Use of the Spatial Analogy in Climate Change

Research

Horváth, Levente – Gaál, Márta – Erdélyi, Éva

Debrecen 2006

Analogue scenarios

Observed or reconstructed information on climate that might serve as an analogue for future climatic conditions taken from:

• Other regions - spatial analogues

• Previous time periods - temporal analogues

Spatial analogues

Present-day climate in another region that resembles the future climate anticipated in the study area

Spatial analogues

Advantages:

• Testing system sensitivity • Identifying key climate thresholds

Disadvantages:

• Not related to greenhouse gas forcing• Often physically implausible• No appropriate analogues may be available

Materials and methods

GCM scenarios

• American Geophysical Fluid Dynamics LaboratoryGFDL5564, GFDL2534

• United Kingdom Meteorological Office UKHI, UKLO (equilibrium climate change experiment) UKTR (transient climate change experiment)

• IPCC CRU Global Climate Dataset consists of a multi-variate 0.5º latitude by 0.5º longitude resolution mean monthly (1960-1990) climatology for global land area (we use the temperature and the precipitation)

Materials and methods

• We used precipitation sums and temperature averages for periods of agricultural importance (Nov.-Feb., March-May, June-Aug., Sept.-Oct., 4-4 data)

• To compare these climatic datas to the the downscaled scenarios for Debrecen take these climate indices, as variables, were used to calculate Euclidean distances

• To interpret the results we used GIS methods, using the ArcGIS program

And now, a lot of maps

IPCC CRU dataset

IPCC CRU dataset

IPCC CRU dataset

IPCC CRU dataset

Similarity of temperature for the BASE scenario

Similarity of precipitation for the BASE scenario

Similarity of temperature for the GFDL2534 scenario

Similarity of precipitation for the GFDL2534 scenario

Similarity of temperature for the GFDL5564 scenario

Similarity of precipitation for the GFDL5564 scenario

Similarity of temperature for the UKHI scenario

Similarity of precipitation for the UKHI scenario

Similarity of temperature for the UKLO scenario

Similarity of precipitation for the UKLO scenario

Similarity of temperature for the UKTR scenario

Similarity of precipitation for the UKTR scenario

And now, 2 videos

BASE

GFDL5564