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Now showing 1 - 10 of 13
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    Understanding each other's models: an introduction and a standard representation of 16 global water models to support intercomparison, improvement, and communication
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus, 2021-6-24) Telteu, Camelia-Eliza; Müller Schmied, Hannes; Thiery, Wim; Leng, Guoyong; Burek, Peter; Liu, Xingcai; Boulange, Julien Eric Stanislas; Andersen, Lauren Seaby; Grillakis, Manolis; Gosling, Simon Newland; Satoh, Yusuke; Rakovec, Oldrich; Stacke, Tobias; Chang, Jinfeng; Wanders, Niko; Shah, Harsh Lovekumar; Trautmann, Tim; Mao, Ganquan; Hanasaki, Naota; Koutroulis, Aristeidis; Pokhrel, Yadu; Samaniego, Luis; Wada, Yoshihide; Mishra, Vimal; Liu, Junguo; Döll, Petra; Zhao, Fang; Gädeke, Anne; Rabin, Sam S.; Herz, Florian
    Global water models (GWMs) simulate the terrestrial water cycle on the global scale and are used to assess the impacts of climate change on freshwater systems. GWMs are developed within different modelling frameworks and consider different underlying hydrological processes, leading to varied model structures. Furthermore, the equations used to describe various processes take different forms and are generally accessible only from within the individual model codes. These factors have hindered a holistic and detailed understanding of how different models operate, yet such an understanding is crucial for explaining the results of model evaluation studies, understanding inter-model differences in their simulations, and identifying areas for future model development. This study provides a comprehensive overview of how 16 state-of-the-art GWMs are designed. We analyse water storage compartments, water flows, and human water use sectors included in models that provide simulations for the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project phase 2b (ISIMIP2b). We develop a standard writing style for the model equations to enhance model intercomparison, improvement, and communication. In this study, WaterGAP2 used the highest number of water storage compartments, 11, and CWatM used 10 compartments. Six models used six compartments, while four models (DBH, JULES-W1, Mac-PDM.20, and VIC) used the lowest number, three compartments. WaterGAP2 simulates five human water use sectors, while four models (CLM4.5, CLM5.0, LPJmL, and MPI-HM) simulate only water for the irrigation sector. We conclude that, even though hydrological processes are often based on similar equations for various processes, in the end these equations have been adjusted or models have used different values for specific parameters or specific variables. The similarities and differences found among the models analysed in this study are expected to enable us to reduce the uncertainty in multi-model ensembles, improve existing hydrological processes, and integrate new processes.
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    State-of-the-art global models underestimate impacts from climate extremes
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2019) Schewe, Jacob; Gosling, Simon N.; Reyer, Christopher; Zhao, Fang; Ciais, Philippe; Elliott, Joshua; Francois, Louis; Huber, Veronika; Lotze, Heike K.; Seneviratne, Sonia I.; van Vliet, Michelle T. H.; Vautard, Robert; Wada, Yoshihide; Breuer, Lutz; Büchner, Matthias; Carozza, David A.; Chang, Jinfeng; Coll, Marta; Deryng, Delphine; de Wit, Allard; Eddy, Tyler D.; Folberth, Christian; Frieler, Katja; Friend, Andrew D.; Gerten, Dieter; Gudmundsson, Lukas; Hanasaki, Naota; Ito, Akihiko; Khabarov, Nikolay; Kim, Hyungjun; Lawrence, Peter; Morfopoulos, Catherine; Müller, Christoph; Müller Schmied, Hannes; Orth, René; Ostberg, Sebastian; Pokhrel, Yadu; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Sakurai, Gen; Satoh, Yusuke; Schmid, Erwin; Stacke, Tobias; Steenbeek, Jeroen; Steinkamp, Jörg; Tang, Qiuhong; Tian, Hanqin; Tittensor, Derek P.; Volkholz, Jan; Wang, Xuhui; Warszawski, Lila
    Global impact models represent process-level understanding of how natural and human systems may be affected by climate change. Their projections are used in integrated assessments of climate change. Here we test, for the first time, systematically across many important systems, how well such impact models capture the impacts of extreme climate conditions. Using the 2003 European heat wave and drought as a historical analogue for comparable events in the future, we find that a majority of models underestimate the extremeness of impacts in important sectors such as agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems, and heat-related human mortality, while impacts on water resources and hydropower are overestimated in some river basins; and the spread across models is often large. This has important implications for economic assessments of climate change impacts that rely on these models. It also means that societal risks from future extreme events may be greater than previously thought.
