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    Modelling nonlinear dynamics of interacting tipping elements on complex networks: the PyCascades package
    (Berlin ; Heidelberg : Springer, 2021) Wunderling, Nico; Krönke, Jonathan; Wohlfarth, Valentin; Kohler, Jan; Heitzig, Jobst; Staal, Arie; Willner, Sven; Winkelmann, Ricarda; Donges, Jonathan F.
    Tipping elements occur in various systems such as in socio-economics, ecology and the climate system. In many cases, the individual tipping elements are not independent of each other, but they interact across scales in time and space. To model systems of interacting tipping elements, we here introduce the PyCascades open source software package for studying interacting tipping elements (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4153102). PyCascades is an object-oriented and easily extendable package written in the programming language Python. It allows for investigating under which conditions potentially dangerous cascades can emerge between interacting dynamical systems, with a focus on tipping elements. With PyCascades it is possible to use different types of tipping elements such as double-fold and Hopf types and interactions between them. PyCascades can be applied to arbitrary complex network structures and has recently been extended to stochastic dynamical systems. This paper provides an overview of the functionality of PyCascades by introducing the basic concepts and the methodology behind it. In the end, three examples are discussed, showing three different applications of the software package. First, the moisture recycling network of the Amazon rainforest is investigated. Second, a model of interacting Earth system tipping elements is discussed. And third, the PyCascades modelling framework is applied to a global trade network.
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    Projecting Exposure to Extreme Climate Impact Events Across Six Event Categories and Three Spatial Scales
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2020) Lange, Stefan; Volkholz, Jan; Geiger, Tobias; Zhao, Fang; Vega, Iliusi; Veldkamp, Ted; Reyer, Christopher P.O.; Warszawski, Lila; Huber, Veronika; Jägermeyr, Jonas; Schewe, Jacob; Bresch, David N.; Büchner, Matthias; Chang, Jinfeng; Ciais, Philippe; Dury, Marie; Emanuel, Kerry; Folberth, Christian; Gerten, Dieter; Gosling, Simon N.; Grillakis, Manolis; Hanasaki, Naota; Henrot, Alexandra-Jane; Hickler, Thomas; Honda, Yasushi; Ito, Akihiko; Khabarov, Nikolay; Koutroulis, Aristeidis; Liu, Wenfeng; Müller, Christoph; Nishina, Kazuya; Ostberg, Sebastian; Müller Schmied, Hannes; Seneviratne, Sonia I.; Stacke, Tobias; Steinkamp, Jörg; Thiery, Wim; Wada, Yoshihide; Willner, Sven; Yang, Hong; Yoshikawa, Minoru; Yue, Chao; Frieler, Katja
    The extent and impact of climate-related extreme events depend on the underlying meteorological, hydrological, or climatological drivers as well as on human factors such as land use or population density. Here we quantify the pure effect of historical and future climate change on the exposure of land and population to extreme climate impact events using an unprecedentedly large ensemble of harmonized climate impact simulations from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 2b. Our results indicate that global warming has already more than doubled both the global land area and the global population annually exposed to all six categories of extreme events considered: river floods, tropical cyclones, crop failure, wildfires, droughts, and heatwaves. Global warming of 2°C relative to preindustrial conditions is projected to lead to a more than fivefold increase in cross-category aggregate exposure globally. Changes in exposure are unevenly distributed, with tropical and subtropical regions facing larger increases than higher latitudes. The largest increases in overall exposure are projected for the population of South Asia. ©2020. The Authors.
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    The critical role of the routing scheme in simulating peak river discharge in global hydrological models
    (Bristol : IOP Publishing, 2017) Zhao, Fang; Veldkamp, Ted I.E.; Frieler, Katja; Schewe, Jacob; Ostberg, Sebastian; Willner, Sven; Schauberger, Bernhard; Gosling, Simon N.; Müller Schmied, Hannes; Portmann, Felix T.; Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Maoyi; Liu, Xingcai; Tang, Qiuhong; Hanasaki, Naota; Biemans, Hester; Gerten, Dieter; Satoh, Yusuke; Pokhrel, Yadu; Stacke, Tobias; Ciais, Philippe; Chang, Jinfeng; Ducharne, Agnes; Guimberteau, Matthieu; Wada, Yoshihide; Kim, Hyungjun; Yamazaki, Dai
    Global hydrological models (GHMs) have been applied to assess global flood hazards, but their capacity to capture the timing and amplitude of peak river discharge—which is crucial in flood simulations—has traditionally not been the focus of examination. Here we evaluate to what degree the choice of river routing scheme affects simulations of peak discharge and may help to provide better agreement with observations. To this end we use runoff and discharge simulations of nine GHMs forced by observational climate data (1971–2010) within the ISIMIP2a project. The runoff simulations were used as input for the global river routing model CaMa-Flood. The simulated daily discharge was compared to the discharge generated by each GHM using its native river routing scheme. For each GHM both versions of simulated discharge were compared to monthly and daily discharge observations from 1701 GRDC stations as a benchmark. CaMa-Flood routing shows a general reduction of peak river discharge and a delay of about two to three weeks in its occurrence, likely induced by the buffering capacity of floodplain reservoirs. For a majority of river basins, discharge produced by CaMa-Flood resulted in a better agreement with observations. In particular, maximum daily discharge was adjusted, with a multi-model averaged reduction in bias over about 2/3 of the analysed basin area. The increase in agreement was obtained in both managed and near-natural basins. Overall, this study demonstrates the importance of routing scheme choice in peak discharge simulation, where CaMa-Flood routing accounts for floodplain storage and backwater effects that are not represented in most GHMs. Our study provides important hints that an explicit parameterisation of these processes may be essential in future impact studies.