Regional climate change patterns identified by cluster analysis

Climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse emissions leads to impacts on a global and a regional scale. A quantitative picture of the projected changes on a regional scale can help to decide on appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures. In the past, regional climate change results have often been presented on rectangular areas. But climate is not bound to a rectangular shape and each climate variable shows a distinct pattern of change. Therefore, the regions over which the simulated climate change results are aggregated should be based on the variable(s) of interest, on current mean climate as well as on the projected future changes. A cluster analysis algorithm is used here to define regions encompassing a similar mean climate and similar projected changes. The number and the size of the regions depend on the variable(s) of interest, the local climate pattern and on the uncertainty introduced by model disagreement. The new regions defined by the cluster analysis algorithm include information about regional climatic features which can be of a rather small scale. Comparing the regions used so far for large scale regional climate change studies and the new regions it can be shown that the spacial uncertainty of the projected changes of different climate variables is reduced significantly, i.e. both the mean climate and the expected changes are more consistent within one region and therefore more representative for local impact

Tierwohl in Biolandbau-Regelungen und Richtlinien – Analyse und Vorschlag für mehr tierbezogene Hilfsmittel/Indikatoren

Based on the analysis of animal welfare legislation and private organic and non-organic standards in the EU funded project EconWelfare, areas for improvement of animal welfare in organic farming regulations and standards were identified. A more outcome-oriented approach to improve animal welfare for cattle with a checklist for inspectors and farmers was tested and evaluated in Switzerland. Proposals are made how to improve animal welfare on organic farms in standard setting and with a voluntary complementary assessment tool linked to inspection of organic farms

Energy policies avoiding a tipping point in the climate system

Paleoclimate evidence and climate models indicate that certain elements of the climate system may exhibit thresholds, with small changes in greenhouse gas emissions resulting in non-linear and potentially irreversible regime shifts with serious consequences for socio-economic systems. Such thresholds or tipping points in the climate system are likely to depend on both the magnitude and rate of change of surface warming. The collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) is one example of such a threshold. To evaluate mitigation policies that curb greenhouse gas emissions to levels that prevent such a climate threshold being reached, we use the MERGE model of Manne, Mendelsohn and Richels. Depending on assumptions on climate sensitivity and technological progress, our analysis shows that preserving the THC may require a fast and strong greenhouse gas emission reduction from today's level, with transition to nuclear and/or renewable energy, possibly combined with the use of carbon capture and sequestration systems

Future climate resources for tourism in Europe based on the daily Tourism Climatic Index

Climate is an important resource for many types of tourism. One of several metrics for the suitability of climate for sightseeing is Mieczkowski's "Tourism Climatic Index” (TCI), which summarizes and combines seven climate variables. By means of the TCI, we analyse the present climate resources for tourism in Europe and projected changes under future climate change. We use daily data from five regional climate models and compare the reference period 1961-1990 to the A2 scenario in 2071-2100. A comparison of the TCI based on reanalysis data and model simulations for the reference period shows that current regional climate models capture the important climatic patterns. Currently, climate resources are best in Southern Europe and deteriorate with increasing latitude and altitude. With climate change the latitudinal band of favourable climate is projected to shift northward improving climate resources in Northern and Central Europe in most seasons. Southern Europe's suitability for sightseeing tourism drops strikingly in the summer holiday months but is partially compensated by considerable improvements between October and Apri

Local eigenvalue analysis of CMIP3 climate model errors

Of the two dozen or so global atmosphere—ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs), many share parameterizations, components or numerical schemes, and several are developed by the same institutions. Thus it is natural to suspect that some of the AOGCMs have correlated error patterns. Here we present a local eigenvalue analysis for the AOGCM errors based on statistically quantified correlation matrices for these errors. Our statistical method enables us to assess the significance of the result based on the simulated data under the assumption that all AOGCMs are independent. The result reveals interesting local features of the dependence structure of AOGCM errors. At least for the variable and the timescale considered here, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) model archive cannot be treated as a collection of independent models.We use multidimensional scaling to visualize the similarity of AOGCMs and all-subsets regression to provide subsets of AOGCMs that are the best approximation to the variation among the full set of models.ISSN:0280-6495ISSN:1600-087

