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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 biosphere under potential Paris outcomes
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2018) Ostberg, Sebastian; Boysen, Lena R.; Schaphoff, Sibyll; Lucht, Wolfgang; Gerten, Dieter
    Rapid economic and population growth over the last centuries have started to push the Earth out of its Holocene state into the Anthropocene. In this new era, ecosystems across the globe face mounting dual pressure from human land use change (LUC) and climate change (CC). With the Paris Agreement, the international community has committed to holding global warming below 2°C above preindustrial levels, yet current pledges by countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions appear insufficient to achieve that goal. At the same time, the sustainable development goals strive to reduce inequalities between countries and provide sufficient food, feed, and clean energy to a growing world population likely to reach more than 9 billion by 2050. Here, we present a macro‐scale analysis of the projected impacts of both CC and LUC on the terrestrial biosphere over the 21st century using the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) to illustrate possible trajectories following the Paris Agreement. We find that CC may cause major impacts in landscapes covering between 16% and 65% of the global ice‐free land surface by the end of the century, depending on the success or failure of achieving the Paris goal. Accounting for LUC impacts in addition, this number increases to 38%–80%. Thus, CC will likely replace LUC as the major driver of ecosystem change unless global warming can be limited to well below 2°C. We also find a substantial risk that impacts of agricultural expansion may offset some of the benefits of ambitious climate protection for ecosystems.
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    Multimodel assessments of human and climate impacts on mean annual streamflow in China
    (Munich : EGU, 2019) Liu, Xingcai; Liu, Wenfeng; Yang, Hong; Tang, Qiuhong; Flörke, Martina; Masaki, Yoshimitsu; Müller Schmied, Hannes; Ostberg, Sebastian; Pokhrel, Yadu; Satoh, Yusuke; Wada, Yoshihide
    Human activities, as well as climate variability, have had increasing impacts on natural hydrological systems, particularly streamflow. However, quantitative assessments of these impacts are lacking on large scales. In this study, we use the simulations from six global hydrological models driven by three meteorological forcings to investigate direct human impact (DHI) and climate impact on streamflow in China. Results show that, in the sub-periods of 1971-1990 and 1991-2010, one-fifth to one-third of mean annual streamflow (MAF) was reduced due to DHI in northern basins, and much smaller ( 4 %) MAF was reduced in southern basins. From 1971-1990 to 1991-2010, total MAF changes range from-13%to 10%across basins wherein the relative contributions of DHI change and climate variability show distinct spatial patterns. DHI change caused decreases in MAF in 70% of river segments, but climate variability dominated the total MAF changes in 88% of river segments of China. In most northern basins, climate variability results in changes of-9% to 18% in MAF, while DHI change results in decreases of 2% to 8% in MAF. In contrast with the climate variability that may increase or decrease streamflow, DHI change almost always contributes to decreases in MAF over time, with water withdrawals supposedly being the major impact on streamflow. This quantitative assessment can be a reference for attribution of streamflow changes at large scales, despite remaining uncertainty. We highlight the significant DHI in northern basins and the necessity to modulate DHI through improved water management towards a better adaptation to future climate change. © 2019 Author(s).
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    LandInG 1.0: a toolbox to derive input datasets for terrestrial ecosystem modelling at variable resolutions from heterogeneous sources
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2023) Ostberg, Sebastian; Müller, Christoph; Heinke, Jens; Schaphoff, Sibyll
    We present the Land Input Generator (LandInG) version 1.0, a new toolbox for generating input datasets for terrestrial ecosystem models (TEMs) from diverse and partially conflicting data sources. While LandInG 1.0 is applicable to process data for any TEM, it is developed specifically for the open-source dynamic global vegetation, hydrology, and crop growth model LPJmL (Lund-Potsdam-Jena with managed Land). The toolbox documents the sources and processing of data to model inputs and allows for easy changes to the spatial resolution. It is designed to make inconsistencies between different sources of data transparent so that users can make their own decisions on how to resolve these should they not be content with the default assumptions made here. As an example, we use the toolbox to create input datasets at 5 and 30 arcmin spatial resolution covering land, country, and region masks, soil, river networks, freshwater reservoirs, irrigation water distribution networks, crop-specific annual land use, fertilizer, and manure application. We focus on the toolbox describing the data processing rather than only publishing the datasets as users may want to make different choices for reconciling inconsistencies, aggregation, spatial extent, or similar. Also, new data sources or new versions of existing data become available continuously, and the toolbox approach allows for incorporating new data to stay up to date.