The U.S. national climate change assessment


Book Description




Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment


Book Description

Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.




Detecting and Modelling Regional Climate Change


Book Description

For the very first time, this book provides updated, integrated and organized, theoretical and methodological information on regional climate change and the associated environmental and socio-economic impacts on a regional scale. The most recent findings in the field of long-term climate change, which improve our understanding of the global climate puzzle, will be presented. Readers are introduced to state-of-the-art research in downscaling and GCMs, which involve the construction of reliable regional climate scenarios and the solution to key problems regarding the assessment of the impacts of climate change in the most important geographical areas of the world, from the Arctic to Antarctic regions, with special emphasis on the Northern Hemisphere.




Extreme Hydrology and Climate Variability


Book Description

Extreme Hydrology and Climate Variability: Monitoring, Modelling, Adaptation and Mitigation is a compilation of contributions by experts from around the world who discuss extreme hydrology topics, from monitoring, to modeling and management. With extreme climatic and hydrologic events becoming so frequent, this book is a critical source, adding knowledge to the science of extreme hydrology. Topics covered include hydrometeorology monitoring, climate variability and trends, hydrological variability and trends, landscape dynamics, droughts, flood processes, and extreme events management, adaptation and mitigation. Each of the book's chapters provide background and theoretical foundations followed by approaches used and results of the applied studies. This book will be highly used by water resource managers and extreme event researchers who are interested in understanding the processes and teleconnectivity of large-scale climate dynamics and extreme events, predictability, simulation and intervention measures. Presents datasets used and methods followed to support the findings included, allowing readers to follow these steps in their own research Provides variable methodological approaches, thus giving the reader multiple hydrological modeling information to use in their work Includes a variety of case studies, thus making the context of the book relatable to everyday working situations for those studying extreme hydrology Discusses extreme event management, including adaption and mitigation




Climate Modelling


Book Description

This edited collection of works by leading climate scientists and philosophers introduces readers to issues in the foundations, evaluation, confirmation, and application of climate models. It engages with important topics directly affecting public policy, including the role of doubt, the use of satellite data, and the robustness of models. Climate Modelling provides an early and significant contribution to the burgeoning Philosophy of Climate Science field that will help to shape our understanding of these topics in both philosophy and the wider scientific context. It offers insight into the reasons we should believe what climate models say about the world but addresses the issues that inform how reliable and well-confirmed these models are. This book will be of interest to students of climate science, philosophy of science, and of particular relevance to policy makers who depend on the models that forecast future states of the climate and ocean in order to make public policy decisions.




Investigating Future Variation of Extreme Precipitation Events Over the Willamette River Basin Using Dynamically Downscaled Climate Scenarios


Book Description

One important aspect related to the management of water resources under future climate variation is the occurrence of extreme precipitation events. In order to prepare for extreme events, namely floods and droughts, it is important to understand how future climate variability will influence the occurrence of such events. Recent advancements in regional climate modeling efforts provide additional resources for investigating the occurrence of extreme events at scales that are appropriate for regional hydrologic modeling. This study utilizes data from three Regional Climate Models (RCMs), each driven by the same General Circulation Model (GCM) as well as a reanalysis dataset, all of which was made available by the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). A comparison between observed historical precipitation events and NARCCAP modeled historical conditions over Oregon's Willamette River basin was performed. This comparison is required in order to investigate the reliability of regional climate modeling efforts. Datasets representing future climate signal scenarios, also provided by NARCCAP, were then compared to historical data to provide an estimate of the variability in extreme event occurrence and severity within the basin. Analysis determining magnitudes of two, five, ten and twenty-five year return level estimates, as well as parameters corresponding to a representative Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution, were determined. The results demonstrate the importance of the applied initial/boundary driving conditions, the need for multi-model ensemble analysis due to RCM variability, and the need for further downscaling and bias correction methods to RCM datasets when investigating watershed scale phenomena.




Resilient Urban Futures


Book Description

This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.




Observed Climate Variability and Change over the Indian Region


Book Description

The objective of the book is to make a comprehensive documentation of the observed variability and change of the regional climate system over the Indian region using the past observed data. The book addresses all the important parameters of regional climate system so that a physically consistent view of the changes of the climate system is documented. The book contains 16 chapters written by the subject experts from different academic and research institutes in India. The book addresses all important components/parameters of the climate system, like rainfall, temperature, humidity, clouds, moisture, sea surface temperature and ocean heat content, sea level, glaciers and snow cover, tropical cyclones and monsoon depressions, extreme rainfall and rainstorms, heat waves and cold waves, meteorological droughts, aerosols, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and atmospheric radiative fluxes. One chapter deals with the past monsoon using monsoon proxy data. The last chapter deals with the future climate change projections over the Indian region (rainfall and temperature) made using coupled climate models. Most of the analyses (especially on rainfall, temperature, extreme rainfall, sea surface temperature, meteorological droughts) are based on the data for a longer period of 110 years, 1901–2010. For some other parameters like moisture, clouds, heat waves and cold waves, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and radiative fluxes, data of shorter period have been used. The articles documented inter-annual and decadal variability in addition to documenting long term trends of different parameters. The trends have been tested for statistical significance using standard techniques. It is expected that the present book will be an excellent reference material for researchers as well as for policy makers. These results will be useful in interpreting future climate change scenarios over the region being projected using coupled climate models. Further analysis of these results is required for attributing the observed variability and change to natural and anthropogenic activities.




Climate Change Modeling Methodology


Book Description

The Earth's average temperature has risen by 1.4°F over the past century, and computer models project that it will rise much more over the next hundred years, with significant impacts on weather, climate, and human society. Many climate scientists attribute these increases to the build up of greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels and to the anthropogenic production of short-lived climate pollutants. Climate Change Modeling Methodologies: Selected Entries from the Encyclopaedia of Sustainability Science and Technology provides readers with an introduction to the tools and analysis techniques used by climate change scientists to interpret the role of these forcing agents on climate. Readers will also gain a deeper understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these models and how to test and assess them. The contributions include a glossary of key terms and a concise definition of the subject for each topic, as well as recommendations for sources of more detailed information.