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Now showing 1 - 10 of 15
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    Ensemble simulations for the RCP8.5-Scenario
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Gerstengarbe, F.-W.; Hoffmann, P.; Ă–sterle, H.; Werner, P.C.
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    Uncertainty of biomass contributions from agriculture and forestry to renewable energy resources under climate change
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Gutsch, M.; Lasch-Born, P.; LĂ¼ttger, A.B.; Suckow, F.; Murawski, A.; Pilz, T.
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    Water footprints of cities - Indicators for sustainable consumption and production
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2014) Hoff, H.; Döll, P.; Fader, M.; Gerten, D.; Hauser, S.; Siebert, S.
    Water footprints have been proposed as sustainability indicators, relating the consumption of goods like food to the amount of water necessary for their production and the impacts of that water use in the source regions. We further developed the existing water footprint methodology, by globally resolving virtual water flows from production to consumption regions for major food crops at 5 arcmin spatial resolution. We distinguished domestic and international flows, and assessed local impacts of export production. Applying this method to three exemplary cities, Berlin, Delhi and Lagos, we find major differences in amounts, composition, and origin of green and blue virtual water imports, due to differences in diets, trade integration and crop water productivities in the source regions. While almost all of Delhi's and Lagos' virtual water imports are of domestic origin, Berlin on average imports from more than 4000 km distance, in particular soy (livestock feed), coffee and cocoa. While 42% of Delhi's virtual water imports are blue water based, the fractions for Berlin and Lagos are 2 and 0.5%, respectively, roughly equal to the water volumes abstracted in these two cities for domestic water use. Some of the external source regions of Berlin's virtual water imports appear to be critically water scarce and/or food insecure. However, for deriving recommendations on sustainable consumption and trade, further analysis of context-specific costs and benefits associated with export production will be required.
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    Modelling flood damages under climate change conditions-a case study for Germany
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2014) Hattermann, F.F.; Huang, S.; Burghoff, O.; Willems, W.; Ă–sterle, H.; BĂ¼chner, M.; Kundzewicz, Z.
    The aim of the study is to analyze and discuss possible climate change impacts on flood damages in Germany. The study was initiated and supported by the German insurance sector whereby the main goal was to identify general climate-related trends in flood hazard and damages and to explore sensitivity of results to climate scenario uncertainty. The study makes use of climate scenarios regionalized for the main river basins in Germany. A hydrological model (SWIM) that had been calibrated and validated for the main river gauges, was applied to transform these scenarios into discharge for more than 5000 river reaches. Extreme value distribution has been fitted to the time series of river discharge to derive the flood frequency statistics. The hydrological results for each river reach have been linked using the flood statistics to related damage functions provided by the German Insurance Association, considering damages on buildings and small enterprises. The result is that, under the specific scenario conditions, a considerable increase in flood related losses can be expected in Germany in future, warmer, climate.
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    The impact of climate change and variability on the generation of electrical power
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Koch, H.; Vögele, S.; Hattermann, F.F.; Huang, S.
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    Forests under climate change: Potential risks and opportunities
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Lasch-Born, P.; Suckow, F.; Gutsch, M.; Reyer, C.; Hauf, Y.; Murawski, A.; Pilz, T.
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    Reducing Urban Greenhouse Gas Footprints
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Pichler, P.-P.; Zwickel, T.; Chavez, A.; Kretschmer, T.; Seddon, J.; Weisz, H.
    Cities are economically open systems that depend on goods and services imported from national and global markets to satisfy their material and energy requirements. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) footprints are thus a highly relevant metric for urban climate change mitigation since they not only include direct emissions from urban consumption activities, but also upstream emissions, i.e. emissions that occur along the global production chain of the goods and services purchased by local consumers. This complementary approach to territorially-focused emission accounting has added critical nuance to the debate on climate change mitigation by highlighting the responsibility of consumers in a globalized economy. Yet, city officials are largely either unaware of their upstream emissions or doubtful about their ability to count and control them. This study provides the first internationally comparable GHG footprints for four cities (Berlin, Delhi NCT, Mexico City, and New York metropolitan area) applying a consistent method that can be extended to other global cities using available data. We show that upstream emissions from urban household consumption are in the same order of magnitude as cities' overall territorial emissions and that local policy leverage to reduce upstream emissions is larger than typically assumed.
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    Changes in phenology and frost risks of Vitis vinifera (cv Riesling)
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Kartschall, T.; Wodinski, M.; Von Bloh, W.; Oesterle, H.; Rachimow, C.; Hoppmann, D.
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    Comparison of storm damage functions and their performance
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2015) Prahl, B.F.; Rybski, D.; Burghoff, O.; Kropp, J.P.
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    Particle hygroscopicity during atmospheric new particle formation events: Implications for the chemical species contributing to particle growth
    (Göttingen : Copernicus, 2013) Wu, Z.; Birmili, W.; Poulain, L.; Poulain, L.; Merkel, M.; Fahlbusch, B.; Van Pinxteren, D.; Herrmann, H.; Wiedensohler, A.
    This study examines the hygroscopicity of newly formed particles (diameters range 25-45 nm) during two atmospheric new particle formation (NPF) events in the German mid-level mountains during the Hill Cap Cloud Thuringia 2010 (HCCT-2010) field experiment. At the end of the NPF event involving clear particle growth, we measured an unusually high soluble particle fraction of 58.5% at 45 nm particle size. The particle growth rate contributed through sulfuric acid condensation only accounts for around 6.5% of the observed growth rate. Estimations showed that sulfuric acid condensation explained, however, only around 10% of that soluble particle fraction. Therefore, the formation of additional water-soluble matter appears imperative to explain the missing soluble fraction. Although direct evidence is missing, we consider water-soluble organics as candidates for this mechanism. For the case with clear growth process, the particle growth rate was determined by two alternative methods based on tracking the mode diameter of the nucleation mode. The mean particle growth rate obtained from the inter-site data comparison using Lagrangian consideration is 3.8 (± 2.6) nm h-1. During the same period, the growth rate calculated based on one site data is 5.0 nm h-1 using log-normal distribution function method. In light of the fact that considerable uncertainties could be involved in both methods, we consider both estimated growth rates consistent.