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- ItemOcean warming and acidification may drag down the commercial Arctic cod fishery by 2100(San Francisco, California, US : PLOS, 2020) Hänsel, Martin C.; Schmidt, Jörn O.; Stiasny, Martina H.; Stöven, Max T.; Voss, Rudi; Quaas, Martin F.The Arctic Ocean is an early warning system for indicators and effects of climate change. We use a novel combination of experimental and time-series data on effects of ocean warming and acidification on the commercially important Northeast Arctic cod (Gadus morhua) to incorporate these physiological processes into the recruitment model of the fish population. By running an ecological-economic optimization model, we investigate how the interaction of ocean warming, acidification and fishing pressure affects the sustainability of the fishery in terms of ecological, economic, social and consumer-related indicators, ranging from present day conditions up to future climate change scenarios. We find that near-term climate change will benefit the fishery, but under likely future warming and acidification this large fishery is at risk of collapse by the end of the century, even with the best adaptation effort in terms of reduced fishing pressure.
- ItemModel-based reconstruction and projections of soil moisture anomalies and crop losses in Poland(Wien [u.a.] : Springer, 2020) Piniewski, Mikołaj; Marcinkowski, Paweł; O’Keeffe, Joanna; Szcześniak, Mateusz; Nieróbca, Anna; Kozyra, Jerzy; Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W.; Okruszko, TomaszEvidence shows that soil moisture (SM) anomalies (deficits or excesses) are the key factor affecting crop yield in rain-fed agriculture. Over last decades, Poland has faced several major droughts and at least one major soil moisture excess event leading to severe crop losses. This study aims to simulate the multi-annual variability of SM anomalies in Poland, using a process-based SWAT model and to assess the effect of climate change on future extreme SM conditions, potentially affecting crop yields in Poland. A crop-specific indicator based on simulated daily soil moisture content for the critical development stages of investigated crops (winter cereals, spring cereals, potato and maize) was designed, evaluated for past conditions against empirical crop-weather indices (CWIs), and applied for studying future climate conditions. The study used an ensemble of nine bias-corrected EURO-CORDEX projections for two future horizons: 2021–2050 and 2071–2100 under two Representative Concentration Pathways: RCP4.5 and 8.5. Historical simulation results showed that SWAT was capable of capturing major SM deficit and excess episodes for different crops in Poland. For spring cereals, potato and maize, despite a large model spread, projections generally showed increase of severity of soil moisture deficits, as well as of total area affected by them. Ensemble median fraction of land with extreme soil moisture deficits, occupied by each of these crops, is projected to at least double in size. The signals of change in soil moisture excesses for potato and maize were more dependent on selection of RCP and future horizon. © 2020, The Author(s).
- ItemDescription and evaluation of the process-based forest model 4C v2.2 at four European forest sites(Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2020) Lasch-Born, Petra; Suckow, Felicitas; Reyer, Christopher P. O.; Gutsch, Martin; Kollas, Chris; Badeck, Franz-Werner; Bugmann, Harald K. M.; Grote, Rüdiger; Fürstenau, Cornelia; Lindner, Marcus; Schaber, JörgThe process-based model 4C (FORESEE) has been developed over the past 20 years to study climate impacts on forests and is now freely available as an open-source tool. The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive description of this 4C version (v2.2) for scientific users of the model and to present an evaluation of 4C at four different forest sites across Europe. The evaluation focuses on forest growth as well as carbon (net ecosystem exchange, gross primary production), water (actual evapotranspiration, soil water content), and heat fluxes (soil temperature) using data from the PROFOUND database. We applied different evaluation metrics and compared the daily, monthly, and annual variability of observed and simulated values. The ability to reproduce forest growth (stem diameter and biomass) differs from site to site and is best for a pine stand in Germany (Peitz, model efficiency ME=0.98). 4C is able to reproduce soil temperature at different depths in Sorø and Hyytiälä with good accuracy (for all soil depths ME > 0.8). The dynamics in simulating carbon and water fluxes are well captured on daily and monthly timescales (0.51 < ME < 0.983) but less so on an annual timescale (ME < 0). This model–data mismatch is possibly due to the accumulation of errors because of processes that are missing or represented in a very general way in 4C but not with enough specific detail to cover strong, site-specific dependencies such as ground vegetation growth. These processes need to be further elaborated to improve the projections of climate change on forests. We conclude that, despite shortcomings, 4C is widely applicable, reliable, and therefore ready to be released to the scientific community to use and further develop the model.