Time of emergence of climate signals

The time at which the signal of climate change emerges from the noise of natural climate variability (Time of Emergence, ToE) is a key variable for climate predictions and risk assessments. Here we present a methodology for estimating ToE for individual climate models, and use it to make maps of ToE for surface air temperature (SAT) based on the CMIP3 global climate models. Consistent with previous studies we show that the median ToE occurs several decades sooner in low latitudes, particularly in boreal summer, than in mid-latitudes. We also show that the median ToE in the Arctic occurs sooner in boreal winter than in boreal summer. A key new aspect of our study is that we quantify the uncertainty in ToE that arises not only from inter-model differences in the magnitude of the climate change signal, but also from large differences in the simulation of natural climate variability. The uncertainty in ToE is at least 30 years in the regions examined, and as much as 60 years in some regions. Alternative emissions scenarios lead to changes in both the median ToE (by a decade or more) and its uncertainty. The SRES B1 scenario is associated with a very large uncertainty in ToE in some regions. Our findings have important implications for climate modelling and climate policy which we discuss

Improving longitudinal habitat connectivity in major river restoration projects through farmland re-allocation

River restoration projects are often accompanied by major land consolidation operations, notably the re-allocation of adjacent farmland, which offers the opportunity to create an extensively-managed buffer zone outside the levees where specific habitat features are installed for endangered terrestrial and semi-aquatic biodiversity. Modern, enrivonmentally-friendly land consolidation operations might thus not only contribute to better integrate the newly restored river into the adjacent landscape, but also to reinstate the longitudinal ecological connectivity that crudely lacks along channelized rivers. Based on a theoretical re-allocation of agricultural land via land consolidation, we simulated the creation of a longitudinal biodiversity-friendly grassland buffer along a stretch of the Rhone River (SW Switzerland) where a major revitalisation project is under development. We selected a series of focal species depending on a palette of complementary habitat features, and combinations thereof, to be created for reaching these biodiversity targets. Estimations of species-specific habitat patch size requirements as well as dispersal abilities were used to analyse what would be an optimal spatial connectivity for these habitat features. Since such a buffer zone will necessarily stretch along the riverbed, which implies different spatial contraints and consequential planning strategies, we tested two scenarios via a metapopulation model: (i) arranging key habitat features longitudinally or (ii) positioning them in an isotropic context. Simulations showed that differences in metapopulation connectivity between scenarios were negligible at the foreseen scale. We conclude that land consolidation via targeted farmland re-allocation could be instrumental to restoring ecological connectivity in major river revitalisation projects. We also provide concrete quantitative values for restoring an optimal ecological buffer along the Rhˆone that will promote locally endangered biodiversity

Modeled seasonality of glacial abrupt climate events

Greenland ice cores, as well as many other paleo-archives from the northern hemisphere, recorded a series of 25 warm interstadial events, the so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events, during the last glacial period. We use the three-dimensional coupled global ocean-atmosphere-sea ice model ECBILT-CLIO and force it with freshwater input into the North Atlantic to simulate abrupt glacial climate events, which we use as analogues for D-O events. We focus our analysis on the Northern Hemisphere. The simulated events show large differences in the regional and seasonal distribution of the temperature and precipitation changes. While the temperature changes in high northern latitudes and in the North Atlantic region are dominated by winter changes, the largest temperature increases in most other land regions are seen in spring. Smallest changes over land are found during the summer months. Our model simulations also demonstrate that the temperature and precipitation change patterns for different intensifications of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation are not linear. The extent of the transitions varies, and local non-linearities influence the amplitude of the annual mean response as well as the response in different seasons. Implications for the interpretation of paleo-records are discusse