{"id":2208,"date":"2022-11-11T09:53:23","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T09:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/horizon.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2022-11-11T09:53:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T09:53:23","slug":"advanced-forecasting-to-help-millions-on-coasts-and-in-cities-cope-with-climate-change-impacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/2208\/advanced-forecasting-to-help-millions-on-coasts-and-in-cities-cope-with-climate-change-impacts\/","title":{"rendered":"Advanced forecasting to help millions on coasts and in cities cope with climate-change impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate adaptation requires communities to plan ahead for the unavoidable changes coming our way not just immediately but decades from now.<\/p>\n

By<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0SARAH WILD<\/p>\n

In the freezing reaches of Greenland, fissures in the ice sheet mark the battle lines in the fight against climate change. Greenhouse gases (GHG) are driving up global temperatures, melting the ice and pushing more and more icebergs to break away from glaciers and ice sheets. When the ice melts and the water enters the ocean, it adds to rising sea levels, putting millions of people who live in low lying coastal areas across the globe at risk.<\/p>\n

The Greenland ice sheet stores the equivalent of seven metres of sea-level rise, while the Antarctic ice sheet contains about 60 metres, and their rate of melting depends on a variety of factors, including how quickly humans reduce GHG.<\/p>\n

\u2018It is more or less certain that we will not escape from a two-metre sea-level rise,\u2019 said Ga\u00ebl Durand, an ice-sheet specialist at the Universit\u00e9 Grenoble-Alpes in France. \u2018The question is now \u201cWhen will it happen?\u201d Will it be in 100 years or in 2000 (years)?\u2019<\/p>\n

This question, of how much and when, is not a simple one \u2013\u2013 but the answer is vital for humanity to adapt to climate change. Unlike mitigation, which means reducing GHG emissions, climate adaptation aims at building resilience to the inevitable effects of a changing climate. But in order to adapt, decision makers need reliable information on what will happen to the climate in different regions.<\/p>\n

This is where climate predictions and projections from scientific research play a crucial role: predictions attempt to provide estimates in the short-term \u2014 for example, the average annual or seasonal temperature in five years; whereas projections extrapolate what could happen in the long-term, under different possible futures, determined by more or less ambitious mitigation responses.<\/p>\n

In the EU-funded\u00a0PROTECT\u00a0<\/a>project, Durand and colleagues are working on projections, to more accurately determine what will happen to the ice sheets in a world of rising temperatures and how this will impact communities living in coastal areas.<\/p>\n

Coastal users<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018We want to provide projections, but we want to be sure that these projections fit the needs of users, particularly coastal users,\u2019 said Durand.<\/p>\n

More than 200 million Europeans live within 50\u2009km of the coastline, but rising sea levels will affect them all differently. \u2018Typically the needs are very different, depending on the use you have of coastal land,\u2019 explained Durand.<\/p>\n

Using satellite and remote sensing data, as well as ice sheet data, the PROTECT project models how the ice sheet behaviour in Greenland and the Antarctic, as well as glaciers, will impact people on a regional and even local scale, with case studies in France, the Netherlands, Greenland, and the Maldives (in the Indian Ocean). \u2018We work with stakeholders and practitioners to better understand what type of projections they need,\u2019 Durand says.<\/p>\n

Co-design with users is a feature of another EU-funded project,\u00a0the European Climate Prediction System (EUCP)<\/a>, this one\u00a0focusing on predictions.\u00a0In the past, \u2018it was often the climate scientist speaking and the user listening\u2019, said Jason Lowe, science lead for the project and the\u00a0UK Met Office\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0principal fellow and head of climate services for government. \u2018But we realised that the successful projects were when the user speaks more and the climate scientist listens and adapts to that.\u2019<\/p>\n

Innovation in knowledge production<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, users were asking, \u2018What does (climate change) mean for adaptation of cities? What does it mean for water availability? What does it mean for coastal protection?\u2019 Lowe said.<\/p>\n

\u2018You need different types of information to inform the solution.\u2019<\/p>\n

The EUCP brought together users and organisations interested in climate predictions, as well as superusers which had specific problems to solve, to see how climate science could bolster their adaptation strategies.<\/p>\n

With their needs in mind, the project developed new methods to create more accurate decade-timescale forecasts. EUCP contributed to the World Meteorological Organization\u2019s\u00a0decadal forecasts<\/a>\u00a0exchange and produced new data that informed the\u00a0sixth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Flash flooding<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018So if they\u2019re looking at flash flooding, if they\u2019re designing drainage systems, for instance, this data is available as a result of EUCP.\u2019<\/p>\n

While the project mostly focused on temperature and rainfall, it was also able to forecast storm tracks through the Caribbean and investigate wind droughts, which is when the wind speed is low, in France.<\/p>\n

However, beyond the successful predictions, it\u2019s the new methods that may become the project\u2019s most important legacy, said Lowe.<\/p>\n

One new method was the ability to combine different global climate models, giving more accurate models greater weight than those which were less precise in a given scenario. \u2018We produced the first comparison of different methods to weight the projections,\u2019 Lowe said.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0EUCP Atlas of climate projections<\/a>\u00a0provides pre-processed projections for Europe, and facilitates a comparison between them.<\/p>\n

Bridging predictions and projections<\/strong><\/p>\n

The project team also developed a way to link predictions to longer-term projections. This method, allowing people to link decadal forecasts to longer-term climate projections, will also be one of the enduring legacies of the project, according to Lowe.<\/p>\n

With more work to be done in decadal climate forecasting and projections, the EUCP will be succeeded by the ASPECT project (which stands for Adaptation-oriented Seamless Predictions of European ClimaTe), due to start next year. This continued effort is expected to improve our ability to forecast far into the future.<\/p>\n

\u2018We also think we can take the idea of joining predictions to projections, and move it from something that\u2019s academically interesting to something that can be used in climate services,\u2019 he said. Climate services provide climate information which allows people and organisations to organise their activities and adapt to climate change.<\/p>\n

Even if humanity cuts its emissions drastically, the climate is already changing and people around the world need to adapt. To do this, they need the vital and impartial information that projects such as PROTECT and EUCP provide.<\/p>\n

Research in this article was funded via the EU. This material was originally published\u202fin <\/em>Horizon<\/em><\/a>, the EU Research and Innovation Magazine.\u202f\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

EU MISSION: ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether it’s forest fires, floods or droughts, the consequences of climate change are already with us, and Europe is warming twice as fast as the world average.<\/p>\n

Adapting to climate change means taking action now to prepare for both the current effects of climate change and future ones.<\/p>\n

The Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change focuses on supporting EU regions, cities and local authorities in their efforts to build resilience against the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

Follow the link to read more about the\u00a0EU Mission: Adaptation to Climate Change<\/a><\/p>\n

More info<\/p>\n

Follow the links below to learn more about the EU-funded projects featured in this article.<\/p>\n