- ItemIncremental improvements of 2030 targets insufficient to achieve the Paris Agreement goals(Göttingen : Copernicus Publ., 2020) Geiges, Andreas; Nauels, Alexander; Yanguas Parra, Paola; Andrijevic, Marina; Hare, William; Pfleiderer, Peter; Schaeffer, Michiel; Schleussner, Carl-FriedrichCurrent global mitigation ambition up to 2030 under the Paris Agreement, reflected in the National Determined Contributions (NDCs), is insufficient to achieve the agreement's 1.5 °C long-term temperature limit. As governments are preparing new and updated NDCs for 2020, the question as to how much collective improvement is achieved is a pivotal one for the credibility of the international climate regime. The recent Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has assessed a wide range of scenarios that achieve the 1.5 °C limit. Those pathways are characterised by a substantial increase in near-term action and total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels about 50 % lower than what is implied by current NDCs. Here we assess the outcomes of different scenarios of NDC updating that fall short of achieving this 1.5 °C benchmark. We find that incremental improvements in reduction targets, even if achieved globally, are insufficient to align collective ambition with the goals of the Paris Agreement. We provide estimates for global mean temperature increase by 2100 for different incremental NDC update scenarios and illustrate climate impacts under those median scenarios for extreme temperature, long-term sea-level rise and economic damages for the most vulnerable countries. Under the assumption of maintaining ambition as reflected in current NDCs up to 2100 and beyond, we project a reduction in the gross domestic product (GDP) in tropical countries of around 60 % compared to a no-climate-change scenario and median long-term sea-level rise of close to 2 m in 2300. About half of these impacts can be avoided by limiting warming to 1.5 °C or below. Scenarios of more incremental NDC improvements do not lead to comparable reductions in climate impacts. An increase in aggregated NDC ambition of big emitters by 33 % in 2030 does not reduce presented climate impacts by more than about half compared to limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Our results underscore that a transformational increase in 2030 ambition is required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. © 2020 SPIE. All rights reserved.
- ItemSignificant increase in natural disturbance impacts on European forests since 1950(Oxford [u.a.] : Blackwell Science, 2022) Patacca, Marco; Lindner, Marcus; Lucas‐Borja, Manuel Esteban; Cordonnier, Thomas; Fidej, Gal; Gardiner, Barry; Hauf, Ylva; Jasinevičius, Gediminas; Labonne, Sophie; Linkevičius, Edgaras; Mahnken, Mats; Milanovic, Slobodan; Nabuurs, Gert‐Jan; Nagel, Thomas A.; Nikinmaa, Laura; Panyatov, Momchil; Bercak, Roman; Seidl, Rupert; Ostrogović Sever, Masa Zorana; Socha, Jaroslaw; Thom, Dominik; Vuletic, Dijana; Zudin, Sergey; Schelhaas, Mart‐JanOver the last decades, the natural disturbance is increasingly putting pressure on European forests. Shifts in disturbance regimes may compromise forest functioning and the continuous provisioning of ecosystem services to society, including their climate change mitigation potential. Although forests are central to many European policies, we lack the long-term empirical data needed for thoroughly understanding disturbance dynamics, modeling them, and developing adaptive management strategies. Here, we present a unique database of >170,000 records of ground-based natural disturbance observations in European forests from 1950 to 2019. Reported data confirm a significant increase in forest disturbance in 34 European countries, causing on an average of 43.8 million m3 of disturbed timber volume per year over the 70-year study period. This value is likely a conservative estimate due to under-reporting, especially of small-scale disturbances. We used machine learning techniques for assessing the magnitude of unreported disturbances, which are estimated to be between 8.6 and 18.3 million m3/year. In the last 20 years, disturbances on average accounted for 16% of the mean annual harvest in Europe. Wind was the most important disturbance agent over the study period (46% of total damage), followed by fire (24%) and bark beetles (17%). Bark beetle disturbance doubled its share of the total damage in the last 20 years. Forest disturbances can profoundly impact ecosystem services (e.g., climate change mitigation), affect regional forest resource provisioning and consequently disrupt long-term management planning objectives and timber markets. We conclude that adaptation to changing disturbance regimes must be placed at the core of the European forest management and policy debate. Furthermore, a coherent and homogeneous monitoring system of natural disturbances is urgently needed in Europe, to better observe and respond to the ongoing changes in forest disturbance regimes.
