78%) and 12 × 10$^{6}$ km$^{2}$ of croplands (67%), being mid-latitudes the most affected. The projected likely increase of drought frequency and severity significantly increases population and land-use exposure to drought, even at low GWLs, thus extensive mitigation and adaptation efforts are needed to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change

Maritime transport and regional climate change impacts in large EU islands and archipelagos

Maritime transport is a vital sector for global trade and the world economy. Particularly for islands, there is also an important social dimension of this sector, since island communities strongly rely on it for a connection with the mainland and the transportation of goods and passengers. Furthermore, islands are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change, as the rising sea level and extreme events are expected to induce severe impacts. Such hazards are anticipated to also affect the operations of the maritime transport sector by affecting either the port infrastructure or ships en route. The present study is an effort to better comprehend and assess the future risk of maritime transport disruption in six European islands and archipelagos, and it aims at supporting regional to local policy and decision-making. We employ state-of-the-art regional climate datasets and the widely used impact chain approach to identify the different components that might drive such risks. Larger islands (e.g., Corsica, Cyprus and Crete) are found to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change on maritime operations. Our findings also highlight the importance of adopting a low-emission pathway, since this will keep the risk of maritime transport disruption similar to present levels or even slightly decreased for some islands because of an enhanced adaptation capacity and advantageous demographic changes.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.This work has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 776661 (SOCLIMPACT project). It was also supported by the EMME-CARE project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 856612, as well as matching co-funding by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.Peer reviewe

The worldwide C3S CORDEX grand ensemble: A major contribution to assess regional climate change in the IPCC AR6 Atlas

peer reviewedAbstract The collaboration between the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) and the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) provides open access to an unprecedented ensemble of Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations, across the 14 CORDEX continental-scale domains, with global coverage. These simulations have been used as a new line of evidence to assess regional climate projections in the latest contribution of the Working Group I (WGI) to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), particularly in the regional chapters and the Atlas. Here, we present the work done in the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) to assemble a consistent worldwide CORDEX grand ensemble, aligned with the deadlines and activities of IPCC AR6. This work addressed the uneven and heterogeneous availability of CORDEX ESGF data by supporting publication in CORDEX domains with few archived simulations and performing quality control. It also addressed the lack of comprehensive documentation by compiling information from all contributing regional models, allowing for an informed use of data. In addition to presenting the worldwide CORDEX dataset, we assess here its consistency for precipitation and temperature by comparing climate change signals in regions with overlapping CORDEX domains, obtaining overall coincident regional climate change signals. The C3S CORDEX dataset has been used for the assessment of regional climate change in the IPCC AR6 (and for the interactive Atlas) and is available through the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS)

21st Century Projections of Extreme Precipitation Indicators for Cyprus

According to observational and model-based studies, the eastern Mediterranean region is one of the most prominent climate-change hotspots in the world. The combined effect of warming and drying is expected to augment the regional impacts of global warming. In addition to changes in mean climatic conditions, global warming is likely to induce changes in several aspects of extreme rainfall such as duration and magnitude. In this context, we explore the impact of climate change on precipitation with the use of several indicators. We focus on Cyprus, a water-stressed island located in the eastern Mediterranean Basin. Our results are derived from a new high-resolution simulation for the 21st century, which is driven by a “business-as-usual” scenario. In addition to a strong temperature increase (up to 4.1 °C), our analysis highlights that, on average for the island, most extreme precipitation indicators decrease, suggesting a transition to much drier conditions. The absolute daily rainfall maxima exhibit strong local variability, indicating the need for high resolution simulations to understand the potential impacts on future flooding

Appendix B – Maps of seasonal temperature and precipitation changes for the Mediterranean Basin

International audienc

Variations in the Simulation of Climate Change Impact Indices due to Different Land Surface Schemes over the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East and Northern Africa

The Eastern Mediterranean (EM) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are projected to be exposed to extreme climatic conditions in the 21st century, which will likely induce adverse impacts in various sectors. Relevant climate change impact assessments utilise data from climate model projections and process-based impact models or simpler, index-based approaches. In this study, we explore the implied uncertainty from variations of climate change impact-related indices as induced by the modelled climate (WRF regional climate model) from different land surface schemes (Noah, NoahMP, CLM and RUC). The three climate change impact-related indicators examined here are the Radiative Index of Dryness (RID), the Fuel Dryness Index (Fd) and the Water-limited Yield (Yw). Our findings indicate that Noah simulates the highest values for both RID and Fd, while CLM gives the highest estimations for winter wheat Yw. The relative dispersion in the three indices derived by the different land schemes is not negligible, amounting, for the overall geographical domain of 25% for RID and Fd, and 10% for Yw. The dispersion is even larger for specific sub-regions

Land transport CO2 emissions and climate change: evidence from Cyprus

The land transport sector is one of the major emitters of CO2 and one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. This study employs an environmentally-extended input-output model to conduct an economy-wide assessment of CO2 emissions in Cyprus, associated with a 22% increase in the final demand for the output of the sector by 2030. Model results indicate that the land transport sector creates the third highest (direct and indirect) CO2 emissions within Cyprus economy; for every 1 million euro increase in the final demand of the sector’s services and products, 407 additional tons of CO2 are emitted. Considering that temperature in Cyprus is projected to increase by up to 4.5–5°C by the end of the century, our findings highlight the importance of the land transport sector in the transition of Cyprus to a low-carbon economy and the urgency of implementing in-sector cost-effective decarbonisation strategies

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