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    Climate analogues suggest limited potential for intensification of production on current croplands under climate change
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Pugh, T.A.M.; Müller, C.; Elliott, J.; Deryng, D.; Folberth, C.; Olin, S.; Schmid, E.; Arneth, A.
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    Restoration of rhythmicity in diffusively coupled dynamical networks
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Zou, W.; Senthilkumar, D.V.; Nagao, R.; Kiss, I.Z.; Tang, Y.; Koseska, A.; Duan, J.; Kurths, J.
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    Spatiotemporal data analysis with chronological networks
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2020) Ferreira, Leonardo N.; Vega-Oliveros, Didier A.; Cotacallapa, Moshé; Cardoso, Manoel F.; Quiles, Marcos G.; Zhao, Liang; Macau, Elbert E. N.
    The number of spatiotemporal data sets has increased rapidly in the last years, which demands robust and fast methods to extract information from this kind of data. Here, we propose a network-based model, called Chronnet, for spatiotemporal data analysis. The network construction process consists of dividing a geometric space into grid cells represented by nodes connected chronologically. Strong links in the network represent consecutive recurrent events between cells. The chronnet construction process is fast, making the model suitable to process large data sets. Using artificial and real data sets, we show how chronnets can capture data properties beyond simple statistics, like frequent patterns, spatial changes, outliers, and spatiotemporal clusters. Therefore, we conclude that chronnets represent a robust tool for the analysis of spatiotemporal data sets.
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    Regionally aggregated, stitched and de‐drifted CMIP‐climate data, processed with netCDF‐SCM v2.0.0
    (Chichester [u.a.] : Wiley, 2021) Nicholls, Zebedee; Lewis, Jared; Makin, Melissa; Nattala, Usha; Zhang, Geordie Z.; Mutch, Simon J.; Tescari, Edoardo; Meinshausen, Malte
    The world's most complex climate models are currently running a range of experiments as part of the Sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Added to the output from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the total data volume will be in the order of 20PB. Here, we present a dataset of annual, monthly, global, hemispheric and land/ocean means derived from a selection of experiments of key interest to climate data analysts and reduced complexity climate modellers. The derived dataset is a key part of validating, calibrating and developing reduced complexity climate models against the behaviour of more physically complete models. In addition to its use for reduced complexity climate modellers, we aim to make our data accessible to other research communities. We facilitate this in a number of ways. Firstly, given the focus on annual, monthly, global, hemispheric and land/ocean mean quantities, our dataset is orders of magnitude smaller than the source data and hence does not require specialized ‘big data’ expertise. Secondly, again because of its smaller size, we are able to offer our dataset in a text-based format, greatly reducing the computational expertise required to work with CMIP output. Thirdly, we enable data provenance and integrity control by tracking all source metadata and providing tools which check whether a dataset has been retracted, that is identified as erroneous. The resulting dataset is updated as new CMIP6 results become available and we provide a stable access point to allow automated downloads. Along with our accompanying website (cmip6.science.unimelb.edu.au), we believe this dataset provides a unique community resource, as well as allowing non-specialists to access CMIP data in a new, user-friendly way.
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    The Likelihood of Recent Record Warmth
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Mann, M.E.; Rahmstorf, S.; Steinman, B.A.; Tingley, M.; Miller, S.K.
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    An integrative quantifier of multistability in complex systems based on ecological resilience
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Mitra, C.; Kurths, J.; Donner, R.V.
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    Basin stability in delayed dynamics
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Leng, S.; Lin, W.; Kurths, J.
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    A deforestation-induced tipping point for the South American monsoon system
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Boers, N.; Marwan, N.; Barbosa, H.M.J.; Kurths, J.
    The Amazon rainforest has been proposed as a tipping element of the earth system, with the possibility of a dieback of the entire ecosystem due to deforestation only of parts of the rainforest. Possible physical mechanisms behind such a transition are still subject to ongoing debates. Here, we use a specifically designed model to analyse the nonlinear couplings between the Amazon rainforest and the atmospheric moisture transport from the Atlantic to the South American continent. These couplings are associated with a westward cascade of precipitation and evapotranspiration across the Amazon. We investigate impacts of deforestation on the South American monsoonal circulation with particular focus on a previously neglected positive feedback related to condensational latent heating over the rainforest, which strongly enhances atmospheric moisture inflow from the Atlantic. Our results indicate the existence of a tipping point. In our model setup, crossing the tipping point causes precipitation reductions of up to 40% in non-deforested parts of the western Amazon and regions further downstream. The responsible mechanism is the breakdown of the aforementioned feedback, which occurs when deforestation reduces transpiration to a point where the available atmospheric moisture does not suffice anymore to release the latent heat needed to maintain the feedback.