- ItemClimate and air quality impacts due to mitigation of non-methane near-term climate forcers(Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2020) Allen, Robert J.; Turnock, Steven; Nabat, Pierre; Neubauer, David; Lohmann, Ulrike; Olivié, Dirk; Oshima, Naga; Michou, Martine; Wu, Tongwen; Zhang, Jie; Takemura, Toshihiko; Schulz, Michael; Tsigaridis, Kostas; Bauer, Susanne E.; Emmons, Louisa; Horowitz, Larry; Naik, Vaishali; van Noije, Twan; Bergman, Tommi; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Zanis, Prodromos; Tegen, Ina; Westervelt, Daniel M.; Le Sager, Philippe; Good, Peter; Shim, Sungbo; O’Connor, Fiona; Akritidis, Dimitris; Georgoulias, Aristeidis K.; Deushi, Makoto; Sentman, Lori T.; John, Jasmin G.; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Collins, William J.It is important to understand how future environmental policies will impact both climate change and air pollution. Although targeting near-term climate forcers (NTCFs), defined here as aerosols, tropospheric ozone, and precursor gases, should improve air quality, NTCF reductions will also impact climate. Prior assessments of the impact of NTCF mitigation on air quality and climate have been limited. This is related to the idealized nature of some prior studies, simplified treatment of aerosols and chemically reactive gases, as well as a lack of a sufficiently large number of models to quantify model diversity and robust responses. Here, we quantify the 2015-2055 climate and air quality effects of non-methane NTCFs using nine state-of-the-art chemistry-climate model simulations conducted for the Aerosol and Chemistry Model Intercomparison Project (AerChemMIP). Simulations are driven by two future scenarios featuring similar increases in greenhouse gases (GHGs) but with weak (SSP3-7.0) versus strong (SSP3-7.0-lowNTCF) levels of air quality control measures. As SSP3-7.0 lacks climate policy and has the highest levels of NTCFs, our results (e.g., surface warming) represent an upper bound. Unsurprisingly, we find significant improvements in air quality under NTCF mitigation (strong versus weak air quality controls). Surface fine particulate matter (PM2:5) and ozone (O3) decrease by 2:20:32 ugm3 and 4:60:88 ppb, respectively (changes quoted here are for the entire 2015-2055 time period; uncertainty represents the 95% confidence interval), over global land surfaces, with larger reductions in some regions including south and southeast Asia. Non-methane NTCF mitigation, however, leads to additional climate change due to the removal of aerosol which causes a net warming effect, including global mean surface temperature and precipitation increases of 0:250:12K and 0:030:012mmd1, respectively. Similarly, increases in extreme weather indices, including the hottest and wettest days, also occur. Regionally, the largest warming and wetting occurs over Asia, including central and north Asia (0:660:20K and 0:030:02mmd1), south Asia (0:470:16K and 0:170:09mmd1), and east Asia (0:460:20K and 0:150:06mmd1). Relatively large warming and wetting of the Arctic also occur at 0:590:36K and 0:040:02mmd1, respectively. Similar surface warming occurs in model simulations with aerosol-only mitigation, implying weak cooling due to ozone reductions. Our findings suggest that future policies that aggressively target non-methane NTCF reductions will improve air quality but will lead to additional surface warming, particularly in Asia and the Arctic. Policies that address other NTCFs including methane, as well as carbon dioxide emissions, must also be adopted to meet climate mitigation goals. © Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
- ItemAlternative carbon price trajectories can avoid excessive carbon removal([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2021) Strefler, Jessica; Kriegler, Elmar; Bauer, Nico; Luderer, Gunnar; Pietzcker, Robert C.; Giannousakis, Anastasis; Edenhofer, OttmarThe large majority of climate change mitigation scenarios that hold warming below 2 °C show high deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR), resulting in a peak-and-decline behavior in global temperature. This is driven by the assumption of an exponentially increasing carbon price trajectory which is perceived to be economically optimal for meeting a carbon budget. However, this optimality relies on the assumption that a finite carbon budget associated with a temperature target is filled up steadily over time. The availability of net carbon removals invalidates this assumption and therefore a different carbon price trajectory should be chosen. We show how the optimal carbon price path for remaining well below 2 °C limits CDR demand and analyze requirements for constructing alternatives, which may be easier to implement in reality. We show that warming can be held at well below 2 °C at much lower long-term economic effort and lower CDR deployment and therefore lower risks if carbon prices are high enough in the beginning to ensure target compliance, but increase at a lower rate after carbon neutrality has been reached.
