CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS Flashcards
A _______ is a plausible representation of future climate that has been constructed for explicit use in investigating the potential impacts of anthropogenic climate change.
climate scenario
Climate scenarios often make use of ________ (descriptions of the modelled response of the climate system to scenarios of greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations), by manipulating model outputs and combining them with observed climate data.
climate projections
Future climate patterns are difficult to predict because it depends on many assumptions and uncertain factors such as:
- population growth
- the use of carbon fuel as an energy source
- technological development
- economic development
- policies and attitudes towards environment
Climate scenarios often make use of climate projections, by manipulating model outputs and combining them with observed _________.
climate data
The climate data or climatological information required by impact analysts varies enormously depending on types of studies. Some factors to consider are the following which are extracted from the IPCC General Guidelines on the Use of Scenario Data for Climate Impact and Adaptation Assessment (IPCC-TGICA 2007):
- VARIABLES
- SPATIAL SCALES
- TEMPORAL RESOLUTION
- EXTREME EVENTS
- The climate variables required are dependent on the impact models used.
VARIABLES
VARIABLES: The climate variables required are dependent on the impact models used. The most common variables in impact studies are:
a. surface observations of air temperature and
b. precipitation
c. solar radiation
d. humidity
e. windspeed
f. soil temperature
g. snow cover
Certain climate scenario construction procedures (e.g., statistical downscaling from general circulation model, or GCM, outputs) requires specific variables, such as:
a. daily air pressure data
b. mean sea-level pressure
Some indices may be useful for identifying important large-scale climatic variations such as the __________ (related to El Niño events).
Southern Oscillation Index
Relative _______ is useful for climate change impact assessment of coastal zones.
sea-level rise
_______ required depends on the objective of modelling and technical factors in the modelling such as the coverage area, quality of source data, and terrain condition.
Spatial scale
Spatial scale: The required climate information or data may be for:
a. single site (e.g., for assessing crop response to climate),
b. region (e.g., for modelling surface water distribution over a large water catchment),
c. the whole globe (e.g., for modelling changes in geographical life-zone distribution).
TEMPORAL RESOLUTION: Temporal resolution may range from:
a. annual
b. seasonal
c. monthly
d. daily
e. hourly
n some cases, long-term averages may _____ (e.g., for mapping vegetation distribution) but in some impact studies daily time series are ________ (e.g., for simulating land slide mechanism in relation to rainfall).
suffice; essential
- Studies of disasters often require knowledge of the probabilistic distribution of extremes in a certain period of time and area at risk, usually for estimating the risk of climate related disasters such as storm surges, droughts and forest and land fires.
EXTREME EVENTS
________ describe some pathway that emissions will take over time. As emissions are fed into the climate models, the model will help us determine what will likely happened in future in terms of temperature, sea level rise, and precipitation based on the inputted emissions.
Emission scenarios
Emission scenarios possible pathways that society might take in the the _____ of _____ in the future.
emission; greenhouse gases
There are two main approaches in emission scenarios as prescribed by IPCC:
➢ Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) of 2000
➢ Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP), 2014
SRES means
Special Report on Emission Scenarios
- developed by IPCC, can give the range of plausible future climate.
- These emission scenarios cover a range of demographic, societal, economic and technological storylines.
- They are also sometimes referred to as emission pathways.
Special Report on Emission Scenarios
Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) -
provides a broad range of scenarios incorporating various _______ and ______ factors
socioeconomic; technological
four different storylines (__, ___, ___, and ___) as defined in the IPCC SRES
A1, A2, B1 and B2
Very rapid economic growth population peaks mid-century; social, cultural and economic convergence among regions; market mechanisms dominate
A1
A1 subdivisions:
a. AF1
b. A1T
c. A1B
- reliance on fossil fuel
AF1
- reliance on non-fossil fuels
A1T
- a balanced across all fossil fuel sources
A1B
- self reliance; preservation of local identities; continuously increasing population; economic growth on regional scales
A2
- clean and efficient technologies; reduction in material use; global solutions to economic growth on regional scales
B1
- local solution to sustainability; continuously increasing population at a lower rate than in A2; less rapid technological change in B1 and A1
B2
RCP means
Representative Concentration Pathway
Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) - primarily focus on ________ concentrations and _______ forcing
greenhouse gas; radiative
Rather than defining the stories first, the ______ defines the GHG trajectories first, then define what human responses corresponds to those trajectories
RCP
Rather than defining the stories first, the RCP defines the _______ first, then define what human responses corresponds to those trajectories.
GHG trajectories
There are four trajectories starting from historical data. The factors for changes in RFA include:
a. predictive solar output,
b. all GHGs that affect energy flows, c. the use of aerosol and black carbon,
d. snow, l
e. and use change, and others.
_________ is the difference between incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation. This power, and thus the difference, is measured in watts per meter squared.
Radiative forcing
Power coming into Earth - Power leaving the Earth =______
Radiative Forcing Amount
Changes that have a warming effect are called “______” forcing
positive
changes that have a cooling effect are called “______” forcing
negative