- ItemImpacts of enhanced weathering on biomass production for negative emission technologies and soil hydrology(Katlenburg-Lindau [u.a.] : Copernicus, 2020) De Oliveira Garcia, Wagner; Amann, Thorben; Hartmann, Jens; Karstens, Kristine; Popp, Alexander; Boysen, Lena R.; Smith, Pete; Goll, DanielLimiting global mean temperature changes to well below 2 °C likely requires a rapid and large-scale deployment of negative emission technologies (NETs). Assessments so far have shown a high potential of biomass-based terrestrial NETs, but only a few assessments have included effects of the commonly found nutrient-deficient soils on biomass production. Here, we investigate the deployment of enhanced weathering (EW) to supply nutrients to areas of afforestation-reforestation and naturally growing forests (AR) and bioenergy grasses (BG) that are deficient in phosphorus (P), besides the impacts on soil hydrology. Using stoichiometric ratios and biomass estimates from two established vegetation models, we calculated the nutrient demand of AR and BG. Insufficient geogenic P supply limits C storage in biomass. For a mean P demand by AR and a lowgeogenic-P-supply scenario, AR would sequester 119 Gt C in biomass; for a high-geogenic-P-supply and low-AR-Pdemand scenario, 187 Gt C would be sequestered in biomass; and for a low geogenic P supply and high AR P demand, only 92 GtC would be accumulated by biomass. An average amount of ∼ 150 Gt basalt powder applied for EW would be needed to close global P gaps and completely sequester projected amounts of 190 Gt C during the years 2006-2099 for the mean AR P demand scenario (2-362 Gt basalt powder for the low-AR-P-demand and for the high-AR-P-demand scenarios would be necessary, respectively). The average potential of carbon sequestration by EW until 2099 is ∼ 12 GtC (∼ 0:2-∼ 27 Gt C) for the specified scenarios (excluding additional carbon sequestration via alkalinity production). For BG, 8 kg basaltm2 a1 might, on average, replenish the exported potassium (K) and P by harvest. Using pedotransfer functions, we show that the impacts of basalt powder application on soil hydraulic conductivity and plant-Available water, to close predicted P gaps, would depend on basalt and soil texture, but in general the impacts are marginal. We show that EW could potentially close the projected P gaps of an AR scenario and nutrients exported by BG harvest, which would decrease or replace the use of industrial fertilizers. Besides that, EW ameliorates the soil's capacity to retain nutrients and soil pH and replenish soil nutrient pools. Lastly, EW application could improve plant-Available-water capacity depending on deployed amounts of rock powder - adding a new dimension to the coupling of land-based biomass NETs with EW. © 2020 Royal Society of Chemistry. All rights reserved.
- ItemEstimating global mean sea-level rise and its uncertainties by 2100 and 2300 from an expert survey(London : Springer Nature, 2020) Horton, Benjamin P.; Khan, Nicole S.; Cahill, Niamh; Lee, Janice S. H.; Shaw, Timothy A.; Garner, Andra J.; Kemp, Andrew C.; Engelhart, Simon E.; Rahmstorf, StefanSea-level rise projections and knowledge of their uncertainties are vital to make informed mitigation and adaptation decisions. To elicit projections from members of the scientific community regarding future global mean sea-level (GMSL) rise, we repeated a survey originally conducted five years ago. Under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6, 106 experts projected a likely (central 66% probability) GMSL rise of 0.30–0.65 m by 2100, and 0.54–2.15 m by 2300, relative to 1986–2005. Under RCP 8.5, the same experts projected a likely GMSL rise of 0.63–1.32 m by 2100, and 1.67–5.61 m by 2300. Expert projections for 2100 are similar to those from the original survey, although the projection for 2300 has extended tails and is higher than the original survey. Experts give a likelihood of 42% (original survey) and 45% (current survey) that under the high-emissions scenario GMSL rise will exceed the upper bound (0.98 m) of the likely range estimated by the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is considered to have an exceedance likelihood of 17%. Responses to open-ended questions suggest that the increases in upper-end estimates and uncertainties arose from recent influential studies about the impact of marine ice cliff instability on the meltwater contribution to GMSL rise from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. © 2020, The Author(s).
- ItemIntegrated Climate-Change Assessment Scenarios and Carbon Dioxide Removal(Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2020) Schweizer, Vanessa J.; Ebi, Kristie L.; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Jacoby, Henry D.; Riahi, Keywan; Strefler, Jessica; Takahashi, Kiyoshi; van Ruijven, Bas J.; Weyant, John P.To halt climate change, we must reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions to net zero. Any emission sources must be balanced by natural or technological carbon sinks that facilitate CO2 removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. The integrated scenario framework represents how socio-economic trends and social values interact with biophysical systems in exploring future climate change and decarbonization pathways. This primer introduces the integrated scenario framework and its application to explore options for offsetting emissions with CDR. © 2020 The AuthorsTo halt climate change this century, we must reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities to net zero. Any emission sources, such as in the energy or land-use sectors, must be balanced by natural or technological carbon sinks that facilitate CO2 removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. Projections of demand for large-scale CDR are based on an integrated scenario framework for emission scenarios composed of emission profiles as well as alternative socio-economic development trends and social values consistent with them. The framework, however, was developed years before systematic reviews of CDR entered the literature. This primer provides an overview of the purposes of scenarios in climate-change research and how they are used. It also introduces the integrated scenario framework and why it came about. CDR studies using the scenario framework, as well as its limitations, are discussed. Possible future developments for the scenario framework are highlighted, especially in relation to CDR. © 2020 The Authors